What To Work On This Winter: Golf Fitness Or Technical Tuning?

As the winter nights draw in, and the window of time each day to get out onto the golf course shortens, many amateurs wonder how best to use their time in order to make progress during this period.

One option is to spend the winter months reading the best golf tips and fine tuning your golf swing, working on the driving range and short game area to tweak techniques and stay sharp.

On the other hand, you could also invest your time in improving your golf fitness, working to strengthen key muscle groups, improve flexibility and prevent injuries for the season ahead.

With the wealth of experience and expertise available to us on the Golf Monthly staff, and in a bid to give you some further clarity and guidance over your decision, I decided to ask Jeremy Ellwood and Fergus Bisset how they will be spending their off-season...

Fergus Bisset: Invest Time In Technical Tuning

Fergus Bisset

Fergus Bisset is Golf Monthly's resident expert on the history of the game and has written extensively on that subject. He has also worked with Golf Monthly to produce a podcast series. Called 18 Majors: The Golf History Show it offers new and in-depth perspectives on some of the most important moments in golf's long history. He is a golf obsessive and 1-handicapper. Growing up in the North East of Scotland, golf runs through his veins and his passion for the sport was bolstered during his time at St Andrews university studying history. 

In the summer, I love playing rounds of golf. When I get the chance, I’ll find a friend and head out onto the course. I’ll rarely spend time on the practice ground or putting green as I don’t want to waste my golfing opportunities working on my one-piece takeaway or ball position. I want to be out on the fairways.

But I do need to work on my one-piece takeaway and ball position at some point, so will do that through the winter. I have a few months now to prepare for next season and I’d like to head into the spring medal feeling good about the technical aspects of my game.

I have a number of (too many my wife would say) the best gadgets – mirrors, mats, alignment aids and rails to work on my putting at home during the cold, dark winter days. I can watch helpful videos and read the excellent instruction pages of this magazine to find drills and methods to correct the flaws that have crept in during the season.

I’ll make use of those and enjoy some fine-tuning on the carpet while watching coverage of tournaments from far-flung, sunny destinations.

On warmer days, I’ll head to the range and work on my grip, my rhythm and, above all, my transition. I’ll enjoy blasting balls while the course is frozen or waterlogged.

I try to maintain physical fitness throughout the year, not just in the winter. I go for the odd run, do my stretches and climb the odd hill. I’ll keep doing that from November to March, but mainly this winter I will work on technical tuning to give myself the best chance of a successful golfing campaign in 2025.

Jeremy Ellwood: Work Hard On Golf Fitness

Jeremy Ellwood

Jeremy Ellwood has worked in the golf industry since 1993 and for Golf Monthly since 2002 when he started out as equipment editor. He is now a freelance journalist writing mainly for Golf Monthly. He is an expert on the Rules of Golf having qualified through an R&A course to become a golf referee. He is a senior panelist for Golf Monthly's Top 100 UK & Ireland Course Rankings and has played all of the Top 100 plus 91 of the Next 100, making him well-qualified when it comes to assessing and comparing our premier golf courses. He has now played 1,000 golf courses worldwide in 35 countries, from the humblest of nine-holers in the Scottish Highlands to the very grandest of international golf resorts.

Let’s start by saying that if I haven’t done a lot of work on my golf technique during the main season of long days and light evenings, the chances of it suddenly happening in the gathering gloom and murkiness of the off-season are distinctly remote, despite the availability of local floodlit driving ranges.

It’s not that there aren’t flaws aplenty that need working on, but I know I just won’t have the desire or dedication to devote sufficient time to them to make any meaningful difference. On the technical side, I’ll continue to try the odd tweak as and when inspired to do so, with a recent slight strengthening of my grip seeming to show signs of promise.

Where I know I am more likely to want to put in the hours is on the physical fitness side, which, despite probably being just as time-consuming, has the potential to deliver benefits beyond just the fairways.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve thrown away decent rounds this year down the stretch. Yes, that’s partly because the closing holes at my club are quite tricky; and it’s partly because I’ve bottled it a few times putting too much pressure on myself to try and prevent my handicap from edging up. But I’m sure it’s also partly due to premature fatigue brought on by a relative lack of fitness.

I would love to see if getting a little bit fitter over the off-season has any bearing on my closing-stretch performance come the spring. But even if it doesn’t, getting fitter can only be a good thing for life in general, whereas improving my golf technique will only ever positively benefit my golf life.