How quick should I be progressing?

[James33uk]

Hi there

I’m just a beginner after some advice, any reply really appreciated and welcomed

I’m 35 and have played golf without lessons on and off most summers since around 18. I’ve never considered myself good during these periods and every aspect from grip to hitting ball was wrong.

I decided this year I’m going to have lessons and play all year and continue to do so instead of just playing golf in the nice weather.
After the lesson I was hitting the ball like I’ve never done before and it felt amazing haha!!

I have had around 7 lessons upto now and been driving range/9 hole courses most days over say 2 months.

My question is…
How long realistically will it take for me to get a handicap around 18-20?
I’m not a member of a club or have a handicap but I will definitely do so in a couple of months.
I’ve done 2 full courses since my lessons and i finished an average at around +40

I feel the first month I was hitting the ball better and consistently than what I am doing now after having more lessons.
Is it normal to have like information/playing overload and sort of lose consistency of what I’ve learned already? (Not that I had much anyway) I’m sort of beating myself up after having such a good first month to now not performing as well as I was after more lessons

So yeah, the question is even though I’ve only been playing properly with lessons etc for 2 months and shooting +40 on the full 18
How long realistically will it take for me to get a handicap around 18-20?

Look forward to your replies

Thanks

 

[Orikoru]

The only way to properly improve is to play regularly. The lessons will help you get the ball round, but to make scores and get the handicap level down you need a short game, chipping & putting, and that comes with experience. If you can play once a week you'll start to see notable improvements within a few months I should think.

 

[PJ87]

Lessons are great but you need to process and apply what's being taught

Having them too often it just becomes supervised practice

Grind at the range what you can but practice your short game to get those scores in

 

[pendodave]

It might be hard to do, but trying to get a friend who's a half decent golfer to play a few holes with you might help to identify of there's any particular parts of your game that are causing the high scores.
Sometimes it can just be a collection of bad decisions rather than actually hitting the ball.

 

[James33uk]

Thanks everyone.
There’s some really good points here

 

[mteam]

Have a good look at your game and what is actually costing you shots. Many years ago I had an ugly swing that worked but I 3 putted every hole instead of getting better at putting I rebuilt my reliable swing. This really knocked my game backwards I still couldn't putt and now was hitting the ball all over the course

 

[HeftyHacker]

I was in a similar boat to you - played once or twice a year since I was a teenager but never really tracked scores etc.

I got hooked on it during 2020 after the initial lockdown but never had lessons and usually shot around 100, think my best was 92.

I had 3 lessons in March/April 2021 and concurrently joined a club so got a handicap. The lessons were a revelation for me and I went from shooting 100 to mid 80s pretty much immediately- my first handicap was 16.4 in April 2021 and I had got it down to 11.4 by the end of October that year, with my best round being a 76 (+7) in the August.

I was obsessed though and played constantly that year. However, since having kids my handicap has plateaued somewhat and although my lowest was 10.1 last year its since got back up to 12.

Practice is key and playing often, and with better players gives you some of the "intangibles" like course management and that touch around greens etc.

Everyone is different and have varying "ceilings" to their ability as well - I'd always been a decent enough sportsperson and able to turn my hand to most sports without being great at any. So once I had the basics like grip and basic swing mechanics I was kind of up and running pretty quickly. My aim was always to get to single figures which seemed doable once upon a time but I'm not actually sure I'll ever get there now.

 

[Backache]

Everyone is different in how quickly they learn and some never get to a handicap of 18.
Though most can with a bit of structure to practice and planning.
One thing that virtually every golfer finds though is that they are inconsistent one day you can be hitting great shots the next you seem to be duffing. This is normal and part of the frustration of golf and it's joy when it comes good.
I agree with the others when they say you have to play more to become good.
The other thing I would add is that when you practice try and have a bit of structure and purpose in your practice.
Just hitting balls doesn't help a lot and can be very frustrating.

 

[James33uk]

Everyone is different in how quickly they learn and some never get to a handicap of 18.
Though most can with a bit of structure to practice and planning.
One thing that virtually every golfer finds though is that they are inconsistent one day you can be hitting great shots the next you seem to be duffing. This is normal and part of the frustration of golf and it's joy when it comes good.
I agree with the others when they say you have to play more to become good.
The other thing I would add is that when you practice try and have a bit of structure and purpose in your practice.
Just hitting balls doesn't help a lot and can be very frustrating.

What do you mean exactly with structure and purpose for practice? Can you give me an example?

 

[Yorkhacker]

What do you mean exactly with structure and purpose for practice? Can you give me an example?

You should never practice without having a firm idea of what you are trying to achieve.
You then set yourself some specific goals/targets for your practice and for each element, eg chipping, pitching, putting, irons give yourself a score for each shot. Add up your scores and that becomes your baseline for your next session. Next session, try and beat your score.
Plenty of practice routines online. Heres a link to a random one:

Practice Routines Archives - Nick Foy Golf

 

[Neilds]

Learning to play golf is like learning to drive. You may pass your test but hen you have to put it into practice on the roads. You may be hitting the ball fine on the range but this is off a mat(usually) and a nice flat lie. On the course you have different lies, longer grass , trees. Etc so can’t just hit your usual shots. It will take time but keep at it and you will see gradual improvement- it may not be linear with some set backs along the way but it will improve

 

[timd77]

I was similar to you in that I started playing as a kid, a pro came into school and taught a few of us the basics and I played a few times a year from then on, was more into football, then had a family…

Once the kids had grown up I started to play more regularly, maybe once a month and finally joined a club in 2019. First handicap was 30, that came down pretty quickly, 6 months maybe (covid lockdown excluded), got to around 20, and then I’ve been coming down fairly steadily since, I now fluctuate between 14-16. Think I’ve reached my peak.

