Golf Digest - March 1997
These articles below contain, in exquisite and accurate detail, but in plain English, what every golfer needs to know on the gut subjects of the game - from instruction to rules to etiquette. New, or nearly new, golfers will surely benefit greatly from learning these fundamentals. Old-timers will find important things they either forgot or never knew.
Besides the mechanics - for example, how to proceed other than to weep when your ball is embedded in a wasp's nest - enjoyment of the game is a matter of attitude and mood. There is no textbook on ideal dispositions for golf. But here's a starter:
Although you may have been lured to the game by its presentation on televison, don't think of the great players as icons. Once you start to play it's your game - not theirs. They are the fortunate beneficiaries of your interest in the activity. If not for you, half of them would be unemployed.
Don't Be Humble
Although you may have been lured to the game by its presentation on televison, don't think of the great players as icons. Once you start to play it's your game - not theirs. They are the fortunate beneficiaries of your interest in the activity. If not for you, half of them would be unemployed.
Please Don't Play Slowly
No one has ever established a correlation, because there is none, between scoring better and taking more time. Four golfers who can't break 100 can easily get around in four hours or less. Although it's hard to quantify what's slow, think of it this way: Once the coast is clear and it's your turn to play, there is no excuse for taking more than 20 seconds to play a stroke.
Smell The Flowers
The great Walter hagen said, or is alleged to have said. He made a good point. What makes golf a better game than all the others is its unique arenas - the courses. (And it's a lot easier to smell the flowers when you're walking, not flying by them in a golf cart.) Learn something about your course - when it was built and how it evolved. You don't have to go overboard by learning the difference between Penncross and Penneagle, but it's cool to know that most modern grasses were born at Penn State University. Eventually, you can strike pedantic poses: "This course is overwatered," and "What this course needs is a sharp chain saw."
Play It As It Lies
In the long run, it'll make you a better ball striker, and you'll get mare satisfaction from hitting a good shot, when you don't play so-called winter rules.
Read Some History
The more you know about how this all happened, over 500 years plus, the more fun the the game becomes. There has been an awful lot of good golf writing. With the aplogies to the other inmates of this magazine, the best golf writing was done by the Englishmen Bernard Darwin - it's worth the effort to unearth his work at your local library. Other stars of the trade include the late Peter Dobereiner, Herbert Warren Wind and, yes, even Dan Jenkins.
- FRANK HANNIGAN
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Director of Golf Instruction
Pine Meadow Golf Club
Mundelein, IL
Director of Golf Instruction
Estancia Club
Phoenix, AZ
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