How often should I practice?

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Originally Posted by RickK

I'm glad you said you are only 13.  I thought you were my son starting to post here. :)

My son played at golf, can't really say he ever really played golf, up until he was about 9 years old.  Then he quit totally and devoted all his time to baseball.

This year, in February, he decided he was going to start playing golf again and go out for next year's golf team.  I said, "sure, right, go ahead".  Well, he is.  And he is practicing and playing just about every day with conviction.  Has he gotten down to an 8 yet?  Nope.  But, he has a better chance now than he did when he first started out in February.

So, if you have an real established 36 handicap already, you are playing golf...right?

You need to go out and play a few rounds and determine where all your strokes are going.  You need to keep stats.  How many fairways did you miss?  How many greens did you miss?  How many putts did you take during the round?  For the greens you miss...how many left, how many right, how many short?  Most people don't miss long (I do).  Basically, what did you do wrong on every hole.  What would you have needed to do on each hole if you wanted to shoot 80?

As my son has been told, not just by me, standing on the driving range hitting 300 yard drive after drive after drive does not improve your game.  But, if you need to improve your driving, you may need to hit more drivers for a while.  Practicing a bad swing does not fix anything. You need to know what you are doing wrong.

Find someone to video tape your swing from facing you angle and from directly back of you looking down the target line. Compare your swing to any pro golfer's swing you can find on the internet. Where does yours look different? Study it, try to swing the way they do.  You can do this with most any phone these days.

You need to know how far you can hit every club in your bag.  Know it, memorize it.  If you are on the course and there is not wind, you are at 160 yards...you should know exactly what club that is.  If it is uphill, add a club.  If it is downhill, one less club.  These are just some general rules of thumb to help you determine what club to hit and not question it.  Pull the club, commit to the shot, hit it.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got when learning how to play golf was "try to trap the ball and hook every shot you hit with every club except the putter.  You can fix a hook.".

You need to hit 100s of balls every day and try to play at least 9 holes every day to track your progress.

Count every stroke...no cheating...count the OBs, the water balls, everything.  You have to know your real score is to know if you are truly improving.

Never lie to yourself about how you really did, count all the strokes.

One more thing...one more important thing...see the clubhead hit the ball every time.

Best of luck to you.  You have a very lofty goal.  I really do hope you achieve it.

Golf is a wonderful game.  It can open a lot of doors to you as your grow older.  It will enable you to meet lots of people who may become your lifelong friends.  Enjoy it, frustrating as the game can be.  Please, golf is a game of honor, respect it.  There is no other game like it.  Enjoy it and have fun along the way.

Oh, BTW, your 13, you don't need to be playing from 7000 yards yet.  In a couple of years...yes...now..NO!

Thanks a lot for the awesome reply. I got a membership in my local golf club so I can play whenever I want My full time goal is to become a pro, but that will take a lot longer. Also, good luck with your son.