Learn how to play golf

Learning to play golf can be very complicated however just getting in the right attitude to take on the game can be just as hard.

“    Stop and think about what you are trying to do before you ever hit the ball, you should never just walk up look and swing.

“    Do not try and over accomplish. If you know you cant get the ball all the way out to the sweet spot set your self up with a good shot that is possible.

“    Give it your best shot each and every time you pull out a club to hit the golf ball.

This advice is good for each and every golfer, whether he scores in the  mid sixties or the hundreds: three thoughts to serve as a basic guide in any keen golfer’s approach to the game - something you could even write on the back of your golf glove or write at the top of your score card or put in a prominent placard in your mind’s eye. Let’s look at the tenets individually.

Stop and think about what you are trying to do before you ever hit the ball, you should never just walk up look and swing.

This really has two meanings. One obviously relates to summing up the shot in terms of distance, trajectory, ground and wind conditions, the lie of the ball, potential trouble areas, and so on. Thousands of golfers give insufficient attention to such matters. They simply grab a club and whale away almost blindly and wonder why, even when hitting the ball well, they never make a decent score.

Every golf hole and every golf shot requires thought. The better you can picture a given shot in your mind’s eye, and the clearer your mind is about the shot you intend to play, the greater your chance of accomplishing it. Even that simple lesson alone would substantially lower many handicaps.

But there is more than assessing the shot in knowing what you are trying to do at golf. You want to know not only what the ball should do, but what you yourself are trying to do to get the ball to behave in that way. You need to know, consciously, what you are trying to do with your swing.

It doesn’t matter whether it is a good swing, or an agricultural heave; if you have a single focal thought, you will have a better chance of making it work, not once in a while but repetitively. Repetition is the golden key to golf, and it usually starts with a repetitive thought pattern.