TRAINING THE TOTAL GOLFER

Hill, a certified personal and golf trainer, also is an accredited golf biomechanic-she improves a golfer’s game by focusing on the person, how they stretch, swing, and train.

For those who aren’t right in her back yard, Hill has created a new web site-www.fitnessforgolf.com. The site offers a personalized biomechanical training approach  to golfers worldwide.

“When you follow that continuum is when true power in the golf swing is achieved”, Hill adds. ‘People come to me and want power. Power is elusive if the body can’t work through the full range of motion or isn’t stable. You can’t have power until you go through the continuum. True power is in the body and knowing how to use it.”

Hill, who works as a trainer and biomechanic at Sunriver Resort, unveiled her Web site July 1. Her online training approach is the same as the one she has taught golfers at Sunriver for two years, through “Golf in Balance”. She created the program with Jennifer Yockey, teaching professional at Rancho La Quinta Country Club in Palm Springs, Calif.

Yockey’s home base is California, but she escapes the Palm Desert summer heat by working at Sunriver.

Hill and Yockey offer a blend of technical and physical training that enables golfers to target physical problems that may be hampering their ability to address technical issues in their game. Yockey says the facets go hand in hand.

Before meeting Hill, Yockey performed physical assessments on her students, then worked on technical issues. Working together, each woman is able to focus on her specialty to improve clients’ game more holistically.

Yockey says the two pronged approach that she and Hill offer, and which Hill makes available on her Web site, is how the big guns in golf view the game. And, in fact, it’s more than a two-part approach. There’s also nutrition and the mental aspect to consider.

“This is the cutting edge of what’s happening right now with high-level professionals and amateurs,” Yockey says.

Hill, a longtime golfer, became a professional golfer four years ago, after hiring a trainer herself to lose weight and get in shape. She was so inspired by her transformation, as were others who asked her to help them do the same, that she went back to school and got certified. She now has seven different certifications and last year was nominated Personal Trainer of the Year through the International Sport Science Association.

Her husband, Steve, and daughter, Alexa, 9, were instrumental in her success, first as a personal trainer and then as a golf biomechanic, Hill says. Steve, also a golfer, owns Jetporter, a Bend manufacturing company, while Alexa is a fourth grader at High Lakes Elementary School.

“I’ve always liked having a goal and something to work for,” Hill says. “This was a huge goal, and my family was really supportive. I aspired from day one not to just be a trainer but to succeed on the national level.”

At Hill’s website, golfers complete several tests-they take about 30 minutes total-and Hill then assesses each golfer’s test results and consults with them to pinpoint areas of physical weakness. Hill then creates a personalized conditioning program that enables each golfer to address those issues, which leads to improvement in their game.

There is also a wealth of nutritional, mental-health and supplemental information on the site.

“The true approach is knowing what your weaknesses are,” Hill says. “This will change their game, and their life, forever, no question.”

Hill has had golf professionals critique her approach and Web site, and she also put herself through the same testing that Web clients undergo. She determined that she was excessively tight in her spine, which limited her backswing. Since following a program she created for herself, she has dropped seven strokes.

She crafted her whole-golfer approach and her Web site based on extensive research, a stint at the C.H.E.K. (Corrective High performance Exercise Kinesiology) Institute on San Diego.

“The most important thing is this is what the pros are doing,” Hill says. “They’re going through a full assessment of the weaknesses that are affecting their game.”

“If you can find a person’s weak link, you can create a whole new golfer, “ Hill adds. “That’s where accuracy comes from, and consistency.”

John Butcher, a 3 handicap golfer from Eagle Knoll Golf Course in Hartsburg, Mo., says she is a testament that Hill’s approach works.

A lifelong golfer, Butcher said via e-mail that he has “tried every gizmo, bought every new-fangled club, read every book, and gone through a dozen or more instructors, not to mention hitting balls religiously. It’s a frustrating game to master.”

However, in just eight weeks of working with Hill via her Web site and resulting e-mail conversations, he has gained 20 yards of distance, is more confident and controlled with his driver and irons, hits 70 percent of fairways (up 15 percent).

Butcher performs approximately 12 exercises four times weekly, working on his core muscles and balance, which he said are the keys to Hill’s program. He said he entrusted his golf swing to Hill and hasn’t looked back.

“I am hooked on doing her program not only through the advanced level, but for life,” Butcher says.

‘The added benefits of a more-sculpted torso, tighter abs, and a more fit physique help motivate me to keep on her program,” Butcher adds. “I even have my family, relatives and friends doing her exercises. Anyone can benefit from this program. It’s not about lifting heavy weights or doing exhaustive workouts. It’s all about working smart on the specific golf muscles that will directly improve the swing.”

Hill hopes to expand her Web site to enable more consultations for clients with other golf professionals, such as mental coaches and nutritionists. In the meantime, she’s happy with her new venture and the clients who are discovering her holistic approach.

“I’ve always felt you deserve the best information,’ Hill say. “Then you decide what to do with it.”