Golf is one of the most popular sports in the world, it is also one of the most infuriating! When you are just starting to learn how to play golf, it’s easy to get carried away and start practicing things that really won’t have any benefit to you until you reach a more advanced level.

Until you can break 80 on a regular basis then you should just work on improving your swing and all the other essential basics that need to be mastered. Too many golfers start practicing advanced techniques before they are actually ready and as a result their progress is very slow and some golfers decide to give up altogether.

The swing is the single most important thing to practice when you are just starting out. If you can master a steady golf swing and manage to get the golf ball going forward in more or less the desired direction then you will soon start making steady progress.

One common problem is that golfers try to hit the ball to hard. When you see other people hitting the ball really far it’s always the temptation to try and hit he ball as far as you can. This will nearly always result in a very poor golf shot. Distance can be achieved over time as your swing improves but when you are a beginner, you shouldn’t even think about long drive golf. You won’t achieve long drives with brute force alone.

After working on your swing, the next thing that will help you achieve much lower scores is your shot selection. It’s important to realize that it’s better to drop a single shot rather than five shots. If you play a safe shot instead of trying to pull off one in a million shots you’ll soon start beating your friends.

Remember, golf is played over 18 holes. Consider your whole game and not just the hole you are playing. This will save you a lot of dropped shots.