5 tips for golf beginners

When Alan Babbitt, The Holland Sentinel’s sports editor, asked me if I’d enroll in Clearbrook callaway x22 10-week novice golf lessons in Saugatuck and do a weekly feature that relays the tips I learn to others, I gladly obliged.

But I think he has ulterior motives.

I told him he just doesn’t want me to embarrass him again at a media golf outing, to which he jokingly responded titleist ap2 that he’s only a more experienced hack than I am.

So for the next 10 weeks, I will chronicle the lessons I learn from Eric Campbell, a certified instructor and Clearbrook’s director of ap2 irons, and Jeff Knowlton, a PGA professional and Clearbrook’s head pro.

While future weeks will consist of playing callaway diablo edge irons, here are some interesting tidbits from week one, which was a briefing on etiquette, rules and words of the game.

If somebody yells “Fore!” don’t look to where the sound callaway ft-iz driver came from, because “your face is wide open to get hit by a golf ball ... you want to make sure you turn away and cover your head,” Knowlton said.

Other than that, playing safe starts with knowing where to stand and when others are hitting their ball. The active taylorMade burner superfast driver should be facing you, while you’re off to the side with plenty of room — still somewhat in their peripheral vision while they swing, but not in their way, Knowlton said.

“We try to get it ishiner so that you’re not directly taylormade r9 super tri driver standing behind someone that is hitting,” he said. “(If) it’s hot and sweaty, and I don’t have a golf glove on, or I do and it’s just not a very nice one, I swing back and it slips out of my hand, the first place that callaway x-24 hot irons is going is directly behind me.”