There are a couple things worth mentioning here, because there are a lot of people who decide as adults that they want to learn golf. They invariably find that they suck, and they continue to suck no matter how much they play or practice. Why? I'll tell you...
If you are a typical American male adult, you learned a major part of your hand-eye coordination by learning to hit a baseball with a bat. You swing the bat and align the centerline of the bat with the center of the object-sphere. The same coordination/skill is also useful in tennis, racquetball, ping-pong, and other sports. In EVERY ONE OF THOSE sports, you strike the ball along the centerline of the implement you are using. You hit a baseball or softball by aligning the centerline of the circular bat with the center of a spherical ball. Same with a tennis racquet and so on. This is a tremendous skill which, when perfected after thousands of repetitions, becomes a part of your "muscle memory."
But with a golf club, you do not hit the ball along the centerline of the instrument. You must hit the ball with a portion of the implement that sticks out from the centerline, visually a couple inches above the centerline. Your own muscle memory has taught you to align the centerline of the implement with the ball you are trying to hit. But if you do that in golf, you will strike the ball with the "hosel" of the club, which will cause the ball to carom off to the side, completely out of control.
When you are first learning to golf (as an adult who has played baseball) you are not aware that striking the ball with what is in effect an appendage on the club goes totally against the skill you learned as a kid. It looks like a simple adjustment, but you are LEARNING something new that goes against your already-learned skill.
Imagine a baseball player trying to hit a ball with small extension that sticks out above the center of the bat. Forget about it. He would have to "erase" the muscle memory that has been trained to strike the ball along the centerline of the bat. And this is why it is almost impossible to reach the point where your body is comfortable striking a golf ball. The swing will never become intuitive because it goes against your muscle memory - which cannot be changed as an adult. You will ALWAYS have to think about the swing, when you should be thinking about where you want the ball to go.
If you learn the golf swing as a child or a young teen, then it becomes intuitive and you can learn to "shape" your shots, controlling where it goes, and not worrying about whether you will hit it properly in the sweet spot of the club face. But this is not an option when you take up the game as an adult.
It also doesn't help that basic elements of golf instruction are nonsense.
Note the description of the arms, hanging straight down from the shoulder, then you can see that the club IS ON A DIFFERENT LINE to the ball. You are instructed to swing the club back (details are not important), then swing back through, striking the ball. And by the way, keep your head perfectly still. NOW, if you look at pictures of the ball being struck, that line from the shoulder to the ball is STRAIGHT. The arms are IN LINE WITH the club, thus increasing the length of that line (crooked line vs. straight line). The distance between the shoulders and the ball INCREASES by a couple inches as the swing is being executed.
If you keep your head still, the only possible result is that you will strike the ground behind the ball because the distance from your shoulders to the ball is LONGER. What is actually happening is that good golfers rise up a couple inches to compensate for the extension of the club during the swing, but if pro-instructors admitted that, they would not be able to tell you how much to lift up, or how to do it consistently every time. That only comes when you learn to swing as a kid and it's instinctive.
Parenthetically I will mention that this phenomenon has been recognized in recent years and a few pro golfers (e.g., Bryson Dechambeau) are starting to set up with the arms fully-extended, in line with the club, so that you actually CAN keep your head steady and strike the ball squarely. This is referred to as "single-plane golf".
So, bottom line, you can still enjoy golf if you learn as an adult. Just don't expect to be very good at it. Don't beat yourself up. It's you father's fault for not teaching you to play when you were still a kid.
If you are a typical American male adult, you learned a major part of your hand-eye coordination by learning to hit a baseball with a bat. You swing the bat and align the centerline of the bat with the center of the object-sphere. The same coordination/skill is also useful in tennis, racquetball, ping-pong, and other sports. In EVERY ONE OF THOSE sports, you strike the ball along the centerline of the implement you are using. You hit a baseball or softball by aligning the centerline of the circular bat with the center of a spherical ball. Same with a tennis racquet and so on. This is a tremendous skill which, when perfected after thousands of repetitions, becomes a part of your "muscle memory."
But with a golf club, you do not hit the ball along the centerline of the instrument. You must hit the ball with a portion of the implement that sticks out from the centerline, visually a couple inches above the centerline. Your own muscle memory has taught you to align the centerline of the implement with the ball you are trying to hit. But if you do that in golf, you will strike the ball with the "hosel" of the club, which will cause the ball to carom off to the side, completely out of control.
When you are first learning to golf (as an adult who has played baseball) you are not aware that striking the ball with what is in effect an appendage on the club goes totally against the skill you learned as a kid. It looks like a simple adjustment, but you are LEARNING something new that goes against your already-learned skill.
Imagine a baseball player trying to hit a ball with small extension that sticks out above the center of the bat. Forget about it. He would have to "erase" the muscle memory that has been trained to strike the ball along the centerline of the bat. And this is why it is almost impossible to reach the point where your body is comfortable striking a golf ball. The swing will never become intuitive because it goes against your muscle memory - which cannot be changed as an adult. You will ALWAYS have to think about the swing, when you should be thinking about where you want the ball to go.
If you learn the golf swing as a child or a young teen, then it becomes intuitive and you can learn to "shape" your shots, controlling where it goes, and not worrying about whether you will hit it properly in the sweet spot of the club face. But this is not an option when you take up the game as an adult.
It also doesn't help that basic elements of golf instruction are nonsense.
Note the description of the arms, hanging straight down from the shoulder, then you can see that the club IS ON A DIFFERENT LINE to the ball. You are instructed to swing the club back (details are not important), then swing back through, striking the ball. And by the way, keep your head perfectly still. NOW, if you look at pictures of the ball being struck, that line from the shoulder to the ball is STRAIGHT. The arms are IN LINE WITH the club, thus increasing the length of that line (crooked line vs. straight line). The distance between the shoulders and the ball INCREASES by a couple inches as the swing is being executed.
If you keep your head still, the only possible result is that you will strike the ground behind the ball because the distance from your shoulders to the ball is LONGER. What is actually happening is that good golfers rise up a couple inches to compensate for the extension of the club during the swing, but if pro-instructors admitted that, they would not be able to tell you how much to lift up, or how to do it consistently every time. That only comes when you learn to swing as a kid and it's instinctive.
Parenthetically I will mention that this phenomenon has been recognized in recent years and a few pro golfers (e.g., Bryson Dechambeau) are starting to set up with the arms fully-extended, in line with the club, so that you actually CAN keep your head steady and strike the ball squarely. This is referred to as "single-plane golf".
So, bottom line, you can still enjoy golf if you learn as an adult. Just don't expect to be very good at it. Don't beat yourself up. It's you father's fault for not teaching you to play when you were still a kid.
