Unless you are from a warmer climate the winter can be tough on a golfer. Not everyone has access to an indoor place to hit balls or get extra practice. For those golfers who have to spend the winter months away from the course I always recommend that you try to get into a regular stretching and lifting routine.  Working to promote flexibility and strength is one way to insure that you are able to be at your best when you finally get back on the course.

The winter may be the off season for many golfers – but for PGA TOUR pros the season never ends. This week I was back at my home course, Olde Stone Country Club in Kentucky, working with a client named Justin.  In preparation for the 2009 season, Justin and I have been working together this winter on keeping his stroke and swing smooth in.

Next week, I will be home spending the holidays with family in Kentucky and getting to do a little duck hunting with one of closest friends, Justin Perry, Kenny Perry’s son.

Happy Holidays and I wish you all the best in the New Year!

Last week I talked about a simple test you can do to discover which is your dominant eye, this week I would like to share with you how you can use that knowledge to your advantage when you putt.

Line of sight from your dominant eye helps you determine the exact position of the ball. When you align yourself to putt you should always position your dominant eye directly over the back tip of the golf ball. Positioning yourself this way aids alignment and allows for proper impact on your putt.

I want to thank all of you for taking time to read these postings and I want to wish you all a Happy Holiday Season and a great New Year!

I just returned home from Naples, Florida where I attended the Merrill Lynch Shootout.  Two of my clients,  J.B. Holmes and Kenny Perry,  participated in the event, which celebrated its 20^th anniversary this year.  It was a great experience for me because many members of the U.S. Ryder Cup team, like Boo Weekly, Stewart Cink and Paul Azinger,  played in the tournament.   It was the first time I had seen many of them since they won the Ryder Cup back inSeptember – and they were all still raving about the big win.

The winter season is one of the best times an individual can work on improving his or her game.   Many courses provide indoor facilities with virtual hitting screens that allow you to see how your shot would play out if you were playing an actual golf course. 

If you are looking for a great gift for a golfer in your life, I recommend winter lessons from a pro in your area.  Working indoors helps you identify problems with your mechanics and forces you to engage in deliberate practice, meaning practice focused specifically on a particular aspect, or perhaps a few aspects,of your swing.  Progress rarely comes from just pounding balls at the range with no deliberate practice plan. 

If you think equipment might make a better gift, I suggest checking out online stores as http://www.golfsmith.com/and http://www.edwinwattsgolf.com.

One of the first things a young athlete learns when they start playing sports is if they are right- or left-handed.  Discovering your dominant hand helps you to position yourself correctly in a variety of different sports.  However, many athletes don’t know they have another kind of dominance that can further enhance their athletic performance: eye dominance.

Your dominant eye processes information 14 to 21 milliseconds faster than the non-dominant eye and helps to locate points and objects in your visual field. Finding out whether you are right- or left-eye dominant can give you a distinct advantage in your sport.

Once you have learned which of your eyes is dominant, you can better position yourself for success.

To test your eye dominancy, hold your arms and hands extended forward with your palms away from you, then bring your hands together to form a small hole with your thumbs. Find an object or spot on the wall, look at the spot and raise your hands (with the small hole between your thumbs) and find the spot on the wall. Once you have found the spot, close one eye and then the other. The eye that finds the spot is your dominant eye. If you can still see the spot, make the hole between your thumbs small and continue until just one eye finds the spot.

Next week, I will share how to use your eye dominance to your advantage when lining up a putt in golf.

As always, please feel free to write in with your questions.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday.  I spent last week in Florida playing golf with some of my PGA buddies.  Earlier in the week, I played a round of golf with Frankie Valli’s son, which was a great time.  Many of you may know Frankie Valli from his connection with The Four Seasons, with hit songs such as Sherry, Big Girls Don’t Cry and December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night).

Wednesday we played at Calusa Pines, a tough course located just outside of Naples. Even though this was my first time playing competitive golf in over two months, I was actually pleasantly surprised by shooting just one or two over par.

Anytime I am getting back to golf after a break, I always want to make sure my alignment is correct. Having the proper alignment throughout your stance is one of the easiest ways to ensure consistency when you hit the golf ball.

I’d like to share with you some tips on how to check if you are aligned properly for your golf swing. When you address the golf ball you want to be parallel left of the ball – with your feet, hips and shoulders all properly aligned in the same direction. If you lay your golf club on the ground directly parallel left of the ball and align your feet to the club, your feet are sure to be in the correct position.  Once you have your feet in position, pick up the club and touch it to your hips and shoulders to make sure they, too, are properly aligned parallel left of the ball and your club face.

Getting yourself properly aligned and into a good position is the first step towards an improved golf swing.  It also makes it much easier to identify errors in your swing if you start in the correct position.

Later this week I will be back in Naples for the Merrill Lynch Shootout located at Tiburon Golf Course.  The Merrill Lynch Shootout is hosted by Hall of Fame golfer Greg Norman and this year marks the 20th anniversary of the tournament.

Be sure to check back next week for an update on the tournament and more tips on improving your swing.  As always, please feel free to send any questions my way.

Throughout my career I’ve had the opportunity to work with athletes from the PGA TOUR, LPGA TOUR, Major League Baseball, the NFL, professional tennis and many in the collegiate and high school ranks. Whenever I work with an athlete, they are always looking to have their vision give them an extra edge and help them perform better at their sport.

Sports vision training allows athletes to use their vision to enhance their performance. This week, I’d like to share my model for sports vision training so people can begin to understand how improving their vision truly does improve their game.

The first part of my model for sports vision training is gaining an awareness of your own visual system.  In order to gain a greater understanding of your visual system, there are several questions you need to answer: Are you left-or right-eye dominant? How well do your eyes work as a team? Are you right-or left-handed? These questions help to reveal important aspects about how your visual system works and what you can do to improve your vision.

Once you have an understanding of your own visual system, there are many tips that can help you better use your system to benefit your performance. If you are right-eye dominant you will do a variety of activities in sports very differently than if you are left-eye dominant. It affects how you line up your eyes over a putt in golf, how you hit a backhand in tennis and how you position yourself in the batter’s box for baseball or softball.

The final step is training and developing your visual skills. Once you have learned about your vision, there are many different drills and exercises you can do to enhance your vision.

Over the next few weeks I will share how you can test out your own visual system, as well as drills and exercises to help develop your own personal visual cues.  Please continue checking back each week as we begin to discuss how to optimize your vision for success on and off the field.

Please feel free to ask any specific questions you have.