Perhaps one of the hardest concepts for a beginner golfer to grasp is that you have to hit the ball with a downward descent from the club in order to send the ball forward and into the air. This is true for every club in your bag, except the driver and putter.
For a beginner just starting out, this is an important point that usually gets missed. Logic would say that you should hit the ball upwards. But an apparent "illogicness" (at least to the beginner) enters into the picture here. It turns out that just the opposite is true.
If the ball is hit with a descending blow, it allows the club head to hit the ball into the air because of the club's built-in loft. When the beginner makes the typical mistake of hitting "up" on the ball, the result is often missed shots and very little distance.