How To Play Golf

Hello Fellow Golf Player

Welcome to our site which is aimed at those looking to learn how to play golf and for those looking to pick up some extra tips from a beginner to intermediate level and reduce your handicap.

Golf is one of the most difficult games to master as there are so many varied aspects to playing the game. Lets face it there are not many, if any other sports in the world, were every 'court' or 'field' you play on is different, where there are so many different ways to grip the golf club, swing, place the ball in your stance, have different types of clubs in your bag to choose from and various aspects to the manufacture of the golf ball itself. The list seems almost endless.

That is the main reason I created this site, there is so much about golf to enjoy, I have a love of the game having played for over 20 years. Over that time picked up some great skills, some very bad habits along with a lot of wonderful memories. Perhaps that is one of the main reasons I keep going back. It is such a great social game and one that you can continue to play well into the later years of life and enjoy to the highest level.

Throughout this site there is a great deal on how to play golf. We cannot cover everything that there is to know but we'll cover enough to get you started and will constantly update our content with more and more information.

One of the best ways to get the latest information, updates, reviews and product releases will be to sign up to our 6 part mini course that covers the the key points of the game along with some tips that I have learnt over the 20 years of playing that has helped me along the way to a low handicap. As a special bonus we are offering a 101 tips to a lower score ebook, $17 value free for a limited time. You can sign up at the top left or at the bottom of this page.

If you already have a great handle on the game and are simply looking for a way to take 7 strokes off your handicap than there is no better guide around at the moment than “The Simple Golf Swing”

Let's cover off some basics on how to play golf:

Golf is a precise game that involves a number players (golfers) hitting a ball with various clubs into each hole on a golf course in as few a number of stokes (hits) as possible. Typically there are 18 holes making up a complete course and you simply play each hole in order of the course layout.

Many people choose to play over 9 holes to simply 'get in a game' socially or you can simply play a 9 hole course twice to get to the standard 18. At the highest level of competition such as the 'majors' golf can be played over 4 rounds with the overall lowest score for all 4 rounds the winner.

The holes on a golf course are typically a Par 5, Par 4 or Par 3 where PAR is “Professional Average Result”. So far a Par 4 hole, on average it should take 4 shots to complete the hole. So a course that is Par 72 (which is the standard regulation) has 18 holes that each have a Par number to total 72.

You will hear people talk about being “over or “under” par. “I shot 2 under today”. Meaning they were 2 stokes under the par for the course. So if it was a par 70 than the total number of shots taken were 68 to complete the course.

Actually playing golf, or the concept at least, is pretty simple. To start you would simply go to the first “tee”, that is the first hole of the course and tee the ball, that is place the ball on the ground, or on a tee within the designated area, the teeing ground. A tee is simply a small peg to place the ball on typically used with a driver that provides greater distance as a club used on longer holes where you need to cover a greater distance. On shorter holes you would use irons that each have varying degrees of loft that give more height as opposed to distance.

Once that initial shot comes to rest, the golfer moves to the place the ball landed and continues to hit the ball with the appropriate club until the ball lands on the green. There are a lot of different names for the stokes played once off the tee, lay-up, approach, pitching, or chip. For example on a long par 5 hole it can be difficult to reach the green safely in two shots, you may have get the distance but not the accuracy and end in the bunker, a sand trap, on your 2nd shot, so instead to play safe, you “lay-up” short of the green and than play a shorter chip shot where you have more control to run the ball closer to the hole for a better change of being under the par.

Once the ball is on the green you then 'putt' the ball, with a club called a, wait for it, putter, into the hole. Over the course of getting the ball into the hole you generally come across a number of obstacles to do so. Typically you want to be on the fairway where the grass is cut short and allows you to strike the ball cleanly. The previously mentioned obstacles include the rough (grass longer than the fairway), bunkers (sand traps) typically located roughly at the distance around where most golfers tee shot would land and also around the green and water hazards