#174 Web TV: How To Play Your First Golf Hole Of The Day

How To Play Your First Golf Hole of The Day

You know when you are standing on the tee, ready to start your day of golf, you are so looking forward to the day, you can’t wait to tee off?

You are excited and thinking that today is the day it is all going to happen for me and you play the first shot and it just does not work. You play the next shot and it doesn’t work, you felt so good, today was supposed to be a good day and you have already written yourself off before the end of the hole. The first hole is actually over.

Today I’m going to show you a way in which you can deal with that. You can start off better, if you start really well you are going to finish even stronger.

We want to make sure that you are starting much better off the tee. What seems to happen is that when people start off the first tee, their first game of the day, there is a lot of pressure and you tend to judge yourself on how you actually tee off your very first shot.

I know a guy that played one time and he didn’t even finish the first hole and then said he didn’t play it that well so that’s it, over and done. He had another 17 holes to go and he had already wiped himself out. He said he was not playing anymore, because it would take too long for the round to finish and made many excuses, not hitting the ball very well. But, he had only just begun, he never warms up and he had an attitude. Don’t let this be you!

Because it’s quite nerve racking when we get onto the tee and it’s the first shot of the day and we want to make it great, the thing is that there is an added pressure that you have to make it work. We are going to work together on how we can make it work so that you are actually playing the hole, your very first hole, in a more structured and strategic way as opposed to hoping that everything is all going to happen.

This is what we are going to do. We’re going to tee off and then we are going to go play down the fairway as well, I’ll show you how to approach it.

Remember to always do a practice swing, our practice swing is the one that we want to actually produce, come down nice and slow, (nice and slow, you have heard me say this before if other videos) get the feel and do a nice little half swing and then move on to play the next shot.

Now we are going to play the second shot down to the left side of the green. On this hole you can see down on the right side is the bunker. We don’t want to play the ball towards the bunker because the pin is just slightly left of the bunker, but it is tucked in behind it.

We want to play strategically, we want to play to where there is an open space. Even though we have come down to play our second shot we want to make sure, again, that we have a nice, easy swing. It doesn’t matter if the ball doesn’t make it onto the green, what you can actually do it to choose one club longer that you would normally, so that you can have a nice easy relaxed swing to get yourself near the green.

Playing the shot with a nice easy swing has got me to the edge of the green, on the left-hand side, which is where I was aiming. I let go of the fact that I had to get the ball on the green, all I was focusing on was making sure that I hit a nice easy shot so I could get myself down near the green, so I can continue. Remember, we are playing the first hole, easing ourselves in rather than putting a lot of pressure on ourselves.

Here we are, around the edge of the green, as I said. Now we want to chip the ball on and getting it as close to the hole as we can.

Because we are playing the first hole, we want to make sure we are still taking it nice and easy, not putting pressure on ourselves thinking we have to get it close, because we have to start this hole really well. Start off the hole relaxed, remember, make sure that all you are doing is playing the shot the best you can with a nice, easy stroke. This is all about feeling it and easing yourself in, so you have a nice, easy rhythm. Once you have set your rhythm in place on your first hole, you can take that same rhythm to the next hole, and the next hole and the next hole, so that by the time you have finished on the 18th, you have maintained the same rhythm and you feel that you played really well.

Now we’re going to do our next shot, always make sure you get set and play the shot. I’m pretty happy with that, probably about one and a half metres from the hole. Again, it was nice and easy. We’re going to finish it off.
Here we are about to finish it off. Remember, we have played it nice and easy all the way down the fairway, a nice easy tee shot, a nice easy second shot finishing just on the edge of the green, being nice and easy, a nice easy chip shot leading in, no pressure, it’s all about creating rhythm.

Finishing off with a putt, probably close to about two metres from the hole actually. Because I am about two metres out, I’m not going to put pressure on myself to make par. I am going to have the attitude of getting the ball nice and close. If it goes in, it’s a bonus, if it doesn’t go in it’s okay because it’s only the first hole.

Lining the ball up, then doing a practice swing, as always, to get the feel of the kind of putt we want to play. Then we get set and play the putt. I’ve just missed, but that’s okay because what I have done is to have it reasonably close to the hole, so I can then just finish it off. Okay done.

What I am not doing is stressing about missing the hole and taking it to the next hole. It has been quite a steady, easy warm-up.

We want to make sure that is how we warm ourselves up down the first fairway, then continuing to do the second because it’s actually not what you are doing on each particular hole, it’s going to be an accumulation of everything you have done on each hole that will give you the final result.

Start off nice and steady and then you have the attitude to continue on nice and steady, then you will get the results that you want.

There’s a nice easy way for you to play your first hole.

I hope you enjoyed today’s tip, love you to leave a comment and share with me what you liked best about what you heard today and if you have friends that you know will benefit from these videos, it would be absolutely awesome if you could share them, because we want to build the Lady Golf Teacher community as big as we possibly can.

Have an absolutely awesome day, take care, and remember; Tee it high and Let it fly.