Walking Around a Golf Ball

Series Summary

Golf is a very old game of which the exact origins are unclear. The word Golf was first mentioned in writing in 1457 as gouf, possibly derived from the Scots word goulf. Another claim is that the word golf originated as an acronym for "gentlemen only, ladies forbidden", but this has yet to be substantiated. The origin of golf is open to debate as to being Chinese, Dutch or Scottish. However, the most accepted golf history theory is that this sport originated from Scotland in the 1100s. It has grown in popularity and there are now over 32,000 golf courses in the world with half of those in the United States. In this golf instruction series, a professional golf instructor will take you through the various ways to prepare for each shot. He will talk about using the wind, marking the target, and choosing the right club. Lower your golf score by patiently preparing for each golf shot and improve your overall golf game.

Video Transcript

"Okay, I've hit this ball, I'm short of this sand trap, so we're going to, we're playing a par five here and it's a dog leg left. So how I, as I'm walking towards my shot, I'm already thinking where I want to aim it at. I have to take into account the lie that I have, I have to think about, okay, what's the club that I want to use? Well I want to hit the ball about two hundred yards, so I've picked out my three iron here. So this club should do the job. So I've got a lot of thinking to do before I pull the trigger on actually hitting the ball. So the more mental work I do now, the better the shot will be when it matters. So spend some time before you hit the ball lining everything up that you want, but taking into account all the different factors. Okay, so I want to scout out a little bit here, so I'm going to walk, get a good look at my target, see if I can see where any obstacles might be or if there's some bad rough. I want to try to stay away from that. So what you want to do is before you hit the ball, you want to calculate everything, the wind, where you're landing spot is, where there's trees, or thick grass. You want to take all that into account so you can get a good pre-shot routine so you can be set up to hit the ball and succeed."