Lessons is the right way to go- almost all of us learned to play on our own and we all pretty much suck at it.

The only advice I'd offer is that I think you can play pretty well if you learn to play from the green back to the tee. Get your putting and short game going and that's more than half the battle (if you shoot 100 for example, about a third of those shots are from putting, another third is pitching/chipping around the green...that's 2/3 of the game right there).

We all know a guy who hits only about 150 off the tee but is deadly from 50 yards in and and is a solid putter. He's always scoring in the 80s. We also know (more) guys who can crush it off the tee over the trees and the houses (same guy goes to the driving range and basically practices doing that...hmmm) and struggles to break 100.

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