21 Golf Tips For Beginners: Take Your Game To The Next Level

Golf is a great and challenging game you can enjoy with your friends, making it fun. Though some call it a game of expenses as the equipment is quite costly, with proper maintenance, you don’t have to spend your penny every day. 

Another aspect is that you don’t necessarily need a club membership as you can play the game indoors and outdoors in places that don’t have a course.

Learning to swing with proper position and focus helps you, but there’s a massive line between your aim and how to achieve that.

Golf Tips for Beginners in 2024

Yeah, guys, I can resonate with it well, as once I was a novice to the game (though no expert). Hence, I have garnered the best golf tips for beginners, which would also boost your game in the long run.

1. Focus On Golf Swing Lessons Early

When you are a novice to golf, you benefit from not having any wrong information or habits related to the sport. You might squabble around while learning to golf, but beforehand, you must learn from a swing coach.

They will assist you in keeping your shoulders, feet, and hips squared to the target, and their guidance will improve your skills significantly. 

2. Don’t Change Coaches Repeatedly

Don’t switch your golf coaches frequently; focus on a single coach who offers structured training.

Changing coaches repeatedly would lead to poor golfing and different methods, and it would take much longer for you to learn the game.

3. Play With Experienced Golfers

When you start playing with experienced golfers, you witness different types of shots and ways to handle misses and learn several more underrated aspects of the game.

This differs from what coaches usually teach and would develop your golf basics better.

4. Start Playing Golf Frequently

Golf is the only game you can enjoy indoors and in other spaces. Therefore, you don’t need to spend more time working on the driving range, which most of you usually do.

You must devote your maximum time to the golf course and learn golf and its related aspects. 

5. Choose The Right Equipment

Can you ever unscrew something with your nails or pins? For sure not! The same goes for golf. You cannot play golf properly without having the right equipment for the game.

These can be categorized into clubs, shafts, and balls. 

Golf Clubs

Putters go well when your ball is near the hole but not inside. Hybrids are well-suited when you need qualities of both Fairway Woods and Long Irons.

Each club has its different purpose. My eye opener was that it’s not only about the meaning of the type of golf club. 

There are specific golf clubs for beginners that help with an easy swing and make it easier to put your ball on the green. Their unique aspect is that they are lightweight and, therefore, effortless to swing. 

Playing golf, even with these clubs, would be challenging for a beginner. However, it’s because you need more practice and focus. 

Shafts

Apart from being lightweight, beginner golf clubs are also forgiving, which means they are designed to lessen the impact of bad shots.

However, many of you would make the mistake of buying clubs with heavier and stiffer shafts. 

Instead, you need shafts that let you swing easily. This is where graphite, a flex shaft, helps beginners. Consequently, as you advance with your skills, you can experiment with different ones. 

Use The Correct Golf Ball For Beginners

One of the most important things beginners do is go for a ball, emphasising spin rather than distance.

However, the reverse is true in reality. You must buy balls that help you focus more on distance and less on the spin. 

Further, these golf balls offer more forgiveness and less compression and are designed for distance. Thus, you should go for these balls, which minimize the impact of off-centre shots.

6. Focus On Golf Basics

Trying different golf shots and techniques and hitting longer distances is fantastic. However, before advancing your skills, you should focus on the fundamentals first.

These include basic shots, position, alignment, and such specifics. The main fundamental aspects include the correct stance, posture, and having the right grip.

So, ensure a flat back, tilt your hips, bend your knees, and your head should be slightly back.

7. Find The Right Grip

I understand how difficult it is for you to grip your golf club as a novice. Since you are a beginner golfer, you should go for a neutral to solid grip, thus avoiding the need to re-grip your club again. It even kills the total distance. 

Furthermore, there are various ways of gripping your club, and I recommend that beginners go for an overlapping grip.

This approach maintains the total distance, prevents finger overlapping, and provides stability and control, making it easier to excel.

8. Double Check Your Alignment

As a beginner, you must aim to minimize the impact of negative shots and physical conditions in the environment to practice better.

An unaltered loft helps with the ball’s normal flight, and a square stance provides it. Similarly, it even procures inside the square swing, which minimizes sidespin. 

A square stance means your heel and toe line should parallel the target. Hence, as beginners, you should go for a square stance.

Left and right stances lead to poor alignment; your mind will compensate for it by adjusting towards the opposite side. It’s with an effort to cover up for the poor alignment. However, this compensation leads to poor shots.

Therefore, align your feet in a square stance with the target. If you benefit from playing on a golf course, you can use alignment sticks to correctly trace a square stance towards the target.

