The twenty-minute warm-up that saves the first three holes
Move before you swing, start short, find today's ball flight, and give the first rounds of May twice the movement work.
Arrive ten minutes before the tee time, hit six drivers, set off: that is how most rounds begin. The first three holes then serve as the warm-up, and the card has gone before it started. Twenty minutes changes that.
Move before you swing
Cold muscles produce a short, hurried swing. Five minutes of movement — arm circles, gentle trunk rotations with a club across the shoulders, a few lunges — restore the range. This is not a workout, it is a start.
If something hurts, stop and get it looked at; none of this is medical advice.
Short before long
Begin with the wedge, half swings, feet together. That stance forces balance and centres the strike. Ten balls. Then three-quarter swings with a mid-iron, ten balls. The driver last, five balls at most.
The range before a round is not for fixing the swing. It is for discovering today’s ball flight and accepting it.
Find today’s shot
Some days the ball goes left, some days right. The player who spends the round fighting the shape gives away five shots. The one who identifies it and aims accordingly plays to handicap. Ten balls with the same club, around 140 yards, show the shape for today.
What almost everybody skips
Ten minutes on the putting green, and not on three-footers. Roll long putts to calibrate pace, the only piece of information that genuinely changes from course to course and day to day. Then a few chips from the fringe.
If you only have ten minutes
- Three minutes of movement, no club.
- Two minutes of half wedges.
- Five minutes of long putts.
Skip the driver: you will hit it on the first tee anyway, and a warm body and calibrated putting pace matter more.
May mornings, and the first round of the year
The season opens at five degrees on wet ground, and a body that has not made a full swing since October will not make one on the first tee either. Double the movement section for the first few rounds, start with a shorter swing on purpose, and accept that the ball flies shorter until June.
Coming off the simulator
A winter of indoor golf keeps the motion alive but hides two things: the wind and the lie. Spend the first outdoor warm-up hitting from the grass, not the mat, and pay attention to how the ball comes off a wet lie.
After the round
Two minutes of easy stretching does more for tomorrow than anything else, and more still in a short season where nobody wants to lose a week.
