Birdies & Bogeys
This past week was a real turning point in golf for me. I decided to play my first real round of golf EVER! In saying that, I have played quite a few rounds of golf in the past and even in the past few weeks but I have my reasoning in saying that. First, when I was younger and golfing a lot I was only in 9 hole tournaments, I was not at the age where it was 18 holes yet. Secondly, in the past few weeks I have played 18 holes but when I am too far over par or do not get the amount of shots I have in my head, I count it as zero on the score sheet. Walking into this, I would be lying if I did not say that, respectfully I thought I was going to be the next Tiger Woods. Turns out, I actually have a long way to go. Having my thoughts and reality battling was why I kept taking zeros on a lot of holes. My boyfriend and my dad are my coaches on this journey and I think that they were getting a little fed up with me beating them and having a lower score every round, so I decided It was time for a change. I got a suggestion from a friend that I should download an app called “18 Birdies”.
This app is perfect for all golfers because it is a tool for you in many ways. It first helps you create a handicap for yourself. A handicap is your average strokes above or below par. 18 Birdies takes your best 6 rounds of golf and uses it towards your handicap. You can connect and add friends on the app making it more competitive and fun to play along with others. Another great feature of the app is that it allows you to enter your scores while you are playing. You can search up the course that you are playing on and it will give you a real time view of the hole that you are on. It lets you see how far away you are from the hole at any point along the way, giving you the best opportunity for a successful shot. I even entered all of my different golf clubs on the app and the distance that I can hit them and 18 birdies will give me suggestions of what club to hit all throughout my round of golf.
I highly suggest this app for any golfer , even if you are just starting out. It is a great way and place to track all of your rounds of golf and see how much you improve over time.
When you are setting up the 18Birdies app it asks you to create a goal for yourself. After talking to my coaches, I decided that a realistic goal for myself was to have a round under 100 total strokes. I was very motivated to start creating my handicap yesterday so I decided to play a real 18 holes, no cheating. I walked out of my first round with an overall score of 84. I not only played my first round but got my first two birdies which means 1 shot under par on a hole. I am already seeing a lot of improvements in my golf game and it motivates me even more to keep on practicing and learning more about the skills of golf.
Moving forward, this past week I was focusing solely on putting. Putting is by far where I mess up the hole the most. In my opinion it is the toughest part of golf. This will definitely differ from person to person, but for myself I struggle with it. To learn from an online source this week I decided to find an article.
In this article they gave Five big tips to help everyone’s game. Firstly, they talked about maintaining a light grip. This will help with the feeling of hitting the ball and judging the distance to the hole. The second tip was on your eye position. They gave three different types that people try and do but the most popular and most successful one is to have your eyes over the ball. In the article they suggested feeling as though something drops straight from your nose and hits the ball on the ground. The third tip I took away was, green reading. They talk about how it is so important to take a step away from your ball and really analyze the green, the slope of the green, the distance, and the wind. The fourth tip was to line up your putts. The fifth tip that they wanted everyone to remember is to practice distance control. Personally I feel like this one will come with time. I am going to try hard to focus on the first four tips and then when I become more comfortable I will work in distance control.
I think this is a great article to read. Compared to a lot of other ones that I looked at, it seemed the most straightforward and to the point. It was an article for beginners, looking to improve their putting. I learn best through videos and visuals but I took a lot away from these resources. I have already seen a lot of difference in my confidence when I am putting. It just takes a lot of patience and time to get better at this skill. I am going to keep on building on my ability right now and I am excited to see how much I keep improving.
Stay tuned for next week, where I am going to be talking all about the driver, and videoing my swing so far!
