By focusing more on the range before a round, you’ll prepare your mind and body.
GOLF.com
Whether you actually have a warm-up routine or not, every golfer it must be stretched and released before playing a round. Now, does this always happen? Probably not, as many of us (myself included) are often late to the tee and don’t take the time to dial in our bodies and minds before we leave.
But if you want to do well on the test, you have to study, right? So treat a round of golf exactly the same way.
The master instructor shares his favorite golf warm-up routine
As most of us know, many amateur golfers simply go to the practice range before a round and either try to bomb their driver or mindlessly hitting a bunch of balls around the range. But none of these are particularly helpful in preparing you for 18 holes, so Mulligan and Felibert say you need to be more intentional with your warm-up routine.
Here’s what Mulligan suggests doing before your next round.
Use a short iron
Mulligan begins the warm-up routine with Felibert using a short iron and just taking a few easy practice swings.
“We have a short iron and I want you to take me through some practice swings in slow motion,” he instructs Felibert. “Just swing the club up, let it come down and just let your body go with it.”
This warm-up isn’t just to help loosen up your body – it also helps get your sequence down, with Mulligan saying it’s anti-speed training – which many players crave when they’re on a drive.
“Everybody wants to put so much speed into the golf swing, but you have to sort out the right way to do it,” he adds.
As Felibert hits a few balls, Mulligan reminds her to stay “quiet” all the way through her swing and just slowly go through her sequence.
“Make it a little smoother and a little smoother, letting the ball bounce naturally as you do it,” he says.
Keep your head cool
While most golfers don’t think about balancing a water bottle on their head during a swing (and rightly so), Mulligan says the visual can help during your warm-up routine.
He then walks over and puts a bottle of water on Felibert’s head to help explain his point.
“Imagine you have a bottle of water on your head and you didn’t want anything to spill,” he says.
He then sets Feliberti to rock him, keeping everything calm and quiet, with her body naturally rotates all the way through influence.
“What I really like about this warm-up is taking it to the next level,” he adds. “So now make the ‘water’ even quieter as it oscillates. It should almost feel lazy.”
Use 3 golf balls for ‘progress’
In this drill, Mulligan has Felibert hit three golf balls, but she does so with one goal: to control her distance by varying her backswings.
Felibert lines up the three balls on the practice mat, and Mulligan describes how he predicts the length of her backswing before hitting each one.
“I imagine it as a clock, with (her turning the club at) 9:00, 10:00, 11:00 and then 12:00,” he explains.
The goal is to hit all three balls with the same pace, energy, and pace at different “times” on the clock, which helps you choose your ball strike and distance control—all without using much effort.
This is a good training model, which Mulligan thinks is how it “teaches our minds.”
Try a beginner workout
Mulligan says everyone needs to do a roll or shoulder roll to bring the club back, so he suggests using a kick drill – which helps loosen up the area between the waist and upper body.
Using a special golf club, Mulligan helps Felibert start back, pushing her lead shoulder back as if it were the trigger.
“I use this starting drill by turning it (upper body) and letting it swing,” he explains. “It basically feels like (she) didn’t do anything.”
Mulligan then combines this drill with the idea of a water bottle resting on her head, which emphasizes the need to stay on tempo and stay calm all the way through the swing.
Finally, you can introduce the driver
We’ve come all this way and haven’t used the driver yet – but don’t worry, because it’s finally time to let the big dog eat.
So Mulligan says it’s all about dialing in your target off the tee, making sure you know exactly where you want the ball to land as you search for the fairways.
“Once you get the driver out near the end of the warmup, I like the idea of putting a club down there through your legs,” says Mulligan. “Now you’re going to take everything we’ve done in the warm-up and do a perfect routine as casually as you can, letting the ball hit with your swing.”
While you’re using your driver here, the goal isn’t to gain swing speed or maximize distance while warming up. Instead, it’s about making sure you’re properly aimed and aligned, which should be able to be repeated throughout your round.
Ultimately, Mulligan says this is the type of warm-up routine he would use with a pro-level player — with the master teacher working with Patrick Cantlay and Nelly Korda.
“That would be a warm-up that we would go through and it would be similar to what I’m seeing from most Tour players,” he adds. “So the first thing you’re doing is making your body light and comfortable, then you’re just trying to get a little mantra in order to do your movement — which, in this case, is to stand tall and let the club fall.”
