Golf is hard on the body. We must setup to the ball with our spine bent forward and our knees bent. Then we swing a golf club back and through while staying in this bent forward angle. This puts a lot of stress on certain muscle groups, such as the back, shoulders and hips to name a few.

It’s no wonder so many people have back problems from golf. The back takes the biggest beating in my opinion, so all the more reason to do stretching before playing. This will help us swing more freely and avoid injuries.

If you don’t warm up properly and get your body loosened up, it will take you about 4 holes to get fully warmed up. Think you will make your best swings of the day without warming up? The answer is you won’t.

You need to stretch our your muscles before playing a round of golf. Top pros and amateurs do this before playing no matter what their age.  Start out with some easy stretches first so we don’t pull any muscles.


golfer's pre-round warm up

5 Top Golf Warm Up Stretching Exercises for Better Flexibility and Strength?


1. Stand straight up with the straight golf club straight out in front of you horizontal to the ground, one hand other right side of the shaft and the left hand on the other. From here turn slowly to the right then slowly to the left while keeping the club horizontal to the ground and keeping your hips as still as possible. This will stretch your upper body against the lower body stretching the arms, shoulder and torso muscles. Do it 20 times.

2. Put a golf club across the back of your shoulders and turn to the right and then the left, letting your shoulders and hips turn fully, then the knees and finally the feet. Do this 20 times making sure to turn fully to get the most benefit out of it. With this warm up exercise we are getting the shoulders turning,

3. Take a golf club, put it in your right hand and use it like a cane to balance yourself. Then swing your right leg forward and back to stretch the leg muscles. Do this again but move the club to the left side to balance yourself and swing that leg back and forth. Do each side 20 times. Concentrate on maintaining good balance during these leg stretches.

4. For this exercise put a golf club behind your you just above your waist in the small of your back. Now bend slowly backwards with your upper body stretching out your lower back muscles. Do this slowly 5 to ten times to stretch the back muscles you will use during the golf swing.

5. For this stretch take 2 irons and grip them together and swing the clubs out in front of you parallel to the ground. After 15 of those swing both clubs together in your setup posture 15 times. The extra weight of swinging 2 clubs will loosen the muscles up for the entire swinging motion.


Now go to the driving range and hit a small bucket of balls. Start out with some short wedge shots and work your way through the driver. We are not concerned with hitting a bunch of balls here, or rebuilding our swing. We are just getting warmed up to play golf by involving all the golf muscles.

Now your ready to go out and have a fun round of golf!