I would see about lessons from your local PGA pro at one of your local golf courses..he will be able to also help you with your ball selection and club selection also..

Slowly just make odd changes to your set , start with the driver , then maybe a putter , no rules to say they have to be brand new ! And just play and practice as often as you can , and eventually your scores will hopefully drop , and you can also buy lake balls / second hand ones , just try and get them the same or similar, don’t have to be the best model etc

Why not try the easiest approach and start small. Learning or practicing from a one foot putt and work your way out. Chips and pitches- start small... do the same with your irons and the rest of you clubs.

Sooner or later you'll have something and your future lessons with a pro will be worth it. But most importantly, you'll start having more fun alone or with friends doing what you have learned.

Good luck.

I can’t stress enough that the best advice for you is to have lessons.
It’s very easy to blame the wrong clubs or balls. There could be a multiple of faults in your setup. We all think that we can work things out an find a quick fix, but it’s a pro that will help you to get on the right track and hopefully lower your score and soon start to enjoy your golf.
Good Luck

First stop taking everyone's tips.
TEAM TITLEIST is all you need.....Lol
Next, sacrifice a couple of those high scoring rounds and take a lesson.
Lastly work on your chipping and putting all the time, its FREE!!!!!
WELCOME ABOARD...keep us posted
Madgolfer hitemstraight

As some of the others have said, lessons will be a big help. Also, when you practice, as my instructor reminds me often, do it in slow motion multiple time to reinforce it. Keep making deliberate, slow movements and then slowly speed up from there. At first, it won't come easy, but as the muscle memory improves you'll start to see benefits.

Try to ignore the scores and focus on the positive, keep trying to repeat the positive stuff and more will follow.

I still struggle as well. I'm an 18 handicap, I have my good days where I'm flirting with breaking 80, but some days it all falls apart and I'm north of 100. I just keep plugging away and hope to be more consistent. It's all something we have to work on. Best of luck to you.

JVaughn,

I was in your shoes two years ago. One key piece of advice I would give you is to go to an Edwin Watts or other golf shop to see if they'll do a fitting for free. I spent 15 minutes on a lunch break and determined I needed 1 degree upright clubs with regular flex shafts. I found a cheap set on eBay and got to work from there. If your clubs don't fit your body, it'll be much harder to hit the ball square.

So far, i'm self-taught by watching lots of YouTube because i'm cheap and don't have time for a PGA lesson. But I'm sure a pro lesson would have got me shooting in the 90s much faster.

Back to helping you. Golf with friends that are better than you and ask for tips, honest feedback. Remember that the face at impact determines the direction of the ball BUT the path of the club will make the ball curve (in to out = draw/hook and out to in = fade/slice). I like to go to an empty field near the house with a 7 iron and swing just 40-50% to see if I can hook or slice the ball on command. As you get better at ball contact and understand what is going on, increase your swing speed. Do this with other clubs.

Everyone says to spend 80% of your practice time on 100 yards and in. That's good advice once you are consistently shooting under 100. If you are over 100, i bet you're losing 6+ balls per round or are out of bounds causing penalty strokes. Therefore, hitting balls NEAR the fairway is more critical to your scoring right now. If you can 2 putt the hole, but it costs you 5 strokes to make it to the green, then your work is on hitting straight long balls.

Favorite youtubers: Rotary Swing, Me and My Golf, GolfSidekick, and Paige Sprinac (not exactly for learning). :)

I agree to get fit and less ones up...but the short answer lies in the short game

Practice daily chipping and putting and you will shave strokes rapidly. Hoping to hear a post in a few months where you brag about your mid 80s round! Best of luck fellow TTer!

Have you ever heard the saying, it is hard to run if you cannot walk. Walk over to the nearest muni and see if they have a series of lessons, one on one with the teaching pro. Step one. Most folks start there before they purchase their sticks with either an eight or nine iron. Good luck and you game will improve. As you get better and start enjoying the game more find out when there are free fittings in your area and getting fitted for a new set or a good used set and have them set according to the fittings by a local repair shop. You want to have fun on the course and obviously you are not. Good luck and go see that pro.

