Improve your golf over winter

How many of you are tight on time? Is time your biggest reason (excuse) for not doing your golf stretching exercises? I can sympathize with you completely. Our days just get away from us and before we know it, it's 9:00pm and we're getting ready for bed.

I don't think anytime soon this scenario is going to get any better. Do you agree? If so, what is the solution? You know you want to improve your golf swing! You so desperately want to walk off the course after a round with a smile on your face and knowing you played a good round of golf…and yet…if you don't work on your body, this will almost certainly not happen!

Golf is a brutally physical game. It's not a contact game like football, but the golf swing can be physically damaging to your body if you do not have adequate levels of both strength and flexibility. The best approach to improving the physical side of the game is keeping it as specific to the movement as possible. In this case…golf! Everything you do should closely resemble your golf swing. If not, skip it and move on. Sport-specific training is what all the professionals do and so should you.

Every golf stretching exercise should closely resemble your golf swing. Let's look at the main movements and requirements to get a better understanding. 

The MAIN movement in your golf swing is "rotational". Turn back and turn through! So…a ton of stretches should incorporate twisting right? The answer is a definite YES!

General stretching will not improve your golf swing range of motion nearly as effectively as golf-specific stretching will! You heard it here first! So start twisting! Do it in your chair as you're reading this article. Reach behind you, twisting your upper body to the left, then do it to the right. Ah…didn't that feel good? I do that stretch ALL day long and so should you!

The second requirement of a consistent golf swing is your golf posture. The main muscles involved with golf posture is your hamstrings, glutes and lower back muscles. These are very, very important muscles to stretch. When you can release the tension in these muscles (via golf stretching), you will see a dramatic improvement in your golf swing consistency, mechanics and power.

Click here to get in touch, or come and have a chat with us in the pro shop if you have any golf fitness related questions. 


Could the 'big 3' become the 'big 4'? 

How did you enjoy the first instalment of Rory versus Spieth? It's one-nil to Rory, but only in terms of scoring - Rickie Fowler picking up the first 'big' trophy of the season.

Both McIlroy and Spieth enjoyed top-5 finishes at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship, but what was interesting to note, as well, was that four of the top six golfers were in the field and all four finished in the top six; well, 'cream rises to the top' as they say. It may only be January, but it's already looking like we could be in for a top season. Is it too early to start making predictions for who will win the Masters?

Back in the UK and we're not quite enjoying the kind of weather the pros had in the Middle East, even if fog did intervene at one stage, but there's lots of activity to look forward to - and one or two fantastic promotions coming up, news of which will follow. So, if you're suffering from the winter blues, fear not because we'll be brightening things up soon.