A great way to get some physical exercise done naturally on a golf course is by carrying your golf bag and having a full round walk. You’ll enjoy the walk too, done for the sake of the game.
But it could be rather harmful than useful and might not be as pleasing to your back if you do it wrong. And by doing it wrong I don’t mean to indicate how you walk, rather how you carry your quite heavy golf bag, which is something that gets overlooked often.
When carried wrong, it could be detrimental to your health in the long run, and you’ll not enjoy the walks and might get stressed out often.
But you’re in luck; since we talk about every ins and outs of golf here, we’ll not let any seemingly small issues go unaddressed. Here’s the start to only 5 minutes read about carrying your golf bag properly so it doesn’t create any health issues (i.e back pain) in the long run.
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How to Carry a Golf Bag With One Strap?
It might seem quite obvious – carry it in your dominant shoulder, but then again, why do you get occasional back pains? Few simple tricky points here.
Let’s start at the bottom of the process – loading the bag. Firstly, your shoulder shouldn’t be stress-tested with a ton of weight, be that your dominant one. It has a maximum capacity of carrying weight somewhat comfortably for a long time, which you already should have an idea of.
Try not to exceed that in the first place. Otherwise, it might cause your spine to lean slightly toward your dominant side and ruin your natural posture.
Next, loading the bag in a fashion that the weight gets evenly distributed. First, arrange everything in a place that you have to carry instead of keeping to gather and load them one by one.
When you have everything gathered in front of your eyes, you’ll develop the idea of the overall weight and you can plan to load them in the bag maintaining an even weight distribution. Make sure you keep your clubs in consideration as well.
About carrying the bag, the general and natural rule is to carry your bag on your dominant shoulder. But it could get stressed out too and when it does so, instead of subconsciously wondering where that sort of sense of discomfort is coming from, be aware and remember to change shoulders.
Next tip, adjust your straps properly. The default configuration of the straps of the bag is not likely to suit everyone since our bodies have somewhat different architecture.
You might have never played around configuring the straps perfectly rather used it with the default configuration and kept wondering why your golf bag doesn’t feel as comfortable as it should be.
This is why. Give strap adjustment a shot and judge the results.
More Read: Sun Mountain C-130 Golf Cart Bag review 2022
How to Carry a Golf Bag With Two Straps?
Two-strap bags seem like a more comfortable option to carry around and they actually are, since the weight is carried combinedly by both the shoulders. However, that doesn’t mean you could overlook the recommendations here because we all know that we put more stuff in a two-strap bag than a one-strapped one.
With two-strap bags, the weight distribution factor while loading the bag becomes even more important. If not done so, it’ll put more strain on one shoulder than the other which is a really unhealthy practice and discomforting too.
So follow along with the instructions of properly loading your golf bag from the discussion above and do the job properly.
Also, you shouldn’t think that just because you’re using a two-strap bag instead of a one-strapped one, you could carry the world in it. A maximum and comfortable weight limit should be followed in this case too.
Oftentimes, we tend to carry around stuff in our golf bag that we never really use. That old and unusable ball doesn’t need to be there, neither does the old scoring sheet. Cutting weight needs to start somewhere and no small thing should be neglected because a number of them add up to have a noticeable impact. Read our guide on how to organize your golf bag to learn how to declutter.
Adjusting the strap plays quite an important role for dual-strap bags too or any bag for that matter. Make sure you’ve adjusted it to the right position before you go.
The bag should be higher up on your back which is the common way to tell that it’s adjusted correctly for comfort. Also, the clubs should be laying just around your lower bag, not on the hips. I see many golfers around have too much slack with their bag straps which is awful for the posture.
And I always recommend getting a two-strap bag because golf bags are no lightweight when it’s loaded so no matter what technique you follow, it’s going to put strain when carried with only one shoulder.
Carry Your Golf Bag With Your Legs!
One of the major mistakes that golfers tend to make while carrying their clubs is that they have an awful posture and do not tend to lift with their legs. One should be standing tall having their chest out and shoulders rolled back.
But sadly it is more common for golfers to slouch over their shoulders while they’re rolled forward. This way they are taking a toll on their spine and joints when it’s done incorrectly.
This is basically putting your body in an unhealthy and awkward posture for up to four hours, and you can see how this is so detrimental to your health.
You should be learning as a golfer to lift with your legs or else you might face quite some problems in the future run, especially when it’s a heavy bag that you’re carrying.
Again, Do You Really Need to Care About Carrying Your Golf Bag?
I know it might have sounded a little more rigorous than you had expected which may lead you to think – Do I really need to care about how I carry my golf bag and remember these many facts to do it correctly?
Well, first off, it might seem a lot on paper, but it would take not more than a minute to demonstrate this process in video format, so it’s not much really. You’ll understand once you’ve tried it a couple of times and then you wouldn’t probably need to put active attention behind this, it’ll be done subconsciously.
But not making this effort and continuing to carry your bag in the wrong way might harm you a lot more than you had expected, again. Back pain is a terrible terrible thing and this could be the starting of it.
Or if you had one sleeping for a while, this unhealthy practice might be the trigger to revive that pain.
Also, how you carry your golf bag might impact your play as well. Not carrying one properly may cause exhaustion during a round and what could be worse than being sore while you swing the club.
It might seem a bit stretched but it’s one of those overlooked tiny details that could impact your gameplay and your health in the long run.
Hi, Gregg Foley here Golfer & Sportsman.Want love to play Golf. I share my experience in this blog. Beginners & also experts will be benefited from golfersolution.