Are you hitting 3 woods off the fairway? How?

So it's been a bit but things have been busy on my end. I have had a couple of range sessions lately and the first wasn't great but the last went really well. I started concentrating on just getting my shoulder behind the ball and it has made a world of difference. I think prior I had been thinking way too much over the ball but once I get my grip and setup done it's just one thought. My strikes were much more pure and distance despite a strong wind was very good.  I weighed in yesterday at 235. This journey started 2 years ago in May when I stepped on the scale and had 321 staring back at me. My knees feel so much better and feel stronger than I have in years. Not sure what weight I'll land on and try to maintain but I'm really pleased with the progress. 

Two things I bring up when it comes to this discussion. One is if you have let's say two towns next to each other, one has a population of 10,000 people and the other has a population of 1,000 people. Let's also say that they never play golf against each other. Only among themselves. In the first town, you have one guy who has won 15 events, then a couple of guys who won 6, a couple who won four and a bunch of people who won three, two and one events. In the second town, you have one guy who won 18 events, then a guy who won 11, a guy who won 9, a guy who won 8, a couple who won 7, a couple who won 3-5 and then a few 2s and a few 1s. Who's the best golfer? It's possible it's the guy who won 18, but it's pretty unlikely. Far more likely to be the guy who won 15 in the much bigger town.  In the same way, I view the fact that there is more parity in the 1990 and onwards world than there was in the pre 1990 world as a plus for Tiger. It's much harder to stand out if the fields are deeper, stronger, better. If there are a handful of players who win all of them, that tends to suggest weakness to me, not strength. The other thing is Ed White. Harvey Penick talked about him in one of his books. Ridiculously good at the game, but no one ever heard of him, because he got a job and didn't play professionally. There was no money in it and he needed security, so he took a job that paid him steadily. No clue how many people there are out there like him, but if he was around today, he'd be playing pro golf for sure. If he had played professionally, Penick sure seemed to think he'd have been one of the best of all time. Fred Haas played him in a college match and got stuffed. 40 years later he walked into Penick's shop and saw Ed White's picture on the wall and, after a full career playing pro golf, he said that Ed White was the best player he ever saw. Those 40 years would presumably have included at least some of Jack. I can see why people might say Jack is the GOAT. I don't agree, but I can at least understand why they say it. IMO there is no argument you can make for anyone other than Tiger to be the BOAT though. At least not yet.

A good option is to play the Par 3 courses. after playing an 18 -hole round. The Par 3 courses have 18 holes, we usually played only 9 holes after playing 36 holes on each of the trips we had. You may want to check out Grand National while you're in the middle of Alabama. I enjoyed Oxmoor Valley and Ross Bridge courses which are a short drive north.

In August, I am playing the World Am in Myrtle Beach. I do not know which courses yet, but should be a blast. Aside from that, those are the only golf trip plans, unless I play while on vacation in Destin in June.

Even on a perfect center hit I was receiving at most 1.48 smash factor. 10 days ago on the warming up for a round my Driver made a weird sound, I checked the bottom and it was cracked. Don't know for how long it was cracked but at least this time the crack was easy visible. Maybe it was already cracked before but with a more subtle crack?.. don't know. I'm waiting for TaylorMade to approve the warranty and send me a new head. I was using the Stealth Plus, I will take the opportunity and upgrade it to the Qi10 LS paying the difference.  On Sunday with my old Titleist 915 and softer balls I was reaching 1.5, even 1.51 on center hits. Test didn't went well. Only gained 2..3 miles, not worth pursuing. Figured out that with a ball and with a target, my path was way to in to out with this new idea, so in order to move the club in the correct path I needed to slow down to redirect the club on the downswing or aim more to the right, close the face a play a big hook.. not possible. I already play a big draw with Driver, more curvature is unplayable. Yesterday at home, with no ball messed around with a more neutral path, even swinging a little out to in. It felt a lot more in sync with the body. With a big in to out path it feels like my hands are working right, away from the body, when the body is working to rotate to the left. With the path to the left is was easier to apply force thru the hitting zone.  As always tested 10 swings with my current swing (A), and 10 with this little out to in path(B).  The difference was huge, like 12 miles faster with swing (B). I knew something wasn't right. The fact was that the PRGR was aligned more in line with the (B) path so it of course was giving higher speeds. I proceeded to align it with the (A) path and tested again 5 more swings each. Again (B) was faster but only by 5 miles. (Made a tiny experiment moving the PRGR to a more extreme in to out path and the swings register 25/30% slower for both swings, so it wasn't reading properly at that angle) Finally I moved the PRGR in the middle of both paths, and this time (B) won by 9 miles. Off course, this was without a ball and a target so.. I will be hitting the range tomorrow to see the real difference.