Several times in the past, I've been surprised with how useful and informative the For Dummies and Idiot's Guide books that I've picked up have been. They make great introductions to a subject, are generally decent references, and sometimes even make dull subjects entertaining. "Golf for Dummies," the first in a series of For Dummies DVDs, follows that same formula. Hosted by Gary McCord (the CBS golf commentator with the handlebar mustache, for most of us), this DVD actually manages to clarify several terms and concepts that have been a little fuzzy for me for, oh, about a decade.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves. As anyone who's tried to be serious about golf can tell you, you can get a lot of advice about golf. From anybody and everybody. The thing is, it's hard to tell which is good, which is bad, and which is just plain weird. So what are Gary McCord's qualifications to tell us how to to swing a golf club? Well, besides being a TV commentator (not exactly a rare commodity), he's a Sr. PGA tour champ and a golf instructor to "many celebrities," apparently including Alice Cooper, who gives a nice quote on the back of the box. That says a lot, but to me the most telling information comes about 5 minutes into the DVD; do you remember that scene in Tin Cup where Kevin Costner refuses to take a drop to get past a water hazard out of sheer stubbornness? That scene (minus a bit of exaggeration) happened in real life to Gary McCord during a tournament (McCord also had a part in the movie and served as advisor and teacher to Costner). For some reason, that sounds like the kind of guy I want to learn golf from, but your mileage may vary...
If you could take this DVD with you onto the course (hint: see Amazon links below), there is at least a chance that the DVD alone could help you learn the game fairly well. However, Mr. McCord is honest enough to recommend that you find a teacher first, then use the DVD as a memory aid and to help fix problems. He goes through almost everything a starter needs to know: choosing clubs and balls, grip, stance and alignment, body position, swing, etc. He then moves on to putting, chipping and pitching, hitting out of sand, and then offers advice on how to fix common faults (he explains "pushing" and "pulling" better than I'd heard in the past), how to get more distance, and even stretching and etiquette. The graphical aids used are very simple (lines, mostly) but effective, and along with Mr. McCord's clear explanations, go a long way towards making tricky alignment issues easier to understand.
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