1. Someone has suggested golf to you as a sport you might enjoy; or,

2. You are feeling some social pressure from others, e.g., colleagues at work.

In the first case, you just have to find out whether golf would be fun for you or not. In the second case, my guess is that you feel it necessary to learn golf so you can join in on the ‘bonding’ and ‘networking’ experience, even if golf doesn’t excite you all that much.

So, if you need some ‘convincing’, then read on!  There are plenty of good reasons to learn golf, and you’ll find them here.

Reason #1: Mental Focus

Golf is a game of focus and strategy. You use your mind, your senses and your ability to time and coordinate movements at every step of the game.

Golf is not a game of brute physical strength the way some other sports are.  In fact, the stronger you are, the more you’ll probably have to work on containing and directing that strength when it comes time to hit the ball.

The best players are those who have learn to still their minds and visualize making that perfect swing. It may look easy from the outside, but there is actually a lot of ‘multi-tasking’ going in the mind of a golfer.

You learn to judge distances and correlate those distances with the amount of force to apply in your swing. At the same time, you must aim your swing and account for any factors that might change the direction of the ball.

Believe it or not, training yourself to focus in this way will have useful applications not just in other sport, but in other areas of your life. If nothing else, it teaches you to take a step back and calculate all of the variables standing between you and a goal.

Reason #2:  Low-impact Exercise

You can actually get a great work-out by playing golf.

How?

First, consider the motion of a full-on golf swing. Even if you’re in tip-top shape, you’re probably going to feel sore in your arms, shoulders, lower back and maybe even your abdomen the day after your first round of swinging that club.

Next, consider that each hole on a given course can be separated by anywhere from 200 to over 700 yards, with varying types of terrain.  Unless you rent a cart, you’re going to be walking those yards and lugging around a bag full of clubs to boot!

All that walking is a great, low-impact work-out for your entire body.

Reason #3: Respect

Golf is also a game of respect — for the rules as well as other players. Some would say that golf is the most ‘civilized’ or ‘dignified’ of sports. Even though you may want to ‘best’ your ‘competitors’, the person you’re really playing against is yourself.

There are no ‘tackles’ in golf,  and there is no ’stealing of plays’. Everyone takes his or her turn in an orderly fashion, and keeps an eye out on the location of other players at all times so as not to strike them with a club or bean them with a stray golf ball.

Reason #4: Business and networking

This is probably what many people think of when they think of golf: wealthy and/or connected individuals making sweetheart deals over 18 holes at the country club.

It’s a stereotype, but one with a lot of truth to it.

Golf was once a sport strictly of the upper-classes in Scotland and England. Even in the United States, many of the best greens were connected to exclusive country clubs that the average person couldn’t access without knowing someone on the inside.

Thankfully, in this day and age, golf is a much more inclusive and accessible past-time for the average person, as well as anyone else looking for an informal activity to share with friends, clients, partners, colleagues, etc.

You can hold relatively private conversations while playing golf, and you don’t have to change into a uniform to play, either. In fact, you can play golf in a business suit if need be, although you’ll probably want to take off your jacket!

Those are the four biggest reasons I can think of for why you should learn to play golf. If you still aren’t convinced, then rent a set of clubs and do a few practice rounds on a local course. You just might enjoy it after all, once you get the ’swing’ of it!

Proper grip is important in driving. If you grip your club too tightly, you might get too uncomfortable to make an accurate shot. If you grip it too loosely, then you might see your club fly along with your golf ball. What you want is to grip it properly. For everyone, your less dominant hand (the one you don’t use for writing) is essentially a strong factor. You don’t want the club to be positioned too high in your palm and you don’t want it too low either. A diagonal position is a preferred grip of the club with respect to your less dominant hand.

Your dominant hand should be less dominant. Don’t let that hand grip the club too tightly or too loosely. This will not help you with your drive. You want it to be loose and relaxed. You might want to put a gap between your first and second fingers. This will give you more power and proper angle to your shots making your drive longer and more accurate.

You should make sure your hands are linked together. Try sticking out the thumb of your less dominant hand and covering it with the palm of your more dominant hand. This will ensure that your grip is tightly secured by your two hands. It would also help your shot as your more dominant hand supports your less dominant hand and vice versa.

Proper alignment is needed. You should align your club’s face to the direction you want your ball to go to. After that, align your feet with your club and as you prepare your drive just stay parallel with your club’s face pointing your shoulder and hands in the same direction.

You should also have the proper stance with regards to your ball position. Try doing this if you don’t know how. After aligning your shots, first put your feet together keeping them pointed to the ball. Then try to move your left feet outward a little. After that do the same thing with your right foot. Keep on doing this until you feel you are comfortable with your stance. Just remember that your feet should also not be more than shoulder-width apart.

The next part is the swing. This is one where you need to practice doing it correctly. You want your shoulders and hands and feet to be loose and relaxed. Try swinging the golf club back and forth just to get into the proper rhythm and create a flow to your golf swing. Remember not to sacrifice your accuracy just to bring in more power to your shot. A balance between the two is better.

To achieve more distance to your swing you want to go through these checkpoints. You must check if your upper body is coiling properly. Your base or your feet should be rock solid and stay intact with your lower body. Your left knee (or right if you are left-handed) must turn past the golf ball as you coil your upper body and your arms must be extended to their full length to achieve maximum swing.

Another trick to achieving distance is to tee your ball higher. This will help you achieve two things. The first one is a better angle on your launch as your club face will hit your ball at a lower place. The other thing is it will help you reduce friction from too much backspin from the ball.

