Most Difficult Thing in Golf?

[FrenchGolfer]

Hi everyone, 

I hope that you have a good day. 

I wanted to start a topic and know, for you, what are difficulties in golf, what are the problems and sufferings you face as a golfer...? 

I hope that my post will be useful, that as many people as possible will participate, and that if possible, it will help people to find answers to their problems. 

 

Have a good day,
King Regards.

[iacas]

I mean… you can look around the whole forum and get all the answers you'd want.

Golf is hard.® Someone registered that trademark because it's true… 😀

[FrenchGolfer]

Quote

I mean… you can look around the whole forum and get all the answers you'd want.

Yes of course, but, I think that a post that summarizes everything would be beneficial for everyone, because no one would have to scour the forum in every direction to find answers to their problems. 

Edited November 15, 2021 by FrenchGolfer

[iacas]

6 minutes ago, FrenchGolfer said:

Yes of course, but, I think that a post that summarizes everything would be beneficial for everyone, because no one would have to scour the forum in every direction to find answers to their problems. 

I don't think you're going to get what you're looking for.

There's no real summary. The entire sport is difficult. It's arguably the most difficult sport in the world.

[ChetlovesMer]

15 minutes ago, FrenchGolfer said:

I wanted to start a topic and know, for you, what are difficulties in golf, what are the problems and sufferings you face as a golfer...? 

1 minute ago, iacas said:

I don't think you're going to get what you're looking for.

There's no real summary. The entire sport is difficult. It's arguably the most difficult sport in the world.

Perhaps, the thread could just be what's The Most Difficult Thing About Golf? Then we could all debate what's we find to be MOST difficult. 

 

[FrenchGolfer]

10 minutes ago, ChetlovesMer said:

Perhaps, the thread could just be what's The Most Difficult Thing About Golf? Then we could all debate what's we find to be MOST difficult.

Yes, was the idea. 

Maybe it was my post that was badly formulated. 

I wanted to start a topic where everyone could say, according to him, what is the most difficult thing in golf.  A post, where everyone could give their opinion, to debate between us. 

Edited November 15, 2021 by FrenchGolfer

[klineka]

37 minutes ago, FrenchGolfer said:

because no one would have to scour the forum in every direction to find answers to their problems. 

That's why there is a search feature, so people can search for their specific issue or problem and see if there is a topic about it.

[nevets88]

1 hour ago, FrenchGolfer said:

Hi everyone, 

I hope that you have a good day. 

I wanted to start a topic and know, for you, what are difficulties in golf, what are the problems and sufferings you face as a golfer...? 

I hope that my post will be useful, that as many people as possible will participate, and that if possible, it will help people to find answers to their problems. 

 

Have a good day,
King Regards.

I would say generally, the golf swing is not an intuitive motion for most. Ergo, golf is hard.

[DFW75]

Consistency - I feel like I can do a lot of good things on any given day. But to be consistent to where I can do everything right over a full round is extremely difficult. 

[GolfLug]

I think this can be different things for different golfers. But as a general statement, 'owning' one or all five keys in a golf swing (look up 5 simple keys) remains the greatest challenge for majority of golfers at all levels. 

[Darkfrog]

I would say that the golf swing (i.e., full swing) is the most difficult element of golf.

I feel like my full swing is always on a knife's edge between success and failure. When I am playing well, maybe it feels less like a knife's edge and more like a balance beam. But I'm nowhere near a point where the margin between good and bad is wide enough that I'm not constantly thinking about it.

[mcanadiens]

The thing that makes golf very hard is that slight errors can have very dramatic and disastrous results.  I can feel like I'm swinging the club in the very same way that produced a good result on the prior swing and be very wrong. It is something of a mantra on this web site that "feel ain't real". It's easy to lose control and to lose confidence. 

 

 

[Vinsk]

5 hours ago, FrenchGolfer said:

Yes, was the idea. 

Maybe it was my post that was badly formulated. 

I wanted to start a topic where everyone could say, according to him, what is the most difficult thing in golf.  A post, where everyone could give their opinion, to debate between us. 

I think for me it’s the fact that feel is seldom real. In all the other sports I’ve played I can make a motion without much thought. Sure there’s still the art/skill of mastery, but the basic form is there. Shooting a basketball, swinging a bat, bowling, skating, etc. But for me swinging a golf club unfortunately bears nothing natural for me. There’s absolutely nothing that comes natural for me from the grip to impact. I’m grossly untalented at the sport I love the most.

