You may think (or hope) you’re going to maintain your game over the winter with a few indoor drills and a couple of trips to Florida for a few rounds, but if you truly want to get a jump start on the season, head to Fenom Fitness in Harrison for some lessons and serious practice on the club’s Full Swing Simulator.
It’s a great place to meet your golf professional for a few pointers in February that will have your game in great shape for your first tee time in April. If you don’t have a personal instructor, you can arrange for private lessons with PGA professional Ralph Garafano, a longtime Westchester teacher and head pro at Doral Arrowwood, for a very reasonable $125 per hour.
The new Full Swing Simulator at Fenom Fitness is the same equipment used by Jordan Spieth, Jason Day, and numerous other PGA pros to keep their games sharp when the weather keeps them off the range. The installation uses dual technology to not only track your shots and display them on the realistic screen, but give you (and your pro) data about your club head speed, path, and face angle as well as your ball’s back spin, side spin, and spin axis. It’s a snap to operate by yourself, too, for practice sessions that will drive those lessons into muscle memory.
Fenom Fitness is a center of healthy physical activity for kids and welcomes them to use the simulator with supervision as well. “It’s a great way to get kids into the game,” says owner Aresh Mohit. “To them, it’s just a big video game. They love to manipulate the variables.”
It’s also a great place to bring your buddies for a round on one of the 30 courses available on the system. Play Pebble Beach, Bethpage Black, Banff Springs, or Gleneagles or set up a long drive contest using the range function. If you really want to lower your handicap, use the Scoring Zone function to practice your short game with a “closest to the pin” chipping contest.
Rates are quite reasonable at a low of $35 per hour for a ten-hour package. You can rent by the single hour, too, for just $50.
