10 Essential Golf Tips for Women: Improve Your Game (by a Golf Professional)
Golf is a game that requires both skill and strategy, and women who play the sport face unique challenges on the course. Many factors can affect a woman’s performance, from finding the right equipment to playing from the correct tee box, but with the right mindset and approach, female golfers can play golf from every level. In this article, I’ll share my ten essential golf tips for women that will take your games to the next level.
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1) Find the Right Equipment
One of the most important aspects of golf for women is having correctly fitted golf clubs. The right clubs are essential to playing your best, so club fitting is vital. As a lady golfer, for the most part, the equipment you will use is slightly different from your male counterparts. Most of the difference will pertain to the flex and weight of the shafts you will use in your irons and woods.
Another critical aspect of getting your bag right is finding the best golf ball for your game. Although plenty of ladies on the professional tours, including the LPGA Tour, use the same ball as male professional golfers, the average female golfer must find a ball more suited to their game.
The best way to find the right golf ball for your game is to get fitted by a golf professional at your local course or an expert at a golf retailer. They will use technology, such as TrackMan or GCQuad, to determine what ball is best for you based on your golf swing, clubhead speed, and ball speed.
2) Develop a Consistent Golf Swing
Practice your swing regularly to develop consistency, which means focusing on your form and hitting shots in various situations, such as uphill, downhill, and sidehill lies.
One of the most important aspects of building a consistent golf swing is to focus on the five fundamentals:
- Grip
- Stance
- Posture
- Ball Position
- Alignment
These five fundamentals are essential even after you progress in skill level and continue to lower your scores. You will need to continuously check to ensure you’re doing each correctly.
Next time you watch the LPGA professionals in person or on television, look at the ladies practicing on the driving range if given the opportunity. The odds are you will see many, if not all, using alignment sticks and working on their form as it relates to posture, stance, grip, and ball position—you should be too.
If you are like me, and always busy, learning to practice golf at home can be a game changer and save time from not commuting to the golf course or practice facility. My best swing thoughts and practice time has been accomplished while working on my game at home, so I highly recommend giving it a try.
If you are interested in practicing golf at home, I’ve listed my top three products I recommend for at home practice. I use each one for all my practice sessions at home, and recommend them to golfers of all skill levels:
3) Master Your Short Game
The short game is where you can shave strokes off your score. Spend time practicing putting, chipping, and pitching to improve accuracy and control.
I consider the short game to be anything from a full shot with the wedge you hit the furthest in your bag (usually a pitching wedge) to the point where you get the ball in the hole. Thus, the short game encompasses all shots hit by wedges and shots around and on the green—meaning putting.
Although opinions differ on how much practice time a golfer should spend on their short game, I believe 65 to 70 percent of your practice schedule should be focused on your wedges, pitching, chipping, bunker play, and putting. You’ll thank me later!
4) Manage Your Expectations
Don’t expect to be perfect right away. Go ahead and expect never to find perfection in golf. There may be bits and pieces of attainable perfection that can be yours for a hole or even an entire round of golf; however, in golf, perfection is unattainable. We golfers must learn to enjoy the pursuit of perfection while realizing we will never reach a level of perfection.
In other words, golf is a challenging sport that takes time and practice to improve. Set realistic goals for yourself and focus on making progress rather than focusing on what your peers are doing or what type of score those around you are posting.
Golf is an individual sport; make your pursuit your own by focusing on improving over time.
5) Don’t Neglect the Mental Game
The mental side of golf is one of the, if not the most important, aspects of the game. It involves club and shot selection, playing to your strengths, minimizing your misses, and using visualization techniques before you take a shot by imagining your shot shape and the ball flying toward the target.
Another key component of the mental side of golf is having a game plan before any round and sticking to that game plan no matter what may arise while on the course. A great way to track your mental game is by keeping a mental scorecard: every time you differ from your initial game plan or find yourself breaking out of your routine or having self-doubts, write it down. Over the years, I’ve found this to be the best way to stay on top of my mindset on the course and continuously improve my mental game.
6) Keep a Positive Attitude
Although maintaining a positive attitude falls under the category of the mental game, I felt it important enough to make a separate category for it altogether.
Golf can be frustrating, but staying positive and having a good attitude is essential. Refrain from dwelling on mistakes or bad shots. Instead, focus on what you can do better next time.
One of the reasons I enjoy golf so much, and have continued to play this great game for well over two decades, is because it has taught me so much about life.
In golf, as in life, it’s important to keep your composure on the course and realize the bad times will come (bad shots), but good things are just around the corner (redemption on the course). As golfers, we must learn from the past but not dwell there, and have goals for the future while focusing our attention on the present.
During a round of golf, there is no room for past shots and future triumphs; there is only room for the here and now. The present is where greats like Annika Sorenstam, Tiger Woods, Nancy Lopez, and Jack Nicklaus lived in their pursuits to victory; we should all learn to do the same.
7) Get Comfortable With Course Management
As with my last point, we can include course management in the mental game category; however, it is far too important not to be singled out.
Course management is all about making strategic decisions during your round and includes things such as:
Those with excellent course management learn to read the course like a map and make intelligent decisions based on their strengths and weaknesses.
In their prime, if players like Annika Sorenstam and Tiger Woods were given 18 holes to figure things out—regardless of the game they brought to the course that day (their best or not)—they would out a way to get it done.
Remember this: preparation trumps talent every time; it is when talent comes prepared that it truly shines.
8) Work on Your Physical Fitness
Golf requires both physical and mental strength. Ensure you’re in good physical shape to improve your game and avoid injuries.
Although a key component, modern equipment is not the great ace of today’s game. One thing that stands out regarding how golf has changed the most over the last 20 years is physical fitness.
You won’t find many golfers on professional tours who neglect their bodies these days. Pioneers of physical fitness in golf, like Annika Sorenstam and Tiger Woods, have changed the game forever. These days, players focus on longevity and staying in shape, both on and off the course.
Make sure you find a solid golf-related workout plan and work with a golf instructor to incorporate your physical fitness into your game.
9) Golf Tips for Women (Most Important Tip)
Although a solo sport for the most part, golf is about community and socializing. Finding like-minded individuals who share your goals and enjoyment for golf can be a life changer and go beyond the game. Some of the most influential people in my life came from playing golf. I would not trade the experiences, memories, people, and places I’ve seen because of golf for anything.
I hope you find the same, and if you stick with this great game, I believe you will.
“Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.”
-Elbert Hubbard
One of the most important things to keep in mind for all golfers, is to have fun and enjoy the game of golf. It’s fine and encouraged to be competitive, but never take golf too seriously. My hope for you, both as a female golfer and as a human being, is to find joy somewhere out there on the fairways and greens.
The American writer Elbert Hubbard once wrote:
“Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.”
There is something magical, poetic, and almost spiritual about how a golf course sets during sunrise and how the dew and fresh-cut grass smells in the morning air. There is a reason why I fell in love with golf. I never forget how lucky I am to have found this great game, and I cherish every moment spent on the links.