Remember that driving is not easy to master. Even professional golfers have a problem with accuracy of their shots. The thing to remember is to check your stance, your grip and your swing. Don’t be scared to ask for advice if you know you need it. You will also need to practice. Try practicing your swing before you play. Remember the checkpoints and ask for feedback from your trainer if you feel you are doing something wrong.

This lack of ‘absolutes’ makes it nearly impossible to provide a simple, all-encompassing list of ‘quickie’ guidelines for the beginning golfer.

However, you can greatly minimize the difficulty of learning the rules of golf when you understand the following ‘big picture’ fundamentals of the game:

Big Picture #1:  The ‘Committee’ Rules Over All

Two governing bodies:  United States Golf Association (USGA) and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St.Andrews work together to enforce and oversee the rules of golf. Both the rules of the game, and of amateur status, are updated every four years.

The interesting thing about this, and about golf in general, is that questionable plays can actually bring a game to a halt until the matter is resolved by the committee. For example, let’s say someone knocks both your ball and theirs into a water hazard, and neither of you can find a rule to cover the situation.  What do you do?

In most cases, you can refer to a publication called, “Decisions On the Rules of Golf” in order to find the answer. Most clubhouses will have a copy of this on hand.

If you’re playing under amateur status (not just knocking balls around for practice, and you can’t find an answer in the official rule book or the ‘decisions’ book, then you can stop that round of golf and contact someone on the official committee.

Once the ruling is made, you can then resume that game..even it’s weeks in the past!

Big Picture #2:  Understanding And Memorizing The Terms And Definitions

Semantics matter in golf. For instance, if a rules states that you “may” go ahead with your turn after ‘x, y or z’ has occurred, it means that your play is optional. You can choose not to take it.

May = optional

Should = recommended

Shall/Must = required, and a penalty will be incurred if you do not comply.

Beyond this, it also makes a difference whether a rule refers to ‘A Ball’ or ‘The Ball’. When a rule uses the term ‘a ball’, it means that you may substitute another ball if necessary to complete the play. However, if the rule references ‘the ball’, then you may not substitute.

Big Picture #3: Know Which Questions to Ask

Making a ruling in golf is a lot like making a ruling in a court case: you have to think like a judge, and establish the facts of the situation as follows:

1. The Form of Play:  Did the situation arise during match play, stroke play, single, foursome or four-ball?

2. Who Is Involved?: You, your partner, your caddie, a stranger or a random force of nature?

3. Where Did It Happen?:  Did the incident occur on the teeing ground, putting green, in a water hazard, etc?

4. Intention:  What did the play do, and what was he trying or intending to do?

5. Subsequent Events:  What took place after the incident in question? Did the player concede his turn? Did you both agree to quit the game or continue playing?

Big Picture #4:  Learn By Doing

From here on out, things get a lot easier. You’ve got a template to follow for determining the rules, and some fall back options if needed. You also know the ‘absolutes’ when it comes to the phrasing of the rules (e.g. ‘a ball vs. the ball’, ‘must’, ‘may’, etc).

The best thing to do now is learn the details game by game. In other words, dedicate yourself to playing rounds of just one type of game, such as ‘match play’ or ’stroke’ play, and learn the rules for each type.

This way, you’ll pick up all the rest of the universally applicable rules at once, and each subsequent type of game thereafter is a matter of learning the differences in the details!

The basic scoring procedure at each hole comes down to strokes. In order to win a hole, your side must ‘hole the ball’ in fewer strokes than the opposing side.

For example, let’s say you’re at the fourth hole and the opposing team manages to get the ball into the hole after 5 strokes. Then, your team goes, and it happens to be your turn to hit the ball.  Being the golf wizard that you are, you sink the ball after only 2 strokes. Bingo! Your team is the winner of that hole.

Now, let’s also say that, up to the fourth hole, your team has won 3 out of 4 holes played. Unlike other sports, you don’t say that you’re winning 3 to 1. Instead, you say that you are “up by 3”, while the other team is “down by 3”.

You’ll also hear golfers use terms such as “holes up”, “all square” and “so many to play.”  If both sides are in a tie, for example, you’ll say it’s “all square.” If you’re halfway through a typical course, you might say: “We’re 4 up with 9 to play”, if you’ve won 4 holes and lost 5 to that point.

What happens if your side has won as many holes as there left to play? For example, maybe it was a bad day and you’ve won only 4 holes by the time you reach the sixteenth hole?  The proper term in that case is: “dormie.”

This is it as far as the basics are concerned. You’ll want to check with an up-to-date rule book to determine what to do for special cases such as penalties on ‘halved holes’ as well as stroke, hole or match concessions.

In the ‘old days’, so to speak, golf wasn’t nearly as genteel as it is now. There were no lawnmowers or dedicated groundskeepers to eke out beautiful courses.

Instead, the Scots of St.Andrews sought out their own greens among the hills, and golfed upon any reasonably navigable stretches they could find. In other words, the locations and distances between holes were dictated by the surrounding terrain.

Despite this ‘in the rough’ approach, the Scots did establish a general ‘green’ as well as a clubhouse in the area of Fife.  Players began their game at the clubhouse and played each hole to the end of the course (usually eleven holes), then back-tracked to play each hole  to the clubhouse for a grand total of 22 holes in an average game, rather than today’s standard of 18.

Additionally, the equipment used to play golf was primarily made of wood all the way up to the nineteenth century. Only in the advancement of modern material and manufacturing did we end up with irons, dimpled balls, tees and today’s lightweight graphite composite clubs.

As the game of golf grows in popularity, it also breaks down barriers. For much of its history, golf has been a game of English-speaking countries. However, the sport is now catching on across the globe with new courses opening up in Asia and Africa — many of them ‘firsts’ in their respective countries.