In this article you will come to know the game of Golf, the essential part of Golf, the Importance of the clubs, How do we count?, and What is the index? Why take classes? With such amazing knowledge, you will also know some important factors and parts as well so enjoy your reading.

The Game of Golf

What better understand the main principles of the game, the different clubs, the main lines of the gesture, the scores, the brand …

Golf is:

• get a ball into a hole by hitting it as few times as possible using a club
• play the ball where it is, without moving it or advantageous
• analyze your environment (wind, the slope of the terrain, obstacles…)
• develop a strategy (what move to play, with which club, where to aim…)
• and succeed!

Why so many clubs?

There are two main families of clubs: the Woodwinds and the Irons and a Putter to play on the green. All golf clubs are composed of a handle (the shaft) with at the top a part called the grip, where we place our hands and a head for the impact with the ball.

• Woods: the ball will travel the distance in a fairly linear way, they are used at the start (mainly No. 1 or Driver) and on the fairway. To start a half series (half set of clubs) may include a single wood, often wood 3, easier to play.
  Course woods have a smaller head than that of the driver and their design makes them easier to use for shots played without a tee (ball lift that can be used at the start). And for the less experienced players, they will be easier to play than long irons.

Quite recently in the panoply, the rescue is a hybrid that combines the qualities of woodland and a long iron. It is easier to play from the rough.

• Irons: the ball will travel the distance with a more arched trajectory, and the ball will go up more. Originally made of steel, hence their name, they have a shorter handles than antlers and flatter heads. These clubs are used on the fairway or in the roughs (their sharper sole facilitating the shot), approaching the green, and sometimes even at the start of certain holes. The distance traveled by each iron depends on the angle of the club head. The more open the club, the higher and shorter the trajectory of the ball. Wedges are intended to make high and accurate balls over short distances to the green or to get out of an obstacle or fly over it. To start a half series consists of irons 5 / 7 / 9 and sand wedge, dedicated to bunkers, as its name suggests.

For woodwinds as for irons, the more the club number increases, the more the striking force or the length of blow increases.

The Putter: it has practically no angle on its face, and is intended for play on the green. From the beginning, the new players learn the handling of the putter which is also found in their half series.

A golf bag should have a maximum of 14 clubs, but for your debut and for a while you won’t need all of its clubs!

On the other hand, knowing and mastering at least the different shots to be made on a course, is essential to have fun and enjoying the diversity of courses and holes that compose them.

Your pro will accompany you to validate your Green Card Pass, your sesame for all courses. It will make you work on long shots, high balls, rolling balls, putts, and bunker exits…

Why take classes?

The golf swing is a fairly technical gesture, and to think that we will get there alone without a lesson is not a good idea.

If a friend takes you to hit a few balls with him on the course, no problem. But if you really want to get started, go through the lessons box!

A number of well-assimilated basics will allow you to have fun much faster: the placement of your hands on your club (your grip), your placement at the right distance from the ball, a good alignment to establish your aim, the right posture of the legs, arms, back, head to perform your swing more easily.

In short, take advantage of the possibilities offered by golf (the Go for Golf Pass) or by clubs, lessons, courses, etc … to get off to a good start and have fun faster on the courses.

And don’t be impatient, take at least four or five lessons you will already see a hell of a difference.

Who do we play golf with?

You can play golf…

• Alone, because golf is above all a story between a course and a player!
• two, three, four, and, the big advantage of golf between players of different levels. Everyone plays their ball and lives their story facing the course, and the different tees placed on each hole (more info here), allow to balance the course of the same hole with players of different levels. The confirmed player will start from farther, will have longer shots, more difficult to play, the beginner player, sending his ball less far, will play from less far.
• individual, team
• by confronting all the other players present on the field that same day
• or to a single opponent with whom we left…
• with numerous game formulas

All this being to be experienced in the competition of course, but also in friendly games.

Your club’s reception will tell you what time you can have a tee (a slot to play) and who you will play with unless you sign up for four.

How do we count?

The two main ways to count are stroke play and match play.

• In stroke play the player counts all his shots on all the holes. The winner is the one who makes the fewest moves.
• In match play, the game is done hole after hole. The player who finishes the hole in fewer strokes wins the hole. And in the end, it is the player who has won the most holes who wins. Match play games often end before the 18 holes or 9 holes depending on what you do as a course, if the player who is led finds himself with fewer holes remaining to play than holes already won by his opponent.

The scorecard

It reproduces the 18 holes of the course, with their number and par, and a Par total for the outward journey, the first nine holes, and for the return (the last nine) and a Par total. You will then, if you play competitively, have your received shots scored for each hole.

You will still have to write down your score at the end of each hole.

What is the index?

Very generally it is the difference between the ideal number of shots to be made on a course and our ability to do so.

Let’s take a course whose total Par is 72. You play 99, so you play 27 strokes too much compared to the reference score of the course. These 27 strokes correspond to your index finger, or handicap as it was called before.

The index is therefore your golf ranking. You will have 37 or 12 or 5.2 …

The lower the index, the better the player. The more a player progresses, the more his index decreases. And the pros play without an index.

His calculation takes into account with great accuracy, the difficulty of the course, the benchmarks from which you start, the scores made by the other players during the competition …

When you play your first competition, you are assigned an index of 54 and you will have to play 53 to get your first ranking.