Anybody play Golf?

[StormStalker]

I bought a set of golf clubs a couple weeks ago and was just wondering if anyone here plays? Maybe someone could point me in the direction of some good online resources to look at. I know the rules (for the most part) of the game but getting the techniques down is what I'm most interested in.

 

[Jacob]

A couple lessons from a good teaching pro would be my top recommendation. Just to help make sure you are going in the right direction. Learning to swing the wrong way initially can make adjusting later much more difficult. You can develop bad habits without knowing it, and it feel perfectly normal. You'll fight that natural feel later on when you are taught how to do whatever it is correctly. For example, I taught myself how to hit a fade as my primary shot a few years ago, but my natural swing is a draw swing, and I could be playing great but would have a couple really errant shots where it was like the two swing thoughts were fighting, and for me resulted in a weak right block.

As far as literature, I've honestly never looked much there because I was taught most of the fundamentals/techniques by my dad probably about as soon as I learned how to walk, ha. I know there's a few books over the years that he's enjoyed re-reading about the golf swing, so I'll see if I can find what those are.

Oh and one more piece of advice. Most important part of the game is chipping and putting, by far. High handicap golfers often lose a ton of strokes right around the green, because that part of the game is often just ignored. People will chalk it up to "oh I'm a bad putter" or "oh I'm terrible at chipping", but they'll spend all their time practicing on the range and never chip/putt. Since you are just starting out you obviously need to learn how to keep the ball on the golf course, but the quickest way to start scoring on the course is to get good with your putter/wedges.

 

[warneagle]

Yeah, I'd echo basically all of this. It's worth it to learn to do it the right way from the start rather than having to unlearn bad habits.

Then again I've been playing for >20 years and I'm still terrible so maybe don't listen to me.