Golf can be a challenging sport to be learned. Every player of the sport started as a mere beginner. That way everyone knows how difficult it can be to get started with the sport.
Let’s say you have been trying to go to the sport and trying to learn its kinks. You will realize the fact that all the tips or suggestions you get on your journey will help you greatly. If you focus on these tips, you will find yourself improving boundlessly at the start.
Our Ten Golf Tips for Beginners
We have tried our best to gather some of the best tips for anyone just starting up at the sport, ten to be exact. It is possible that you might have learned or come across some of these tips already.
However, when you start to consider these suggestions for your play, you will be ready to hit some golf balls. Whether it is for a practice session at a driving range or even a full game of four hours.
This list of ten tips is primarily targeted for players who start at the sport. You can follow along for play improvements even if you are a seasoned player,. Let’s talk about these tips.
1. Try Not to Swing at Full Strength
As a beginner, you will most likely be trying to swing and strike the golf ball with all your strength. This is common as most of the newbies do not have the techniques or strategies for the full game. Moreover, most of the time the target of the player is to get the ball as far as possible to satisfy their pride or to impress people or friends at the course.
Without a proper concept, you can surely get some distance on the ball with an all-out swing. That is all you will be getting out of the process. It is more likely that you will be harming your technique as well as your body than doing good.
Therefore, instead of trying to go at the ball with all of your power, you should be swinging by trying to swing the club at eighty to ninety percent of that.
The target for this practice is to get more control over your clubhead. That’s because when you are turning at less than full, you can get more control over the swing than when you are not.
Accordingly, balance is the key to striking the ball in a solid form. Furthermore, when you are going to hit the ball like crazy constantly, you will find that you are struggling to keep the balance. As a result, try to take down the force you put on the swing by ten to twenty percent to quickly improve yourself.
2. Consider More Breaks
It is quite common to see beginners or new golfer doing low breaks as they plan out their putts. Many professional golfers suggest that it is better to miss your hole playing low breaks. That is opposed to trying to pound the golf ball right into the hole.
Putts that are a little too low will most likely not make it. In this regard, you should start to split up your putts to have a better grip on the green. In addition, you might be needing to gift yourself the extra headroom later on.
Likewise, you just cannot bring up the line if you are not considering the speed of your putting. As a beginner, it is more likely that you are focusing more on just hitting the ball harder than taking a break into consideration. This is a mistake that will get you more hits off target if not anything else.
When you don’t play enough or take proper breaks, you will likely just be hitting the ball with more force than required on the line. At this rate, you will only end up missing the target as it will keep racing past the target.
What you have to fix here is in plain sight. You should be playing more breaks and hitting the putts with speed less than before. As a result of going easy on the golf ball, you will have a better chance of catching the break you want to.
Take it slow so that the golf ball can get some headroom to roll down back into the hole.
Consequently, when you go for your next sessions on putting, try to hit the putts with proper speeds. That way the golf balls halts right by the holder even if it does not go into the hole.
Once you start playing with more breaks, you should be able to see improvements within your game after a couple of sessions of proper practice.
3. Focus on the Major and the Minor Points
Many new players rush at trying to learn the techniques of swinging a club. In the process, they will look over the more basic or foundational techniques to learn the more advanced ones. This sure increases the amount of burden than reduce it.
Golf at the beginning requires a lot of patience. There is no other way to learn the sport. Therefore, go thoroughly about the smaller fundamental parts of the swings before heading on to learning strategies that come far later down the line.
Now, coming to what you should be focusing on. A very good point to start is the basics of the sport.
Grip
There should be a good relationship between the grip and your hands. It should be pleasing but firm at the same time. The grip on the club should be practiced until it starts feeling natural to you.
Stability
You probably come across this idea again and again when starting. However, there is a good amount of defense behind the concept. Balance is more emphasized in the basics of the sport over any other basic fundamental.
You should not try to take on anything else until you have got the point of good balance. This is especially true for beginners in golf.
Posture
Throughout a golf game, you will be standing with the ball a fair bit of time. Hence, it is essential to get your posture right. A decent posture is quite balanced, athletic as well as comfortable to the body.
Rhythm
Rhythm is one of those points that are mostly foreign to beginners. For rhythm, you will have to keep the golf club at the correct places throughout your swing. Moreover, you should have a steady force on the club throughout the process.
The very basics or fundamentals of swinging the golf club might not excite the beginner player, but they will surely bring good results. If you have figured out all of the mentioned points, you will be playing great golf right off the bat.
4. Use a Straight Strategy to Act
Many beginners would watch a lot of PGA tour on the television and head out with the golf equipment to try, and experience what they saw. They hold that image of professional players doing amazing things out there. As a result, they want to replicate that.
In the mean time, the problem is that unlike professional players, their skills are minimal for those wonderful swings and shots.
The thing with tour pros is that over the years they have perfected their technique and gathered tons of experience. A beginner player would not have similar techniques or the experience. Hence, it just will not work unless miracles happen.
As a tip for a beginner, you should be focused on more basic ways of getting the game right. Try to revolve your play around what you think will work with the skills you currently have.
