How to Play Better Golf: Practical Tips From Grip's PGA Coaches

The short answer

Playing better golf comes down to four things: a repeatable grip and setup, a short game you practise more than your driver, practice that is structured rather than random ball-hitting, and course decisions that match the shots you can actually hit today. Technique matters. Practice quality usually matters more, and it is the part most golfers control.

Everything below is what our PGA coaches work through with golfers at our Tower Bridge and Deptford Park studios, in the order they tend to work through it.

Start with the parts you set before the club moves

Ball flight is largely decided by where the face points and how the club travels through impact. Both are heavily influenced by things you arrange while standing still, which is good news, because static things are easier to change than moving ones.

Grip

Grip style (overlapping, interlocking or ten-finger) matters far less than grip strength and pressure. If the club sits in the palms rather than the fingers of the lead hand, the wrists cannot hinge properly and the face tends to arrive open. If you are gripping hard enough to see white knuckles, you have removed the wrist speed that produces distance. Our step-by-step guide to holding a golf club covers the detail.

Change the grip in the winter, not the week before a club competition. It feels wrong for about a fortnight, and shots get worse before they get better.

Aim and alignment

A large share of the "slices" we see in the bays are not slices at all. The golfer is aimed 15 to 20 yards right of target, swings across the ball to bring it back, and produces a curve that looks like a swing fault. Put an alignment stick on the ground and check. Feel is not a reliable guide here, which is why alignment errors survive for years.

Setup and posture

Ball position, width of stance and the tilt of your upper body set the low point of the swing. Most thin and fat shots with irons trace back to a low point that is behind the ball, not to a swing that "lifted". Fixing where the club bottoms out fixes contact faster than any thought about the takeaway.

Use the numbers, then forget them

Every bay at Grip runs Trackman, which is the same launch monitor technology used on tour and in professional club fitting. Three numbers change how people practise almost immediately.

Carry distance. Nearly every golfer we measure over-estimates how far they hit their irons, usually because they remember their best strike rather than their average. Once you know your real carry with a 7-iron, and how much it drops in cold, damp British conditions, you start taking enough club into greens. That single adjustment removes a lot of short-side chipping.

Strike location. Where the ball meets the face explains distance loss more often than swing speed does. Two identical-looking swings can carry 15 yards apart if one finds the centre and the other finds the heel.

Start direction and curve. Seeing the start line separately from the curve tells you whether you have a face problem or a path problem. Those need opposite fixes, which is why generic slice advice from the internet works for some golfers and makes others worse.

The discipline is to gather the numbers, then choose one to work on. Golfers who watch every metric on every shot end up managing data rather than hitting shots. If you want the wider approach to building a plan around them, our guide on how to get good at golf sets out the sequence.

The short game is where the shots are

Ask a golfer what they want to fix and they will say the driver. Look at their scorecard and the damage is inside 100 yards. Three areas repay attention.

Putting: distance control first. Three-putts come from poor speed far more often than poor lines. Practise to a distance rather than a hole. Put a tee 30 feet away and try to finish every ball within a putter length of it. Then do the same at 40 and 50 feet. Direction takes care of itself on shorter putts; speed never does.

Chipping: one club, one motion. Beginners improve fastest by learning a single reliable chip, usually with a pitching wedge or 9-iron, with hands slightly ahead and the chest turning through the shot. Once that is dependable, change club rather than technique to change trajectory and roll. The scoop, which is the most common chipping fault we see, is usually an attempt to help the ball up that the loft would have handled anyway.

Wedges: three lengths, not three feels. Learn a full, three-quarter and half-length swing with each wedge and measure the carry for each. That gives you nine reliable distances instead of one, and it removes the deceleration that produces duffed pitches.

Practise with purpose

An hour spent hitting 70 drivers off a mat feels productive and rarely transfers to the course. On the course you never hit the same shot twice in a row, and you always have a consequence. Practice should eventually look like that.

A structure that works in a 60-minute bay session:

1. 10 minutes, warm-up. Wedges only, half swings, building to full.
2. 20 minutes, block practice. One technical focus, repeated. This is where a swing change gets embedded.
3. 20 minutes, random practice. Change club and target on every shot. Go through the bag. It will feel like you have got worse. That is the point, because retrieval under variation is what builds transfer.
4. 10 minutes, pressure. Play a scored game. Nine holes on a course simulation, or a target challenge where a miss costs you a point and you have to reach a number before you leave.

Two focused hours a week will beat one four-hour session, and the indoor setting removes the excuses that thin out winter practice. Our studios run year-round in any weather, which matters in a city where the driving range option is often a cold, dark drive away.

Course management and the mental side

Better golfers do not hit more good shots than you think. They miss in better places.

• Pick the shot you can hit seven times out of ten, not the one you hit last Sunday. Your average shot, not your best one, is the honest input.
• Aim at the fat side of the green. Playing to the middle removes short-siding, which is the single most expensive miss for a mid-handicapper.
• Take the tee shot that leaves you a full wedge. A 3-wood in play beats a driver in the trees, and the yardage lost is smaller than the strokes gained.

The mental game follows from this. Most on-course anxiety is caused by attempting shots you have never practised. A pre-shot routine helps, though it works because it is repeatable, not because it is calming. Build one that lasts around 15 seconds, use it on the practice tee as well as the course, and keep it identical for a two-foot putt and a tee shot on the 18th.

Where Grip fits

Grip runs indoor simulator and coaching studios at Tower Bridge and Deptford Park, open year-round, for complete beginners through to low handicappers. Bays are Trackman-equipped, so every session gives you measurable feedback rather than a guess.

If you are unsure where to start, book a lesson with one of our PGA coaches first. A single session usually identifies the one change worth making, which is the part that takes golfers the longest on their own. Our coaching page sets out how sessions work. Members get unlimited bay time, which is what turns occasional practice into a routine. We also run corporate sessions, team away days, client entertainment and staff wellbeing bookings at both studios.

Casual bay bookings are self-directed and assume prior experience with Trackman, so if this is your first time in a simulator, start with a coach.

Book a bay or a lesson and bring one thing you want to fix.

Frequently asked questions

What is the fastest way to play better golf? Improve your short game and your practice structure before you rebuild your swing. Most amateur scores are lost inside 100 yards and through poor tee shot decisions. Learning three wedge distances, controlling putting speed, and playing to the middle of greens will lower a handicap faster than a technical overhaul, and none of it requires you to swing any quicker.

How often should I practise to lower my handicap? Two focused hours a week beats one long, unstructured session. Split the time between block practice with a single technical focus, random practice that changes club and target every shot, and a scored game that creates consequences. Consistency of schedule matters more than volume, which is one reason indoor practice works well through a British winter.

Does indoor golf practice actually improve your game? Yes, when it is measured. A launch monitor gives you carry distance, start direction, curve and strike location on every shot, which is information you cannot get from a floodlit range and a bucket of worn balls. Knowing your true carry numbers changes club selection on the course immediately, and strike feedback shortens the time it takes to fix contact.

Do I need lessons or can I improve on my own? You can improve alone if you have reliable feedback. Most golfers do not, because what they feel and what they do are different things, and video or launch data is needed to close that gap. A coach mainly shortens the diagnosis, which is usually the slow part. Self-directed practice then does the work of embedding the change.

What should a beginner work on first? Grip, aim, setup and contact, in that order. Ball flight problems are usually the result of a face and path relationship that was largely set before the club moved, so arranging the static parts correctly removes several faults at once. Learn one dependable chip and a putting stroke with decent speed control, and you will be able to get round a course.