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Joe Ferguson from Golf Monthly shares 7 common mistakes people make before a round of golf.
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00:00I think it would be fair to say golf is a tough enough sport without ruining your round
00:03before you've even gotten started.
00:05So let's head out to Madeira.
00:06I'm going to show you some of the most common pre-round mistakes that I see and how to fix
00:10them.
00:15Okay, so the first part of poor preparation for golf is a particular bug bear in mind.
00:19As a gear writer, someone who deals with equipment all the time, preparing your equipment badly
00:24is the cardinal sin for me.
00:26First up on that would be just not cleaning your clubs.
00:29Having your grooves full of mud will affect not only your spin and your launch conditions
00:34but it will have an effect on your distance and consistency.
00:37Make sure you turn up with clean clubs and at very least have a towel so you can do it
00:41at the course.
00:42The second equipment error I see all the time when playing them is turning up with not enough
00:47equipment.
00:48The equipment I'm talking about here is things like tees, pencils, pitchmark repairers, balls
00:53and even a nice fresh glove.
00:55You see a lot of people turning up with gloves that very much look like they're on their
00:59last legs with big holes all over them so at least get a fresh glove so you feel good
01:03starting the rounds.
01:05Finally, the final thing I see in equipment all the time is people turning up with low
01:10batteries on their lasers.
01:12The amount of times I see someone on the 15th or 16th hole clicking away, desperately trying
01:16to get a yardage but their battery's gone, make sure you've got a spare one in the bag.
01:21And if you're a GPS guy, make sure that GPS is charged up before you play.
01:32Okay, so another mistake I see in preparation happens exactly now.
01:36We've come to the driving range, we're going to loosen up to hit some balls but I see people
01:40just put their balls down, grab a club and start hitting away.
01:44And not only is that going to affect your performance, your body's not ready to move in that way.
01:47You've got a real danger of injury there, you're coming out cold, your muscles aren't ready
01:51to make the twisting motion that's involved in golf so it's important to do a few little
01:56stretches, dynamic stretches as well just to get your body moving and ready to do what
02:00is quite a complex movement.
02:03Now, I'm not going to bother showing you any stretches here because I'm not a professional
02:06so I'd recommend doing some research online, even watching a YouTube of Miguel Angel Jimenez's
02:11warm-up, something like that, or consult a professional and have a proper physical screening
02:16to see what you need to warm up specifically.
02:18But it's absolutely critical for injury and performance to make sure you do some stretches
02:23before you start hitting shots.
02:26Okay, so another bit of poor preparation that I see a lot comes on the putting green.
02:30If people visit the putting green at all, I often see mindlessly hitting mid-range putts
02:35and not really getting the information they need.
02:38So in terms of putting warm-up for me, I like to split it into two categories.
02:41Number one, I want to start building some confidence.
02:43I want to see that ball go in and if you're just hitting 15 and 20-foot putts at various
02:47targets, you're getting a little something from it but you're not going to see the ball
02:51go in an awful lot and we want to build that confidence.
02:54So I like to set up a little drill.
02:55I use my putter, put that in the hole, grab a little tee peg and that measures me at about
03:00three feet.
03:03Then I'll just simply spend some time hitting some putts from that three-foot range and just
03:09knocking them towards the hole, seeing the ball go in and building confidence from there.
03:16The more you see that ball go in, the more you're hearing that sound,
03:19you're feeding your computer with good vibes and that's great for your confidence during the day.
03:25Second part of this, again, I'm not even going to use a hole for this bit.
03:29I want to start feeding my computer and my brain with some knowledge of the pace of these greens.
03:35So I'll take my three balls, I'll find a long putt and I just aim for the fringe.
03:42It can be from 40 feet, 50 feet, 60 feet but I'm just going to keep repeating and trying to
03:47get
03:47the ball stopping just on the fringe line and take it from there.
03:54Just pretty much on the fringe cut. Pretty good, so probably just run into the fringe cut a little
04:00bit there so now I know I need to take a little bit off.
04:06That's just more gently approaching the fringe, a couple of inches short but you get the idea.
04:12So I've got a really good idea of speed now. Now what I would do is turn around and go
04:16from that
04:16fringe to this fringe because it's a little bit more downhill and I've got some really good information
04:21I can take with me for the day and I'm better prepared to hold putts.
04:25So another big mistake I see about preparing for a round of golf is ignoring the short game.
