Primed To Play

A great round starts with a great warm-up.

- Jordan Spieth

I SEE A LOT of amateurs warm up on Wednesdays, which is pro-am day on the PGA Tour. For many of them, it’s a big day and really wanting to play well is an attitude and energy I appreciate being around. However, hitting balls in front of a gallery and alongside the pros is, I’m sure, an experience that could make a club player rush or get frazzled. Whether this is how they get ready to go at their home course, I’m not sure. From what I can see, it seems a lot of amateurs would benefit from applying some structure to their warm-ups. There’s a way to get the body and mind primed to play, and then there’s digging holes beating balls. Hard practice has its place, but never before a round. Basically, I have two routines—one takes a half an hour and the other is an hour and 15. The shorter one I recently filmed with Golf Digest. Cameron McCormick— my coach since I was 12—and I wore microphones, and you can watch and listen to the entire session on Golf Digest All Access. On these next pages, Cam and I will provide an overview of that routine. The thing about warming up properly is that it doesn’t require any extra skill, only the discipline to commit to it. When you start playing better more often, you’ll be glad you did.

WALK THE WEDGE