This is a strange title for an article to help you get better, but please hear me out.  My main purpose with this blog is to help any and all of you in your path to learning how to play this game at a higher and higher level and this should prove helpful.

I’ve been a bag room snoop and observer of everyday golfers for longer than I can remember, and what amazes me the most is how many golfers I encounter who must really not want to get better at this game.  How else can you explain the fact that – in spite of all the gains in equipment technologies and the unlimited amount of instruction available (much of it FREE) – so many golfers seem to be stuck at a skill level that just does not improve year after year?

So, a bit tongue in cheek, in this article I want to share what I believe are the “Three Surefire Ways To Never Get Better At Golf.”

1.       Ignore the importance of a proper grip.  The most basic fundamental of golf is learning how to hold the club properly.  This takes no athletic ability whatsoever, and you can practice it to perfection anywhere. 

It doesn’t matter whether you opt for the traditional overlap, interlock or full-finger (not “baseball”) grip on the club, only with a proper hold on the club can your swing function at its best through impact.  Your grip can be rotated a bit stronger or weaker, but the fundamentals are the same:

a.       The club has to be controlled with the last three fingers of the upper hand, and the grip needs to be positioned under the heel pad, not across it.

b.      The lower hand pressure is only in the middle two fingers, with the thumb and forefinger more lightly engaged, if at all.

c.       The upper or lead hand has to be in dominant control of the movement of the club.

Very simply, if you are not holding the club in this fundamentally sound manner, the body and club just cannot move properly through the swing motion.

2.      Disregard the importance of proper posture and set-up.  Likewise, it requires little to no athletic ability to assume the proper posture for the golf swing.  Like with the grip, close observation of the best players in the world shows very little from one to the other – they all start from basically the same posture and set-up.  If you think you can become a solid player when you are starting from an unsound, “homemade” set up, you are sadly mistaken.  Anyone can mimic this proper set-up position, which – along with a proper grip on the club – gets you much of the way “there” to a sound repeating golf swing.

And the last thing I see that causes many golfers to be stuck in a rut is . . .

3.      Taking instruction from your buddies.  Golf instruction is part art and part science, and your buddies . . . even those who seem to be pretty good players . . . are not likely versed in golf instruction.  Tips and advice are cheap, and I cannot begin to count the number of times I’ve watched or heard a golfer who can’t break 80 (or even 90) try to “coach” someone who also can’t break 80 or 90.  Unless your buddy has spent years studying the golf swing and can play a pretty good game himself or herself, close your ears and eyes when they offer advice.

I’ll close this post with this . . . compared to all the costs associated with golf, leveraging those investments with professional instruction is pretty darn cheap.  My Dad had a wise saying . . . “if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.”  And my bet is that you have already committed to the fact that golf is certainly “worth doing”.  If doing it well is important, begin by improving your grip and posture . . . and consider finding a professional instructor who “gets” you and see him or her regularly.

 So, there you have it.  Frank Sinatra made a fortune singing “My Way”, but that certainly isn’t the pathway to better and more consistent golf.