Sunday, November 14, 2010

Step 4

Finally, once on tour you have to maintain your "tour card". To remain a proffessional golfer you must be the top 120 golfers or else you have your "tour card" taken away and you are sent back down to "Q-School". Although becoming a proffessional golfer is a long process, it's not a peice of cake once on tour. All proffessionals each year constantly battle to remain a proffessional golfer. Unfortunately, this is a long and exhausting process. There is a lot of pressure to qualify at Q-School, only 1% of registered PGA Tour players qualify for the PGA Tour. Thats means 99% of registered PGA Tour players have their dreams shattered every year. Becoming a Proffessional Golfer sounds like a lot of stress to me.

Step 3

When you compete at the US Open, you are competing as an amateur so you won't get payed. But, depending on how well you do at the US Open you can become a proffessional. However, there are other ways to become a proffessional such as "Q-School". The "Q" stands for qualifying. "Q-School" isn't actually a school, but its another long process. You have to register for the PGA Tour which involves you to pay a registering fee. Then you must play in several events finishing at the top everytime over the course of many months. Once you winning tournaments on "Q-School" then you become a proffessional golfer.

Step 2

Amatur tournaments cost at least $100. You should play in amateur tournaments to gain confidence and against to compare yourself to other players. Once you are dominating amateur tournaments, winning consistently, you should try to qualify for the US Amateur. Each section of America has qualifiers and at the qualifier, the top two or three players will advance to the US Amatuer tournament. There, all the best amateur players in America compete. The winner of the the US Amatuer will be exempt the play in the US Open, which is a proffessional tournament.

Step 1

To become a proffessional golfer you must practice a lot, typically on a daily basis. Most proffessional golfers come out of the south because they can play year around. There are only a few golfers that come out of northern states. Being a proffessional golfer is a full-time job, therefor to become one you most be devoted to practice everyday. However, Golf is a very expensive sport. A complete set of golf clubs can cost up to $2,000. Once you have the clubs it costs $20-100 to play a single round of golf. Practicing at a driving range costs $8. Private lessons cost $50-100 . And if you live north then you should move south, if you want to have a good opportunity to become a proffessional, which will cost a fortune. Once, youre in the south you should play in some amateur tournaments to see how you are compared to other amateur players.

i-Search

My i-Search project is about the process of becoming a proffessional golfer. I will go into the detail of how long the process is. There are many different ways of becoming a proffessional golfer, but I will tell the most comman process. Like any other sport, it takes a lot of practice to become great. Unlike most sports golf is a sport played individually not on team, so you are 100% on your own to become great.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Club Selection on Short Game

Deciding which club to use for short game shots can be difficult. Selected which club to use is personal opinion, however there are some basics that make selected a club easier. There are different situations where you should selected one club than another, but again selecting a club is personal opinion.

For instance, hitting over a bunker you need to the ball to go over the bunker, and stay on the green. So you would need the trajectory of the ball flight to be high so that it lands at a steep enough angle that the ball won't role off the green. So the club that would do this job the best would be a lob wedge. A lob wedge is the highest lofted club (typically 60 degrees)
.

However, some shots you don't need a lot of loft such as bump and run shots. Bump and run shots are used when there isn't anything in the way of you and the hole, but you're too far away to putt. These shots are typically used with an 8 iron because it doesn't have a lot of loft so it will role more than a lob wedge.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Wind

Along with sidehill lies, many factors can affect your game such as wind. Just like sidehill lies and breaks in the green you must aim the opposite direction of which the ball will tend to go to equal out for the wind/break/slope of hill.

On the putting green the ball isn't affected that much by the wind because it is low to the ground, but with tee shots, iron shots, and pitch shots the ball can really move left, right, far, and short due to the wind. As I said earlier, you must factor in the wind as you would with sidehill lies and reading the break in the greens.

Ways to feel the wind:
-Look at the flag on the pin to see which direction it is going
-most proffesional golfers pick up a few blades of grass and toss it into the air to determine the direction of the wind
                                     -and then you could always just feel the wind and judge which direction its going