Warming Up to Play

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Alright golfers, let's talk about warming up.

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So we're talking specifically about warming up for an important round, whether

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it's a

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tournament or playing with your buddies with a few bucks on the line.

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Let's go through the process.

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So when you're getting ready to play, first we have to do a little bit of the

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physical

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warmup before we even start swinging.

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Ideally, if physical warmup will follow this progression, you're going to get

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the blood

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flowing, which creates heat and more elasticity in the tissue.

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Then we're going to warm up the joints, so we're going to get the ligaments

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active and

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then we're going to warm up the muscles.

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I have other videos like the analytic warmup and the 5 minute warmup as quick

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ways to kind

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of get through this, but that's your simple hierarchy, you don't want to skip

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that order.

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Next, what are the processes we want to warm up?

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So when we're getting ready, we're on the range or practice area, we want to be

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warming

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up or preparing our aim, that can change day to day, so whether it's using an

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alignment

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stick or just going through my pre-shot and double checking my aim.

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Speaking of pre-shot, we want to make sure we warm up that routine.

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I find some golfers get to the first tee and they're still thinking like, "Oh

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yeah, what

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am I supposed to do when I start walking up to the ball?"

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That should have been, we should have made that a little bit more automatic

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during our

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warmup.

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The rhythm or the tempo of the swing for that day, and then the playing feel.

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Tiger talks about how the playing feel is changed day to day, sometimes the

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club feels

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heavy, sometimes it feels light, let's hear his words, and then hopefully that

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'll help

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you understand that your feels are going to change a little bit even if you

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stay on the

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same theme.

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One of the things that I've learned from this game is that a lot of it is all

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feel.

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When you're off our plan, I'm trying to get engaged how my body is that day.

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Some days, the golf club feels heavy, sometimes the golf club feels light, and

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it changes

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day to day.

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Right here, as I'm warming up, I'm trying to get a feel of how much golf feels

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in my

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hands that day.

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Okay, so if the feel change for the best golfer in the world and one of the

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golfers who practices

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the most, then you should expect some feels to change too, but hopefully you're

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going

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to stay within some themes, and so you'll build kind of a database of feels,

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like feel

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options rather than having one specific feel.

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When it comes to warming up your game, this is what most people think of as the

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warmup,

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but you don't want to skip this step or these steps or these focuses or these

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goals.

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But when we get there, this is kind of a little order I like.

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You can start with your wedges, just doing a few kind of full swings, just loos

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ening

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the body up and getting the kind of the feel of the tempo for the day, and then

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working

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on your irons.

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I typically like to go from short irons to long irons.

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You don't necessarily have to hit everyone.

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You can hit, sometimes I would do odds one day, evens and other.

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I know other golfers just do evens, but you want to work from short to long

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doing both

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full swing as well as 10 to 2 or any of your shots.

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You want to, basically a warm up is taking inventory for the day.

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What is working today and what are things that I have to be careful about?

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Then with my woods, I want to go through my T-shot arsenal.

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So maybe I have just one shot, I'm just going to hit my driver, but maybe I

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have a fairway

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finder, maybe I have a high bomb shot, which I'm trying to add a little more

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speed, and

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then I have kind of my stock shot.

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So I might go through my T-shot arsenal as well to see what's happening,

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especially if

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I know the course and I know specific holes that are going to be uncomfortable

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T-shots.

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I probably want to practice those a few times.

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I also, if I know the course, I want to practice the par 3s, so teeing up an

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iron that I will

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be hitting, visualizing the target, visualizing the shot, and using my pre-shot

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routine while

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going through this hierarchy.

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That's the main deal for me for the full swing.

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As far as chipping pitching, I want to go through my inventory as well, so I

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want to warm

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up my basic shot, my high shot, my low shot, and then hit some different shots

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out of rough

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and different shots out of different slopes.

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So maybe my uphill, my downhill, just kind of see, that'll help me feel where

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my weight

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distribution is for that day, what my low point control feels like.

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It'll help influence what shots I'm going to choose when I'm on the course.

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Then with putting, line and speed are the two big ones, so I'll usually start

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with kind

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of a straight, whether it's a 8 feet, 10 feet, straight uphill putt just so I

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can kind of

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see what my face alignment is like that day.

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Some people do use a station, like Cameron Smith, using his mirror every time

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to dial

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in his line.

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I'm okay with that, that's just kind of recalibrating.

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And then doing whatever your speed drills are, like I would do my three putts,

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I would hit

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a couple different, so I would do my inner thigh, my outer thigh, my pocket, my

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basically

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stock putts to see how far they were rolling.

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That would give me a good idea as far as the speed for that day.

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So this is kind of a fairly comprehensive.

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This takes about an hour to go through, maybe 45 minutes to go through, but

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this was what

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I would do, kind of getting ready for a major event or a round that I really

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care about.

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But I know not everyone's going to take an hour before, so this would be my

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quick version.

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So quick version is I want to warm up my body, my swing, and my mind.

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So basically, my body, I could do the quick five minute warm up, even just

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doing some

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leg swings, some squats, some twisting, get the spine loose, a couple different

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ways.

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You know, the side translations and the rotations, and a little toe-touching,

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all that just to

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get the joints and the muscles going.

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Then my swing, I might do really quickly three clubs, a wood, maybe not even

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driver, probably

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driver, one iron, one wedge.

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That'll at least help me see what's going on.

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And I would probably pick an iron kind of in the middle, like a six-seven iron,

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or if

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you have more hybrids than maybe a seven or eight iron, something like that.

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And then a wedge doing maybe my full as well as my ten to two there.

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So that would only take about five minutes or so, chipping, I would probably do

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just one

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or two of my stock shots.

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Not I would only hit one or two shots, I would just, I'd go to one of my stock

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distances.

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So maybe my ten foot carry, or maybe my twenty foot carry, probably doing more

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like the hip

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height one, because that's kind of the medium shot for me.

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And then putting, if I only had a couple minutes to hit a few putts, I would

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probably hit a

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bunch of thirty footers and then maybe a few two footers, so really short to

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work on start

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line.

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But mostly hitting three footers just to kind of get the speed and feel out how

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far my normal

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stock putt is rolling out that day.

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And I'd hopefully walk away with one feel for the day and maybe one goal for

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play.

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If I'm in a rush, then the main thing I'll be focusing for my main mental goal

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is to

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be patient as I find my swing as I get out there.

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So maybe playing a little extra conservatively, thinking through and not taking

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unnecessary

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risks and kind of trying to buy into one process goal.

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We'll talk about that in another video.

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So if you struggle with warming up, you can do the full version, which we had

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here, love

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it, but it does take a little bit time, so if you're doing the quick version,

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this one

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usually only takes about five or ten minutes and you might not be quite as

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ready as the

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other one, but at least you'll be better off than if you've run straight from

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the car

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to the first tee.