Unless you’re thinking of playing professionally, there’s really no reason you should obsess about your swing and your score.  Sure, you want to work on improving it and there’s nothing wrong with that; most games are more enjoyable when you’re better at them.  But if you’ve tried everything and still don’t have the score you want, why let this interfere with the enjoyment of your game?

Remember that golf is about much more than just a score.  It’s about a beautiful walk interrupted by an occasional game of marbles.  It’s about being out of the house and out of the office and about being challenged by no one but yourself.  It’s about being with your friends or family or about new friends when you join another foursome.

It may be that you reach a certain skill level and won’t progress any further.  If you’re not happy with this, you might want to check how you view the game and your own approach – not your approach to the ball but your approach to the game itself.  If you relax your thinking about the game and your skills and about what makes it enjoyable, you may regain that joy that you might have once lost out on the links!

There are many sports out there where teams fight the clock.  This helps to add to the anticipation and excitement of the game, building tension as the minutes and seconds tick away.  However, this just isn’t the case in golf.  There’s a reason why there’s no clock or referee to rush people along – you should take your time getting set up, addressing the ball, getting a good grip on your clubs, and so on.  While you don’t want to be rude to anyone playing behind you, you also don’t want to create tension for yourself when there’s no need for it.

Tension is a mortal enemy of golf – when you’re tense mentally and emotionally, you become tense physically.  This will lead to a very bad swing no matter what.  So slow everything down, including your own attitude, and you’ll no doubt do much better.

Of course you wouldn’t.  If you follow that recipe again, what makes you think it’s going to come out any better the next time?  The instructions are poor, so following them again and again is going to mean poor results.

So it is with your golf swing.  Poor instructions will mean poor results, no matter how much your practice.  As a matter of fact, if you practice bad instruction you’re going to simply instill those wrong habits and increase your muscle memory that you’ll need to fight later on when you get the best instruction.

If you’re just starting out with your game, it’s good to get instruction right away.  You can talk to a golf instructor or check with someone that’s been playing for awhile and that’s good at the game.  If you can start out the right way, you will have less you’ll need to unlearn down the road.

When you’re trying to improve your swing of course it’s easy to get distracted with the many elements of your grip and swing and follow-through, but it’s also good to choose one area of the swing and concentrate on that.  Focus on one area on which to improve and then you can see how they’re all connected.  Your grip will keep your arms in proper alignment which in turn will help your follow-through, and so on.  But if you allow yourself to get overwhelmed with everything at once, your entire swing will suffer.

It’s also very easy for a player to slide back into old habits or to feel that muscle memory returning; they then no longer focus on the instruction they’ve been given and without this focus, that instruction becomes useless.

Golf is more mental than probably any other game out there.  Any game of skill is; you can’t power the ball down the fairway, not if you want to keep it on the course!  Mentally focusing will enable you to improve your entire swing overall, so don’t lose your focus.

Think of everything involved in a golf swing itself.  You need the right clubs at the right height and weight for you.  You need to grip them properly.  Your backswing and your follow-through need to be aligned right.  There are many, many details of which you need to be aware and which may need some tweaking.  You’re also fighting your natural tendencies to just get up and whack at the ball or to hold the club a certain way.  You may also be fighting the natural tendencies you’ve learned over the years when it comes to your stance, your grip, and your swing.  All of these things are very difficult and don’t usually come easily for anyone.

One thing to remember is that golf is supposed to be a relaxing, enjoyable game.  It’s not a game of speed or power.  There’s no need to rush through the game itself and rushing through the learning process will simply be counterproductive.  So learn patience and it will definitely pay off in the end.

No, this doesn’t mean you should put on a skirt and cry at sad golf movies.  Learning like a woman means being more open to instruction and to change.

Everyone has a certain amount of pride and many people are defensive about themselves, including both men and women.  But generally speaking, men are much more protective of their own ego when it comes to receiving criticism and instruction, especially when it comes to sports.  They often have the idea in their head that a “real man” will just “know” how to play any sport, and getting instruction or pointers or criticism, and following those things, is somehow an insult to his manliness itself.  If he can’t play a sport properly, this “proves” that he’s not much of a man.  He may also see criticism and pointers as being the equivalent of someone laughing at him because of what he’s currently doing.

