There has never been a better time to learn golf, and if you’ve come this far, it’s probably because you’ve figured that out on your own. By its nature, golf is uniquely suited for a social-distancing world—it’s a game played over a vast outdoor space, a worthwhile source of exercise, a diversion for the mind. To truly appreciate golf, however, you need to get past all the intimidating elements that might have kept you away until now. It’s a hard game, for starters, and it brings with it an assortment of equipment and customs that might overwhelm anyone coming in cold.
Every golfer has been a bad golfer at some point—many of us still are!—and you’d be surprised how much of everything you can pick up as you go. Our purpose here is to give you the basics—not only how to hit a golf ball, but what you need to hit the ball with, and anything else necessary to start your golf journey on the right foot (speaking of which, you don’t need golf shoes right away). There’s a reason Golf Digest has been around for 70 years, and it’s because there’s no shortage of topics to cover when it comes to the greatest game there is. But best to keep it simple with some basics here first. When you’re ready for more, we’re here.
Do I need lessons first? What are other ways I can learn?
The Hall of Fame golfer-turned-commentator Johnny Miller once described teaching his kids how to play golf as starting out by letting them whack balls into a pond because it was fun to see the splash. Notably, there was no talk about how to hold a club, how to swing it, or anything else technical.
Does that mean you don't ever need lessons to get better? No, a good coach will certainly help you improve. Eventually. But Golf Digest Best Young Teacher Will Robins is firmly in the Miller camp, embracing the dynamics of the game first and fine-tuning later. That means going to a practice range, Par-3 course or even an open field with a sack of plastic whiffle balls and getting the feel for making the club move around you before diving into deep swing theory.
“When you move from the phase where you're just trying to whack it to where you actually start thinking about mechanics, you stiffen up—and you probably have trouble even making contact,” Robins says.
Instead, stay connected to the feeling of swinging the club with some speed, not hitting “at” a ball. “You don’t need a swing thought beyond: ‘Get to a balanced finish and hold it for three seconds.’ ”
What are the basics I need to know to just hit the ball solid?
There are a blizzard of golf tips out there—trust us, we’ve seen them all!—which makes picking one that’s perfect for you a tricky task.
A good place to start? You can think about a good swing motion as a composite of what lots of good players do. The closer you can get yourself to some of those benchmarks—without necessarily being obsessed with copying any particular player’s swing—the more solid you’ll hit the ball. Golf Digest 50 Best Teacher Nick Clearwater is the director of instruction for GolfTEC and has swing data on more than 50,000 players at all handicap levels.
Two prime examples keeping you away from hitting a solid shot that doesn’t curve dramatically to the right? How you turn your shoulders back, and how you turn your hips through.
“For a lot of new players, the tendency is to turn the shoulders back level, as if you were turning to look behind you to talk to someone,” Clearwater says. “But tour players tilt their shoulders—so that the one closest to the target is lower—in addition to turning them.”
You can also make solid contact much more likely with a quick tip for your hips. “Beginners tend to stall hip rotation—the amount the hips are turning toward the target—on the downswing and try to control the swing with their hands and arms,” Clearwater says. “Tour players have their hips turned toward the target at impact almost twice as much.”
There are so many different clubs. How do I need to know when and how to use them?
In broadest terms, your clubs themselves will help tell you when it's best to use them. Each club is designed for a particular job—namely, to send the ball a particular distance at a particular trajectory. The longest clubs in your bag—the driver, fairway woods and hybrids—have longer shafts and less loft on the face, so the ball goes farther and runs out more. With irons, the shafts get progressively shorter and the loft on the face progressively increases, which means the ball will travel shorter and come down more steeply as you work your way down from a 5-iron to a sand wedge.
The first secret to using each of those clubs well is to set up to give yourself the best chance of success, says Golf Digest 50 Best Teacher Cameron McCormick. “For example, with a short club like a wedge, you're trying to maximize clean contact and hit the ball on the descending part of your swing arc,” he says. “That means the ball should be behind your sternum, or slightly behind center.”
Contrast that to your driver, which should be played so that the ball is set up near your front foot—a difference of at least six inches. McCormick’s Golf Digest Schools series works as a set of owner’s manuals for the different clubs in your bag, and is a great way to get more of an introduction.
What’s the bare minimum of what I need and what will that cost?
One of the intimidating things about getting started in golf is wondering whether you’re using the right clubs. As with most things in this game, the key with equipment is to start slowly but strategically. First, even if most players get there eventually, there’s no need to begin with 14 clubs in your bag. Basically you need less, not more.
