2nd Swing opens doors early for hitting/putting sessions
It is not often that a high school golf team hosts a practice this deep into the summer with the state tournament wrapping up at the end of the school year in June.
Most of the Park girls program met at 2nd Swing’s Minnetonka location Saturday morning for a unique opportunity to take advantage of the state-of-the-art hitting bays and putt green before the store opened to the public.
Store owner Russ Higgins was on hand to offer up club fittings as the girls hit balls in a golf simulator.
A putting clinic by PGA Tour liaison and University of Minnesota men’s golf coach Larry Bobka wrapped up the morning session in the store’s tour-quality putter-fitting area, where they use high-speed cameras to show how subtle adjustments can make all the difference on the course.
“One degree of change from where you hit the ball off the club face can have a huge impact on where the ball lands,” Higgins said to the group, wrapping up the morning with a few parting comments.
Higgins said they offer fittings to area high schools and even have college teams fly in to schedule sessions.
With more than 20,000 golf clubs in the store and more than 150,000 clubs in its inventory between the Minneapolis store and warehouse in Eden Prairie, there is a club to fit every golfer.
“We literally have a world of clubs available at our fingertips,” Higgins said. “And the experts to help dial those clubs in, and we can get a great fit with the hitting bays.”
“This is another way we can show them how golf can be a lifelong sport,” Boyle said, as summer opportunities generally speak up to each family to pursue. More and more opportunities to get on area courses are available in a more financially reasonable way through programs like Youth On Course.
Youth On Course is a patron card through Minnesota Golf. Junior players pay a one-time fee for the card and, in return, have tee times available at many area courses at a hugely discounted rate.
Youth On course is a national program open to kids 6-19 years old. Subsidies from corporations help to cover the remaining cost, with the ultimate goal of helping grow the next generation of golfers.
Courses appreciate the program because it adds paying rounds and gets the next generation involved, which benefits the sport’s longevity and course.
The current breakdown of the Park program involves many young, inexperienced golfers entering the program. Boyle explained that the idea this summer is to get as many reps on the course as possible to build a solid base heading into the all-too-brief spring high school golf season.
Saturday’s session helped show the team and families the technology side of the game and how it has blossomed over the last decade, even just a couple of years.
Part of that technology comes in the hitting bays, with a golf simulator that shows how a stance, backswing or stance can play a massive role in determining the type of shot and distance the ball can carry.
Feedback with a Trackman ball tracker offers instant feedback on the ball’s flight, speed, rotation, launch angle and more.
“We want to make everyone’s clubs work for them, and one way to do that is to know how it all works together,” Boyle said.
The morning’s putting component began with Bobka offering a few thoughts before heading into the putter fitting bay. Bobka spoke to the girls about the importance of practicing putting with the top players and college programs he works with, spending between five and eight hours each day on various drills that can be inexpensive.
“For every one hit on the range, you should have four putts and two chips,” Bobka said. “About 40 percent of the strokes come from putting.”
A Chicago native, Bobka, retold a story about wearing a line on the carpet of his family’s home because he was practicing his putts so much.
Aside from the high-speed camera that documents the ball rotation off the putter, the larger putting area outside the fitting area offers some unique technology.
An overhead projector displays the proper line to the hole, and once a ball is putt, a tracing line follows its trajectory for instant feedback.
Missing from the session was soon-to-be junior Kayleigh Bishop who had a Junior PGA event at the same time. Coming off her first state appearance, Boyle said she is catching the attention of college scouts. “They commented to me about how impressed they are with her attacking around the greens, how she has a plan and executes that plan,” Boyle said.
Before Bishop played at state, Izzy Segal made it to back-to-back state tourneys, helping the team win the Section 6AAA title in 2021. Segal wrapped up her senior season at the University of Illinois Springfield.
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