The Beginning of my Golf Journey.. Chapter 1: July 2025

The Beginning of the Golf Journey

I have fully bought in for at least a year of grinding to become better at this game. I have wanted a new physical journey to improve after I ran my marathon in January of this year. The training each week was so much fun to physically see all the progress I was making. I was thinking about pickleball, but golf has been so alluring that I decided that is the one I wanted to go with.

I started 7 years ago when a hurricane hit my hometown and shut down the small golf course right next to my house. My brother and I got to use my grandfather’s clubs to go play some games with them for free. This was our first introduction to golf after we hated golf lessons as kids.

We played sparingly after we learned golf was expensive. And we weren’t very good. 

Flash forward into today, I love the idea of being terrible at something so I can see progress. I take months off but always come back to it. Things changed one day at a driving range. I bought 100 balls, and I could not get the ball in the air. I hit and got irritated for 70, 80, 90 balls until I realized maybe I should work on my grip. I remember my golf instructor as a kid told me that my grip was bad, but I was a baseball player growing up, I wasn’t changing my grip, so I gripped it like a baseball bat. I finally changed to an overlapping grip, and it IMMEDIATELY improved. I put it in the air for the last ten and realized that I was onto something.

After that horrible session I went back to my garage and looked at every aspect of my swing to try and improve. It was a baseball swing with little to no follow-through, so I sent videos to ChatGPT to try and get some help. My swing was very inconsistent. I would hit it on the ground, to the left, to the right. I would get in my head and things would just get immediately worse as I fell into the swings of darkness and despair. I made a redneck golf simulator in my garage. I hit foam balls off an exercise pad while standing on one, and hit into a blanket. I have the videos to track my progress.

The first mistake I fixed was the grip. That was the largest improvement I made. The jump from that range day was huge. A few days after the range day and the garage hits, I went to play a round of golf with my uncles. I hit my best score yet; I made a par on the first hole and several bogeys in a row to close out the round. My hits were consistently in the air. I would have a big draw, and I would fall apart in the middle holes, but I crawled back to four or five bogeys in a row to close out the round. I put up the driver, I slowed down and got out of my head. I realized golf was largely in the brain. When my mind was clear and swinging, I could hit good, but if I was in a terrible space I would have terrible tee shots.

I have not played another round since, but it felt amazing to see progress and the hope to maybe break 100. Most days I wouldn’t even keep my score. It would be 130, 140, just unnecessary to look at. But now, I hit 110 and it was clear where I could have improved. I lost only a few balls and only hit one house. Large improvement believe it or not.

I continued working on the swing. Doing drills to deepen my turn to increase torque, learning all of these big golf terms to improve. I also have done the towel drill to keep my arms tight to my body.

I recently got a small bonus, and I have this new hobby that I wanted to invest in. I thought clubs would be best. Maybe more forgiving than my retail premade set and maybe could boost a little confidence and have me swinging more loose.

I figured a fitting might be a solid way to invest in my game. I love using a hybrid and those clubs are the cheapest to do a fitting with so I figured that would be where I went.

Instead of a fitting I finally decided that an actual LESSON from a good teacher would be the best investment I could make at the stage I am in right now. My swing has a lot of work to do so any type of new club, or new fitting could be throwing money away.

I then found a membership at a PGA superstore that is about 25 minutes from my job and 25 minutes from home. Included in this membership is a fitting, a lesson, and one practice session a day with a range finder. It has been nice to get some yardages attached to clubs and just see how the swing is doing.

Right now I am swinging my 3 hybrid for 185 carry and a 200 total. I think this is great. A great club to hit off the tee while my driver is struggling. My record was 196 carry with a 212 total. I remember the days where I would hit my driver 250 and perfectly straight but those days are long gone. This was also with a ball speed of 128 MPH which seems pretty good for a 3 hybrid.

My 4 hybrid was 145 yard carry with about 165 total. I felt good about this as well. This was a premade set hybrid with some rough quality but I was happy to see that this was typically how I would hit them on the course. My record was 162 carry with 172 total. It was my first time hitting with a range finder so I like the starting point.

I went to a sim range to hit a few balls and play a course there. I landed a birdie the first hole and then hit a double bogey on the second hole…. My improvements have been fun to watch. The birdie hole was a hole that fit my fade perfectly to find the fairway. My second shot put the ball four yards from the hole. One of the best holes I ever had.

This is now a month into my journey, and I can’t help but notice the difference in swings already. I thought my distance was embarrassingly bad for my wedges and my other clubs but finally I feel like I hit them a decent enough distance. 115 for my PW, 180 with my 4 hybrid and 205 with my 3 hybrid. These are the three clubs that I use, almost exclusively. My driver has been a relic of the past. I don’t even pull it out of the bag other than the last few minutes at a practice range. I do about 50% of my work with the wedge, 45% with the two hybrids and then 5% with my driver. The work has been showing itself through my play. My wedge swing is the best, it has the proper tempo, a good backswing and a good finish. I am very consistent with it with only a few degrees of side angle hit. Less than 3 degrees on average.

I still have some horrific shots. I still pull most of my shots right. I still haven’t been able to get my clubface timing down. I have fixed my grip twice. I now interlock to limit the right hand taking complete control. I have a more controlled tempo. I can finally get my shots in the air which is something that I could not do a month ago. The next step will be trying to get clubface timing down. My swing is looking more refined. The days of a huge baseball swing is gone, and I have enjoyed making progress. The progress that has been missing in my life.

One month ago, was my worst looking day picking up a golf club. I could not hit the ball in the air. I struggled to show any type of life in my golf swing. I was ready to just enjoy the fresh air and just always suck at golf.  I fixed my grip that day on the driving range and the next weekend I shot my best ever score on 18 holes. 110 might not look amazing to some but for me, it is unheard of. Furthermore, it was the first 18 hole round that I didn’t lose more than five balls. It was also a day where I kept the driver in the bag. I gained confidence after the first few holes and brought it out only to play horribly and add to my score. I began to spiral until I put it back in the bag and just played free. I ended the round on several straight bogeys. Once again, a miracle. One par, several bogeys, and plenty of +4 in the middle holes.

It got me excited.

I am still excited to improve in this sport. I hope that one day I can become good enough to play in the worst flight? Flite? Grouping.  At a random tournament.