Improve Your Golf Score Quickly with Golf Tips for Beginners

If you're like most people that are new to golf when you first begin to play the game it can be very confusing. Fortunately, there are many golfers, golf websites, magazines and books that like to provide quite a bit of tips and advice in order to help those that are new to the game. This is one of the great things about that fantastic game of golf; it can be very social for everyone involved. But it can also be a bit confusing when a lot of different people provide you with their version of golf tips for beginners.

Naturally, the best tip is to make sure that you enjoy playing the game. There is really no great need to worry whether you are doing everything right. Like any sport or hobby, when you have been playing for a while and have taken a few lessons your golf game and score will gradually begin to improve. There really are only a certain amount of golf tips for beginners that you can really make use of when you are first beginning to play. However, there are a few golf tips for beginners that are both easy to understand and can really help you to improve your game.

The best way to improve your game when you're first starting out is to arrange a few hours with the local golf pro. Many people think that this is not really necessary until they have been playing for a while and realize how bad they want to improve their game. It really is a good idea to begin when you first start out so that you can learn the basics and mechanics of the game quickly and easily. Golf is not a complicated game and if you know the basics and are doing them right then all that is really necessary is to practice and that's the best part of participating in the sport. Unfortunately learning to play golf may cost a bit of money but it is money well spent. If you can master the game's basics right from the start then you will really be able to experience immense enjoyment of the game.

Learning how to get your swing right is one of the best golf tips for beginners. The swing is the basis of both being able to play well and also enjoying your game. If your swing is right then you will be well on your way to getting the fundamentals of your game correct, which is key to improving your golfing score.

As mentioned earlier, perhaps the best tip that anyone can give you is to make sure that you enjoy your game. Get some instruction to help you with the basics but don't forget that it's a game to enjoy. If you enjoy it then you will want to practice and play more and your game will get better and that is one of the best tips that you can get.

Timothy Gorman is a successful Webmaster and publisher of Golf-Swing-Improvement.com. He provides more golf swing tips, putting tips and more information on becoming a better putter that you can research in your pajamas on his website.

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Basic Rules of Golf Made Easy

The official rules of golf are governed by the Royal and Ancient in St. Andrews. They are the Worlds rules and development body for Europe, Africa, Asia-Pacific and The Americas (outside the USA and Mexico). The United States Golf Association (USGA) is the game's governing body in the United States and Mexico.

Since 1952, the R & A and the USGA have worked together to continually review, revise and clarify the golf rules. The idea behind this is to have consistency for rules in golf, so that players all over the World can play with the same laws.

All PGA professional golfers should know every single golf rule as the penalty for not can be very costly for them. But for the casual golfer, there isn't normally much need of going into some of the complicated golf ball or club rules as in regards to equipment specifications.

In this article, I will not go into all of the golf rules and regulations; instead we will look at etiquette and golf rules made easy for the average or casual golfer. Even if you are just playing for fun or if you occasionally enter local amateur golf tournaments, you will get more enjoyment out of the game if you know the more important basic golf rules.

Golf Etiquette
As golf is still considered to be "the gentleman's game", it is important to understand what behavior on the golf course is frowned upon. As golf is played without close supervision, it is up to the individual golfer to show integrity, honesty, and sportsmanship. This is what golf etiquette is all about - it is the spirit of the game of golf. Here are some more specific golf etiquette rules:

* Safety - Don't swing your club when someone is standing nearby and could be hit by your club, ball, or some other object.
* Don't tee off or hit your approach shot to the green until the group in front is well out of reach or have departed the green.
* When your ball is hit in the direction of someone and there is a danger that it may hit them, you are obliged to shout a warning such as "fore".
* If you loose your ball or think that it may be lost, you should first play a provisional ball. When looking for your ball, you should spend no more than five minutes doing so, and you should signal the group behind to play through if you are holding them up.
* Once your group has finished on the green, you should immediately vacate it to let the group behind play. Don't fill in your scorecard on the green, wait until you are well clear of the green to do so.
* If your group is consistently playing slower than the group behind, then let them play through. You should always be ready to play your shot when it is your turn.
* Show consideration to other golfers - don't make any noises, cast a shadow, or make movements when they are taking their shots.
* Tending the pin - if you are nearest to the pin when another player is taking their putt, it is customary to tend the pin.
* After hitting out of a bunker, you should rake away your footmarks and any other marks you make. In fact, golf etiquette dictates that you should leave the bunker in a better condition than you found it.
* On the green, you should repair the mark your ball made when it landed with your divot tool plus one other mark.
* You should always replace or fill in your divots on the fairway.

