'Unless You Warm Up, You Are Wasting Your Time Hoping To Score Well And Improve Your Handicap'

When it comes to warming up, women can be lazy. For whatever reason, we always find an excuse to be running onto the first tee with little consideration given to the preparation required to play good golf. Then we wonder why we mishit shots and score so badly.

I’m just as guilty of this as anyone else. I’m a working mum who often comes screeching into the car park straight from the school run, grabs my scorecard in the pro shop and dashes down to the first tee with only minutes to spare. I’ve become so good at doing this that I’m actually able to play without even having swung a club in the net before striking my first tee shot! I know that I set a terrible example to newcomers. 

This is not what you should do if you want to score well. But I’ve been playing golf for 30 years and my muscle memory is amazing. Swinging the golf club is like riding a bike for me - second nature. 

Golf does not come this easily to a higher handicapper. At your skill level the least you should be doing to improve your chances of scoring well is spending 10 minutes in the warm-up net loosening your golfing limbs and getting your hand-eye-ball coordination in check. 

Timing is everything in golf and yet we expect to just turn up and get our swing into sync with little or no preparation to make, what is essentially, a very athletic and psychically demanding move. 

Unless you warm up you are wasting your time hoping to score well, improve your handicap and win. Don’t neglect the short game either. There are definite disadvantages to not having a practice putt. The pace of the greens changes day-to-day and knowing how fast the ball is going to run out on the putting surface is impossible to judge on the first green purely by eye. You need to roll a few putts to practice before you play. 

One great piece of advice I learned as a youngster was to take three golf balls onto the practice putting green and putt to no specific target. Simply roll the first ball and then try to mirror the same stroke and tempo to roll the second and third balls the same distance, so that they all line up. This is actually harder than you think! Repeat the exercise a few times until you have evenly matched your tempo sufficiently that the golf balls roll out to roughly the same distance. Putting pace control is critical for scoring. 

I recently played golf with a new member at my home club, Parkstone, she had relocated south from another county. At her last club the professional was very proactive in encouraging the women to work on their games. 

They used to all meet on the driving range a few times a week to hit a basket of balls. This excellent habit was producing a women’s section of keen improvers who scored consistently well every week. It was also a habit that transferred into their pre-round routines. Most members would get to the driving range at least 30 minutes before teeing off to hit those vital warm up balls. This poor woman was shocked when she joined Parkstone that no more than a handful of our women members, at best, went to the driving range before teeing off.

I grew up playing county golf as a junior for Dorset. As a team we all went to the practice ground before play on every match day. Our coach told us to start by hitting shots using a slow, smooth golf swing, half shots and then full wedges. Then to gradually build up the tempo of our swing speed as we worked through the bag, eventually reaching the driver and those big hits.

The best women players in the world go one step further than this, their preparation for play has started before they even arrive at the golf course. Behind the scenes they will have already completed a gym work-out to activate their muscles and warm up the joints, getting everything fired up and ready. They will have done extensive stretching too, often the first thing they do when they wake up in their hotel room. 

I appreciate that the average club player is not in the echelons of the LET’s elite, however our reasons for activating our golfing muscles, along with the advantages of scoring well, should be injury prevention.

Did you know that a round of golf places a huge amount of compressive force on your spine and causes lactic acid build-up in the surrounding muscles, leading to fatigue? And when you are tired your risk of injury increases. The areas most prone to injury from golf are the shoulders, neck, back and ankles. You wouldn’t run a marathon straight after rolling out of bed, so why is it acceptable that we just turn up to the tee without awakening our golfing muscles?

Below are a few of my simple suggestions for warming up your golfing muscles at home before you head to the course. I implore you to try these out before you play, I can almost guarantee that if you make a habit of this quick warm-up then your ability to swing the club freely will heighten and your scores will improve, along with your overall enjoyment of the game.

Carly's Quick Stretches

TAKE A SEAT

Stand up and sit down in a chair. Repeat this move continuously for 30 seconds. The simple act of up and down requires your glutes to fire up. These are essential golf swing stabilisers.

TOUCH YOUR TOES

Take your shoes and socks off, stand tall and tip gently forwards from the hips, sliding your hands down your thighs, uncoiling your upper body and spine. Let your hands drop as far as possible towards the ground. The goal is to get your fingertips to touch the floor, or if you are super flexible flat hands. If your muscles are tight then you can use a couple of books as props to rest your hands on instead. Repeat this move a few times.

CAT-COW STRETCH

Kneel on the carpet, hands flat, to mimic the look of an angry cat by arching the spine of your back up into the air. Then gently roll your spine through into the opposite shape and tilt your head up so that your back inverts (it looks like a cow’s back with a dipped middle). Slowly repeat, cat-cow, cat-cow.

DOWNWARD DOG

Those of you who regularly practice Yoga or Pilates will know this move well. It’s a brilliant stretch for the back of your legs, your shoulders and spine. When the hamstrings in the back of your legs are tight they won’t fire up as you swing the golf club. The result is a short, restricted powerless swing. 

To improve your range of movement and swing flexibility you need to remove the tension from the hamstrings. This stretch is fantastic. Roll down so that your hands are flat on the floor, arms outstretched in front of you. Keeping straight legs, gently try to push your heels down to the ground behind you. You can cycle them alternatively one-by-one, up and down.

THE BEST STRETCH IN THE WORLD! 

That’s what the enthusiastic instructor at my local gym tells me. Apparently this awakens all the muscles in your body. Start by kneeling on the carpet then take one foot out in front of you and bend the knee. Shift the weight into that front foot and feel a stretch in your hip flexors and quads. Add to the challenge by dropping your hands to the floor. Go one step further by raising one arm up high to the sky and twist. Then the other. Swap forward legs and repeat.