Flexibility is the Foundation

“The goal of a golf swing is to strike the ball in order to achieve maximum distance with a level of accuracy.”

-Corrective Exercises for Golf Fitness

Being good at golf requires great skill, learned over time.  There are aspects of the game that can only be gleaned from repetition and making mistakes.  That’s a given.

Before you can begin to hone those skills, however, you have to tone your body.  Fitness is essential to keep yourself safe from injury, and it’s also important for giving yourself the musculoskeletal control and flexibility necessary to absorb the lessons of the course into your muscle memory.

Make sure that you always stretch before you play golf.  It’s important to loosen up your neck, shoulders, hips, lower back, hamstrings, and calves.

One of the best ways to increase hip rotation is to roll your hips around as if you were hula-hooping.  Warming up your neck and ankle muscles is as easy as moving them around slowly form side to side.  Hamstring and calf stretches can be done with the help of a set of stairs or a wall to push against.  You may choose to stretch against a golf cart, but I would encourage you to skip the cart and walk the course on your own two feet.  That will help keep your muscles looser and keep you in better shape overall.

Golf is hard, life is hard, but if we cultivate stability, beginning with whole-body physical fitness, we can bounce back and learn from our experiences without worrying too much that we will be thrown off course.