04:29Those who do warm up at all tend to go and hit some longer shots and might chuck a couple
04:33of
04:33balls down on the putting green but these shots, your pitches, your chip shots, they're the ones
04:39that require some real finesse and ignoring warming up those kind of smaller muscles that control
04:44the real precision elements of your game I think is fatal. So it's always for me important
04:50if you've got the facility, I mean I've got a great chipping facility here at Santa
04:53De Serra, don't get me wrong, some people don't have that benefit but you can always find a little
04:58area off the course, just a piece of grass, say half a dozen chip shots, get the feeling of the
05:03ball
05:03on the club base, seeing some flights, seeing how far they're going over 20, 30 yards. It's really
05:08important to warm your feels up. So I would just come to the chipping green, I would just hit a
05:14few little
05:15pitches to various targets and just start to get a feel of how it's reacting on the green,
05:21if the green's good. Go to that white one now. Hit some different length shots, some vary the
05:29trajectory, get it rolling out a little bit more and you can really start to refine your feel over
05:34these shots. So when you get out on the golf course you're not going to have any big surprises of
05:41a
05:41chip shooting out of your hands because you've warmed up those refined muscles. Don't ignore the
05:45short game, get your scores lower. So another part of poor preparation that I see is a bit of a
05:51mental
05:52mistake. Those of us who are diligent enough to come to the driving range to warm up and hit some
05:56shots, I can often see a lot of panic taking place on driving range before the rounds. If you're
06:02hitting bad shots that can often put people off, what you've got to remember is this is not a
06:07practice session. This is a warm-up and what does a warm-up mean? We want to warm our muscles
06:11up
06:12and get loose for the round of goal. So we're just going to simply hit a few shots away
06:19and we're just observing what's coming out and it's more of a physical exercise. We're not
06:23practicing certain shots. We've done our practice or we should have done before we arrived to warm up for
06:28that particular day and if you hit a load of bad shots during practice, don't worry. Some of my
06:33best round of golf have come after a really bad warm-up. Sometimes it's handy, it can lower your
06:38expectations and you just go and play. Conversely, some of my worst round of golfs have come with a
06:43great warm-up. In my experience, there's not a great correlation between the two. If you're warming up,
06:49just warm up. Don't practice and if you're hitting some bad shots, don't panic.
06:54Okay, now be honest. How often have you been in this situation? You get around to the 13th, 14th,
06:5915th hole, you're a bit hungry and you reach into your bag and you've got no food or even worse,
07:06you're thirsty and you haven't got any water. It's not just your mood that's going to suffer,
07:10it's your thought process. We need to be fueled so we make good decisions, so your brain's working
07:15optimally. If you haven't got that food in your body and you haven't got the energy, your thought
07:19process will suffer and your scores will suffer over the last few holes.
07:22Number one, it's really important to be fueled before the round. I'm not talking a big, greasy,
07:27full English breakfast. Some good, healthy, slow-release carbohydrates will set you up well for a good
07:32round. In terms of preparation for the round, make sure you've got plenty of water in your bags, fruits,
07:39things like trail mix and nuts and beef jerky are really, really good sources of energy that will
07:44keep you hydrated, keep you fueled for the round and keep that brain working well and make you finish
07:49your round strong. Prepare well. Okay, so there's a few things you can do to prevent poor performance
07:55and poor preparation from a strategy standpoint. Even if you're playing your home golf course and
08:01you think you know like the back of your hand, a lot of courses, the entrances, you might drive
08:05through some of the holes on the course. So it can be really useful to have a look around and
08:10take some
08:10information in, particularly pin positions. You can call upon that information later on in the round
08:15and that might help inform your decision around club selection. Another little tip I always like
08:21to use, particularly if I'm playing on a tree-lined golf course, it can be really difficult to pick
08:25out the wind because the trees can block it. So I like to find a course map. You can get
08:30these quite
08:30often on the back of the cards or on a stroke saver and either get to a high point of
08:35course, find out
08:36what the wind is doing and then mark that direction on the course map. You can also use one of
08:41the weather
08:41apps to do that. It'll tell you the exact direction the wind is coming from. Get that prepared on your
08:46course planner or your card and you can refer back to that using the orientation of the hole and the
08:51direction of the wind if you're stuck out on the course and that can really help you save shots as
08:56part of avoiding poor preparation.
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