Basic Rules Of Golf
If you don't want to annoy your golf partners, you should learn the following basics:

* Golf club rules - the maximum number of clubs that you are allowed to carry is fourteen. There is nothing to say that you can't have two drivers or two different types of putter, just that the total number of clubs is limited to fourteen.
* Order of play - the player who tees off first has the "honors". In other words, the player who scored the lowest score on the previous hole. If it is the first hole, you can decide amongst yourselves or toss a coin. On the fairway or green, the player who is furthest from the green or hole goes first.
* When the ball is in play (after teeing off), you are not allowed to touch or move the ball until it is holed out. The exceptions being; on the green you can mark your ball to clean it before putting; when taking a drop, you have to lift your ball; or you have hit the ball out of bounds and you remove the ball.
* When on the fairway or especially in the rough or amongst trees, you can remove loose twigs and leaves from around your ball but the ball must not move when doing so.
* When teeing off, you have to place the ball between the two markers and never in front of them. You can stand outside of the teeing area to hit a ball that is inside, but you can't move the markers if they are in your way.
* When addressing the ball on the tee and the ball falls off, you may replace it without a penalty.
* On the green, you can remove any loose objects from your line of putt.
* When it is your turn to putt, you must wait until the previous player's ball has stopped moving.
* You will be penalized if you hit the flag stick with your ball while putting from on the green, but not from off the green.
* If you hit your ball into a water hazard or out of bounds, you must play another ball from the designated drop zone or from a position any distance behind the hazard (including the original position of where your ball was) but no closer to the hole - you will be penalized a stroke.

These are a few of the golf rules made easy to understand for the casual golfer so that they get more enjoyment out of the game and so that there are no conflicts between players. There are many more that you should learn to have a full understanding of the game. You can download a PDF file of the R & A golf rules from their website and learn a few more every day.

If you found this article useful or interesting, then you will find more golf rules articles at http://www.golf-online-tips.com/rules/

For more golf tips, information, news and resources, head over to http://www.golf-online-tips.com/ There you will find all the free golf tips and golf tips for beginners that you need to learn to golf or to improve your game.

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A Beginners Guide To The Golf Course

Do you want to learn to play golf? Great! In this article I intend to take you on a tour of a typical golf course and to give you a general overview on how the game of golf is played.

A round of golf is usually played on an 18 hole golf course. However, there are some golf courses that may only be 9 holes. The players elect to play either 9 holes or 18 holes. If you are a beginner, I suggest you start playing 9 holes as it allows you to get the feel for the game within a respectable time frame.

The aim of golf is to hit a golf ball with a golf club and get the ball into a hole with the least number of shots (called "strokes"). The person that gets around the golf course in the least number of strokes wins.

Each hole has a "Par", this tells the player the average amount of strokes it should take them to get their ball into the hole.

Players hit off from the Teeing ground, most players call it the "Tee". The player will use a golf ball tee to raise their ball to the height of their liking and then they use a golf club to hit the ball. Their goal is to hit the ball as far up the Fairway as possible. The Fairway is usually mown grass, but may still be uneven.

Each Player then takes their turn to "Tee off". The players will then go find their golf balls. The player who hit their ball the shortest distance will then hit their ball up the fairway aiming to get it on the "green".

The golf green is an area of the course that is smooth and has very short, neatly mown grass. However, the green will usually have a slope on it to make it harder! Somewhere on the green is a hole with a flag sticking out of it. This is your target.

Once the golf ball is on the green, the player will wait their turn and then putt the ball toward the hole aiming to get the ball in the hole. Putting means to hit the ball along the ground. The player with the ball the furthest from the hole will usually go first.

When the player is lining up their shot another player will usually hold the flag stick. This is so the player taking the shot can line it up with the flag. Once the player has hit the ball, the second player will remove the flag. Once all players have managed to get their golf ball in the hole, they record their scores and move onto the next hole.

Sounds easy doesn't it, well there are a few other things you need to be aware of.

Around the course you will come across a number of obstacles that have been created by the course designers to make your game of golf a bit more challenging and memorable.

The first obstacle is called the "Sand Bunker". This is an area of the course that resembles a sand pit, but they are not as much fun. The Sand Bunker is usually in a sunken area of the course and can have high sides to make it harder for you to hit the ball out. If the player hits their ball in a sand bunker, they will need to hit their ball out of it.

The second obstacle is the "Water Hazard". A water hazard can be a small stream, a pond, or a lake. The water hazard brings the psychology of golf into play, and some player swear the water hazard has a magnetic pull that magically attracts their golf ball toward them. If the ball lands in a water hazard, most players will recover their ball and drop it as close as possible on the bank. If the player elects to do this they add a penalty of 1 to their score.

The third obstacle is man made hazards, these can be immovable objects such as light posts or benches, or they can be movable items such as rakes, hoses or golf carts. If a player comes across a man made hazard they can elect to move the hazard, but they are not allowed to move their golf ball. If the golf ball is moved then a penalty shot of 1 is added to the players score.

The fourth obstacle is natural hazards, these can be leaves, twigs, sticks, or stones. The player can move these natural hazards, but they are not allowed to move their golf ball. If the golf ball is moved a penalty shot of 1 is added to their score.

Every golf course has a clearly marked boundary. If the player hits their ball "out of bounds" they must take the shot again from its original location. A penalty shot of 1 is added to their score.

This article has given you a basic understanding of the golf course and how a game of golf is played. But, the only real way you will get to know the game is to play it, so get out there and enjoy it. Happy Golfing!


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