“But he’s back on the course anyway.“
The first thing you need before playing golf — before clubs, before lessons, before you ever set foot on a course — is a friend like Al and a son-in-law like Scott.
I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me back up.
The First Time I Tried This
December 1984. I was leaving a job in Chattanooga to go to Evanston, Illinois, to run a data center. It was a real promotion — not quite the executive ranks, but close enough that my coworkers apparently decided I needed to look the part. So, they gave me a set of old golf clubs as a going-away gift. I didn’t know whose they were. I didn’t know how old they were. And honestly, I was such a novice that I didn’t even realize how ratty they were until I showed up at a work scramble and someone laughed.
That was more sad than funny.
I played on and off for years after that. Never improved much. Still whiffed the ball half the time. Hit my 9-iron and my driver about the same distance. Treated every sand trap like it was a personal insult. And somewhere along the way, I gave the clubs away and told myself golf just wasn’t for me.
That was about twenty years ago. And it wasn’t really golf that drove me off. It was a certain kind of golfer.
The Unsolicited Instructor
If you’ve played golf at my skill level, you know exactly who I’m talking about. You’re somewhere in the middle of a round, already a little frustrated, and without being asked — without any invitation whatsoever — someone in your group decides it’s time to fix your swing. Right there. On the fifth hole. In front of everyone.
I’ve learned that the moment that happens, the round is over. Not because the advice is necessarily wrong — it probably isn’t — but because you can’t get it out of your head. You can’t think about anything else. And you certainly can’t do what they’re describing, because you couldn’t do it before they told you and nothing has changed in the last thirty seconds. So your typical round of 120 quietly becomes “pick your ball up and go home.”
That just isn’t fun. And I suspect you know exactly what I mean.
What Al and Scott Do Differently
Al is one of my oldest friends. Scott is my son-in-law — and yes, we share a first name, which makes Thanksgiving dinners genuinely confusing. Both of them are real golfers. Both of them are considerably better than I am. And neither of them has ever once, without being asked, told me how to swing a club.
What they do instead is treat me like I’m on tour. They compliment anything they can find to compliment. They don’t fret when it takes me three shots to reach where their drive landed. And I’m convinced they must want to bite their tongues clean off keeping the swing tips to themselves.
What they actually seem to want for me has nothing to do with my scorecard. They love golf — not just the 295-yard drive, but the whole thing. The walk. The course. The cart. The conversation. And they want me to experience that same joy alongside them. That’s it. That’s the whole agenda.
It was the other kind of golfer that made me give my clubs away twenty years ago.
It was Al and Scott that made me go buy new ones last year.
A Few Things That Actually Helped
Once you’ve found your Al and Scott — and I genuinely hope you have someone like them — here are a few things that made my early rounds survivable, and sometimes even enjoyable.
Play a mini scramble.
In a scramble, everyone hits but you only play the best shot. Al and I do this whether we’re playing alone or randomly paired with strangers. We hit, we look at both balls, and we play the better one. I’ll be honest — most of the time that’s Al’s. But every once in a while I strike one down the fairway right when he’s chunked his, and we use mine. Those moments are worth every bad shot that came before them.
Don’t keep a traditional scorecard.
It’s not time for that yet. Instead, Al tracks something simpler: which shots of his and mine actually got used on each hole. Just a tick mark. Nothing fancy. I don’t get many tick marks right now. But if I go from five in a round to eight in a round, that’s real, measurable improvement — and it’s a lot more encouraging than staring at 14 on a par 4.
Ignore the sand traps.
Scott’s advice, not mine. What he meant was simple: just take the ball out of the sand and put it on the fairway. You’re not going to hit it out of the trap anyway — not yet — and spending four strokes trying to escape while everyone watches is not fun for anybody. There will come a time to learn sand play. This is not that time.
Talk about something other than golf.
Golf conversation is fine. Golf instruction during a round is not. And neither is a running commentary on every bad shot you hit. (I haven’t fully learned this one yet. I’m working on it.) A golf course is genuinely one of the most beautiful places you’ll ever spend four hours. Look up occasionally. Enjoy it.
Dress like you belong there.
You don’t need the $200 shirt you saw on tour last Sunday. But do get a real golf shirt, real golf shorts, and golf shoes. You’ll feel like you belong on the course, and that actually matters when you’re already self-conscious about your game. Nobody thinks less of you for playing poorly in nice clothes. They do notice cutoff jeans. Most courses won’t let you on in them anyway. And if budget is a concern — Goodwill. Seriously. You’d be surprised by what you find.
Don’t carry a full bag of shiny new clubs.
Nothing announces “I don’t play much” quite like fourteen brand-new clubs in a spotless bag. I found a set on eBay — good clubs, fifteen years old, a fraction of the price — and that was a fine start. But once I began practicing, I realized how many of those clubs I never actually reached for. I ended up having a long conversation with an AI about club selection — told it my skill level, which clubs I’d had any success with, and which ones were just dead weight. We got the bag down to thirteen clubs. It’s lighter. I make decisions faster. And I don’t stand over the ball agonizing over a club I can’t hit anyway.
I’ll have a lot more to say about AI and golf in future posts. It’s changed how I practice in ways I didn’t expect.
So What’s Next?
Right now, you have the right people to play with, the right clubs in your bag, and appropriate attire. That’s actually more than I had for most of my golf life.
The next step is the hard one: you have to practice. Most courses have a driving range — use it. Al and Scott won’t try to teach you there either, unless you ask them to. Just swing the club. A lot. Get comfortable with the motion before you worry about whether it’s right.
I’ve learned some things about how to practice that I wish someone had told me earlier. They’re a little unconventional. They will probably surprise you.
More on that soon. In the meantime — go find Al and Scott. Call them. Get on the course. You’ll have a better time than you think.
Grace and Peace —
Scott Walker