Transcripts - Episode 27: The Right Way To Warm Up For Golf

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Now here's your host, Corey, with another episode of the Birdie Board podcast.

Welcome to episode 27 of the Birdie Board podcast. My name's Corey if you haven't listened to an episode yet. I've been doing this for over half a year now, so I'm pretty excited about that.

Last weekend I played my first round of the 2026 golf season. I've done a couple rounds in the simulator, but I haven't actually gotten out and played until last weekend.

In the last episode we talked about practice rounds, and if you remember, we tried to define what a good practice round would be, and one of the common themes would be to not keep your score and just go out and practice.

So I tried that last weekend and I got to say it was a really, really good kickoff to the season.

So what I did is exactly that. I didn't keep score, but I tried to purposefully practice a lot of different types of shots.

What's nice is that since I wasn't keeping score, I didn't feel the pressure to play the shot wherever my ball ended up.

For example, there was a par-5. I took my drive off the tee box and went okay. I found that I was hooking the ball just a little bit, but I was starting to get straightened out.

So it was kind of up the left-hand side and this particular hole had tree lines on each side. The tree lines weren't dense though. You could easily chip it out from underneath.

They were very sporadic and that would be the typical play.

However, when I hit it to the tree line, I decided, you know what, I've already practiced this sort of shot a couple of times this round.

I've practiced a shorter chip shot from trouble like that.

So what I decided instead is I picked up my ball and I went over to the fairway and I said, okay, I'm going to give myself a practice of a three wood.

I took a three wood and had a great shot up the right-hand side.

I did get a generous bounce off of the cart path and it bounced kind of back into the fairway, but it was exactly what I think the practice round really represents.

And that was the moment that I had when I was like, wow, this really is a good way to start the season.

Because if I didn't make that decision to grab my three wood and practice that, I would have gone the whole first round without practicing my three wood at all.

And that sparked an idea for me on the very next hole.

I was like, well, let's continue this trend of purposely practicing different types of shots.

So I ended up taking that same three wood again, but this time off the tee box.

So I got to tee it up a little bit and practice that.

That's the sort of practice that I was able to get in this first round that I typically wouldn't get in a round where I was keeping score.

So it worked out really well.

Another example when I used this a little bit is a par three.

So I've talked about tee boxes, right?

And a big thing about tee boxes is they're usually age based or sometimes gender based.

And I really like the idea of tee boxes being based off your handicap.

So with that, I was actually playing the forward tees as especially early in the season right around a 20 handicap.

And what I did was on a par three though, the forward tee was really close.

It was like a hundred yards.

And there was a par three earlier in the day that was about the same distance.

So I was like, well, let's go play one tee box back.

Give me like a 140 shot in.

If I was playing traditional stroke play golf, I wouldn't have done that.

I would have stayed on my tee box, but it gave me a different yardage practice on that par three.

And I had a pin high shot up to the left.

It wasn't on the green, but it was good practice for me.

And then I took a second shot just real quick, dropped the ball and I was about the direction of the pin, but probably about 15 yards short.

So then I just get up to the green and I pick up my ball from the left.

I drop it over near my ball short and I just was able to practice two nice chip shots up onto the green.

I will say at the beginning of the day, I probably bladed at least three or four of my chip shots.

But I was really intentional as the day went on to take more practice with my chip shots, especially near the end of the day.

The course pace started slowing down a little bit.

So if I could see the next tee box and I saw people were still teeing off, I'd actually just hang out on the green and do some practice chips.

I was able to do this because no one was behind me.

I would say if there's someone behind me, I would get off the green and let them play.

But it was really intentional that it was nice to be able to get some extra chips in, get some extra putts and things like that.

One thing that came to mind as I was playing was pace of play.

I was playing with my father-in-law and we were paired up with someone random that we didn't know.

His name was Connor.

Connor was a really chill guy, which helped.

I was pretty upfront with him from the beginning saying, hey, I'm going to play a practice round.

I'm not keeping score.

You might see me redo some shots.

I'll do my best to keep a good pace of play.

He was totally fine with that.

But it was in the back of my head that I don't want to be inconsiderate to Connor.

If he's about to go, I don't want him to wait for me to play two shots or something like that.

So I keep that in mind and I try to just be considerate as I'm playing.

It doesn't necessarily change my behavior, but it might change things like if he's waiting for me to do a shot, I'll do my shot and then he does his shot and then maybe I take my redo shot.

So I wouldn't do my redo shot twice back to back or something like that because that could throw him off.

