8 Steps: To Get You Prepared For A Round Of Golf

I'm here on the first tee at the beautiful Burleigh Park Golf Club and I want to talk to you

about arriving right here ready to go fully prepared to play your absolute best golf and

that starts with all the preparation you do beforehand. There's loads of things you can do

and ways you can prepare to make sure when you arrive on the first tee you are ready to play

your absolute best golf. Dirty clubs can have a really negative impact on your performance

especially when you're looking to generate spin on approach shots into greens and those finesse

shots around the putting surfaces. You want to make sure your clubs are always as clean as they

possibly can be, but especially if you've got a big round coming up. What you want to do is leave

them to soak for a little while in some warm soapy water. Don't leave them for too long but just long

enough to really soften up any dirt and grime and get it out. Whip them out, give them a quick wipe

off and you'll see there's still probably a fair bit of dirt in the grooves. So a toothbrush is a

really good thing to use, also an old wire brush. You can get specific tools for it as well and give

it a little scrape right into the grooves. That should remove any debris, any mud that's compacted

in there give them another little dunk and a wipe off and they are absolutely ready to go

you have got shiny clubs ready to hit the first tee a good night's sleep is an essential but underrated ingredient when it comes to playing good golf and

you don't want to be hung over either so try and keep the drinking to a minimum the night before

maybe just one or two beers if you're treating yourself but with that in mind I'm heading off so

I'll see you in the morning so after a good night's sleep i am as fresh as a daisy i'm super chilled because i know all my

gear is packed up in the car ready to go and I've planned my day. I've left myself plenty of time to

get there and go through all of my routines before I tee off and I know even if there's a little bit

of traffic I've got enough leeway. I'm calm, I'm chilled and I'm ready to go

Something that's really going to help you play your best golf and score better and can be done

really at any time before you play is to build a strategy for the golf course you're going to be

going up against. Now if it's your home club you probably know it like the back of your hand

You know where to go, where not to go, what clubs to hit in certain places. Rather than just think

that in your mind and maybe recall it or not write it down Get it down on paper how you going to attack each hole what clubs and what strategy are going to give you the best opportunity to

shoot the lowest scores. And the important thing is, once you've got a strategy, stick to it. No

matter how things are going, if you have a brilliant start or a horrible start, we see it so often from

the pros they say I just stuck to my strategy I did what I set out to do have a look through

get a course planner decide exactly how you're going to play every hole and try and do just

that when you get out on the course what you eat and drink has a huge impact on how your mind and

body feels in general as well as when we're playing golf so it's really important that you

eat right and get hydrated before you play golf. Exactly what that means for you is going to depend

on your tea time. If you're going out bright and early maybe a bowl of porridge something with slow

release energy is great. If you're teeing off a bit of a funny time maybe midday you might normally

actually be eating when you're teeing off or not long after. Try and build your meals that day

around your golf so you're fully fueled for the full three and a half, four, four and a half hours

that you're out on the golf course and we often overlook staying hydrated. You always need to

drink way more than you think and it can really affect you mentally as well as physically if you

are dehydrated, always have at least one of these bottles with you. Keep sipping on it as you go

through your warm-up and when you're out on the course, don't forget, reach for this and have a swig

So we're in the range, but before you go reaching for those clubs, it's really important to have a

bit of a stretch. Warm up your muscles, get them nice and loose and get the blood flowing. The golf

swing itself is a really athletic motion. There's lots of twisting and there's lots of speed in it

So if your muscles aren't ready for that, they're A, not going to perform at their best and B

you leave yourself open to picking up injuries. And that's awful because we don't want anything

that's going to stop us playing golf. So what stretches should we be doing? There are loads

and loads out there. I'm just going to show you a couple of my favourites and because golf is a

full body action it's important to try and get a little bit of movement and stretching right the way

up your body. So a really dead simple one to start gets the back of your legs and your lower back

cross your legs over and just bend straight over as far as you can. I can only just get to the floor

if you can't that's not a problem just take it until you feel the stretch and hold it there for

about 20 seconds Repeat on the other side and then that should loosen up right up the back of your legs Another really good one is because we got this turning and twisting motion and a lot of that comes from around the hip area and the upper body is just sort of start rotating your hips press them as far forward as you can feel and as far to each side

