Video: Charlie Rymer Takes On the 1st Hole at TPC Myrtle Beach

Nothing beats golf in Myrtle Beach! I’m showing off and playing some of our best courses, all while giving you some advice for your game. This is Charlie’s Golf Tips!

This is the first hole here at TPC Myrtle Beach, the first tee jitters. Let me tell you what, it’s a real thing even for the best players in the world. That little butterfly in the stomach feeling, everybody gets it. I got a couple of things for you that’ll really help you out in a situation like we all feel on the first tee. First and foremost, you’ve got to breathe. You’ve got to take a couple of deep breaths. You do that, that’ll slow things down a little bit, calm you just a little bit, help the tension go away. And as far as your golf swing, it’s really simple, but believe me, it works. You want to make sure that in your back swing, you get a nice turn and your back gets to see the full fairway.

A lot of times when people have tension, they don’t make a full turn, you make a short turn. You end up hitting at the golf ball rather than making a nice, smooth swing through the golf ball. So let’s see what we get. Nice deep breath. I’m going to try to make sure my back faces the fairway. Believe me, those two things, they’ll help your day get off to a nice start.

Well, thought I found the fairway, but I got this nasty lie in the rough. And the key when you’ve got to lie like this is understanding what that golf ball’s going to do. It’s down in that rough. I can get it out no problem.

The ball’s going to fly pretty high and it’s not going to have any spin on it. I’ve got 120 yards of the flag stick. That number is irrelevant because when this ball lands, if it lands at 120 yards, it’s going to roll 20 yards. There’s no spin on this ball at all. So I’m thinking front edge carry, in this case, it’s 100 yards. It’s going to come out high, no spin. And it’s not going to curve either. This ball’s going to fly as straight as it could possibly fly. It’s a standard shot. I’m going to go ahead and go down after it a little bit. Flying as straight as it can. And that ball will land right around the front of the green and it’ll kick and release. And hopefully, got up pretty close to the hole.

So this ball came up little bit shorter than I had hoped for, but that’s all right. It’s never bad to make a mistake on the front third of a green. It’s left me this 40-footer. And I know sometimes people will struggle with the longer putts. And I think the reason a lot of people struggle with the longer putt is they don’t make a long enough backstroke. If you look at some of the best putters in the game, they have a long backstroke and a short follow through. So many times, golfers are trying to have a short backstroke and a long follow through. You just can’t have any rhythm when you do that.

I like taking a couple of long practice strokes behind the ball, making sure I store up plenty of energy in that backstroke. And I’m just going to load it up with that long backstroke. Yeah, that’s pretty good speed right there. Anytime you can get out of the gates on that first hole with a nice solid par, always take that.