Another thing I did a lot to help with pace of play is I would let my father-in-law just take the cart and then I would grab a couple clubs, a couple balls and walk a big portion of the hole.

This was nice because I could easily take a redo shot and not really slow anyone up.

Or if I had a really bad shot, which definitely happened, it's kind of meant to be with a practice round.

I was playing junk balls, so I just kind of didn't even go and get that particular ball and just played the next one that I would hit.

So overall, I definitely would recommend trying that out.

A pure practice round for your golf season.

I'm thinking whether or not I'm going to do it again.

It's Easter weekend.

I probably would play golf, but I don't know if I would be in quite the situation where I could play purely like a practice round.

I was thinking I was going back and forth, but maybe I just do a shorter tee box to help alleviate the pressure a little bit.

Or maybe I just do it on the front nine.

Or maybe I just try my best to play an actual round, but I get myself on limited mulligans.

I'm not sure.

I'm going to think about it a little bit more.

But I think having a lot more relaxed round at the beginning of the season is really beneficial.

So I definitely would recommend it if you are just getting out.

Play a practice round where you're not keeping score and give yourself the ability to take redo shots, but also pick up your ball and put your ball in positions to give yourself purposeful practice while playing.

So on this episode of Birdie Board, besides the update of the practice round, I wanted to kind of talk about it.

It was in my mind of like, what is a good pre-round routine?

And I think it's probably a little bit different for everyone, but I found some things that work really well for me.

If your course has a range, the obvious thing is to go on the range before the round starts.

The goal is not to fix your swing.

And it's going to be really important for you to not let those swing thoughts into your mind.

Look at it as a physical activity, like you're about to go play basketball or something.

That will help you get your mind right.

Because instead of thinking about it like I need to refine my swing, you're thinking I'm just warming up.

I'm getting my muscles loose.

I'm getting the blood flowing.

A big thing in sports is injury prevention and with injury prevention, one of the biggest things you can do is having a proper warm up.

So every team that I have learned about that I really like is this.

You get to the course and you spend five to ten minutes with purposeful stretching.

Now it doesn't have to be much.

Just loosen up your back.

Especially do like toe touches.

You could do active stretching or passive stretching.

So passive stretching is like you just go down and reach your toes and you hold it.

Active stretching is like you reach down to your toes or maybe your right toe and then stand up, reach your left toe and it's almost like a rep count.

I like doing maybe one or two passive stretches if I'm really tight just to kind of get the blood flowing a little bit, but I'll pretty quickly move to active stretching.

And the reason being is the golf swing is obviously very active.

So doing a little bit more active stretching is a little bit more aligned with what you're about to do.

Focus on your legs.

If you do like a toe touch that's going to really help with loosening up your hamstrings, but it's also going to help loosen up your lower back.

Rotations, just kind of swinging your elbows back and forth and twisting your torso is obviously really good.

If you do a side bend that's going to help loosen up your obliques.

I also like personally doing a lot of hip exercises.

If you look up like a hip opener, it's more of an active stretch.

I really like doing that.

It kind of gets my hips loose and really ensures that I'm ready to fire my hips through a golf swing.

Nowadays I can get through this routine in literally like five minutes, maybe ten if I spend some extra time.

But I always feel better during the round when I get time to properly stretch.

If I only had to choose between the driving range, putting and stretching, I would probably choose stretching.

Otherwise the first one or two holes is going to be your body just warming up.

Plus it's a great way to help prevent injury.

So on the range, I really like the way Tiger Woods warms up.

He starts with his lowest club, typically a wedge, and moves up from there to your driver.

The frequency and amount of shots decrease as you go toward your driver.

The reason you end with your driver is to try to mimic what you're going to do on the first hole.

But if you're not using driver, you can adjust accordingly.

So approach it like practice, but not in the sense of thinking about your swing.

Instead, you're getting into rhythm.

For at least two of your drives, line it up like you're about to be on the tee box.

Imagine people are watching.

Even build a little pressure intentionally so you can practice handling it.

Once you go ahead and do your warm up routine on the driving range, you might want to go to the putting green.

I think at least half your practice should involve putting.

Putting is a huge part of scoring.

So if you think about your time split, something like 60 percent range and 40 percent putting can make sense.

At this point you're warmed up.

You've stretched, you've hit the range, you've rolled some putts, and you're ready to go.

I try to get to the course about 45 minutes early to go through this routine.

It's not always possible, but when I do it, I always feel better.

So I hope you found this episode of the Birdie Board podcast valuable.

Thanks for listening.

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