7 BIGGEST PRE-ROUND MISTAKES GOLFERS MAKE!

We’ve all been there – scrambling around on the first tee with no tees, no glove, no warm up and unsurprisingly, you hit a terrible opening tee shot! But what are the other mistakes golfers typically make before starting a round and how should you spend your time preparing for the first tee shot and beyond? In this video, Joe ‘The Pro’ Ferguson runs through the seven biggest pre-round mistakes golfers make and suggests alternatives that should ensure you keep the big numbers off your scorecard early.

► What’s your top tip for starting your round with a bang? Let us know in the comments below! 💬

► Watch more on Golf Monthly…
📹 How To Break 80 👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1oxR-4Jcts
📹 Dan Grieve On How To Spin Your Chips 👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS_JWkq6hlY
📹 Best Game Improvement Irons 2024 👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8heo_LxhGkQ

#golf #golfstrategy #preparation #golftips

🎵 Music – licensed by Epidemic Sound 🎵

► Become a FREE SUBSCRIBER to Golf Monthly’s YouTube page now – https://www.youtube.com/@GolfMonthly/featured

► For the latest reviews, tips, new gear launches and tour news, visit our website – http://www.golfmonthly.com

► Find us on social media:
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/golfmonthly/
TikTok – https://www.tiktok.com/@golfmonthly.com
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/GolfMonthlyMagazine/
Twitter (X) – https://twitter.com/GolfMonthly

I think it would be fair to say golf is a tough enough sport without ruining your round before you’ve even gotten started so let’s head out to madira I’m going to show you some of the most common pre-round mistakes that I see and how to fix

Them okay so the first part of poor preparation for golf is a particular bug bear in mind as a gear writer someone who deals with equipment all the time preparing your equipment badly is the cardinal sin for me the first up on that would be just not cleaning your clubs

Having your grooves full of mud will affect not only your Spin and your launch conditions but it’ll have an effect on your distance and consistency so make sure you turn up with clean clubs and at very least have a towel so you can do it at the course second

Equipment error I see all the time when playing them much is turning up with not enough equipment and the equipment I’m talking about here is things like te’s pencils pitchmark repairers balls and even a nice fresh glove you see a lot of people turning up with gloves that very

Much look like they’re on their last leg with big holes all over them so at least get a fresh glove so you feel good starting the round and finally the final thing I see in equipment all the time is people turning up with low batteries on

Their lasers the amount of times I see someone on the 15th or 16th hole clicking away desperately trying to get a yardage but their batter’s gone make sure you’ve got a spare one in the bag and if you’re a GPS guy make sure that GPS is charged up before you play

Okay so another mistake I see in preparation happens exactly now we’ve come to the dying range we’re going to loosen up to hit some balls but I see people just put their balls down grab a club and start hitting away and not only is that going to affect your performance

Your body’s not ready to move in that way you’ve got a real danger of injury there you’re coming out cold your muscles aren’t ready to make the twisting motion that’s involved in golf so it’s important to do a few little stretches dynamic stretches as well just

To get your body moving and ready to do what is quite a complex movement now I’m not going to bother showing you any stretches here because I’m not a professional so I’d recommend doing some research online even watching a YouTube of Miguel Angel gimenez’s warmup something like that or consult a

Professional and have a proper physical screening to see what you need to warm up specifically but it’s absolutely critical for injury and performance to make sure you do some stretches before you start hitting shots okay so another bit of poor preparation that I see a lot comes on

The putting green if people visit the putting green at all I often see mindlessly hitting mid-range putts and not really getting the information they need so in terms of putting warmup for me I like to split it into two categories number one I want to start building some confidence I want to see

That ball go in and if you’re just hitting 15 and 20 foot putts at various targets you’re getting a little something from it but you’re not going to see the ball go in an awful lot and we want to build that confidence so I

Like to set up a little drill I use my putter put that in the hole grab a little TEEG and that measures me at about 3 ft then I’ll just simply spend some time hitting some putts from that 3T range and just knocking them towards the hole seeing the ball go

In and building Confidence from there the more you see that ball go in the more you’re hearing that sound you’re feeding your computer with Good Vibes and that’s great for your confidence during the day second part of this again I’m not even going to I’m not going to

Use a hole for this bit I want to start feeding my computer and my brain with some knowledge of the pace of these greens so I take my three balls I find a long Putt and I just aim for The Fringe it can be from 40 ft 50 ft 60 ft

