driving range vs golf course

Hi all

I just joined in order to get some extra tips here. Now i have this thought. You go to a teacher. Get reaaally good advice. Go to the dr and hit like a pro. Go to the course and suddenly your'e faced with soo much variety of shots that you can't remember anything from the lessons or the dr.

Sometimes i feel like i have to learn ALL the different shots before i go to the golfcourse but that would pretty much take all the fun out of the game.

Any comments on how to keep sane while your'e altering your swing quite a lot.

good luck to all of you

1) Dont alter your swing a lot
Even the pros only make minor changes, and each one is isolated by a few weeks (and thousands of golf balls)
You cannot learn a new swing in a week

2) Practice when you are playing well, play when you are not.
You want to ingrain a good swing, not a bad one.

3) When you are on the course, play with the swing you have on the day.
If you are slicing everything, allow for it, dont try to fix anything on the course, especially with the longer clubs.

4) If its all going horribly wrong, hit 7 irons for a while until it starts to come back. Play within what you know you can do, not what you would like to be able to do. Golf is a mental game, if you beat yourself mentally, the course will beat you everytime.

5) Enjoy yourself, its far more enjoyable to hit a 7 iron all day and play bogey golf than to mess around with a non functioning swing, spraying your drives and 3 irons all over the place for doubles and worse.

I agree wholeheartedly with the above advice. Definitely, dont alter your swing. Go to the course with the same routine, setup and swing as is working for you at the range. It will allow you to form a natural habit and will also remove any negative thoughts from your mental approach. This may take a few rounds to get ingrained, but it will definitely get you to where you want to be.

Thanks guys. I can see just from this one post that it's an active forum and as well some very good advice around here. Look forward to spending some time here.

I want to agree wholeheartedly with the mental game note. This is soooo mental game. That's my next topic here. To learn how to deal with frustrating holes :P

good luck all