I’m not going to say you have to warm up before a round in order to play well. I’ve warmed up and played indifferently. I’ve also gone straight to the first tee, took a few swings to get loose, and shot even par.

But in general, you’ll play better if you warm up first, and better still if you warm up correctly. There’s more to it than just beating balls. A lot more.

It certainly helps to hit a few balls just to get relaxed, loose, and, well, warmed up. Literally. Move your muscles around by swinging the club lightly, even like a baseball bat at first, enough times for your muscles to actually heat up a bit. As you get older, this becomes more important for preventing injuries.

You want to hit a few balls to remember how your swing works. Much of the time, the first four or five balls I hit make it look like I picked up a golf club for the first time last week. Then everything falls in place and I have my swing back. I would rather hit my clinkers on the range than on the first few tees and fairways.

I like to hit one shot with every club. I don’t want to have to hit my 8-iron for the first time on the fifth hole. I would rather already have made friends with it that day.

Are there special shots you need to hit on this course? A tee shot around a corner? and approach over a tree? Rehearse them on the practice tee.

But let’s get down to subtle things that will make a big difference.

Find the tempo you will use today. Find the tempo that lets you swing as fast as you can without feeling like you’re forcing it, and lets you maintain your 3:1 swing rhythm. It might be a little faster, or a little slower than you think you normally use. That’s OK. It’s your tempo for today.

Then move on to ball position. You’re looking for the low point of your swing, so you can set up with the ball an inch or so behind. Move the ball back and forth between shots to find the position where you get the most solid strike.

Next, practice your aim. You don’t have to hit any balls to do this. Set yourself up to some marker downrange with a club or an alignment stick behind your heels. Reach back with your clubhead and pull the stick against your heels. Now step out of your stance and see if the stick/club is aligned parallel left of where you were aiming. Keep setting up to different targets until your sense of aim is spot on.

Have you ever gone to a professional tournament and watched the players warm up? Here is something they do not do:

Pull a ball over, set up, look downrange, hit the ball, watch it for a bit, pull over another ball, set up, hit it, watch it for a second or two, pull over another ball, and so on.

What they do is take their time. They take their time. They pull over a ball, take their time getting set up and aimed, hit it, and watch it until it lands. Then they’ll take a few practice swings, or practice a swing movement, and without being in any hurry, drag one over, take their time getting set up, hit it, watch it, and so on.

They’re practicing being deliberate when they have a shot to make. They’re not practicing to take five and half yours to get around the course, but not to be in a rush when it’s time to hit.

If warm-up like this, and get clear on tempo, ball position, aim, and deliberation, you will, on the whole, play as well as you can much more often.

These are a few things you must be able to do to call yourself a golfer. How many of them do you KNOW how to do?

Hit an intentional fade

Hit an intentional draw

Hit with the ball below your feet

Hit with the ball above your feet

Hit from an uphill lie

Hit from a downhill lie

Hit the ball higher than normal

Hit the ball lower than normal

Hit the ball 125 yards with your 9-iron, 8-iron, and 7-iron

Hit out of fairway bunker

Hit out of a greenside bunker to a specific distance

Pitch to any distance between 50 and 100 yards

Play a chip that checks quickly, and another than runs, with the same club

There’s more, but this is a good enough start. You can add others on your owns you discover them.

How do you learn to do these things? Well, you don’t learn by trying to figure it out yourself. I have posts on most of them, but the best way is to get a lesson.

Have a pro show you how, and take notes. Then practice.

You want to get to the point where the course cannot give you a problem you don’t already have a solution for.

A few weeks ago, I put up a post that was secretly about the benefits of playing conservatively. This post is openly about doing the opposite.

I’m not contradicting myself. I’m just giving you something else to think about.

You’re on the course, looking over a tricky shot, and thinking, “I know I can hit that shot, but if I miss, there’s water/bunkers/OB/etc. I’d better play it safe to keep from shooting the Big Number.”

So you do, and take a Gentleman’s Bogey to the next tee, no happier, and still wondering if you should have tried that riskier shot.

Yes, you should have. You’ll never know how good you are if you never take a challenge, or if you don’t learn how to take a challenge. And most of all, you’ll never have all the fun golf can provide.

Not every shot is challenging. I’m talking about five or so shots per round. If you have the shot in your bag, accept the challenge. Play a full-sized game. Don’t go small every time.

Say you’re 80 yards from the pin, but it’s tucked behind a bunker. If you have confidence in your pitching game, don’t chicken out toward the center of the green. Play right for the pin.

That’s how you’re going to get your up and down. Regard the bunker as out of play. Forget about it. Play for down in two instead of guaranteeing down in three.

Narrow driving hole? Out comes your fairway wood or some kind of hybrid iron.

But if you have a little fade with your driver you can hit whenever you want to (and that’s not a hard shot to learn) go with the Big Dog.

Yes, sometimes you won’t pull off the challenging shot and you’ll end up with a double bogey. So? There are seventeen other holes.

Or you don’t want to play this way because bad rounds will raise your handicap. Well, the low scores you’ll shoot offset the occasional bad ones, and why do you even have a handicap anyway, when all you’re out there for is to have fun?

It comes down to this. Don’t play stupid shots. But if you know you can do it, then do it. Stretch yourself. Step out of your rut.

You become a better player by hitting shots better players hit.

And you’ll have more fun.

I want to ask you to try three different ways of playing golf. They come from a book titled, Golf Is a Very Simple Game, by Jonathan Fine.

The book is a summary of the teachings of the golf teacher Francisco Lopez. I recommend this book to you, and its companion volume, What’s This Got to Do With Golf?

You are going to make three plans for playing a round of golf on a course you know well.

There is likely to be a map of the course on the scorecard. Make three blown-up copies of this map to twice its size on the scorecard.

You can make marks on the maps to show where you would want to play the ball, and which clubs you would use.

1. On one map, make a plan to get onto every green in regulation.

2. On the second map, make a plan to stay in the fairway at all times, and out of rough, bunkers, trees, water, and what have you.

3. On the third map, make a plan to get on the green in one shot over regulation on every hole. No GIRs allowed!

After you have done that, play one round with each plan, following it strictly.

As Fine says, “See what happens.”