How long?

Tiger

Tiger

Money List Winner
Joined
Aug 19, 2009
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Location
Suffolk
rub-of-the-green.blogspot.com
Pretty much all the golfers I know taught themselves how to play and may have taken lessons later on. As a result they had a reasonable idea of how to score and were then tweaking. I've taken lessons from day one and incorporated tweak after tweak. My pro is pleased with my progress and is urging me to remain patient.

Just wondered if anyone else has started with lessons and how long it took you to really feel like you'd made progress. I'm ok at the moment but know loads of other people that have made much more progress than me in a shorter space of time.

Thing is I can hit a golf ball but my faults mean it used to go too far right now it goes too far left. Work in progress...
 
I started aged 10 when my dad took me to Sandown Park golf centre where they had a week of junior lessons. It went through all the basics and culminated in 9 holes on their par 3 course. Plus they provided a dustbin full of balls each day and we could keep going until the bin was empty.

As my dad was content having a few beers (this was 1976 and before DD) he was more than happy for me to stay out there and hit as many as I wanted. You can see that my insane desire to practice was actually indoctrinated from the beginning and isn't anything new
 
Tiger,i am quite surprised you have not reduced your handicap by now,of course i havnt followed your blog since you gave up your quest,but surely you must have improved.Thats why ive never embarked on lessons,it seams to me a waste of money unless you see results.How long?how longs a piece of string.They say if its not broke dont fix it,but they also say if its not working change it.
 
I think I played on municipals for about a year, and then joined my club, and got my handicap of 21.
Then spent the next 2yrs obsessively trying to get it lower, practising, tweaking, and being completely utterly frustrated.
Strangely, I finally told myself to stop caring and start enjoying, and before I knew it, I was down to 14, and soon after 12.

Lesson there for everyone I think, but particularly anyone starting out in the game.
Even now, I never dwell on bad rounds, or beat myself up about it, it's just counter-productive and plants seeds of doubt that eat away until the next round.
Works for me.
 
Tiger
Everyone learns at different rates. I get this every week from parents who think their kid should be learning to drive quicker than they are. Some waltz through it, some take forever. Sometimes the ones you think will breeze it end up taking longer than the first-time duffer.

It'll come. Keep at it and it will come. If I remember you've played sports to a decent level in the past - this will count in your favour. You're obviously a player.

Keep the faith!
 
Tiger, I started off 28 just like everyone else. I had no lessons and was taught off my dad, he wasnt a pro or anything. After 6 months or so i was still off 28, still learning the ropes and how to put a score together. To be honest i was still trying to decide if i liked the game. It took a further year and a half and i was playing off 12.
 
Tiger, i'm not going to be very helpful, as i started with six lessons when i was 13. Only had a few more with a great teacher, Carl Mason's dad, when i got to single figures.

Once you have got the basics its practice, playing, and a bit of fine tuning from the odd lesson.

Good luck.
 
I suppose the challenge for me is I bed one thing in and then get another swing change and it's like starting again. It's the approaches and drives that cost me. When the swing goes wrong it costs me shots for fun. I'm keeping the faith but like you PJ had expected to make some handicap progress by now.
 
Don't stress, when you do start to improve it can be at a very fast rate. It is one of the hardest games to learn from scratch (no pun intended).
 
Took me about two years before I thought of myself as a golfer.

I had a handicap of 17 and couldn't play well, but wouldn't embarass myself if I played with the best members.

I got to 13 about 15 years later.

I'm now happy playing to 18. Next year ( always 'next year'), I will improve a lot more.

:)

I'm a great believer in lessons,

BUT

I also think you have to develop your own swing. Once you have an idea of what YOU are trying to achieve ( not the pro btw ) then you need to spend some time on your own seeing what feels right to you - you may end up with a swing a tad too flat, or with a natural fade rather than a draw. But until you spend enough time relaxing and seeing what comes out the other end, you wont know what is natural for you.

Then you take that back to the pro and let him work WITH you to develop your swing. If your pro just wants to force you into his ideal shape, then you know you're talking to the wrong guy.

:cool:
 
Once I'd decided.to.try and play this game properly I spent an entire winter on the range. I read books, looked at the instruction parts of the magazines and made sure I knew what to do. Ok I couldn't do it but I knew what to do. So instead of joining the club and playing, I worked on swinging. If something went wrong I'd try and fix it. In the Spring I felt "good" enough to join. Started playing and got my first.handicap of 15!!.
All that work paid off.
 
I had a natural ability to swing a club, Im lucky that any ball or bat/ball type sport is easy to pick-up for me.

However with my golf, I had lessons straight-away from a pro I knew at the local driving range.

I had made great progress going from shooting 100's to breaking 80 in 18 months or so.

Finding it hard now I have come back after an injury though. The desire to practise isnt there, I am petrified of injuring myself again I think.
 
I played probably once a fortnight about 4 years ago and didn't take anything seriously at all and I was shooting about 130 in my first ever round down to about 105 average once I got used to playing on a proper course. This lasted for 2 years only playing on and off. In 2007 (summer) I started to play more frequently probably once a week and started to see my handicap drop when I got the basics right with some lessons. Had a set of 4 lessons and that was it. With the basics I got down to 18 by the start of 2009 when I got my first membership.
I played probably 3 times a week from April to September and was shooting some low scores down to around 80. Probably averaging 82 consistently. At April I did start having lessons and had one a month with a good pro (also a good friend too) as well as hitting the practise ground and putting greens too. So for the 6 months I played 3 times a week and practised hard and took plenty of shots off my game.
New membership this season and got 8 handicap back in march.

So to sum up a long winded story, I went from 28 to 8 in 18 months by grinding in what my pro told me to do by playing hard and practising hard.
 
So many answers required. Right

I've been playing now for 14 months and had about a lesson a month. I have changed teaching pros. I had 12 lessons with my first pro and gave had three with my new pro.

My consistency over 18 holes causes me problems. I can play 9-12 holes at par or bogey and then ruin my card with some astronomical scoring. I think this is reflected in my eclectic best (73) and worst (161) recorded on scoresaver 2. This is over 21 rounds and par is 71.

I started playing August 2009 but was only on the range and a local, featureless par 3. Then in March I played my first 18 holes. I joined a club in April and I finally passed my driving test at the end of July, which has given me the ability to play and practice more often and when I wanted to.

Another factor is that u was only using irons till mid summer and only bought my hybrid last month. I suppose in all honesty I've hamstrung my own progression
 
I respect your decision not to have a driver... but the time has come! :)

At 31 you can be trusted, otherwise it might take you another 2 years to learn to hit one. Integrate it into your practice.. you don't have to use it if you don't want to.. I generally hit mine into the trees 90% of the time (or more) so MAN UP and do the right thing ;)
 
Well seeing as you've only really been playing proper golf on full size 18 holers since April I wouldn't be hitting any panci buttons yet. I read the blog and the problems you were having with the pro and so a change is probably a good idea.

I totally agree with what craphacker says though. Whilst it would be wonderful in an ideal world to have a textbook swing that was always on plane and had a full coil and great release into impact, life isn't that simple. For most of us, there are certain foilbles in our swing which will always be there.

In my case I have a lifting action and a bit of a reverse C position. I am working on just this move this winter to try and get more on top of it at impact. Alll my other idiosynchrasies can wait or I'll accommodate them as best I can. The point is that as long as it is something that repeats more often than not and is something you can trust under the cosh of a good medal card then there is no point worrying how it looks as long as it gets the ball off the tee nice and straight and the irons find the green.
 
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