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It has never been easier to get into golf — regardless of gender, age or physical ability

By Steven Troup

Golf is often stereotyped as a difficult and complicated game, seen as elitist and exclusive. Although this may have been true in the past, the sport is now growing in popularity, with people of all ages and backgrounds giving golf a try in its various forms both on the golf course and at such venues as entertainment ranges, simulator facilities and putting courses. Unfortunately, the belief that golf is difficult to learn is still prevalent and a lot of current teaching practices reinforce this by introducing players to the game through adopting ‘positions’ or swing ‘methods’, which things such as: the club must travel a certain way; the clubface or shaft must be held at certain angles; the body must be positioned in a particular way ...

While social media has further encouraged this, it has also offered up many benefits to golf by providing more awareness, connectivity, and making it look more fun and cool game.

However, it now provides a dangerous platform for people to copy the various beliefs of respected industry coaches as well as non-golf professional social ‘influencers’ and what they perceive to be right or wrong.

This is a risky path for any would-be golfer and it does not offer the opportunity to be coached to discover their own swing, as they instead go down a route of copying someone else’s swing or methodology.

It’s easy to try and copy but not necessarily easy to get it right and this can have harmful effects to the enjoyment for newcomers as the pursuit of that ‘method’ could hold someone back and, in a lot of cases, be unachievable, either physically or from a time and practice perspective, only further pushing the belief that golf is difficult to learn and even tougher to play.

A look at some of the best golfers in the world showcases how each swing is different and people being introduced to the game must be provided with the tools to help them discover their own movement instead of copy-pasting someone else’s.

At academies such as those at Golf Saudi, newcomers have the opportunity to learn their own swing through movement discovery and are coached along the journey creating movement that works to achieve success for them, whatever that may be.

Although physics at impact exist, there is no one set way to get there — but there is your way!

A good outcome for many to begin with is just making contact with the ball, which is achievable for anyone, regardless of gender, age, experience or physical ability and avoids newcomers being put off because the ball isn’t flying off the tee. This keeps it simple and, more importantly, fun!

When approached in the right way, golf is an incredibly rewarding game to try out, and it can lead to taking up a sport that can be enjoyed for life, which opens up huge social, health and wellbeing benefits.