I’d say the biggest thing, once you can hit a ball, is course management, and you only really learn that by watching others. It’s a lightbulb moment when you see a playing partner hitting an iron off a tee where you normally just smash a driver, or laying up short of trouble rather than going for it.

The other thing is short game, chipping and putting. They have a massive impact on how you score every round.

Good luck anyway.

 

[jim8flog]

I had lessons after my first round and regular ones throughout most of my life until about my mid 50s.
I used to use a practice ground regularly (much better than a range if you can find one these days).

I was someone who took to golf very quickly, part of which was the fact that I had been a regular putter since about the age of 6 thanks to the local park having an 18 hole putting 'course'.

My golf was fairly inconsistent to begin with mainly because I used to miss a lot of greens and would often take 4 shots to get up and down from greenside I played for about 5 years before having short game lessons. In those days I could just as easily shoot 86 or 106.

My first real big turning point was joining a club where I could practice off grass and play the same course to really learn where I was dropping shots in the main.
Initial handicap of 22 became 16 in the first few months.

My advice will always remain the same take stats when you first start to work out where you drop the shots and work on that and if you really want to get the scores down work on the short game. A 300 yard drive counts as one shot, a 30 ft putt in the hole counts as one shot.

 

[James33uk]

Some really good advice here, thanks everyone so far

 

[Imurg]

Learning to play golf is like learning to drive. You may pass your test but hen you have to put it into practice on the roads. You may be hitting the ball fine on the range but this is off a mat(usually) and a nice flat lie. On the course you have different lies, longer grass , trees. Etc so can’t just hit your usual shots. It will take time but keep at it and you will see gradual improvement- it may not be linear with some set backs along the way but it will improve

Summed up by the phrase..
You learn to hit the ball on the range - you learn to play golf on the course.

 

[Surreyboy]

From my experience, your handicap wont come down until you get a good short game

You can spend countless hours on the range whacking drivers and irons and it is basically a waste, as it doesn't translate to the course.

Spend those hours hitting wedges from 30 yards to 100 yards, and spend time chipping from all kind of lies around a green to all parts of the green.

 

[Backache]

What do you mean exactly with structure and purpose for practice? Can you give me an example?

When you go to practice you should have an idea of what you are trying to practice and how you should do it.

For instance are you trying to improve strike.Then how can you measure it? Where on the club face are you hitting where are you contacting the ground?
Are you varying the shots you play, hitting many shots consecutively without a pause is usually poor for learning
Hit a couple review what has happened then hit another couple and vary your intent so sometimes you are paying pitches sometimes drives sometimes irons etc. But always have an intent and target so you can see how you are doing with resect to that.

The Practice Manual by Adam Young has some very good material, though some of it is a bit wordy.

 

[Jigger]

From my experience, your handicap wont come down until you get a good short game

You can spend countless hours on the range whacking drivers and irons and it is basically a waste, as it doesn't translate to the course.

Spend those hours hitting wedges from 30 yards to 100 yards, and spend time chipping from all kind of lies around a green to all parts of the green.

Mostly this. Whichever course you join, you need to learn how to play it. A mate has joined me at a much more challenging course than he’s used to but he’s still hitting big clubs down to where the trouble is when he’s going to gain very little advantage. Low scoring golf is boring golf at times.

my tips
- practice the hell out of:
- Short shots from your wedge distances. Get measurements for 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and full. Chipping / bump and runs around greens is extremely important as you’ll miss greens and the closer you get it to the hole the better
- Bunkers. get a lesson and learn stock shots for green and fairway bunkers. Try different clubs and see what works best for certain distances. Sometimes short game areas lack decent bunker areas so don’t be afraid of trying on the course when it’s quiet.
- Putting. Get a puttout for the house and add lines to your golf ball. When on the practice greens practice distance then lining up. I’m a vision putter but I find having a line allows me to see the ball rolling end over end and it has tightened my dispersion once I got used to lining up with the line.

You do that and the rest is just keeping it in play. When you get to 18 you have one shot a hole. Don’t be afraid of hitting 3 to the green on a par 4 and using your shot.

Read 4 foundations of golf or listen to hack it out podcast to understand how inconsistent golfers really are at differing handicap levels.

when practicing your technique from lessons, video yourself on the range to ensure you aren’t slipping out of what you have been instructed to do. Over emphasising moves will get you there quicker. Practice what your are learning in your swing 3 or 4 times more than you hit a ball.

In terms of handicap coming down, it really depends on how much you practice. Try and keep a schedule and don’t worry if you just don’t fancy it some days. Also, your handicap will be all over the place so don’t be worried If you go backwards. Never give up on a hole or a round as there always things to learn. Shotscope tracking devices are excellent and you can compare your game to slightly lower handicaps and see what part of your game needs focus.

Lastly, remember to enjoy the game. Sometime things just don’t work and you will frequently be off your handicap. We get so little time in our working lives to play so just enjoy the company.