When you get to the sort of points on the clock, just hold it and feel that stretch in each area

that will really get your hips used to this sort of motion and then we move in to the upper part

of the body the arms the shoulders for this you can actually grab a club so take a club stick it

behind your back like this and just turn as much as you can have a little bit of flex in your knees

as well similar to the golf swing and just hold it that's going to increase the amount you can

actually turn in your golf swing which is also going to bring greater speed and hopefully more

distance as long as you can control it. There are loads of stretches you can do those three are a

great place to start but please do make sure you stretch before you hit any golf balls

Once you're stretched it's time to get the clubs out and hit some balls. Now do not reach

straight for the driver. Go in low, go with a wedge, one that you're going to hit a lot during

the round as well. It's a shorter club, it's an easier swing, a bit more finesse and it allows you

to really ease yourself into your practice session. From there what I'd recommend doing is working your

way up through the bag. You don't have to hit every single club but maybe jump every two or three

Make sure there's a wedge in there, make sure there's a short iron, a mid iron, a long iron or hybrid

and then your three wood and your driver. Now what you're looking to achieve here is familiarity

Remember this is a warm-up, it's not a practice session. You're not going to drastically change what you're doing in these 15 or 20 minutes on the range before your tee time

This is about grooving a little bit of what you've got but most importantly finding out what your swing is doing that day

where is the ball going and what are you going to be able to do on the golf course to use that

bull fly and the shots that you're hitting on the range to get round in the lowest score possible

Just finally a really great little tip before you head to that first tee your last few shots

in the range can be playing the first few holes in your head. If it's a driver that you need to

hit a little bit of fade off the first tee hit that. If that's going to leave you a nine iron

then hit the nine iron. If you've got a par three coming up that you know requires a specific club

practice hitting that as well. The familiarity of hitting those shots just before you go out

onto the course will fill you with confidence when you face them under pressure

It's so important that you go to the chipping and putting green as well. I know it can be

tempting to spend all your time hitting balls in the range or even just wander on chuck a ball down

two or three putts and then off you go but i promise any time spent chipping and putting before your round is time well spent and that for a few reasons First of all when you chipping not only are you practicing those shots

working on your action just a little bit before you go out but it gives you a real sense of the

firmness and the speed of the greens. If you see how it reacts on the chipping green with any luck

the greens out on the course will be very similar. It enables you to not only judge what you're doing

with your short game, but also on your approach shots. How is that ball going to react? Are the

greens soft? Can I fly it all the way? Or are they firm? That's going to make a huge difference to how

you play a lot of shots out on the golf course. When you are practicing your chipping, don't just

give yourself a perfect lie all the time either. Try a few little funky lies. If you know the course

you'll know the type of shots you're most likely to face. Those are the ones you want to be hitting

and getting confident with on the chipping green before you head out. Once you've finished up

chipping, make sure you head into the bunkers as well to hit a few bunker shots. Of course

the sand will be different from course to course and depending on the weather you've been having

So you really need to familiarize yourself with the bunkers on that day. And then time for the

flat stick. There's a few things you're looking to do on the putting green before you head out

onto the course. First you're getting the pace so head to a spot about 40 feet from the fringe of

the green a relatively flat putt and just putt to the apron you're not worried about a specific

target like a hole you just want to gauge that pace and calibrate your stroke to the speed of

the greens on that day. Then you can get into some more hole specific stuff a drill I really like to

do is to round the world chuck three or four balls around the hole any sort of distance you like

really from two to ten feet you can vary it up as well depending on how much time you've got

that will enable you to see how the ball is breaking from different slopes on different

sides of the same hole and also see the ball going in as well and finally before you leave

putting green you want to be heading to that first tee b with confidence so you want to see a

putt going into the hole chuck a ball down no more than a foot from the hole a putt you cannot possibly

miss line it up ram in with confidence and head to that first tee

i hope you found all of those tips really helpful and they will get you well and truly prepared the

next time you tee it up if you've liked the video please give it a thumbs up if we've missed

anything any little hints and tips you've got add them in the comments below remember to subscribe

to this golf monthly youtube channel there's so much great content coming your way and as we're

all done here and I'm fully prepared I'm heading out onto the course