You need a club you can hit off the tee on par 4s and par 5s, you need two or three clubs you can advance the ball down the fairway with at basically 100-, 150- and 200-yard increments (pitching wedge, 7-iron and a hybrid would be our choice), you need a sand wedge you can use around the green and out of the greenside bunkers and you need a putter. That’s six clubs max.
Since limited sets are rare—you might get lucky with a used set, or on eBay—that probably means your buying strategy is to invest in a full set and pare down to the minimum number of clubs to get you around the golf course.
You’ll need golf balls, but our advice at this point in your golf career is to spend less than $25 for as many balls as you can get. Once you stop losing two sleeves a round, then you can start to be a little more particular. Some other essentials we think are important:
Golf bag. Hard to find one that’s decent quality for less than $100. If you’re not sure about golf, maybe you should ask a friend who plays a lot if they’ve got an extra one in their garage. That will be sufficient for the time being, and it’ll save you some cash.
Tees. These used to be handed out for free in piles but may be less plentiful today under the current touchless environment. Buy a pack of 100, and you won’t be buying tees for years.
A divot tool to repair marks on the green will come in handy once your iron shots start to hit greens with more regularity, and you’ll buy goodwill with playing partners.
Towel. Don’t steal one from the linen closet. Steal one from your golfer friend who probably has 20 littering up his garage. It comes in handy to keep your clubs clean, and it helps when that chunky 9-iron’s backwash splatters in your face. Trust us. It even happens to the best players in the game.
That’s it, for starters. We think you can make this whole entrance to the game start for less than $500, and if you get creative, maybe even half that. Seems a bargain for the game of a lifetime.
How do I know if I’m ready for the golf course?
Can you get a 7-iron airborne off a tee with some consistency? Golf Digest Best Young Teacher Jason Birnbaum says that’s the best way to gauge whether a beginner is ready for their first time on a course. And in fact, keep a bunch of tees handy even for the fairway, Birnbaum says. That’s a great way to ensure beginners enjoy their first couple of rounds of golf. “You need to keep it fun,” Birnbaum says. “Hitting off a tight lie in the fairway can be daunting to a beginner, so help instill confidence by encouraging them to tee up their iron shots. Using a 7-iron will give the player some good trajectory along with plenty of distance necessary to keep moving along at a good pace.”
How do I get a tee time?
In the absence of access to a private course, you’ll need to secure a tee time at a public course. Call your local course, and explain you’re a beginner, and you’re hoping to play when the course is less busy, thus making it a less pressure situation for you. Often, late afternoons are great options. There are a number of tee-time aggregators (Supreme Golf, GolfNow or TeeOff.com), which is good for searching for a tee time at multiple courses at the same time. Some courses, though, are not on those websites, and they won’t be able to cater to a beginner’s specific needs, so it’s most reliable to call them directly.
Where can I go to work on my game?
Practice ranges are great. We recommend finding a facility that lets you hit off grass once you’ve mastered hitting off a mat (hitting off grass is the most realistic practice, and mats will mess with your clubs). If you have a little room at home, setting up a net to hit into is a great alternative. Anywhere with enough room to allow you to make a full swing is a good practice spot. Plastic balls are great if you don’t have a mat and are practicing in a field near you or your backyard. Those won’t hurt anyone, and will allow you to take a full swing without losing a ball. Also, look into retail stores near you: Some offer practice time by the hour. That’s a great alternative for winter practice.
I’ve always heard golf has a bunch of rules. What do I need to know to not make a fool of myself?
It’s true, golf has plenty of rules, but you should take solace knowing even many experienced players don’t know all of them. If you’re venturing out onto the course for the first time, really the most important thing is to be respectful of the people you’re playing with and the golf course itself.
For instance, it’s worth noting most other players don’t really care how good a golfer you are provided you’re not dramatically impacting their experience. That means not slowing the round down even if you’re struggling (better to give yourself a reasonable number of strokes for each hole and picking up for that hole after that). It means being mindful of not interfering with their swing by standing too close or making noise when they’re over the ball. And it means leaving the course in decent shape for others: Replace your divots when you take one with a swing; try to even out ball marks on the green if you’ve dented them with a shot; and by smoothing out the sand in the bunker either with a rake or your foot if you’ve just hit out of one.
There are plenty of other nuances you can pick up as you play more (walking in between the line of another player’s ball and the hole when you’re on the green is one we’ll give you now. Some people make a big deal about that), but if you go in with a good attitude and a willingness to admit what you don’t know, most golfers will be happy to help you learn.
Source: Golf Digest. (n.d.). https://www.golfdigest.com/story/the-complete-beginner-s-guide-to-golf