Learning to play golf can be overwhelming, especially when you have to absorb so much information in those first few lessons, weeks of practice and years playing. Every golf professional’s style of coaching is different and that’s before you take into account all the tips you’ll get from well-meaning friends and family along the way.
Here at Golf Monthly HQ we were talking about how easy it is to take on bad advice, thinking it’s the right thing to do. So we’re sharing with you those worst pieces of advice that we were ever given, to help you avoid making the same mistakes.
The worst piece of advice I was ever given as a junior was to focus on finding fairways. As a consequence, I became one of the shortest, straightest hitters in my county squad! Three decades later, I look back on my teenage years and I know how detrimental my lack of distance was to my results.
There was no end of occasions when I lost matches to players who simply out-powered me, capable of hitting the ball 50 yards or more further than me off the tee. ‘Swing slow and smoothly with a rhythmical tempo’ were the swing thoughts drilled into me in those formative lessons. If I was starting golf all over again I’d put more focus into speed training, because the modern game is a distance one.
I remember the very first time I introduced my then boyfriend (a good golfer) to my parents. We played a round of golf together on a course that he was unfamiliar with, so my dad (a high handicapper) took it upon himself to tell him exactly where NOT to go on every hole!
He stood on every tee and said: “There’s a bunker on the left, and if you miss right you’ll lose the ball because the rough is brutal. There’s a water hazard in front of the green, out of bounds down the right, and don’t go long with your approach here, because anything over the back of the green is dead.” Bless him, his heart was in the right place, but unknowingly, by pointing out where not to go, he was simply putting all the trouble into the poor man’s head and the pressure on. Needless to say, he didn’t play his best golf that day.
Alison Root, Golf Monthly’s Women’s Editor
Alison Root says that the worst piece of advice as a beginner was that dreaded phrase, ‘Keep your head down.’ “When I was learning to play golf, everyone seemed to say this, especially when I started topping the ball,” insists Alison. “Your chin sinks lower and lower. It actually puts a strain on your neck and makes you feel more tense. It definitely messed with my posture and swing technique.”
Rather than trying to keep your head down, a better swing thought would be to focus on striking the ball first then the turf. By locking your eyes on the back of the golf ball as a fixed point, you are more likely to deliver the club with that all-important downward, descending strike, avoiding a glancing blow and catching it thin.
When you top a ball it is because the club has made an impact too high up. So in Alison’s case, there is a half truth in the advice she was given, her head may well have appeared to be ‘coming up’ but in fact, what her playing partners were seeing was her whole body lifting up, out of posture. So maintaining your spine angle through impact and not lifting up, will prevent those nasty topped and thinned iron shots.
Would you like to “tap it in”? Alison has suffered short putt demons ever since she missed a tiny tap-in. “When someone says... just tap it in the hole - honestly it’s the worst advice,” she insists, “because you then start thinking about the putt too much, and usually end up rushing and missing it. It’s even worse if you’ve got a good card going and these fatal words are spoken on the 18th!"
Alison is also aware of giving any unsolicited advice. "Let's face it, whatever advice you're being given, it's usually not what you want to hear, especially during a round, and it might be incorrect anyway. I know people mean well, but it can play havoc with your game and screw your mind!"
Katie Dawkins, Golf Monthly Top 50 Coach
As an elite amateur, Golf Monthly Top 50 coach Katie Dawkins was told that to play the very best golf in competition, she needed to not talk to her playing partners and just stay in her zone.
“It was rubbish advice,” Katie admits. “I spent a few months as a junior being very unsociable. You miss out on so much when you just keep to yourself during a round. Instead, I learnt how to focus when it was my shot and switch this on and off. That way I didn’t lose out on one of the most precious things golf gives us, conversation with people you wouldn’t normally chat to. Often these chats form strong bonds that last a lifetime.”
The majority of Katie’s teenage years were spent focusing on her golf. But looking back on that whole period of her life she regrets not continuing to play other sports.
“Focus on golf and only golf, I was told,” she recalls. “Damn, this advice is the piece that haunts me. I love sports and remember being a junior county player and being told by various people to concentrate on golf only. I wish I’d played team sports more but was specifically told not to play hockey so it didn’t affect my golf posture. I now tell juniors to keep a varied schedule of activity as we get so much that rounds us as humans from different sports. Variety is the spice of life after all.”
This is another one of the popular misconceptions you’ve probably heard touted about - 'grip it and rip it'. In reality, just trying to throttle the ball out of sight is unlikely to produce the results you want. In Katie’s case, trying to hit the ball too hard sent her drives propelling wildly into trouble. “I would lose the ball and then lose the plot,” she laughs. “I soon learnt to swing it easy and hit it hard. Much more controllable advice.”
Katie’s final gripe is a terrible piece of advice she was given about breathing during the golf swing. She was told to check if she breathed in or out at the top of her backswing and try to hold her breath if not sure. “This was offered as advice early in my junior years before a match and it was definitely an older woman trying to assert authority and throw me off. It threw me for a few holes until I realised it was tactical play. What a cow! I recall winning the match after pulling my act together but still grrrr.”
Emma Booth, PGA Professional
Read any golf magazine article on ball striking and it will invariably mention ‘taking a divot.’ However, this phrase is often confused by golfers and can actually be a terrible piece of advice, which is exactly what it turned out to be for Emma Booth in her youth.
“Being a coach, I know all too well how advice has a time and a place and maybe I did need to work on compressing the ball more at impact but...at 11 years old I took this advice from my club pro a little too literally which resulted in a painful month of hitting fat shots,” she recalls. “Yes, good players have a ball-turf strike, but at that age there were other things I could have worked on to result in better striking.”
Also high up on Emma’s “don’t listen to this advice” list is something that young golfers seem to be told to do all the time these days - hit it hard.
“I know this is one of Charley Hull’s favourite pieces of advice for golfers starting out, but for mere mortals it is not the way to go,” insists Booth. “When I've been told this in the past it has rarely led to a good outcome and is certainly not something I've been able to maintain.
For Charley, it works well because from a young age that's how she has trained and she works incredibly hard in the gym to maintain her hitting power while protecting herself from injury. But trust me, if you hit a wonky ball swinging at a normal speed it will only get worse when trying to hit it harder! Aim to swing efficiently first then try to build speed.”
Over to you…
So those were the worst pieces of advice we were ever given. Hopefully they’ve given you food for thought for what NOT to do. In the New Year we’ll turn the subject on its head and focus on the best advice we’ve been given, to help give your game the best start.