9. Don’t Play Hero Ball

Golf is a game of misses, and there are various kinds of shots, all of which aim to put the ball on the green.

Therefore, you should hit the shot that you are well-versed in and not with which you are unfamiliar. Consequently, as you master efficiently, you can practice different shots. 

10. Aim For The Center Of The Green And Not The Flags

Flags are visual markers that help you trace the path toward the green. Hence, you can easily plan your strategy and aim for a well-hit shot. However, aiming at the flag will cause the ball to land farther than the green flag and not on/near it. 

Therefore, you must aim for the centre of the green to put yourself in a win situation and quickly improve your game strategy despite being an amateur. 

11. Master Your Tempo At The Driving Range

All golf players share a good tempo in common. While it relates to the speed of the swing, it’s not solely about how fast or slow you swing.

A tempo is the ratio of backswing time to full swing, which should be 3:1. You need to master this ratio rather than focusing on the swing speed.

12. Tee It Forward

Red tees are for women, white for senior citizens, blue for disabled people, and black for perfect players. Though they have been designated for specific groups, all players can use other colored tees.

However, most of you would find it against your ego to hit from a red or white tee. But you should set aside your ego and focus on the game and yourself. 

Peer players, coaches, and audiences are fond of players who are down to earth and don’t mind accepting their limitations.

Yet, if you find it difficult, you can go ahead with blue tees. However, get the black on only if you have mastered the blue-coloured tee. 

13. Make The Driver Your Best Friend

Every single time you walk past your driver, try to swing with it using a ball and position yourself correctly. Doing so will teach you to grasp things well and efficiently nail the game with time.

However, since it has less loft, it doesn’t minimize the impact of your bad shots. Therefore, you should focus on distance. As a beginner, you should have a loft of at least 10.5 degrees and a graphite flex shaft.

14. Practice The Short Game More

With the desire to play efficiently, you would want to practice well. However, in golf games, there’s only limited time to practice. To utilize it properly, you must wisely divide the time for practice.

Most of you would find it difficult to do so and divide incorrectly. The core focus should be to spend equal time practising your short and long games. If possible, more time should be allocated to the short games.

15. Create A Pre-Shot Routine

Practising your swings before hitting the ball is essential to not losing up in the game of misses. Hence, you must prepare before each shot, thus terming it as a pre-shot routine.

Whether you are an amateur or a veteran, every golfer has a pre–shot routine, so you should also have one, as no one is perfect.

This involves practising your swing at least once. Walk and stand behind the ball to correctly aim at your target.

Now, approach the target, have the visual and process of hitting the target in mind, and thus prepare yourself each time. Once you feel confident enough, you are good to go with your pre-shot routine, which lasts a maximum of 30 seconds.

16. Become A Wedge Guru

One of the pro skills for you to develop is to make wedges your best friend. These can be sand, pitch, lob, or gap Wedges. You may initially find it boring as wedges are primarily used for short games, and you may prefer longer games.

However, nothing is more frustrating than not being able to hit balls at shorter distances, such as 125 yards or less. Besides, once you master short games, it becomes easier and effortless to practice longer ones efficiently. 

17. Love Your Putter

The putter is the most essential component of your golf bag. It’s a rescue when you don’t swing well, which is common, and that’s when the putter helps. Therefore, it can make your score, so you must practice it well.

18. Don’t Let Anger Get In The Way

Sometimes, you would have hit a bad shot or out of bounds. Learn to embrace it naturally. Don’t get angry or frustrated over yourself, as you will spoil your game.

19. Don’t Listen To All The Advice 

All directions lead to no direction, so you should follow only a particular set of advice and not some beginner golf tips. This would help you stay safe against wrong advice. Not everyone wants your good; some may even mess up the game themselves. 

20. Enjoy Every Round

Your approach to the game matters, as not all shots will be hits. You should learn to embrace the fun in all. This would motivate you to play, practice, and excel more. 

21. Understand The Rules Of Golf

One of the most important reasons for you is to properly grasp the rules of golf. Thus, you would help yourself by not violating it, and some of you would even allow yourselves to hit the shots rather than miss them.

The Wrap Up

Golf is a game of misses and is never always smooth. The game of golf has different shots, ranges, and stages. You wouldn’t effectively nail all of them and would miss several.

Yet, you must learn from each time and process that comes underway. There is not a single tip for beginners, but rather too many.

However, you should ensure you understand the game in a structured manner without learning in different directions. 

Choosing the correct equipment is another crucial factor in effortlessly swinging and improving your game of hits. If you searched for golf tips, you would have got your answer!