I Want To Get Better At Playing Golf

     I hear this quite a bit when I talk to other golfers. When you talk about the game, what they want to do as far as the game is concerned and where they want to go with it the answer most often given is, "I want to get better".  It seems as though this is a "pat" answer when you talk to most of those who play our wonderful game.  That is a lofty and wonderful goal, isn't it?
     What in the world does "I want to get better" mean?  I honestly don't think that people have a true answer to that. They say that they want to get better, but they can't quite come up with a concept of what that would look like. I would venture a guess that the vague answer to this would be a lower score, but how low and how are you going to get there? Each golfer's point of view on getting better and what that would look like is different. A new golfer would have a completely different vision than the high to middle handicap player. Maybe their goal is to break 100, or maybe to hit the ball into the air consistently. Maybe it is to establish a handicap.  That is up to the individual new golfer.  Maybe its to play more golf, who knows but each golfer has a different take on what getting better is.
     I am a middle handicapper whose handicap hovers somewhere around the eighteen level.  I have been as low as fifteen and as high as twenty-one. Right now I struggle to break 100 and there is a very specific reason that this condition exists today.  As I have shared in past posts I only play about once every three months.  When I go out on the course, it takes me a good whole to re-establish my feel for the game.  The front nine is always a disaster but most of my game returns on the back nine. In order for me to improve, I need to play more and my game will quickly return. It's just that simple. When I start to play more, I will return to where I was at with a base of eighteen for a handicap which will fluctuate up and down a few points but will stay within a range. I will never play to a zero handicap, nor would I want to devote the time it takes to get there. I love golf, but I don't love it that much.
     To a lot of new golfers "I want to get better at playing golf" means they want to become scratch golfers.  I have seen this happen, but it takes a lot of work and is very rare.  Even after a ton of work, lessons, a lot of play and a lot of practice this doesn't normally happen and generally it takes a very long time.  There are exceptions of course, but that doesn't occur very often and to play at that high a level take a lot of commitment. The problem is that new golfers, and even a lot of us veteran golfers see the touring pros on TV and think that this should be our model. That is not realistic because these are the "best of the best" and have made golf their life. Most of us will never see our games ascend to this level of play. It just won't happen for a number of reasons.  That doesn't mean we can't enjoy playing the game.  
     There is more to golf than just hitting a ball with a stick and getting it into a hole. Golf is like a working machine that has a lot of moving parts, each part is crucial to the way the machine runs. If one part of the machine is weak, it won't run as well.  In golf, you have to look at the parts and those parts include not only the moving parts of the swing, but also the operating instructions of of the player.
      How are the parts of your game?  Do they need a little bit of adjusting in order to perform at peak?  How is your putting and short game?  Are you hitting fairways, or is your driver leaking oil? What about your course management?  Do you need to take another look at the operating instructions and reset the computer? Take an inventory of how your golf machine is running and work on the part of the machine that needs attention. You just don't go out and play better golf.  It takes running a diagnostic check on the system and making changes. You may have to hire a mechanic, so find a good golf professional and seek out his or her advice and suggestions.  That may be just the ticket, you may need a lesson or two to reset the computer or add oil to the machine.
     One very important thing that you must keep in perspective.  Golf is a game and it is a lot of fun to play.  We all have different abilities, so we need to realize that we may not ascend to the heights in golf we though we were going to achieve for a number of reasons. I play the game because I enjoy the game for a lot of reasons. At this point, the professional tour will never see me as a player. I'm OK with that and that isn't a problem for me. Getting better in golf means seeing improvement in your game no matter how small the improvement. Don't get frustrated, you may never be a scratch golfer and you may not break 100.  That may be a fact, but don't let it interfere with the enjoyment of the game. Play within your game, work to improve as much as you can but don't get frustrated, but most of all have fun and keep playing.
     Don't forget to take a lesson from your local golf professional.

I'm almost ready to go.  Here's to a good round. Let's play some golf!