saltman

Sweet, I now have 13 career holes in one.

I don't think its all that strange, it wasn't a few years, it was more than 10 years of virtually no play. Even now, I only play 10-15 rounds per year, when I was a 1, I played over 100 rounds a year. I stopped keeping a handicap altogether during that time. So it wasn't as though I had old scores that were going to be used. I started playing again, spraying balls all over the place and having a tough time breaking 90. So the handicap didn't really go from 1 to 13, it really just started at 13 and now has moved down to 10 after 3 revisions. Still I don't play enough to get it to move all that quickly. My last 20 rounds still date back to 2011. It will keep creeping down, stay tuned. I actually think my ball striking (save for driver) is as good as its ever been. It's a lot closer than the 10 would suggest. A couple other limiters, I live in downtown chicago, no easy access to a real practice facility. I also do not have a home track, so I frequently play different courses and in many cases courses I have never played. Oh and I also now have an 8 month old.

lol....I left an uphill 4 footer 3 inches short last week......for birdie.

Dude, compressing the ball is critical to getting to a certain distance, however at the pointy end the more compression doesn't result in a perfectly linear relationship to distance. More compression also results in more spin and spin dumps off distance. This is why guys like Luke Donald and Zach Johnson are probably only 1 club off Tiger. I consider that close, as I said I consider most pros to be reasonably close in iron yardage. That is what you seem to be missing. You don't see Luke Donald hitting a 4-iron where Tiger is hitting an 8-iron. I don't know why this offends you so much.

Good rules to live by, Phan is proving to be a nemesis quickly and just gets under my skin. I'm done trying to justify it until and unless he wants to show up somewhere with his wallet. :)

Okay buddy, there is awful lot of disrespect there since you have never seen me play and do not know my history with the game. Prior to this season, I had played about 15 rounds in 5 years. You play 3 rounds per year and tell me what your handicap might be. I absolutely never practice. I have forgotten more about the game of golf than you will ever know. A 230 yard 3-iron, 200-210 yar 5-iron aint a rarity friend. That is pure and simple my yardage and I happy to prove that to anyone anytime. I don't particularly think its all that impressive, its just is what it is. If you can compress the ball, its not that hard. Virtually all pros are within 1 club of each other with irons. My 10.5 index is not at all indicative of my game. It's a product of having a sloppy short game and a bit of a driver fight right now. I could bag the driver and cut 4 strokes off the index, but I don't want to run from the club just to get to a 6. I want to be able to hit the club and get back to a 1 or better. Back to a 1, because I have been there before.

stop what? somewhere buried in the member swing threads, included is a 3-iron swing. Feel free to go judge after you view. Until then, no need to be a jerk.

Guessing he knocked a few over 3 bills at The Open Championship this year. :) But for a couple freaks, most pros club irons close to the same distances and I am probably close to Tiger's yardage with irons as are a lot of reasonably solid amateurs. He just does it more consistently and with better control! I can't hit driver anywhere near as long as Tiger, however. In the last 15 years, my HC has been anywhere from 1 to 13, so tough to judge a book by its cover sometimes.

I'm the same as him, my driver and I have a fickle relationship. Usually I can still pull out a 3-wood, but sometimes I have to club down to 3-iron. I also hit 3-iron 240ish, 250 would be absolutely smoked, 220-230 slight mishit including runout, not all carry. Tiger hits it further than 230 off the tee. He's probably 250-260 depending on how soft the fairways are, 230 is probably all carry.

lol....right after I wrote it I decided I was going to say it to a buddy of mine next time we play. He and I are huge smack talkers. We both run marathons, his PR is about 15 minutes faster than mine. Last time I told him I was going to run, he said "you mean fast walk."

Fair enough, you all sound like good dudes I would play with and I will concede the point. Now who lives near Chicago and wants to play? No breakfast balls allowed, but I'll give you a putt here and there. I'd like to play with FourPutt just to learn a few things. David and I are long overdue for a round, but I never go to Florida.

Yeah, I'm admittedly trolling now. But if a buddy calls and asks if you want to play golf with him? You know he takes a mulli here and there, plays OB as lateral and so on and so forth, but you enjoy playing with him. In your response to his question, do you say no, but I will play golf while you play a variant? When you hear him tell someone else he enjoys playing golf, do you chime in and correct him and say you mean you enjoy playing a variant of golf? Do you compliment people on their nice round of variant golf, when they tell you they had a personal best? I seriously doubt you do, but that's how you guys sound here.

nope, if I play 3 on 3 or 1 on 1, I tell people I am playing basketball. Commisioner Stern has never had a problem with me saying so. If people must use the term variant of golf than I expect people also to tell everyone they are playing handicap golf not real golf when they don't complete a hole or otherwise modify their score due to ESC. Real golf doesn't allow ESC, only real handicap golf.

google is your friend mate, it's not that hard to find.

Yeah it's tricky, why 1 stroke penalty's vs. 2 stroke penalty's vs. stroke and distance. Those are nuances even seasoned players don't always know. Well, we know stroke and distance, but not so for beginners. There was one I missed about a ball being stuck in a tree which resides in ground under repair. I assumed the ball stuck in the tree could not be identified therefore there it is not known or virtually certain that it is your ball stuck. As a result, I assumed it was penalty under lost ball. Turns out its ground under repair and free relief. That makes about as much sense to me as the ability to repair ball marks but not spike marks.