Three Easy Ways to Improve Your Physical Golf Game

Today’s game of golf requires more than a silky smooth swing with a balanced finish. Modern golfers all have specific golf-focused fitness programs to help gain strength, improve mobility, and overall development of the physical and athletic abilities in their swing. Below, three easy ways to start tackling the physical side of your game.

1. Get a Titleist Performance Institute (TPI) Assessment

The premise of TPI is simple: Leading golf and fitness professionals examine how the human body functions during the golf swing. Put another way, TPI assesses a golfer’s physical capabilities and whether that limits or enhances specific movements when they swing. What golfer wouldn’t like to swing like Tiger Woods or Adam Scott? But many cannot reproduce a similar set of movement sequences because of their physical makeup. That's what a TPI assessment service found at Canyon Ranch Tucson, clarifies.

The TPI program was created by founders Dr. Greg Rose and Dave Phillips in 2003 when golf fitness was far from popular. To date, TPI states that it has more than 19,000 trained TPI instructors in 63 countries, including all Performance Science and Sports Medicine providers at Canyon Ranch.

The assessment takes the golfer through 16 tasks to better understand their physical competence. Each exercise is assessed and labeled as either red (fail), green (pass), or yellow (partial pass). Based on this, the My TPI app generates a Golf Fitness Handicap, which can often display your physical competence in a way that compares to your golf handicap. All of these pieces carry significant weight in creating a golf-specific fitness plan going forward.

2. Build a Golf-Specific Fitness Plan

Based on the complete TPI assessment of the golfer’s fitness screening, creating customized training protocols is what comes next. Your TPI professional at Canyon Ranch will go through a specific protocol, or multiple protocols, to fit into your current lifestyle and fitness routine. This can range from a series of 8 or 10 mobility and strength exercises that takes roughly 25 to 30 minutes, three times per week, or a series of targeted stretches that takes 10 minutes and will help you prepare for your next round.

All necessary information is in the MyTPI app after your initial evaluation. This app is a resource for your individualized training programs and screening results. This tailored plan is critical to make the golfer’s swing more powerful, consistent, and efficient. Most golfers want to improve these parts of their physical game to help them shoot lower scores, and a personalized golf fitness plan is foundational to a better game.

3. Personalize Your Warm-up

The most common injuries for recreational golfers can all be reduced or prevented by strengthening your body and warming up properly. Traditional stretching or cookie-cutter exercises might feel like the answer to readying your body for golf activity, but they could be exposing you to more injury risk. One of the best things you can do before your rounds or practice sessions is to perform an individualized warm-up routine.

Tiger Woods may need more hip internal rotation in his warm-up. Nelly Korda may need hamstring flexibility, for example, not because of gender but because of how each person's body uniquely moves. The TPI assessment helps both the practitioner and golfer identify how the body moves to build a customized routine that blends mobility exercises with a strengthening routine. A plan with both can reduce your chances of injury.

Remember, your golf swing can put a great deal of stress on your body, and if you lack the proper strength and flexibility, there is a greater chance of experiencing pain or injury. Nothing is worse than taking a forced break from golf because your body is not cooperating.

Stronger muscles will protect your joints from all the pressure the golf swing exerts on them. A TPI-based program will ensure that strength in your lower body, core, and upper body is an insurance policy that will keep you on the golf course longer with less pain.

Related Service: Canyon Ranch TPI™ Golf Health Program