Introduction

Golf is a wonderfully challenging sport, especially for you beginners. For many first time golfers, the initial trip to the course will determine whether they will rise again to the challenge or submit to conquering the world of Tiger Woods Golf on their Xbox; which is a great game by the way! Golf is difficult to pick up on your own without any prior experience and it can be just as much of a challenge to obtain meaningful information to help get you started. There are tons of videos, books, and professionals at your disposal, all of whom are more than happy to receive your hard earned cash, but some basic pointers will work wonders to get you on your way to golf stardom. This article will attempt to help you survive that first frustrating, yet invigorating experience. The following instructions are written for right-handed golfers. For left-handed golfers, simply reverse the instructions.

Your Clubs

Most of you first time golfers out there are probably not going to run out to your local sporting goods store to purchase a set of twelve-hundred dollar clubs, nor should you. You will most likely be using grandpa’s old persimmon woods you found in the attic or something you may have borrowed from a friend. Golf technology is improving everyday and they can make a big difference in your game, but until you have a solid foundation to build on, I wouldn’t rush into a new purchase just yet.

The Grip

The golf grip may be the single most important thing for you to get right. Even a perfect swing can be ruined by a poor golf grip. This is what ultimately determines where your club face is pointing at impact and helps you generate power and feel. Wrist action is the key here, and too tight a grip can prevent the wrist from hinging properly, creating the dreaded slice or a much weaker shot than expected. So to help get this right, a good grip can make all the difference.

What you want to do is place the club in your fingers as opposed to gripping the club with the palm of your hand like you would a baseball bat. First, place the club on the ground gripping it with only your left hand, as though you were about to swing at the ball with one arm. Looking down the shaft of the club, you should see a “V” that is created by the thumb and forefinger with your left hand. This “V” should point toward your right shoulder. Now place your right hand over your left on the club and another “V” is created. This “V” should also point toward your right shoulder. These “V’s” are parallel to each other. Now that you have a sound grip on the club, you want to be sure that you are not gripping the club too tightly. A grip that is too tight can cause weak shots that slice. This is because a strong grip doesn’t allow the wrists to hinge properly and this is a major source of power. On a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is the strongest grip possible and 1 is the weakest, try for something around a 5. This should give the wrists the opportunity to hinge properly and result in longer, more powerful shots.

Your Stance

Where to stand, how to stand, where you’re aimed, and where to place the ball are all aspects of your stance. The main thing to remember here is where you want the ball to end up. If you don’t have a good stance, then even the best swing can still result in ball that may only be found with a special golf ball GPS locater. And yes, they do exist.

One trick here is to find a divot or some other object on the ground that is pointing toward your target. Use this as a guide when you set up to the golf ball. Make sure your feet are parallel to this item and you will have a good handle on how it looks and feels to be properly aligned toward your target. Nothing available on the ground? Drop a tee, or better yet, another club.

Placing the ball is another aspect of the golf stance that gets a lot of attention. The idea here is to keep the ball aligned in the center of your stance with your mid to short irons and towards the front of your stance with your long irons and woods. That’s really all you need to remember for this first time out. There are a lot of subtle changes that can be made depending on terrain, stance, angle of attack, etc., but this article is about how to survive your first day, not how to survive your first PGA event. We’ll try to keep it simple for now.

Club Selection

Knowing what club to select and when can be tricky and everyone is different. Even the pros have trouble making the right club selection at times. A good rule of thumb is to gauge distance with your seven iron. A nice, easy seven iron will generally hit the ball around 150 yards. From here you can add or subtract about ten yards for each club. So if you find yourself at 160 yards from the flag you’ll want to give the six iron a try. Use the eight iron from 140 yards and so on. So the farther away you are from the hole, the lower the club number you will use. The closer you are, the higher the number. Now as I said before, everyone is different. There are some who can hit a pitching wedge 150 yards without a problem. Others who wish they could drive the ball that far. Use this as a starting point and you will eventually get a feel for how far you hit each of your clubs and you will have a good handle on one of the more challenging aspects of this game.

