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How many times has this happened to you?

You get to the course 15 minutes before your tee time. By the time you get all your stuff together, pay the greens fees, etc., and then get yourself to the putting green there is less than 10 minutes left before game time. You hit some putts, some chips, and then take a few swings to loosen up. Feeling pretty good, you stroll to the first tee, put your bag down, and look down the fairway.

It’s a dogleg right with OB on the right …

golf training aids, golf, training aids, warm up, stretching

How many times has this happened to you?

You get to the course 15 minutes before your tee time. By the time you get all your stuff together, pay the greens fees, etc., and then get yourself to the putting green there is less than 10 minutes left before game time. You hit some putts, some chips, and then take a few swings to loosen up. Feeling pretty good, you stroll to the first tee, put your bag down, and look down the fairway.

It’s a dogleg right with OB on the right and tree trouble on the left. It’s not long but it’s tight, with the potential for a round-ruining big number. That’s when you start to realize the full extent of the tightness that’s still in your muscles. You take some more swings, desperately trying to get the muscles in your legs, back, and shoulders to warm up, but to no avail. Your tee time is up and you still don’t have any kind of rhythm or feel to your swing, and the OB on the right looms ominously.

You tee it up and make a tight, nervous swing, overcompensating due to your fear of the OB. Your ball jumps left off the clubface, a nasty pull-hook that burrows deep into the trees. You groan and shove your club back into your bag, then stomp off to try to salvage something resembling a decent score.

If this type of thing happens to you on an all-to-frequent basis, trust me you are not alone. Fortunately, there are plenty of golf training aids out there that can help you avoid it. Swinging a weighted or increased-resistance club, for example, is a good way to get warm before a round. However, if you really want to be loose and feel confident for the opening drive, you probably need to get to the course a littler earlier and add a stretching routine to your warm-up.

There is no way to get your muscles prepared for the intense effort involved with the golf swing without stretching. Also, stretching helps to relax the mind as well as the body, which really helps with the first tee jitters. So in addition to resistance training aids like weighted clubs, consider adding a stretch routine. There are lots of books available with stretch programs that are tailored specifically for golfers. Here are some tips for finding a good stretching program

1. A book is just as much a training aid as any of those gadgets that are designed to help your swing, so approach it the same way. As you would try out a training aid before you shell out the money, make sure you check out the contents of the book before you buy. It should have pictures for all the stretches. Stretches without visual aids are dangerous because you can never be quite sure if you’re doing them correctly.

2. Make sure you find a book with a variety of stretches for daily stretching as well as a pre-round warm-up. Training for flexibility daily can add yards to your drives and years to your golfing career.

3. Get to the course early! Rushing through your warm-up stretches doesn’t work and can cause injury. If you are short on time, do a smaller number of stretches correctly rather than trying to do them all quickly.

Good luck, and remember the mind is just as important as the body in golf, if not more so. Books are training aids for the mind, so get a few good ones and go to it!