How hard is golf for beginners?

I was playing golf with a friend of mine, Toby, and made a really interesting comment. He said if golf were to be reinvented today it would be only 12 holes, instead of taking 4 hours to play the game it would take 2 hours, instead of wasting so much land on 18 holes clubs could instead create 12 super interesting holes with a much smaller footprint to manage. This is even more interesting as it comes from a good golfer who plays off 4 handicap.

If it feels too long for a good golfer I wonder how a beginner would feel? So I asked myself the question “How hard is golf for beginners?”.

Having a dig around, Golfscorecounter says the average score for a beginner golfer for both women and men is between 120 to 160. Putting that into context it should take 3-4 hours to complete a round of golf, so for beginners add another 1-2 hours just to play! Let’s not forget about practising, maybe one or two hours a week. There aren’t many people who can dedicate that time!

I was pondering my own journey, to date it's been 3 years of playing golf. During that time, I’ve invested loads of time and money in, golf lessons, range sessions and equipment, and the best I’ve done score has been 100 at Cambridgeshire GC which is a par 72, 6452 yards course. Thinking about it, this would put most people off.

This makes it really evident how intimidating and difficult it is to get started, let alone be consistent. This reinforces my mission to make golf more accessible, making it easier to get better so when people eventually get on a golf course they will have a far better experience.