3 Golf Tips for Beginners
Have you just recently ventured into the world of golf? Feeling intimidated and don’t know where to start? Fret no more. While golf can be somewhat intricate at first, there are some general guidelines of items to improve at the beginning. Here we have 3 tips for you to start working on the essentials of golfing.
Improve Your Stance
Stance is everything in golf. It dictates the direction of the ball, enables you to adjust to terrain and climate conditions, shapes your style, and forms many other integral parts of a sound overall game.
Another relevant fact of golf is that the stance molds the outcome of the shot. If you want the shot to go towards the left, you adjust. Do you want the ball to travel low? You can also attune your body to this scenario. To step up your results, improve your stance.
A great advantage about stance work per se is that you don’t have many logistical contrivances to work on it, as you can even do it from home. There is no need to go to the course or driving range to work on your stance. All you must have is a club and the willingness to get better.
Improve Your Drives
First, you should align your body vertically to another vertical object in the distance. Second, you have to align your feet. To do this, you must center the heel of your front foot opposite the ball, and spread your legs apart. Form a “V” shape with your arms while holding the club, and swing away!
Improve Your Putting
When putting, you have to bear in mind that your movements will have to be much subtler than with long-range shots, as the margin for error is slimmer.
Since the ball is most likely going to roll on the ground—or at least it should during most of its trajectory—you have to pick a line. Once you do so, you can adjust your body. Grab the putter, square up the clubface against the ball, position yourself over it with a neutral spine, and stroke it.
Your putting style is a craft you polish over time, once you gather sufficient experiences that justify your stylistic choices. In general, it is best recommended to opt for a standard putter grip if you’re a beginner.
Improve Your Grip
The grip is a strong component of golf. How you grip your club is a highly personal affair that varies from golfer to golfer. The only way to find out what your optimal choice is, is to experiment with different club sizes and models to see what is the most comfortable type of grip for you. Therefore, there is no right or wrong way to employ a golf club, for they are all correct to an extent. In simpler terms, an incorrect grip is the one that doesn’t work for you.
What makes grip so important is that it governs the trajectory the ball will take for the most part. Thus, practicing your grip should be one of your top priorities when you dip your toes into the world of golf. Once you become more attuned to your preferences, you can ponder practicing more intricate drills and techniques.
One distinguished upside to improving grip is that it can be done almost anywhere. Another advantage of working on your grip is that it unlocks new doors to great techniques, being the anteroom to a steady, upward progress curve in your golfing path.
Not all grips were created equal, so here we will also show you some of the basic grips to practice:
10-Finger Grip
This grip is the most traditional, and one of the oldest grips to date. It has been around virtually since the dawning of the discipline. What you do with this form of grip is grab your club with all of your ten fingers with equivalent pressure.
One of the pros of this type of grip is that it is one of the easiest grips to learn and that it is one of the grips that produces some of the fastest swing speeds. Besides, it is a very comfortable type of grip too.
However, the downsides are the amount of wrist freedom you have—something that you want to curb for the time being—and that the grip can become too tight, hindering your performance. Furthermore, the dominant hand can take over, creating shot imbalances.
Overlapping Grip
This may seem an uncanny kind of grip to some. It revolves around the idea of resting your bottom hand’s pinky finger in the division of the middle and index fingers of the other hand. It looks similar to the 10-finger grip, yet your pinky won’t be pressed against the index finger of the top hand but resting as explained.
Some advantages are that the hands assume a more unified assemble, you gain a looser grip, placing less strain on your wrists, and it is quite suitable for big-handed players.
The disadvantages are that you might struggle to square the clubface against the ball upon impact, and that it is not the best style for those that are small-handed.
Interlocking Grip
This grip looks like the lovechild of the aforementioned. If you want to do the interlocking grip, you have to assume a similar hand grip position as with the 10-finger grip, but you lock the pinky finger of the bottom hand to the index finger of the top hand. It looks like “the pinky swear”, albeit done with the index finger of one of your hands, and the pinky finger of the other one.
The upside to this peculiar technique is the club slipping is minimized, it also secures both hands together, and you don’t have to apply excessive pressure to make it work. As a bonus, small-handed golfers benefit from this sort of grip.
The downside, however, is that it is too complex for beginners, as it is already difficult to get the hands together like that, let alone swing it along a golf course. On the same hand, comfort and distance are sacrificed as well.
Improve Your Equipment
Your equipment matters too. Comfort is a huge factor in golf. Laid simply, if you are not comfortable enough, there is a great chance for underachievement to happen. The loft, the materials, and the length of the shaft matter. In general, shorter players use shorter clubs. Likewise for tall people.
It all comes down once again to personal preferences. When in doubt, ask seasoned players for guidance. Make sure to buy high-quality, long-lasting equipment though. You can get premium products at https://back2basics.golf/collections/all.
