17 New Year resolutions for every type of golfer

While a brand spanking new set of golf clubs will go some way to helping you improve, working with a PGA pro to learn the basic fundamentals or on aspects of the game you tend to struggle with will likely have greater effect on lowering your handicap in the short term.

Give yourself an extra half hour of breathing space at the golf club before your tee time. There is nothing worse than boarding the first tee and panting for breath as you unzip the ball pocket. Use your extra time wisely by heading to the practice range, short game area and putting green.

If you can afford to part with (in all likelihood) a considerable amount of money, then why not make 2017 the year you finally join a golf club. You'll be able to take advantage of weekly tournaments and big monthly medals, and receive unlimited access to the practice ground to help get your handicap down. Not to mention enjoy ample social engagement, and other incentives.

Max Golf presents the first ready-to-drink protein shake designed specifically for golf. The clever ingredients provide a slow release protein and just the right amount of carbs to keep you going for 18 holes, whilst being low in fat. And the best part - the smooth vanilla milk tastes absolutely delicious!

Walking 18 holes and the best part of 7500 yards is a fair effort, but there are a number of strength and conditioning exercises out there that we recommend for golfers. In particular exercises that help strengthen your core and prevent those all-too-frequent back injuries. Check out our top fitness tips in the 30-day golf fitness series on GolfMagic.com.

Strategy, and playing to your strengths, is a key element to shooting lower scores. Sometimes the prudent play is to lay up on that water-filled par-5, take an iron off that tight par-4, or chip out onto the fairway when in trouble. The latter of which most likely won't apply to anyone who grew up in awe of the late Seve Ballesteros.

A great way to improve at golf fast is to make little notes during or after your round. If you know you've missed 10 of 14 fairways, but found 14 of 18 greens, it's probably wise spending more time on the range with the driver and fairway woods. If you're playing a course every other week, why not make notes of the contours on the green in your course book, or note which side is better to miss on. Though much of this will depend how seriously you take your golf.

And there is no better place than at GolfMagic.com.

If you regularly watch the Tour pros on television, you will notice they adopt a go-too pre-shot routine ahead of every shot they play. A pre-shot routine is helpful for eliminating extraneous thoughts prior to hitting a golf shot and "grounding" a player, getting them to focus more exclusively on the shot at hand. We're all for pre-shot routines, just not the one used by Keegan Bradley, who takes things to an extreme. Just own something that gets you locked into the shot, preferably taking as little time as possible with which to keep good pace of play.

Chances are you've got a pitch repairer somewhere in the bag - but do you really know how to use it? Successfully repaired pitch marks on the green can heal within twice the time it takes for one that isn't repaired correctly. To execute the feat correctly, you need to push the earth inwards instead of lifting it upwards. Once you've circled your pitch mark by pushing the earth inwards towards the centre of the crater, you then tap down the excess material to smooth out the surface. Please try not to repair pitch marks with anything other than a divot tool. Your car key just isn't going to cut it.

In short, taking a linear divot pattern on the practice range helps the grass recover quicker than if you take divots from all over the place. The linear divot pattern involves placing each shot directly behind the previous divot. In so doing, a linear pattern is created and only a small amount of turf is removed with each swing. This can usually be done for 15 to 20 shots before moving sideways to create a new line of divots.

Why not plan a golf trip abroad this year, or tee it up on one of a number of stunning links courses dotted around Great Britain? It's all well and good playing the same course every weekend, but you can't beat testing your game in different weather conditions or playing surfaces.

Simple, yet incredibly effective - a great practice drill to improve your accuracy this season.

It only takes five minutes. Removing the mud and debris from the grooves of your clubs will go some way to improving your ball striking the next time you play a round. We spend a lot of money to play this game, so it makes sense to look after our tools.

Just tell your partner you're working late.

Forget what's gone before. It's all about one shot at a time.

Playing off 15? How about single figures by the end of the summer? Cheers to that.