Golf Tips For Beginners - The Golf Swing

You can find golf tips for beginners all over the place; in golf magazines, books, videos, and the Internet. Sometimes you can find free golf tips and other-times you have to pay for them. In this article I will be going over the top beginner's golf tips to give the beginner golfer a good basis to learn to play golf properly.

These tips are fundamental things you need to do right, especially if you are just starting out to learn to play golf. It is important to start off on the right foot so that you don't spend months or even years with a major fault in your game - it will be very hard to correct later on.

When it comes to gripping the golf club, there are three basic grips. There is the ten finger grip (baseball grip), the interlocking grip, and the overlapping grip. For this grip instruction, I will explain the overlapping grip; all instruction will be for right handed golfers.

First, hold the club with your left hand with the club head lying on the ground. Hold the grip of the club diagonally across your palm, starting from the crook of your index finger. When you close your hand, the grip should be held in the first two fingers and the palm - this is a combination palm and fingers grip.

Now, look down at your hands; only two knuckles of your left hand should be showing - the base of your index finger and big finger. Next, bring in your right hand by sliding it under the shaft and moving it up until only the second and third fingers grip the club at their base. The little finger overlaps or lies on top of the left index finger and the right index finger should be curved low around the club.

You will know if you have a correct grip of the club if the thumb of the left hand points down the shaft but slightly to the right and the thumb of the right, on top of the left thumb, points down the shaft and slightly to the left. The palm of the right hand will be facing left and the left hand facing right. The left hand is known as a palm and fingers grip and the right hand as a fingers only grip.

Finally, you should grip the club firmly but without tensing up the muscles so that you can cock and un-cock your wrists. Some instructors will tell you to have a loose grip or to grip the club just tight enough so that it doesn't fly out off your hands - I don't take that position - you need to grip the club firmly as the golf swing is very physical.

Watch the excellent golf grip instructional video below. It goes into detail about the nine grip techniques. First there are three grip types (mentioned above), then you can use a distance, neutral, or control grip. The last three options are the weak grip, neutral grip, and the strong grip (not related to how tight you grip the club but in which position your left wrist is in relation to the shaft.)

As most golf swing faults stem from the stance or the set up position, getting this right is fundamental for swinging and striking the ball correctly. The following set up instructions are all for "normal" shots - in other words, when you want to hit the ball straight.

Your feet should be around shoulder width apart at the insteps, which gives you the optimal balance. They should be in a line parallel to the target - this is a square stance. The feet should not be perpendicular to the target line; they should both point slightly outwards, the left a bit more than the right.

When you are leaning forward to address the ball, most golfers make the mistake of putting their weight on the balls of their feet - but this is wrong. You should keep the weight evenly balanced between the ball of your feet and the heel.

The set up of your arms should be almost in a straight line, but not locked, with your elbows facing downwards. You certainly don't want your elbows facing outwards; you want your arms and elbows to come closer together.

The hips and shoulders need to be parallel to the target with the square stance. The normal tendency is to have them open slightly; pointing left of the target. This is caused by the right hand being lower on the grip than the right. It is imperative to square your hips and shoulders, even if it feels unnatural, or you will not be able to impact the ball squarely.

Finally, when you are in the address position, your spine should be straight - don't hunch your shoulders over. Also, when some instructors say that you have to bend the knees, it doesn't mean that you have to bend them to 45 degrees - a more correct term should be to flex the knees slightly.

The first ball position rule is how far from the ball you should be positioned. You don't want to be crowding the ball (too close) or reaching for the ball (too far) because it will result in a swing fault. Getting the exact distance is important but not easy to establish for the beginner -don't worry as it becomes second nature with time and practice.

You can use the club as a measuring device if you have the correct shaft length for your height and arm length. Fortunately, most golf club manufacturers have set the length of the grip to 11 inches which makes things easier. With the driver and woods, you place the collar of the club (where the club head is connected to the shaft) next to the tee. The place where the naked shaft ends and the grip starts is where you align your feet.

These distances are for an average built golfer, from 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet 4 inches. With a standard 43 inch driver, you will be about 28 inches from the ball. This will work for the driver and fairway woods but unfortunately it doesn't work for the irons. With long irons you will be about 1 to 3 inches closer to the ball which progresses until you are about 5 inches closer to the ball than the measurement of the naked shaft with a 9-iron.

The second ball position rule is where to place the ball between your feet. For the driver, you want to place the ball opposite the instep of your left foot and for the fairway woods, opposite the left heel.

For long to middle irons the ball should be positioned about midway between your left heel and the middle of your stance. The longer irons slightly nearer to the heel and the middle irons slightly nearer the middle of the stance.

With lofted clubs, the ball position will be in the middle of your stance. For any club, the ball should not be placed any further to the right than the middle of the stance - for normal shots.

Watch the video below to get a better idea of the correct ball position.

While you are in the address position, you will want to remember these two important tips. First, you have to be perfectly balanced and second you must keep your eyes on the ball.

The balance comes from the correct weight distribution of your feet and also by keeping your head still. When you are going through the golf swing, your head will naturally move a little but it should not jerk. You have to keep your eyes on the ball throughout your golf swing as you won’t be able to hit the ball if you can’t see it and also it helps to keep your balance during the swing.

The golf swing is basically a serious of sequences that you have to do in the correct order. If you do any of these sequences out of order, the effect will be a loss of distance and different golf swing faults. Again, all golf swing instruction is for right handed golfers.

You must start the backswing with your back and shoulder muscles; you do not start your backswing with your hands. When you're starting the backswing, you turn your shoulders and back, and at the same time, you need to shift your weight to your right foot. This weight shift to your right foot continues all throughout the turning of your backswing until the top of the backswing position when you should have about 90% of your weight on your right foot.

Think of the backswing as a shift and turn; or as I like to think of it – turning your back on the target.

The top of the backswing is the point of transition from backswing to downswing; you shouldn’t pause at the top. When done correctly, this transition is where the most power comes from.

The trigger that starts the downswing is a weight shift and not your hands as many golfers wrongly think. When you start the downswing, first you need to move your weight back to your left foot. Then you move your left knee towards the target, then the left hip moves towards the target, followed by the left shoulder and finally your hands should move. Just watch a slow motion video of the Tiger Woods golf swing and you will immediately see these sequences.

If you have done the backswing and downswing as described above, you won’t even have to think too much about the follow through. As you are going through the impact position your hips will be moving towards the target and they also will be rotating and opening towards the target as you go through the follow through.

Remember that the golf swing is a fluid transition from backswing to follow through. You should aim to keep the same swing speed throughout; don’t start the backswing slowly and then try to speed it up as you are approaching the impact position.

More distance comes from more power which comes from a faster swing speed. But the power comes from the transition at the top of the backswing and the start of the downswing – the weight shift. It doesn’t come from trying to hit the ball too hard by starting the downswing with your arms and hands.

Another area where you get more power is from the wrists which should be cocked at the top of the backswing. They stay that way until you are near to the impact position when you un-cock the wrists and therefore release the club.

Watch the video below – it will show you the Tiger Woods golf swing in slow motion. There are also line diagrams showing the key positions of the head, spine, and hips.

I hope these golf tips for beginners for learning the golf swing have been useful. Now all you have to do is practice and practice some more. Check out the links below where you will find more golf tips for beginners on the golf swing, golf training, golf lessons, free golf videos, and reviews of golf instructional ebooks and DVD’s, golf equipment, and other golf related reviews.