A Proper Golf Warm Up Routine: How to Warm up for Golf

Warming up for golf is an essential part of your game. Golf isn’t renowned for being as physically exerting as other sports such as football, soccer, or basketball – that’s a given. Just because you’re unlikely to suffer the injuries a professional footballer does, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be warming up properly before you head out for a round. To help you carry out a successful warm up routine, here are a few handy warm-up tips I use before I go out on to the course.

Early Bird Catches the Round

To make sure you have enough time to properly warm up for a round of golf, you need to get to the course early. Getting to the course early is the first step in setting up a good warm-up routine. It allows you to get everything in order such as; your scorecard, course pass, bag, cart, and any other necessary essentials before you begin warming up.

Having all these in order will save you a lot of hassle, and will allow you to concentrate on your warm up session with a clear head.

Let’s Begin with Some Simple Golf Stretches

Stretching and being flexible is an important part of a golfers’ game. In order to swing smoothly, you need to get those muscles relaxed and joints nicely warmed up.

• Stretch 1 – Raise your arms above your head and stretch them up as far as they go. Now place your palms together and slowly move one arm above the other, making sure your palms are touching (brushing as you raise each arm). You should do this with each arm 5 times.
• Stretch 2 – Place your club over your head and rest it on your shoulders with your hands holding opposite ends of the club. Now lean over as if you are teeing off, and then gently rotate as you would do throughout a routine golf swing. Do this for a minimum of 5 full rotations.

Driving Range Time!

Now, you’re all stretched out and nimble, it’s time to work on your mental swing. Getting your body up to speed is one thing, however, a proper warm up routine should also involve practice swings. This prints the rhythm of your swing at the forefront of your mind. After all, we’ve all had those first hole blues right? This will sort it!

Depending on the time you have before you’re teeing off, you’d ideally want to practice with each club a minimum of 5 times. You don’t need to practice with every single club in your bag, which would take an eternity. Simply take out every other club, starting from a pitching wedge or sand wedge, all the way up to your driver.

Head to the Putting Green

Once you’ve hit 5 solid shots with each, it’s time to move on to your putter. The most important area of a golfer’s game. Putting is a game within a game, and should be one of your main priorities in a proper golf warm up routine.

Simply take out 5 balls from your bag, and place them surrounding the hole, starting with 2 feet in distance from the hole. Then once you’ve attempted all 5, move them 2 feet away from the hole. Keep doing this until you’re hitting them from 10 feet.

This should help build up some consistency and confidence before you head out on to the green for real.

Short Game

You’ve touched on your short game with your pitching wedge / sand wedge on the driving range, but now you need to get the feel for some delicate chip shots. Take out both your pitching wedge and your sand wedge here and play some variations of shots around the pitching green. Try to for some with loft and then some that bump and run. The idea is to mix it up a bit so you can feel comfortable is any situation occurs on the course.

If there’s a sand bunker on your range, then make the most of that too. Take a few balls in there and practice hitting out at various angles.

Finishing up your Golf Warm Up

Now you’re done with your warming up, it’s time to head to the course. If you follow this warm up routine before your round, you’ll be playing with a lot more confidence, and you’ll get lower scores as a result.

Make sure you do this warm-up routine before every round. Especially if you don’t get to play all year round like some lucky folk. And the last thing you’re going to want is an injury or bad first hole. Following this routine will set you in good stead for a solid game and an injury free round of golf.