Starting, you just cannot expect all the shots you hit to be on point. Do not aim to do what the pros are doing right off the bat. Take your time.
Instead of pointing near a hazard area to get as close to the hole as possible, take the safer bet and aim for a safe place in the green. Keep that in mind that this will only put you off just a bit rather than add higher numbers to your scoreboard.
As you keep playing more and more, you will learn to adjust yourself to play more strategically.
5. Focus on Your Short Game
Starting as a new player, you might not have enough time to put in a practice session for the sport. If so, you would want to utilize that time in a way that you improve within then as much as possible. You have to divide your practice regime accordingly for different areas of the sport.
It is very common to see beginners dividing their practice up into separate parts very poorly. They end up spending a lot of time at the driving range or the golf course working on the drivers. As a result, they end up neglecting their practice on the green.
One important tip on the list for beginners is to focus on the short game. As much as you would want to practice that driver, short game is equally vital to your game. That is if it is not more important.
Therefore, let’s say you have 30 minutes of practice on the long game. Then put in another 30 on your chipping and putting. If you have just 30 minutes to practice, put in about 10 or 15 in your long game and the rest on your short area.
The short play is crucial for players in all categories in the sport. Nonethless. it is especially important for beginner players. This is mostly because new players are more likely to mess up their long game as opposed to the short game.
The main goal of putting more emphasis on short play is to experience and understand the game better as soon as possible. Keep on putting your time as well as effort in chipping and putting. Then you are sure to be repaid with better skills out in the golf course soon enough.
6. Get the Correct Gear
The game of golf is already hard enough as it is with proper golf clubs and equipment. You can only imagine how hard it will be if you do not have the correct equipment for the job. A lot of beginners start with second-hand gear or the ones borrowed from their friends.
It is already necessary that you acquire the right kind of equipment for yourself. At the same time, you have to make sure that your clubs are fit for your playstyle. Otherwise, you would just be making the game a lot tougher for yourself than it has to be.
You don’t have to spend a large amount of money for the equipment to be able to play great. You can get decent gear fit for you for cheap from various stores as well as during the holiday sales throughout the year.
7. Try Forward Tees
Another suggestion from the list is to use forward tees at the golf course as a beginner. A lot of seasoned golfers will tell you to play with “women tee”.
Although the name sounds controversial, it does not have anything to do with gender. These tees are for the newer or amateur players who usually face issues dealing with long-range strikes.
Initially, you would want to improve at the sport as quickly as you possibly can. If you throw away your pride and play around with forwarding tees, you will be developing rapidly. You will also be having fun at the golf course as your scores tend to get lower and lower.
Focus on perfecting your game with the forward tees. You can slowly start to go back to the default tee position as you develop more like a golfer. Being independent of your gender, these women tees are great for you to get accustomed to the game.
8. Consider Pro Instructors
If you look it up on the Internet, you can surely find a ton of videos and tutorials to teach you how to play golf. However, nothing beats the personal level teaching of a face to face teacher. As a tip, consider getting yourself a pro instructor who will show you the kinks of a golf course upfront.
The sport does not usually have tons of intense practices. It is mostly based on how you learn and implement your techniques. You can surely learn the techniques all by yourself. On the other hand, an instructor would help out with those so that you can learn faster and correctly.
If you head onto looking for a golf teacher, look for someone nearby. Try to get someone who focuses on teaching younger players. For the best results, take trial exercises from the instructors if possible. Then settle for the teacher you feel most comfortable with.
Most of the trainers will show you the techniques and send you off on your own for a time to practice. Follow their advice for practice and also the given practice routine.
9. Go Easy on Yourself
Yes, golf can get extremely frustrating at times when you keep missing your target and ending up in hazard areas. In addition, you will not find many sports that will frustrate you as much as a game of golf will. As a result, before you head on in the sport as a beginner, keep in mind that it gets difficult.
Try not to beat yourself up too much out of frustration on the game. The game might be difficult to master, but with time you will be hitting those shots you thought were impossible.
As you get frustrated over your game, you will just be restraining yourself mentally. The mental restraint will only stop you from playing your game correctly and restrict you from improving. Therefore, go easy on yourself.
10. Focus on Your Objectives
If you are a beginner who aims to be on the top with the best of the best in golf, the best thing to do is setting up targets throughout the way. You will have major targets planned out with various sub-targets under them. For example, you make a standard within the middle of a golf round or perhaps three greens when in charge over 18 holes.
You should make sure that the goals you focus on are not in any way influenced by your surroundings. If you are having a great round, set up a goal to break a hundred during the middle for an instance.
Forget about whether someone in the course is hitting scores in the 90s or further down. Do not start competing with other players when you are a beginner. Instead, focus on your own development of game and techniques.
Our Final Thoughts
Golf is a game of pure will power and patience. It might be difficult for beginners to appreciate the game at first. However, as time goes and if you hold onto a steady learning process, you are bound to excel in the sport. This list of ten golf tips for beginners will help you out there and make your life a little easier.
