Just be yourself! (help for beginners)

I wanted to post this to help beginners as I myself am also just starting in the golf sport.

After learning golf 'by doing' ie. playing with freinds, reading books and watching videos, I had my first lesson last week.

The instructor gave me the first tip. "You're trying to swing like Ernie Els", he said "The problem is you are not Ernie Els!". Since I've spent the past month reading books and watching the Ernie Els video it wasn't a surprise that I was copying his swing as best I could.

I was swinging back as as far as Els shows in his video which meant that my grip was loosing contact at the back of the swing and the club head was dropping or twisting. I was trying to copy rythm and timing from the video which was faster than my natural rythm and the results where not at all good.

After an hour spent changing my style to fit what was comfortable, I didn't hit further but the ball went straight and I found that I could quite accurately hit the nets placed on the driving range with short irons and the trees or distance markers with the larger irons and 3 wood. I still have a problem with accuracy using the driver but at least I have improved.

I guess this advice is obvious for the pros in the forum but I hope it helps one or two complete novices. I'm sure the videos help but the instructor gave the advice to use them to learn a specific technique rather than copying the complete swing.

Regards


Richard

Excellent advice. We are all built differently and trying to copy someone else's swing exactly is a futile endeavour. However, as you have mentioned we can take aspects of their technique and apply these within our own framework. A technique that works for one may not work for another! This is why it is so benefitial that we share our thoughts and knowledge on each others golf games so that we can learn and apply the ideas that work for us.