How long is a piece of string?

If you have good hand eye coordination and pick it up fairly easily then with some dedicated practice then there is no reason why you cant be hitting decent shots after about a month. Then learning to play golf is a lot easier.
Putting is all about choosing a line and judging pace.
short game more about shot choices and lots of practice.

Having lessons to get the basics right is first and foremost.
Practicing those lesson skills properly will pay dividends.(lots of people have lessons with no practice and expect it to be a magic formula)
Do not listen to well meaning advice from anyone else on the range other than the pro who you are having lessons with...it will only confuse you and fill your head with cliche advice.

Learning to hit a golf ball half decent is not difficult but learning to play golf to a good standard is time consuming and rewarding when you get there.

Main things the pro will go through are

1) grip
2) posture
3) alignment
3) ball position

If you can master those 4 things and repeat them consistently then you are more than halfway there.
Keeping the posture throughout the swing is the next challenge but if you can do that then you will find that hitting the ball will be a lot easier.

Work a bit on upper back flexibility and the posterior deltoid flexibility of the left shoulder.

A good repeating golf swing is easier to perform when you have good upper back and rear shoulder flexibility and when you can maintain a consistent address position posture.

The golf swing is a simple motion which is overcomplicated with so many varying ideas on the correct way to do it.

Enjoy your lessons with some smart practice and you will learn quickly.


And remember one thing....it is a golf swing not a golf "hit" ...you swing the club and the ball gets in the way ...you do not it at the ball.

Get a course planner so you know where the bunkers are as links bunkers at Gullane can be lethal.

Keep the ball low...that way it won't get blown off course and will be less likely to take any big bounces at right angles into the crap, even if that means playing knock down 3 irons off every tee( you'll get some run on the fairways by keeping it lower)..... better on the fairway shorter than long and in rough or pot bunkers.

Be creative with chip and runs around the greens ....

Enjoy Golf as it was mean't to be played.. along the ground.

Hope the rain stays away for you, but a wee breeze will make it interesting....

Knockdown shots are pretty straightforward... try this on the practice range before your round...

Play the ball back in the stance, midway between centre of your stance and your rear foot.
Close face of club to square it to target line.
Hands forwards, just left of trouser zipper line.

All you then do is put your normal 3/4 swing on it, keeping hands ahead will keep the flight ball lower, you do not have to do anything else, it is a very simple change.

Experiment on the range with the ball position to get your desired flight.

You're also likely to get a draw ball flight from this ball position, so allow a little for the right to left movement through the air, and more so you come to the long irons.

Hi taaffy, can you reccommend some good exercises for this please?

Oh, and your last sentence about it being a swing, not a hit; when I first heard that it was a revelation!

I always wondered why my practice swings felt really good, and looked good so I'm told. Until there was a ball in front of me. Once I figured out that it was just in the way and not a target, bingo!

I'm still crap mind!

Thank you so much for all this advice, I'm sure it will prove invaluable. So, I had my first lesson in the driving rain last night under the protection of the driving range cover and I thoroughly enjoyed it! After a brief chit chat we got down to the serious business of grip, posture, alignment and where I should be positioned in relation to the ball... then after a few practice swings/demonstrations, I started hitting a few balls; not too well at first I hasten to add but by the end of the lesson I was hitting the majority pretty cleanly, first with a 6 iron, then a wedge, and finally a wood. All in all a positive start I think! I have another lesson booked for next Wednesday evening and in the meantime I plan to go to the driving range to hit some balls, I can't wait!

Personally I wouldn't expect significant backspin from the 7 down, and TBH its probably better for distance control to just apply just enough spin to stop the ball on the green in a bounce or two, giving you more control and consistency. I couldn't count the number of times I've landed a 9 or wedge bang on the stick for length, then watch the ball screw back 15ft off the green!!

But basically every shot you hit will have backspin, even the driver, but creating backspin that gives you that "screw back" is primarily down to the ball, the angle of the club face and the ball trajectory. The flatter the trajectory of the ball flight, the more backspin you would need to overcome the forward momentum and then have "excess" backspin to reverse the ball after the forward momentum has been negated. But as longer irons produce less backspin, (unless the greens are like a sponge) I doubt you'd be able to produce significant excess backspin from 7 down.

The characteristics of the ball you play with will also greatly affect how much spin is put on the ball at impact, softer the ball, the longer it stays on the clubface and the more spin (back spin and side spin) is generated. Most "distance" balls are designed to spin less and/or are harder so "ping" off the club face, as higher backspin rates generally sacrifice distance.

And then course conditions make a big difference to backspin. Hard greens can make backspin very difficult with any club, whereas soft ones will even stop a 3 iron in a few feet. Hitting into a breeze will stop a ball quicker than downwind etc etc.

Play with Pro-vs so they are pretty soft and therefore spin quite well but they really don't last long. Greens on our course have a stip count of 9.2 or something near to that so not that bad a surface.

Watched some golf over the weekend and saw several players stop the ball pretty much dead with a 5 iron and even though I am a low H/C (CAT 1) I have never been able to do that with a 5. Guess thats why I am stuck in an office thinking/wishing of playing golf rather than on tour.

Knew I should have tried harder when I was a kid.

So after getting back into it this summer, and having an average round of 18 over. I played to 15 over! Could have been even better but conditions were difficult with a very strong wind. Also gutted to have pitched a 6 iron 2 foot infront of the pin on a par 3 only for it to miss the pin by an inch and roll on 15 foot past!

Don't fret, neither can I and not many guys I've played with can either...just play smarter.