Get Your Game Ready For The Season

The golf season has officially begun, but are you ready?* Here are 14 things you can do to shake that rust off your game.

Regain Your Touch

After a layoff, your feel for chipping and pitching can be slow to come back. Jared Zak, one of Golf Digest's Best Young Teachers, says break the motions down: "Think of the chip as a left-arm swing and the pitch as a right-arm swing." To practice chipping, Zak says, grip a wedge in your left hand only and make some swings feeling like the club is an extension of your left arm (shown), with your arm and the shaft lining up at impact. For pitching, swing right hand only and let your right arm fold going back and straighten coming down, the clubhead passing your right hand through impact. Try these one-handed drills, and you'll get your short game humming again in no time. - Peter Morrice

Focus on Fundamentals

When you start thinking about the golf swing, it can get pretty heavy pretty fast. Try to limit yourself to one or two key thoughts. The trick is to begin at the setup and work your way forward until you find something that clicks. Here's one tip at each stage of the swing, from Golf Digest Teaching Professional Todd Anderson:

Setup: Push your hips back, and angle your spine toward the ball.
Backswing: Turn into your right side, and feel your left lat stretch.
Impact: Keep your head behind the ball, and straighten up your left side.
Finish: Point your chest at the target, with your right foot up on its toes. Work on these keys at the practice range, and create a short list of swing thoughts to bring out on the course.

- Peter Morrice

Don't Fear the Sand

If you hate being in the sand, you probably have good reason--bad memories that stretch back for years. Let's get you out of that rut. Top-ranked teacher Butch Harmon has a simple swing thought for playing out of bunkers: Hit the sand, and follow through. Butch says don't quit on it; that's the major fault. Play the ball just inside your front heel, swing back about three-quarters, and accelerate the club down and through. He says imagine you're throwing a patch of sand onto the green with the ball in the middle. To do that, you have to thump the sand and keep the club moving. Time to make some good memories. - Peter Morrice

Sneak in Some Practice

You love to play golf, but working on your game--not so much. The good news is, you can do a little practicing while you play. Golf Digest Teaching Professional Jim McLean suggests getting out at a quiet time by yourself and playing a two-ball scramble. In other words, after you hit each shot, drop another ball and try it again, then pick the better shot and follow the same procedure. Want more challenge? Instead of playing the better ball, play the worse one. You'll learn from your mistakes, and get in twice as many swings. Without the pressure of one ball, you'll focus on hitting the shots instead of posting a score. - Peter Morrice

Track Your Stats

Knowing what you shot is useless unless you know why you shot that number. How many fairways did you hit? How many putts did you take? How many up and downs did you convert? Start keeping track of these stats on your scorecard this season, and you'll begin to realize the strengths and weaknesses of your game. - Ashley Mayo

Get A Grip

The least you should do before each season is clean your grips. Grab a wet, soapy towel and rub them down. Better yet, replace them. It won't cost you more than $70, and you'll feel like you're playing with an entirely new set. (Almost.) - E. Michael Johnson

Buy A New Pair Of Shoes

The longest waterproof guarantee on new shoes is generally two years or less. So if you didn't buy new shoes last season, you should probably invest in a pair now. (Our Shoe Guide will help you.) If you want to make your shoes last even longer, you really need to buy two pairs and wear both of them throughout the season. - Mike Stachura

Change Your Cleats

If you're not ready the buy a new pair of shoes, you should at least replace your cleats. It's shocking how many golfers wait until they wear their cleats down to the nubs. Flip your locker room guy a $20 and have him replace them. Or go to a golf store, buy the cleats and a wrench and replace them yourself. - E. Michael Johnson

Get A Fitting

Have your lie and loft angles checked, especially if you've been pounding balls off threadbare driving range mats all winter long. I'd recommend a putter fitting before a full club fitting, if only because a lot of fitters say your swing can be a little quirky if you haven't played for two or three months and then head right in for a fitting. Wait until you've put in a few weeks of serious full-swing practice time before you consider a full fitting. - Mike Stachura

Strengthen Your Glutes

These large, all-important muscles not only provide stability to your golf posture and power to your drives, they also protect the lumbar spine from the extreme stress of making repetitive golf swings. Some exercises that will help you train your glutes are squats, glute bridges and deadlifts. Start by using your body weight only to perfect the movement. Then you can add extra weight. Train these muscles at least three times a week. - Ron Kaspriske

Learn When To Stretch

Before a round, you want to prime your muscles, not stretch them out. Something as simple as a brisk walk while swinging dumbbells will get your muscles warm. Or do jumping jacks. Avoid doing long-hold stretches before a round. Save those for post round or post workout. - Ron Kaspriske

Train Torso Separation

Ideally, a golfer should be able to rotate his or her hips independently of the upper torso and vice versa to swing a club efficiently. Learning to rotate the upper body through the mid-back (thoracic spine) and the lower body through the hips is crucial to syncing a good golf swing. You can help train this separation by first holding back your shoulders with your hands and rotating your hips back and forth. Then sit in a chair or on a physio ball and rotate your mid-back in either direction. - Ron Kaspriske

Grab Travel Deals

One of the best things about early season golf is the price. In this so-called shoulder season, tucked between the off-peak and peak golf-playing months, you'll often find deals on resort costs and green fees. Generally you get the biggest shoulder-season price breaks, as a percentage of the peak rate, at true winter golf destinations--places like Scottsdale and Miami. Visit in spring or fall and it's not unusual to pay 30 to 40 percent less than the peak rates. Even popular resorts like Oregon's Bandon Dunes play the shoulder-season game. How do you know a market's shoulder season? Google the name of the destination you want to visit plus "shoulder season" and you'll see the details. - Pete Finch

Restock your bag

The first thing that I do as I prepare my golf bag for the season is make sure I restock my little emergency kit with small sizes of lip balm, sunblock, Band Aids, athletic tape, aspirin and safety pins. You never know what you're going to need on a given round, so you're better off loading up once for the entire year. - Marty Hackel

Source: Golf Digest