But I’m just going to keep repeating and trying to get the ball stopping just On The Fringe line and take it from there just pretty much On The Fringe cut pretty good so probably just running Into The Fringe cut a little bit there so now I know I need to take a little

Bit off so that’s just more gently approaching The Fringe couple of inches short but you get the idea so I’ve got a really good idea of speed now now what I would do is turn around go from that Fringe to this Fringe cuz it’s a little bit more downhill and I’ve got some

Really good information I can take with me for the day and I’m better prepared to hold putts so another big mistake I see about preparing for a round of golf is ignoring the short game those who do warm up at all tend to go and hit some

Longer shots and might Chuck a couple of balls down on the putting green but these shots your pitches your chip shots they’re the ones that require some real finesse and ignoring warming up those kind of smaller muscles that control the real Precision elements of your game I

Think is fatal so it’s always for me important if you’ve got the facilities I mean I’ve got a great chipping facility here at Santa deera don’t get me wrong some people don’t have that benefit but you can always find a little area off the course just a pie piece of grass

Take half a dozen chip shots get the feeling of the ball on the club base seeing some flights seeing how far they’re going over 20 30 yards it’s really important to to warm your feels up so I would just come to the chipping green I would just hit a few little

Pitches to various targets and just start to get a feel of How It’s reacting on the green if the Green’s good go to that white one now hit some different length shots some VAR the trajectory get rolling out a little bit more and you can really start to refine your feel over these

Shots so when you get out on the golf course you’re not going to have any big surprises of a chip shooting out of your hands because you’ve warmed up those refined muscles don’t ignore the short game get your scores lower so another part of poor preparation that I see is a

Bit of a mental mistake those of us who are diligent enough to come to the driving range to warm up and hit some shots I can often see a lot of panic taking place on driving range before the rounds if you’re hitting bad shots that can often put people off what you’ve got

To remember is this is not a practice session this is a warmup and what does a warm-up mean we want to warm our muscles up and get loose for the round of goal so we’re just going to Simply hit a few shots away and we’re just observing what’s

Coming out and it’s more of a physical exercise we’re not practicing certain shots we’ve done our practice or we should have done before we arrive to warm up for that particular day and if you hit a load of bad shots during practice don’t worry some of my best

Round of golf have come after a really bad warm-up sometimes it’s handy it can lower your expectations and you just go and play conversely some of my worst R of golfs have come with a great warmup so in my experience there’s not a great correlation between the two so if you’re

Warming up just warm up don’t practice and if you’re hitting some bad shots Don’t Panic okay now be honest how often have you been in this situation you get round to the 13th 14th 15th hole you’re a bit hungry and you’re reach into your bag and you’ve got no food or even worse

You’re thirsty and you haven’t got any water it’s not just your mood that’s going to suffer it’s your thought process we need to be fueled so we make good decisions so your brain’s working optimally if you haven’t got that food in your body you haven’t got the energy

Your thought process will suffer and your scores will suffer over the last few holes so number one it’s really important to be fueled before the run I’m not talking a big greasy full English breakfast some good health healthy slow relased carbohydrates will set you up well for a good round but in

Terms of preparation for the round make sure you’ve got plenty of water in your bags fruits things like trail mix and nuts and beef jerky are really really good sources of energy that will keep you hydrated keep you fueled for the round and keep that brain working well

Make you finish your round strong prepare well okay so there’s a few things you can do to prevent poor performance and poor preparation from a strategy standpoint even even if you’re playing your home golf course that you think you know like the back of your hand a lot of courses the entrances you

Might drive through some of the holes on the course so it can be really useful to have a look around and take some information in particularly pin positions you can call upon that information later on in the round and that might help inform your decision around Club selection another little tip

I always like to use particularly if I’m playing on a Treeline golf course it can be really difficult to pick out the wind because the trees can block it so I like to find a course map you can get these quite often on the back of the cards or

On a stroke saver and either get to a high point of the course find out what the wind is doing and then Mark that direction on the course map you can also use one of the weather apps to do that it’ll tell you the exact Direction the

Wind is coming from get that prepared on your course planner or your card and you can refer back to that using the orientation of the hole and the direction of the wind if you’re stuck out in the course and that can really help you save shots it’s part of avoiding poor preparation