Why golfing is hard for the average Joe

[Shanks A Million]

The biggest problem with golf is that the average person just doesn't believe the advice they are given. They can't accept that they can't chop at the ball. No matter how hard you try to stress it to a beginner, they just can't grasp that you can't just take a swipe at the ball with the club and expect it to consistently fly long and be struck pure. They want so badly to try to hit the ball with the club, that they can't slow down enough to attempt a proper swing.

Golf is a sport of discipline, plain and simple. You must be willing to look like a fool if you ever want to be good. You must make just one change at a time, and then repeat until it's ingrained. I see people on the range helping their friends, and they just keep dishing out more and more advice, but they never stay on topic. I see other people out on the range every single day, with the same flawed swing, hacking away, day after day, year after year, never improving. These people will never get better.

The problem is that people assume if they make a change and hit the ball worse, they have done something wrong. This is just not true. I used to come way over the top, and come down really steep. I had a friend tell me how to come down shallow, simply by telling me to drop the club back and around my body, instead of over the top. I proceeded to shank about 10 balls. He started raving about how much better it looked, and how I was on the right path. I was obviously confused. "I shanked it!" He said something that will stick with me, "Of course you shanked it, you're not used to doing it properly!" This is what holds people back the most, that need for instant gratification.

To end my story, after shanking about 20 more balls, I hammered one so pure, it was like nothing I've ever felt before. I then hit a few more tops, shanks, and fats, and another pure one. The next day, 50 more fats, shanks, and tops, but now about 50 decent ones. The next 100 balls were 75 decent, 25 mishits. Then 90 solid, and 10 mishits. Finally, nearly all the 100 balls were pretty decent shots. It took about 500 balls, but it was worth it. One change down, a lifetime to go...

[B-Con]

Golf requires a much higher ratio of thought to muscle than do most sports. Just being able to run fast or throw well doesn't get you a natural advantage. Really, the only natural physical advantage that I can think of that could manifest itself from the beginning is having precise and fluid body coordination. Beyond that, you have to mentally know what you need to do and practice doing it over and over.

Golf is a sport of discipline, plain and simple.[...]This is what holds people back the most, that need for instant gratification.

That's the truth. Nine out of ten times your instinct (at least my instinct) will be misleading if not downright wrong. You have to do what you know is best, not what feels best. You have to constantly think through what you must do and force yourself to do just that. And because of that, you have to practice a lot in order to learn to do. And the person who disciplines himself to swing well will improve more than the person who just does the same stroke over and over without trying to change his stroke based on the results. Most people don't want to wait 500 strokes to be better, they want to go out, bomb a bunch of awesome drives, and call it a day. If they don't do that, it's not their fault for not developing a good stroke, it's the equipment, the weather, their twitchyness, or something else.