This isn’t to say that women don’t get defensive and of course some women cannot take criticism of any sort.  But most women have a much more critical view of themselves to begin with and so are usually more aware of their own faults and areas where they need improvement.  If someone tells a women her grip needs improving or she’s not keeping her head down, she won’t be very likely to get upset and defensive and will try to improve these things.

Look at it this way.  If your golf swing were perfect, you would probably be a pro and wouldn’t be reading material like this.  If you have a consistent slice or aren’t getting the distance and accuracy you’d like, this means you could stand to make some improvements.  Rather than being defensive about the advice you get, take it to heart and see what you can do to apply these things and improve.

There is no substitute for actually hitting a golf ball but this doesn’t mean that practicing your swing with a club in your hand is pointless.  You need to practice your grip, your backswing, your follow through, and everything else.  You can certainly do this at home when not on the course.

Remember too that for many, the off season lasts several months which means you can easily become physically stiff and lose that rhythm that’s needed to maintain a good game.  On the other hand, if you keep up a good routine even in the winter months you’ll be physically looser and will be able to work out some of those major points of your swing that will then help you when you are ready to actually start hitting real balls again.

It’s interesting how often people will fight reality and go by their feelings alone.  If you have a slice then you must be doing something wrong, correct?  And yet people will fight the tendency to correct their swing because they “feel” they’re doing it right, and wind up slicing time and again.

Muscle memory has a lot to do with feelings versus reality as well.  Your muscles feel that a particular grip or swing is right and that’s what you use, despite the fact that you’re very conscious of how wrong this is.

Many instructors note that it’s very difficult to get clients to switch from what they feel is right to what they know is right.  You an have an edge on any other player if you’re aware of how to swing properly and actually do this, as opposed to swinging the way your body “feels” is right.

Muscles memory serves a very valuable function, as you might imagine.  If we had to concentrate on every activity that involved movements and the muscles – sitting, brushing hair, putting pressure on the gas pedal of the car, typing on the computer – our brains would probably be in overload every minute of the day.  But at the same time, this muscle memory is a real impediment when it comes to learning new things.  Think of how difficult it might be to move to a country where you had to drive on the other side of the road and so your car’s equipment was now switched!  Your one foot would automatically reach for the proper pedal and hit nothingness while your hands struggled to find the turn indicator, wipers, radio, and so on.

If you’re aware of what you’re fighting, you’ll be much more successful in that fight.  Understanding how muscle memory works and what you’re up against will help you to overcome it.  When you feel yourself doing something automatically and without much thought, you know it’s the muscle memory kicking in and you can resist it.

Most golfers apply what can be called the band-aid approach to improving their swing and their game.  They want a quick fix, a secret little flick of the wrist or new way of holding the club that will magically improve everything they’re doing.

Learning the proper swing in golf is like learning a new language.  Many people struggle with new languages because they need to move their mouth in tongue in ways that are awkward and even embarrassing, and they get frustrated very easily when the sounds don’t happen easily.  A new language means time and patience and all those embarrassing moments; it doesn’t come easily.

A proper golf swing is much the same way.  There needs to be time and patience and learning new, sometimes awkward movements.  Often a golfer will need to go through a lot of badly hit shots before he or she learns the correct way of doing things.  But that “quick fix” approach will not do much to improve their score, at least not by much.

There is also a certain amount of work involved in learning a proper swing.  Practicing once or twice for a few minutes each in the backyard probably won’t do it for most people.  You need to practice for hours and you need to do this regularly.

On the other hand, practice does make perfect or at least will improve your swing tremendously.  Going through all that awkwardness and embarrassment can be like learning a new language – it’s well worth it when you realize that you’re fluent in that language.  Everything pays off in the end; it’s also true with learning the proper swing and stroke in golf.  If you decide that you want much more than a quick fix or that band-aid approach, you may find that all the hours you’ve spent practicing have all been worth it as you see your game consistently improved.