TROON, Scotland—There’s nothing particularly interesting about standing around. We all do it, and professional golfers do, too.
But unlike the rest of us, tour players stand on their legs in two very specific ways. You see it a lot on the ground at tour events, and you can spot both forms at Royal Troon during the 2024 Open Championship. Especially when the weather is cold, rainy and windy, as it was during the first round.
So let’s break them down!
You’ve probably seen this one before. Players get on the green, then they’ll bounce up and down gently, probably with a slightly wider stance than usual, then hold perfectly still. Often, you’ll see them close their eyes, or raise a hand out in front of them.
This is a form of green-reading, introduced by the green-reading system AimPoint which has been widely adopted by players and fueled many spin-off variations. Standing like this is the common thread in all of them, though: When pros do this, they’re trying to feel the severity of slope in their feet. They try to stand the same way every time, and really focus on what they feel.
“You look at the tour guys, probably 70 percent of the guys are using AimPoint. It’s amazing,” says Christiaan Bezuidenhout, who adopted the method about five years ago. “Sometimes you read it with your eyes but you feel it with your feet, and the slope is less than what you see. It just simplifies it and takes the doubt out of it.”
On the driving range at Royal Troon you’ll see lots of golfers hitting golf balls. You’ll also see lots of golfers standing around, not hitting golf balls. Usually they’ll park themselves next to their golf bags, not say anything, and just look around passively without doing much. Each stand around session lasts about a minute.
It may look like they’re bored—and maybe they are—but like the first strange way of standing around, there’s a method to their madness: They’re trying to match their driving range rhythm to the rhythm they’ll soon play in on the golf course. They don’t rapid fire balls on the course, so they try to make sure they’re comfortable hitting golf balls after a slight period of not moving in the cold.
“Their body is activated from the work they did in advance,” says Marnus Marais, a physio who works with multiple PGA Tour players. “From a physical perspective, they’re ready. Their warm up is focused on getting them comfortable with the course.”
Adds legendary coach Pete Cowen:
“All the work is done,” he says. “When it’s cold and went and rounds take a long time, it’s difficult for players to swtich off and then switch back on when they need to. That’s the hardest part.”