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.

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.

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

Sidehill lies in Golf

Golf is a difficult game as it is, unfortunately you have to factor in other components such as side hill lies. Sidehills seem like very difficult shots to hit, however once you understand the basic, like any other shot, then you can easily master hitting them.

Just like reading the break in a green, you have to determine which way the hill is slanted. If you are standing above the ball (and you are a righty) then the ball will go to the right. If above the ball and you are a lefty, then the ball will go to the left. However, if you are under the ball, the ball will tend to go the opposite direction of your hand  (righty goes left, lefty goes right). These are the basics of hitting a side hill lie. Also if the hill has a small slope then you do not have to factor in the conditions of left to right/right to left as much. And if the hill has a great slope than you must factor these conditions in a lot more than you would with a small sloped hill.

So, putting the sidehill lie conditions into affect you must aim the opposite direction of which the ball will tend to go towards, so it ends up at your target.

Good Luck!

"The Step"

If you watch golf 20 or 30 years ago you will see the players lift there heal slightly off the ground in the backswing and then step down as they swing through the hit. "The step" is for power just like baseball players when hitting step forwards and for more power. This "Step"" is very essential for getting "power" and hitting the ball far. Most players on tour currently do not do "the step" anymore, but they do something similar. All players that don't do "the step" just transfer their weight onto their front foot as they swing through the hit, but do not picking up their heal and step down on it. However, there are some players that still do it, such as the world's fourth best player Phil Mickelson. So "the step" might be an old move but it is still affective. 

Over the summer my golf coach and I were working on having a better weight transfer (for more power) and I just couldn't do it, so I began to do "the step" and every since I've being playing the greatest golf I've every played in my life. 

Try "the step" and you'll see an increase in your distance.

Teeing up the Ball

The tee markers are on either side of the player.

How/What//When/Where/Why to tee up the golf ball.


A player is only allowed to tee up the golf ball at the beginning shot of the hole. There is a specific area for a player to tee up the ball called "the tee box" and inside that tee box a play must tee the ball up inside "the tee markers". The advantage of teeing up the ball, is the ball is higher up and it makes for a cleaner hit because it is less friction because your club isn't hitting the ground. The ball should be teed up with half of the ball above the club face, and half under. Teeing up the ball is a big advantage that some people do not take advantage of. Tiger Woods said that players should tee up the ball every single time they're on the tee box. Teeing up just leads to a better hit.

If you weren't teeing it up before, try it out. Good Luck!

How to Hit from the Bunkers

  Hitting from a sand trap isn't that hard once you understand the basics. Sand Traps a.k.a Bunkers are thought to be very hard to hit out of. However, they can become very easy to hit out of. In the US Open at Beth Page Black in 2009 the rough was so thick that players would rather be in the bunker than the rough. Players would purposely aim for bunkers instead of the rough, when they knew they couldn't hit the green. Professional Golfers are very good out of bunkers and it's easy to become good out of bunkers too.




How to hit from the Bunkers

Step 1:  Dig your feet into the sand for balance, also to test the thickness of the sand. The softer the sand the easier it will be to swing your club through and the less sand you should scoop underneath the ball. The thicker the sand the more sand you should scoop under to help lift the ball up in the air.
Step 2: Open up your stance. If you're a righty aim your feet left of the target, lefty right of the target. Opening up your stance allows your hands to come in and get underneath the ball more. Also to equal out for opening your hands, which leads to step 3.
Step 3: Open up your hands. Where ever your feet are aiming, aim your hands the other way to even out for your open stance. An open close face also adds loft which  helps shoot the ball out of the bunker.
Step 4: Lean all your weight onto the front side. I don't know why it works, it just does. All pros do it and so do I.

Next time your in a bunker try this out. Good Luck!