Off-Season Swing Drills to Try at North 9 in Prior Lake

Your home course in Prior Lake is winding down for the year, but your swing doesn't have to go dormant with it. North 9 Golf Lounge stays open all winter, and the slow months are actually the best time to fix the swing flaw you've been ignoring since May. Here's how to use your bay time well.

Why October is the real start of practice season

Once the local courses close for the year, most golfers just stop thinking about their swing until April. That's backwards. The winter stretch is the only time of year you can work on a specific issue without worrying about a scorecard or the group behind you.

At North 9, you're not fighting wind, rain, or a shrinking window of daylight. You can come in on a Tuesday night in January and get the same clean lie and the same flat stance every single time.

What the launch monitor actually tells you

A launch monitor reads what the clubhead and ball are doing at impact, not what you think happened. That means ball speed, launch angle, spin rate, and carry distance on every shot, not an estimate from watching where it landed.

If your slice has been a mystery for ten years, the spin data usually ends the mystery in about ten swings. That's the real value of practicing indoors over the winter: you get the same feedback on rep one and rep one hundred.

Three drills you can run in one session

• Carry distance ladder: Hit the same club to three target distances in a row (say, 100, 120, and 140 yards) and check the carry number after each shot. This teaches touch, not just power.
• Start-line gate: Pick a narrow target window on the screen and try to start ten balls through it in a row. Track how many you miss left versus right to see your real tendency.
• Strike quality check: Hit the same iron ten times focusing only on smash factor and spin rate, ignoring where the ball actually goes on screen. Consistent strike almost always shows up as consistent numbers before it shows up as a good-looking shot.

Making it a habit instead of a one-off

Since North 9 has one bay, every booking is your bay for your session, no sharing a simulator with a group playing a round at 2:00. That's useful for drill work specifically, because it means you can take the time to actually look at the numbers between swings instead of rushing to keep pace.

If you know you'll want to practice weekly between now and spring, a membership works out cheaper than booking one-off hours all winter.

Good to know

Do I need my own clubs?

Yes. We don't have rental sets on-site, so plan on bringing your own clubs for every session. That's actually better for drill work anyway, since the data will match what you'll see on the course in spring.

How long should a practice session be?

An hour is enough to run two or three focused drills without your attention fading. Longer sessions are great too, but quality of reps matters more than quantity.

Is a launch monitor useful for beginners, or just better players?

It's useful either way. A beginner benefits just as much from seeing that their driver spins at 5,000 rpm instead of guessing why the ball slices, since the number removes the guesswork entirely.

With just one bay, our evening slots fill up fastest once the Prior Lake courses close for the season. Book your bay online or give us a call to lock in a weekly practice slot before winter gets busy.