Warm Up Act

UK Handicap; 3.4 USGA Handicap; 4.2

I have only played once this week, it was today in the last group game of our Tigers Fourball Better Ball group stages. We won our match, and it was a record equalling game from my perspective.

I had gone back to lifting weights this week, the schedule having slipped recently, and noticed some definition in my arms and shoulders for the first time. Nothing spectacular, I guess most people wouldn’t notice the difference as I look fairly normal now as opposed to ‘rake-like’, but I definitely noticed muscles that weren’t there a couple of months ago.

Another thing I did today, for the first time this season, was to warm up properly. The vast majority of amateur golfers stand on the first tee having done nothing to warm up the muscles they will be using over the next 4 hours. I can totally understand why a lot of people don’t warm up; it means arriving an extra 30 minutes before teeing off, the hassle of having to mess about with clubs and practice balls, and it’s not nearly as much fun as playing a real round of golf. I started doing a proper warm up during last year, and will try and complete it religiously before playing this year. It’s important to recognise the difference between practising and warming up. It’s easy to get the two confused, as they both happen on either a practice ground or in practice nets, and involve hitting golf balls in succession with a variety of clubs. The warm up is exactly that; it is to warm up and loosen the muscles, and get into a rhythm, it is not to practice technical aspects. If you need to practice then that needs it’s own time, 20 minutes before playing is not a good time to solve swing problems. My warm up is fairly simple, some basic stretches followed by 10 x pitching wedges, 10 x 7 irons, 10 x 3 irons, 5 x drivers, and 5 x 60% pitching wedges. 40 shots in total, utilising a range of clubs and different muscles.

So having done my weights during the week, and a proper warm up before starting, everything was primed for a great day.

The record I ended up equalling was my joint worst net score in the three years I have kept a database of scores on my home course. I’ve had worse gross rounds, albeit when I was playing from a handicap of 5 or 8, but after taking my handicap into consideration I have never returned worse than today’s total; 25 stableford points.

36 stableford points is the equivalent of playing to my handicap, every point below that is 1 shot over my handicap, so today I was 11 shots over my handicap, taking my handicap of 3 into consideration means I was at least 14 over par gross.

I don’t want to analyse it too much, it was just generally pathetic. I will try and focus on the positive that I had a 2 on the 3^rd hole. No matter what else happens, if I have a 2 on my scorecard then I have something positive to take away. The warm up will stay, as will the weights, I’m not stupid enough to say after one bad round that they were the cause.

The fact we won our match by 2 holes was as much due to our opponents, and my partner playing marginally better than me (he counted in 6 holes, I counted in 3, we both counted in 4, and we lost 5). At the end of our group matches we have won 2 and lost 1, whether it is enough to qualify for the semi finals depends on other matches being played, and will come down to a countback of some description.

This week involves nothing Monday – Thursday due to being away with work, then a club match on Friday at a course I’ve not played before, and 36 holes on Sunday.

Next Sunday is officially ‘The Best Day Of The Year’ (reason to be explained in the near future), but ironically could also be a day of failure, due to having my handicap increase to 4, and playing 36 holes in one day being the first big test of my physical shape for this year.