Golf Instruction

Stop Slicing, Start Scoring

Most slices are the result of an open club face and a bad swing path. Make sure you have a neutral or slightly firm grip. A good excercise to improve your golf swing so you make square contact is to place two clubs, parallel to each other and about 12 inches apart. Place your golf ball between the two clubs and swing away. This anti-slice excercise will train you to learn the proper swing path for your club. From impact to follow through, keep your club between the parallel clubs. Practice until your club stays between the golf club guides. Through repetitive swinging, you will find your golfball sailing straighter and your golf score getting lower.

I’m still in that transition from novice to intermediate golfer. On some days, I look amazing. On other days, I probably don’t belong on the course. The golf swing lessons I have taken in the past have been a tremendous help. I’d like to keep taking them. However, with a new, more demanding job and the second child on the way, time constraints don’t really allow for it. I recently discovered that many golf pros offer golf swing lessons online. It’s a neat way of going about it. With the help of my wife, I record my best golf swing, and then I email it to the golf pro. He gives me the golf swing lessons in the form of a written evaluation. It’s not as good as being there in person, but it will do for the time being.

I love this game more than I can express in words. I not only love practicing and playing the game, I love reading books about golf. I don’t just read training books. I love all books about golf. This includes the larger history of the game, personal histories, and the history of various golf courses. I’m like a golf book junkie. I will read any books about golf, and I just can’t get enough. I’ve read most of what the local bookstore and local library have to offer. Recently I have turned my attention to rare books about golf. I hunt for them online, such as eBay, and at used bookstores. My most recent acquisition is a charming read, The Sacred Nine, which has been out of print for nearly 20 years.

Using the internet is one of the best ways to find new tips and advice for improving your golf skills. Reading one of the many golf ebooks that are available on the internet today could prove to be very beneficial to your game in the long run. Improving your technique doesn’t always have to involve being out on the course, and reading books, magazines, and golf ebooks makes it possible for you to learn more about the game of golf at your own leisure. Many golf lovers can’t quite dedicate as much time to perfecting their game as they would like to, but the internet can allow them to learn valuable advice in just a fraction of the time that it would otherwise take out on the course with an instructor.

Most golfers would agree that golf helps one to relax and clear their head. Being out on a beautiful golf course on a nice day is often very refreshing and pleasant, whether your game is good or not. Many players believe that there is certain “Zen” aspect to golf, and some courses are even designed with “Feng Shui” in mind. This is particularly true of the way golf is viewed and played in Japan, where the sport is extremely popular. Golf helps many people to escape their day to day troubles and distractions, and to replace them with a peaceful state of mind with a deep focus on the game being played.

Beginner golf tips are intended to instill a solid action for the player who has not developed a well-rounded golf game. Golf is a sport that, as one begins to learn the ins and outs, gets complex and intricate. Beginners golf tips should teach the beginning player only how to swing the club for consistent contact. Skipping instruction over consistent contact is detrimental for players who choose to bite off more than they can chew. Often, players will focus on swinging like the players they watch on television or learning from a book that they were given, without starting from the basic swing fundamentals. Drawing the club back and swinging on plane while hitting the sweet spot are critical instruction.

When I started out as a novice golfer, the Internet was already in full effect. There were golf websites online. Unless I was sitting in the waiting area of a doctor’s office, reading a golf tips magazine never crossed my mind. However, as the Internet continued to grow, more and more golf websites and blogs started appearing. At first this was a great thing, but then it got to the point where the signal to noise ratio was extremely low. Eventually I found myself going retro. I subscribe to a high profile golf tips magazine. I still frequent the blogs and the websites. However, when it comes to the golf tips magazine, I have a lot more confidence that all of the information is valid.

A while back, I was the lucky recipient of a free golf lesson. I was badly in need of help at the time with my short irons and especially my wedges. Somehow, I was sliding under the ball so completely that I was hardly making ball contact. Since I wasn’t trying to hit flop shots, this was very depressing. I had checked all my fundamentals over and over and still the problem persisted. That’s when my friendly neighborhood pro called over to me on the range one day to tell me that I was laying the clubhead off at the top and coming down totally flat. He was right and that was the free golf lesson that saved my game!

Players of all handicaps should always take the opportunity to get a golf course lesson. Different from lessons given at the range or a practice facility, a golf course lesson allows the player to encounter situations they may face in the course of a round. Players cannot always reproduce course conditions with available practice facilities. Golf course lessons can provide, along with the experience of playing under a situation where imaginative play might be necessary, the confidence in hitting every shot a player needs when they are on the course without their coach or teacher. Playing under course conditions with peers or colleagues can be unnerving when a player faces unknown scenarios. A golf course lesson minimizes the likelihood of such an event.

To help calm your first golf instruction lesson jitters it’s a good idea to have a basic outline of what to expect. Obviously the coach isn’t expecting a pro golfer, so relax and enjoy learning the fascinating sport of golf.

Most golf instruction lesson coaches start by discussing the game of golf and asking a few questions about your golf history. They may also ask if you’ve had any previous injuries or physical limitations so they can best instruct you.

The first lesson may include hitting a few balls so the instructor can evaluate your grip, stance, posture and swing. This will enable the coach to choose a good starting point for your golf instruction lesson.

Don’t be shy. Do ask questions and have fun—that’s what golf is all about.