Mop Bucket

If your pushing drives, I'd check a couple things right off the bat. First, like Mocha man said, make sure you're alignment is solid by throwing a stick or club down at your feet. Afterall, you could be hitting straight shots but just setting up right of your target line. I would then double check to see if you club face is square to the target at address and not dipping too far back in your stance. Try setting the face down so that the bottom groove is perpendicular to your target line, then take your grip. And finally, if you still are losing them to the right, try focusing on your timing through the shot. If your hands are passing through the slot well before the clubhead, there's and excellent chance that while your grip and alignment are perfect, the club is lagging too far behind causing and causing a block. Just make sure (with driver) you're playing the ball off your lead foot and being patient in allowing the driver to get in front of you and hit the ball, instead of dragging behind the hands. Good Luck!

I was reading a book named "Your 15th Club" by Bob Rotella. He began talking about a comfort zone that most golfers fall into. For instance, if you shoot consistently around the same score every time you play, you develop a margin in which your subconscious is comfortable producing shots. He went on to say that tension builds in your game when you take a couple bogeys and your score moves to just above that "comfort margin", which can explain why birdies or pars usually end up dropping soon after, getting you back on track for your usual score. But the same could be said for the other extreme of the margin as well, and this is something I have been struggling with these past couple of seasons. Earlier on, I would be coming down the stretch maybe 1 under par, well under my handicap of 4 or 5 at the time. This would seep into my head and eventually, I would end up linking together sometimes 3 or 4 bogeys in a row to finish my round... ending up very close to my handicap. I didn't think this resulted because I am not mechanically capable of producing a sub-par round, because I proved that I'm more than capable for the first 15 holes. I felt that I instead tensed up because I was out of my comfort zone in terms of scoring. I experimented with dropping my handicap this season as in just getting rid of it. I rarely play events where I need one so I figured it may help me get rid of this notion of shooting better than what I'm "expected to". At first, it yielded the same results as before, because in my head I was still a 5, whether or not I was on paper. But I found that as the season went on, I became more and more comfortable with not only converting birdies, but stringing them, and retaining them. This may seem like nonsense, and I'm sure that other things could influence improvement, but I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced this "tension" when they are on pace to shoot well below their averaged scores. And if others agree that handicap influences what they can shoot. Furthermore, how do you deal with this tension, whether it is from stringing together an anomaly-like round, or if it's caused by something else like a big tournament or money putt?

69 yesterday 34 on the front // 35 on the back I took a lot of chances off the tee and ended up with 4 putts for eagle which is a new personal record! It was my best day with the driver and 3W all season but just couldn't seem to get the putter hot. 75 today 35 on the front // 40 on the back Another good day for striking. Played a casual money match with some buddies but lost concentration on the back when everyone started taking some high scores. Overall a pretty good day though!

smooth 58* aligned at my belt buckle

I would argue its mental/shot planning 50% of the time.

I can offer a couple tips that seem to work well for me, it may not hurt to try them. I usually set up for a shot that I know is laying on soggy turf by choking up maybe a quarter inch on my grip, just to assure I don't catch it fat. When the fairways are spongy, thin misses will always work out better than fat ones. Next, I try to avoid "compressing" the ball into the ground, or in other words, hitting down on it, if that's what you want to call it. Instead, I try to level off my plane and come at the ball from a pretty shallow angle. This helps me avoid burying the club after impact and allows me follow through balanced. And if all else fails, or my ball has found a muddy lie, I'll club up by one or two clubs and take a sawed-off swing to just try and advance it to the green. This is a pretty easy shot as long as you avoid closing the face through impact. And to answer your question about bounce... I play almost the same wedge setup as you. When it's wet, I try to stick to either one or two different shots with them. The first is a knock-down spinner that I play from the back of my stance, I set up with it aligned to my back pants pocket and slap the face on the ball with quite a bit of club lag. This usually produces a low trajectory but oftentimes takes a large divot in the process. The second is a little more reliable, I club up by one and play it just in front of my belt buckle and really focus on making a nice tempo'd swing where I hit ball first. This usually gets it up quite high with only a little roll out. Once again, just try to keep the face from closing too early.