The Swing

OK, so you now have your clubs, you know how to grip them, which one to use, and even how to address the ball. So now what? It’s the moment of truth. You now have to swing the club, make solid contact and send the ball on a straight path toward your target. Easy enough right?

The golf swing is about as complicated as building a rocket ship to the moon. I’m assuming that’s a difficult feat as I’ve never actually tried to build a rocket ship to the moon. Anyway, a golf swing can be just about as unique as the individual making it. Some basic movements and tips will help you to keep the fundamentals of the swing in mind and should provide you with the tools necessary to make solid contact. Only practice will help you to perfect it.

A good swing is all about balance and tempo. All of the greats have consistency in both of these areas and while some swings may be faster than others, they all have one thing in common. They all remain balanced. Your backswing and follow-through should be roughly the same tempo. If you take the club back too quickly or follow-through with too much force, you are sure to throw yourself off balance and make very inconsistent ball contact, and potentially pull a groin muscle. Below are a few key positions to focus on when making your swing.

• Setup
• You want to make sure that you are not leaning too far forward. In fact, you should keep your posture in mind while setting up to the ball. You also want your spine to be leaning slightly away from the target. So for you righties, your spine should tilt slightly to your right.
• Even though your spine may be tilted slightly, make sure you have your weight evenly distributed between your right and left foot.

• Top of the Backswing
• As you move the club back and over your shoulders, you want to feel like the majority of your weight, say 75 percent, is supported on your right foot. If you feel as though your left foot is taking on weight as you go back in your swing then you need to stop and begin again. You want to make sure weight is being transferred to your right side as your club goes back.

• Impact
• As your club makes its way back around your body to strike the ball, your weight should now be transferred to your left foot. So now your left foot should be supporting about 75 percent of the weight. You should also be sure to keep your head behind the ball while making contact. In other words, if you were to draw a straight line from your chin down to the ground, that line should fall behind or to the right of the ball.

• Follow Through
• As you follow through the swing after impact, remember to remain balanced. If you’re falling forward or backward, then you have not accomplished balance or tempo in your swing. You should feel around 90 percent of your weight on your left foot. It should almost feel as though you’re going to roll your ankle. Although be sure not to roll your ankle or it will end up being a very short round. Whoever said golf wasn’t a dangerous sport?!

OK, clear as mud right? The keys to remember are below:

• Balance, tempo
• Setup – even weight distribution
• Backswing – 75% of weight shifted to your right foot
• Impact – 75% of weight shifted to left foot, head behind ball
• Follow-through – 90% of weight on left foot, pose for the cameras

Putting

OK, so you’ve hit a 300 yard tee shot, hit a sweet 9 iron to the green, and you’re mere feet away from making an unbelievable birdie. All that’s left to do is to get the ball to its home. You don’t need to become an expert at reading greens to make a good putt, although it wouldn’t hurt. Take a few seconds to get behind the ball and get low to the ground to help get a feel for which direction the green is sloping. Depending on how far you are from the hole, even a slight slope of the green can send your ball wildly off course. What you want to do is pick out a spot on the green to hit your ball to. Maybe there’s a leaf, a dead spot, or even a tree off of the green that can be used as a target.

Putting the ball is all about feel, so before you actually strike the ball take a few practice strokes. Visualize how hard you are going to hit the ball and imagine it rolling right into that cup. Try closing your eyes on your practice strokes, as this will help you to concentrate on the swing and the feel of the swing. This is also a good practice tip! Some pros have even done this in tournaments as it helps them to concentrate on the swing mechanics instead of being distracted with visual cues from the hole or the ball.

Don’t worry yourself with hitting your first putt. Every golfer would love to say that they consistently two putt. If you manage to make just one putt, then congratulations, that’s great, but if you walk off the course for the day and you have two putt the ball all day, then that’s a victory. With that in mind, your first putt just needs to get you closer to the hole. Don’t worry yourself with hitting it, instead just imagine a 5 foot ring around the hole and try to get your ball there. After all, it’s much easier to hit a five foot putt than it is to hit a 15 footer you're left with after trying for the miracle shot.

You sink your two putt par and are walking to the next hole with great confidence. Maybe this game is easy. Good luck and happy golfing.