How to Warm Up Before a Competitive Round

By Choosing Golf Shoes for Wet British Weather
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24 Aug 2026

How to Warm Up Before a Competitive Round

Why the first three holes decide your card

Almost every club golfer in Kent has a version of the same story: a 7.40am tee time, a rushed dash from the car park, three loose swipes with a driver, and three dropped shots before the coffee has even kicked in. The opening holes are where most nett medals are quietly lost, and they are lost for the same reason every time — the body and the brain simply have not caught up with the scorecard.

A proper warm-up is not about hitting balls until your hands blister. It is about walking onto the first tee loose, sequenced and confident, with the speed of the greens already stored in your head. Forty minutes is plenty. Here is how to spend them well.

Ten minutes of movement before you touch a club

Arrive with time to spare and start away from the range. Cold muscles do not rotate, and the golf swing asks for more rotation than most of us give it credit for. Find a quiet corner near the practice putting green and work through this:

Neck and shoulders (one minute): slow half-circles with the head, then ten shoulder rolls in each direction.
Thoracic rotation (two minutes): feet shoulder-width, arms folded across the chest, rotate gently left and right ten times. You should feel it in the upper back, not the lower.
Hips (two minutes): a club across the shoulders, slow turns keeping the lower body quiet, then ten leg swings forward and back on each side.
Hamstrings and calves (two minutes): club for balance, hinge forward, hold each stretch for a slow count of five.
Wrists and forearms (two minutes): this is the one everybody skips and the one that matters most on a cold morning.

Finish with five minutes of easy swinging — two clubs held together, building from waist-high to full length. It is the single best use of your time and it costs nothing.

Putting green: find the speed first, the line second

Most golfers roll three putts at a hole, miss them all, and wander off. Instead, spend ten minutes on a structured set that teaches you the greens rather than the hole.

Long lags (three minutes): three balls from twenty to twenty-five metres, aiming to finish inside a metre of the fringe. Distance control is the whole point.
Three-foot circle (three minutes): eight putts around the hole at three feet, moving around the clock face. Build a routine you can repeat on the course.
Breaking putts (four minutes): two left-to-right and two right-to-left from three metres, reading each one properly before you stroke it.

Pay attention to what the greens are doing. A damp October morning on a downland course will be noticeably slower than a dry, running surface in July, and knowing that before you tee off saves you a three-putt on the second.

Wedges: the clubs that save your round

Ten minutes with a sand wedge and a pitching wedge will do more for your score than twenty drivers. The purpose here is tempo, not power.

Half-swing pitching wedge (three minutes): ten balls, landing on a specific spot rather than chasing a distance. Feel the club brushing the turf.
Forty-metre pitches (four minutes): alternate between a low, running shot and a higher, softer one. This is the shot you will face on the first hole when you push your drive into the trees.
Bunker rehearsal (three minutes): if there is a practice bunker, hit five. If not, rehearse the technique in the rough and open the face slightly.

Notice how the ball reacts off the turf. Kent parkland courses in autumn can be lush and grabby, while coastal links turf is tight and firm. That difference changes how much you should carry the ball and how much you should run it.

Build through the bag and finish with one rehearsal

Now the irons and the woods. If your range session is limited, split it deliberately rather than hitting whatever comes to hand:

Six balls with a mid-iron: full routine every time — stand behind, pick a target, one practice swing, then commit.
Four balls with a long iron or hybrid: keep the swing smooth and the tempo patient.
Six balls with the driver: aim at something specific, not just the far fence.
Four balls with your first-tee club: whatever you will actually hit off the first.

The final ball should be your first-tee shot, played to a real target with a full routine. Then stop. Hitting fifty balls in a warm-up is a way to get tired, not a way to get ready.

Timing, weather and the Kent morning

Kent weather rarely does you favours. A stiff easterly off the Channel at a coastal links will change your ball flight entirely, while a still, dewy morning inland might mean soft greens and no wind at all. Adjust accordingly. On cold mornings, allow an extra ten minutes, keep your hands warm between shots, and keep the swing short and rhythmic rather than chasing length. If it is blowing, finish the range session hitting low, controlled shots — the punch you will need on the fourth.

On a busy competition day, the practice green fills up quickly. Arriving fifteen minutes earlier than you think you need to is the simplest advantage you can give yourself, and it means you warm up properly rather than queuing for a putting spot.

Finally, a word about club life. The roll-up players who always seem to start with three steady pars have usually been on the putting green for twenty minutes before anyone else turns up. It is not talent and it is not luck. It is routine, repeated every week without fail. Build yours, keep it consistent, and those early dropped shots will quietly disappear from your card.

Golf Tips

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5 Comments

Robert Sonny says Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am

I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
Reply
- John Abraham says Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am
  
  I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
  Reply
  - Robert Sonnysays Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am
    
    I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
    Reply
Robert Sonny says Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am

I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
Reply

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