I work at a place that does a lot of fittings and Mizuno allows free shafts and grip upgrades within reason for a flat rate around $1200 (which includes custom lie and loft). It's one of the few brands that does this so I'm surprised that they charged you so much per club. On top of that, unless you got some exotic graphite iron shafts, most standard steel shafts range in price from $40-65 per shaft. It sounds like you'd be better off taking the fitting info and ordering the clubs straight from the Mizuno factory. My only guess to why they charge what they do is because they do all of the assembly and bending themselves. They must also order the shafts separately instead of through Mizuno. Unless the prices include the fitting which would seem a bit weird to me.

Cool thread, I have a question for ya I recently have rekindled my dedication to golf and have been improving consistently by a couple strokes per season for a couple years now. Hopefully, if things continue to go the way they are, I can be at + handicap in a few more seasons. My question is where would you say to look for someone who is craving competition? I have read a little bit on the smaller tours around the states and I'm wondering how big the commitment is, and what kind of scores would it take in order for it to be worth the time and money?

I was in charge of cutting cups for a few years before I started working indoors most shifts. The rule of thumb that I went by was this: -1 out of 3 holes should give you a good birdie look (should 2-putt from most lies) -1 out of 3 should be a standard placement (a good lag putt should be rewarded) -1 of out 3 should be a slight challenge to keep a par (if you leave a shot stranded, 3-putt is almost certain) But if it was a busy weekend... most of the holes would be placed near the center to keep play moving until Monday morning rolled around, then I could go back to my usual system. The only time I've seen a course set-up with 14 sucker pins is during a 4 or 5 man scramble. Touring pros don't even play locations that tough unless we're talking day 4 of the masters.

A head pro is usually either an owner or supervisor of the course and deals a lot with the reps and budgeting while the assistant attends to day to day operation stuff like tee sheets, handicaps, and inventory etc... Head pros are oftentimes certified too, while the status of assistants range.

I use a range finder. It's not so much that I can't estimate what my yardages are because I'd say 90% of the time I can guess my distance within a few yards. I use mine more for practice rounds so I can gauge exactly how far I am hitting each club. My distances usually fluctuate 5-10 yards from week to week or month to month so I feel it's a good tool to keep confidence up when I'm pulling a club from the bag.

From this, it actually looks like he gets the club back on plane through impact. This is wild.

That's an exaggeration. He's obviously shown that he has the potential to compete but he struggles with consistency month to month. I think everyone who watches golf underestimates just how rare it is to have back to back seasons as the likes of Tiger, Jack, or Arnold- especially in a field as talented as it is in 2016. I'm a huge believer that these past few seasons have been some of the best tour golf ever played in the history of the game, especially when it's looked at in terms of depth. Week to week, it's really anyone's tournament to take, and it hasn't always been like that.

Genetics definitely play a role, but not as much as people think. If you have a 6 foot frame to work with from the get-go, you will obviously be able to make a bigger swing with less effort than someone who stands 5 feet tall with shorter arms. A bigger swing path = more time to gain momentum through impact. This is where technique and flexibility come into play, though. Having a large frame/swing only correlates to distance if you can do two things, 1) swing at a high rate of speed through the slot, 2) maintain a square club face on impact. I am not a tall or big person by any means, but I gain a lot of my strokes by being able to hit a wedge or low iron into the majority of holes I play. The biggest adjustment to my game that I made in order to hit the long ball has been working on my shoulder flexibility as well as timing my hip turn. If you are a smaller person and want to improve distance, you should first make sure you are able to hit the ball squarely, but after, elongate the path of your lead arm without compromising your spine alignment and swing plane. It definitely isn't something that happens in one range session as it oftentimes takes multiple seasons in order to find 15-25 yards from the tee. But genetics definitely are not the only thing that factor into hitting big drives, I would say it is much more contingent on technique and timing than anything else.