Try to find a location near you that has "Get Golf Ready" It's a series of 5 lessons from a PGA Pro for only $99.00. It's geared to the beginner or those who have been away from the game for awhile. My Wife took it a couple of years ago when she first started ( Unless she asks a question, I stay out of her golf game ) and it was a tremendous help to get her to understand the game and the fundamentals of the golf swing.

I'm in agreement with Chuck. Having a pro work with you (singularly or even a group for beginners on grip, stance, and swing mechanics will allow you to improve faster. Once you grove swing faults, it becomes that much harder to correct them. Having self-taught myself for 3 years, it took another 5 to (only to mostly) fix the problems. Clubs are more of an investment, but even playing a TruFeel or Velocity consistently will help you sort out if it is you or the club, rather than you, the club, or the ball. Plus, after meeting with the pro, you should slice or sh*#!k (never use the word shank around golfers) with far less frequency and use far fewer balls.

There are a number of good suggestions on here. I simply agree with the following.
1. Start small......1 ft putts, 2 ft putts, to chipping. If you develop a good short game, you will lower your score quickly.
2. Check around your city to see if there are any group lessons available. It's something I wish I had done when i first started out.
3. When you feel you have out grown group lessons, check around for individual lessons.

Keep us posted JVaughan, TT is behind you!!

I'm guessing spending a significant amount on lessons, private or group, may not be in your budget. Regardless, let's assume you have a fairly new cell phone. There are a few free video apps out there. Download one and video yourself at the range. You'd be surprised how much you "think" your doing, and what you're actually accomplishing. Then make your fixes slowly. Grip. Takeaway. Backswing. Club face. Plane etc. One thing at a time then move on...

Work on chipping and putting that will lower your score and it's free just requires some free time. Welcome to TT.

hello

I starting having lessons and found that it helped my game but had to realise what I was doing wrong before understanding what I needed to do to get better :) clubs are clubs! I am a titleist snob but just hit what you can and try keep the same ball

Swing easy ‍♂️

As I understand, money seems to be an issue. I will say that you can follow different FB and Instagram pages and they give you simple lessons. Then apply them and hit the range. Instead of blasting through a bucket, take your time and slow things down. I completely corrected my power fade aka slice simply by watching and applying a ten minute video on driving. Good luck!

I play SB7 wedges- 2 degrees flat with 8 degree bounce. I am a 17 handicap & in my late 70’s.
Swing speed is slowing- should I be looking for more bounce to better get through the ball?

Hi,

I'd suggest to get a lesson, maybe for half an hour if it is pricey.

Good Luck!

Obviously lessons are the way to go. After that get fit. If those things aren't in your budget, the best thing you can do is practice putting. There's a million drills and a million techniques, and the good news is, there's no wrong way to putt if the ball is going in the hole. It's the easiest thing to practice, it's free, and it'll pay the most dividends with your score.
My two favorite drills are the gate drill and climb the ladder. You'll develop a square face using a gate, and you'll start to develop touch with climb the ladder. Furthermore, if you commit to starting over each time you miss during the ladder drill, you'll learn to putt with pressure, and you'll spend a lot of time on short putts - which is important.

When I first started out I spent a ton of time consuming all of the instruction I could from YouTube. I took tips from friends and then I also just went to the range to try different things. I slowly began to build a foundation and developed a swing and got a good understanding of my swing. I determined what felt good and worked and what didn’t. From there after about a season of playing I decided to take some lessons. It took only a few lessons to teach me what I needed to improve drastically. I continued to practice just played consistently at least once per week all year. Before I knew it I was shooting in the 80s regularly. Now I’m a single digit handicap and have won first place in a tournament. Short game practice is everything and is the reason I shoot in the 70s now. It all depends on how much you want to put into it and what your goals are long term. Good luck and welcome to TT!