Questions From a Beginner

[aaguirr]

Thank you to everyone that has responded so far. Ton of helpful information! I really appreciate it.

To continue with the theme of the discussion, I wanted to throw another beginner question out there: how many of you have official handicaps and would you recommend that I sign up with a club that will allow me to establish one right away, or do I worry about that later on once I'm at a stage where I am comfortable on the golf course and have actually been out a couple of times? 

[gbogey]

You don't need an official handicap unless you want to enter a competition.  If you are going to mainly be playing one course, you can judge how you're doing by just looking at your scores.  If you start playing lots of different courses, you may want to start tracking your handicap/differentials unofficially as a gauge to how you are doing as those courses may vary widely in difficulty.  I have an official handicap but the real reason I keep one is because I play so many different courses.

[ThreePutt]

5 hours ago, Double Mocha Man said:

No matter when you play your first round the wind will be sucked out of you.  Though you will hit a few magnificent shots that will bring you back.  On your 201st round you will have the wind sucked out of you.

Very true. It’s always those couple of shots in a rounds you replay in your mind when the round is over that keeps you coming back. Focus on the good when you do get out there because the game will drive you mad otherwise.

[IowaGreg]

Attitude......  Yes we all want to have good scores, but even the tour pros struggle with their game at times.  It's not the bad shots, it's how you overcome it that makes for a good game.  Just yesterday, I had a horrible front 9 with a 52 and settled down with a 41 on the back.  I enjoy the good shots and put the bad ones behind me.  That is the only way to you will survive this game mentally.

If the clubs you have are working for you reasonably, don't worry about a fitted set until you get to the point where you've gone about as far as you can with the clubs you have and feel it's time for the next level.

Have fun with it, laugh off the crappy shots and realize that's part of the game.

And remember, practicing bad technique, make you really good and doing things wrong.

[aaguirr]

Had a great first lesson last night. My pro instructor Fred is great. Takeaways from the lesson were 1) further tweaking to my grip; 2) focus on in to out swing plane - goal is to have the ball curving left to help overcome my tendency to slice the ball; and 3) hands closer to the body and left arm straight on the backswing. I was having a really hard time applying the new tips while at the same time forgetting my old bad habits and could not get clean iron shots which was frustrating to say the least but, as Fred told me, to be expected when learning something new. After the lesson I spent some time hitting a couple of balls and was hitting the driver great. At this point, I feel very comfortable with the driver and am shifting my focus to practicing my irons. This morning I had the pleasure of hitting the driving range before work (early bird special 🙂) and I had a great session (AND A LOT OF FREE BALLS!!! Definitely recommend going to the driving range in the morning as a lot of people don't have time to finish their buckets before their tee times and are kind enough to leave the balls behind for anyone who wants them). I finally began hitting my irons pure towards the end of the session while applying my takeaways from last night's session and I left feeling very optimistic!