[Bonvivant]

1 hour ago, Vinsk said:

But for me swinging a golf club unfortunately bears nothing natural for me. There’s absolutely nothing that comes natural for me from the grip to impact. I’m grossly untalented at the sport I love the most.

Did you feel this way before you had lessons?

For me this only happened after a lesson. I was (and still am) not consistent or even "ok" at hitting a golf ball, but having ideas in my head has made it significantly harder to do. Before this happened I was somewhere between 30-50 yards longer with each club, but have less mishits now. I mostly wish I could undo it.

*note: I did start swinging at age 3, so I don't have any memories of it not feeling natural until said lesson.

Edited November 15, 2021 by Bonvivant

[Vinsk]

49 minutes ago, Bonvivant said:

Did you feel this way before you had lessons?

For me this only happened after a lesson. I was (and still am) not consistent or even "ok" at hitting a golf ball, but having ideas in my head has made it significantly harder to do. Before this happened I was somewhere between 30-50 yards longer with each club, but have less mishits now. I mostly wish I could undo it.

*note: I did start swinging at age 3, so I don't have any memories of it not feeling natural until said lesson.

Well, I wasn’t aware of how bad my swing was, but it was certainly a cluster f****.  When I was much younger I could of course swing like a gorilla but it was not at all what I’ve come to learn as the most efficient way to swing a golf club. 

[Shorty]

9 hours ago, FrenchGolfer said:

Yes of course, but, I think that a post that summarizes everything would be beneficial for everyone, because no one would have to scour the forum in every direction to find answers to their problems. 

Why would I want to read a summary of things that other golfers find difficult?

How does that solve the problems I have? How is that beneficial?

The biggest problem a lot of golfers have is overestimating their abilities and having unrealistic expectations and inflated opinions of their game. Especially ones who are new to the game and are on a learning curve which makes them assume that becoming a scratch player is inevitable. A stopped clock tells the correct time twice a day.

Most rounds we play we hit a couple of shots that would draw huge applause at a tournament. Maybe we even hit a shot that would end up on a highlight reel. So what? It doesn't mean we have tour-like abilities.

The hard thing about golf is accepting that unless you can shoot low to mid 60s on a regular basis on decent courses you are never going to make it as a PGATour pro so you may as well just enjoy the company, the outdoors and set yourself challenges like "no sixes".

 

Edited November 16, 2021 by Shorty

[FrenchGolfer]

11 hours ago, Vinsk said:

But for me swinging a golf club unfortunately bears nothing natural for me. There’s absolutely nothing that comes natural for me from the grip to impact. I’m grossly untalented at the sport I love the most.

Yes, many golfers have the feeling that not natural. I think that the best way to deal with this is through training. The muscles and the body will get used to it and it will become natural with time. And as said Sam Snead, "Practice puts brain in your muscles".

13 hours ago, mcanadiens said:

The thing that makes golf very hard is that slight errors can have very dramatic and disastrous results.  I can feel like I'm swinging the club in the very same way that produced a good result on the prior swing and be very wrong. It is something of a mantra on this web site that "feel ain't real". It's easy to lose control and to lose confidence. 

Yes, it's for this reason that golf have the reputation to be a very demanding sport. 

[ChetlovesMer]

14 hours ago, Darkfrog said:

I feel like my full swing is always on a knife's edge between success and failure. When I am playing well, maybe it feels less like a knife's edge and more like a balance beam. But I'm nowhere near a point where the margin between good and bad is wide enough that I'm not constantly thinking about it.

13 hours ago, Vinsk said:

I’m grossly untalented at the sport I love the most.

I think these two ideas pretty closely sum up what I think is the most difficult part about golf. I have gotten down to single digit hcp a couple of times over the 25 to 30 years I've been playing golf. I'm not a natural athlete by any stretch. I'm not naturally good at any sport. 

With hard work I've been able to get to the point where I play some really good golf over some fairly lengthy stretches of my life. The damned thing about it is that I lose it and suddenly (or sometimes its a slow evolution) I'm lost again. 

One of my regular playing partners does no work at all on his game, started golf late in life just like me, rolls out of bed, shoots in the 80's. I always think "Man, if he worked on his game like I do, he'd shoot in the 70's. ... If I worked on my game like he does I'd never break 100."