Updates, and A Golf Professional's Winter

A Golf Professional's Winter

| January 22, 2010 8:00 PM

Owen McClain, PGA Teaching Professional

www.owenmcclaingolf.com

Thinking about golf this weekend? This is the best January in a few years for golf with conditions resembling spring. Most area courses are open with good, dry conditions now, but call them first. My "snitches", a few emails, and my own rounds reveal the following helpful, though incomplete observations:

Colockum Ridge is in very good shape, and ten bucks in the honor box gets you a game. Call to reserve a cart. Moses Pointe is in very good condition as well. Vic Meyers Golf Course is open with a $5 honor box. Desert Aire is in great shape. No report from Sage Hills, but I believe they are also in good shape for a weekend game.

Again, call ahead to check, especially if you need a cart. Food service is spotty, with most clubhouse restaurants closed this time of year. If you have information on other area courses, please share using the comments box below.

So, what does a golf instructor do during the off season? Most might guess that winter means relax, catch your breath, go south for a vacation (or more work), and get recharged for next season. Well, if only that were the case! I admit that time was spent on the golf course, more time than in any previous fall since my wrist fracture occurred in 2004, but as for rest and vacation? Think again.

As fall progressed, there was the completion of required projects for a multi-year education program, required by the PGA for full membership status. Once approved, hard work and preparation resulted in perfect test scores during final testing at the PGA Education Center in Port St. Lucie, Florida. Teaching the game is just one subject of the evaluations; the program covers all aspects of golf operations and management. No post test celebration on the golf courses, however, due to 12 inches of rain in a little over 24 hours and closed golf courses.

Next, it was home for Christmas with family. I didn’t wait until January 1^st to act on New Year’s resolutions, and dug right in to a fitness routine. Then office work: sorting through records, creating reports, updating my portfolio, working out details for 2010.

Add to that a couple of business classes with another 2-day PGA seminar upcoming, and learning video production on the computer, and that’s about it.

If there is a point from this that applies to your golf game, it also applies to life, in general. To borrow from Gary Player:

“The fox fears not the man who boasts by night but rather the man who is up early in the morning”.