NotPortlyNJ

What a great sentiment!

Yeah, talk to your local courses when it's not a weekend. Turns out my local muni has 3 9 hole courses, one of them they told me would be best for a beginner. The other 2 are usually played together by real golfers for 18 holes. I now walk the easy course about once a week at twilight, all for only $10 on weekdays or $12 on weekends! Actually, it's the same rate prior to twilight hours but after 4:00 I can play that course as many times as I can before it gets dark.

I'm glad I could get a few of us noobs together. Nice to hear from people who aren't bitching about shooting an 80! Made the mistake of hitting the range after a very frustrating day at work (people were just dropping the ball everywhere). Took that rage to the range and had a bad session to show for it. Apparently I was hitting the wrong round objects with a golf club! Anyway, yeah, I want to get my wife into it, as well as a friend whose wife took up the game in earnest a year or 2 ago.

As an aside, I also got my wife a lesson with my pro so she could swing a club and join me at the range from time to time. When I mentioned that I got my first par, she replied that she thought I routinely did that. She has no idea how hard this game is!

Hello. I actually registered with this forum after reading Kapanda's Golfing Disasters (not too disasterous IMHO -- golf is hard) and wanting to comment. He (she? correct me if I'm wrong) suggested I start my own thread on this, so here goes... My story: I've been going on a guys' weekend golf / drinking outing for the past 5 years. We are really drinkers who like to golf rather than golfers who like to drink, but some are better golfers than others and all are better than me. Last year, I took a couple of golf lessons just so I could swing a club without looking totally pathetic, and I actually made a few good shots on that year's scramble. This year, I started taking it seriously, and as a result have been bitten by the golf bug. I started w/ a series of 5 lessons from a pro, and actually bought a set of TopFlite XL clubs for $199. My pro said they'd be ideal for me and probably last 3-4 years, depending on how serious I got. After taking a few lessons and going to the range 1-2 times a week, I started walking a local muni (Rockleigh in NJ). I kept score on 1 round on the 9 hole red course, and put up a 65 on a par 32. Not great, but I figured I wanted to have a starting point, seeing as I'd never played anything other than scramble matches. Now, I've been walking the blue course there once a week, and while I don't always keep score (the blue course seems to have had some modifications made, and the Golfshot app doesn't have its current configuration), I have noticed that my shots have been improving. On Saturday, I made my first par on a par 3 -- was inches away from my first GIR, and bogeyed a couple of other holes. Perhaps this week I'll hit the red again and keep score to see if I've shaved a few strokes off my previous 65.

This thread and Kapanda's ongoing conversations about starting to golf is what got me to register here. I played my first true round (outside of a few scramble matches on a drinking-golfing weekend) a few weeks ago. Scored a 65 on a par 32. Not good, but I've been going to my local muni once a week and walking 9 on their easier course -- only $10 weekdays and after 4:00 that gets you as many holes as you can get in before closing.

This, exactly! I discovered that I would strike the ball great at the range, but would be hitting thin shots and topping the ball on the course. Found a range close to me with grass (well, a bit of a stretch, but they are replanting certain areas of the grass zone), and now I'm starting to practice there exclusively. Also gives me practice teeing up the ball properly, as there is no pre-set rubber tee on the course.