Dewdman42

This is an area I am still working on. For me I have become deadly accurate distance wise by looking at the hole while I stroke the actual putt. Nearly any distance I am scary accurate with distance this way without even thinking about any calibrations or calculations or systemic ways to determine the backswing along with a hyper consistent non accelerated pendulum swing, etc i just eye the hole, swing the putter while still looking at it and my lizard brain does the rest, and I’m pretty sure it works better when I actually am accelerating the putter through impact this way because my lizard brain is doing constant refining of the swing speed on a nanosecond level, all by feel. however i also miss the line often this way, I mis hit off the center of the putter face, sometimes hit thin or fat, etc. so…. Doesn’t always work out. For this reason I am trying to do my practice swings thet way and then the actual swing while looking down but I lose my lizard brain when I do that and completely miss the distance. I have to actually be looking at the hole when i putt to get this kind of lizard brain feel, with the stated problems sometimes present, not always. Not to mention everyone thinks I’m weird and also people tend to move around a lot when standing by the pin, thinking I am stilL practicing or something and it becomes a distraction problem. i wish I could find a way to use this lizard brain feel while looking at the ball to putt I have tried to visualize it but in my mind all visualizations become zoomed in closer the minute I look down. Meanwhile when I look down I can get the line right but totally miss the distance, particularly anything longer then about 20 feet. By now i have a feel and perhaps some loose system for making 5, 7, 10, 12, 15 and even 20 footers while looking down. Longer then that I find backswing calculations to be impossible to get right compared to my lizard brain feel while looking at the hole. From really far away I find it more helpful to get the distance right even if it ends up 5 feet off line, so thet is what I do, I would love to find a better way to get those lag distances as scarily accurate as my lizard brain can do, but while looking down at the ball for the stroke in order to get the line and strike right. it also makes me wonder frankly about all the good advice to have a perfect pendulum swing without acceleration, and perfect strike and angle of attack, etc which basically means you start to lose feel and it’s all about precise calibration for the day and precise backswing, etc. human brain. Well that may be the best compromise due to the need to look down at the ball, I don’t know, but this disparity between putting by lizard brain feel or human brain logic has haunted me for years

if you buy or build a house on a golf course, where golf balls will be flying around, its your responsibility to cover damage, just the same as if you buy or build a house in a hurricane or flood zone. Get insurance or factor it into the cost of ownership. It should not be the responsibility of the golfer period. we are talking about houses built on a golf course, not a golf course built on a suburban city block. Golf is a game where golf balls are known to fly around and in some locations it will be quite common for balls to fly into certain locations... why is there a house even remotely close to that? It's your responsibility. I know some owners may be frustrated about this, but they are the one that chose to put their house in a. place where golf balls are likely to fly. I will never check on a house if I see my ball go there and even if I heard a big bang or shattering glass, I would go my merry way without a single concern about it. Fortunately that hasn't happened yet (that i know of). It's not my problem that you put your house there. Get insurance or set a budget for it, or move somewhere else. This is a a golf course.

Now that OOB golf is basically going away, which online scoring and stats sites do you like the best, preferably free ones. Including iphone data entry. What i loved about oob golf was that as I was playing a round it would kind of predict on the iphone how my score was going to end up, as I played. I doubt anything else does that now, but anyway I need to find a new solution for entering scores and basic stats into iphone and tracking it over time on the computer in some way. Seems like there are a lot of alternatives right now, its a bit overwhelming to consider them all...just wondering if anyone else has already done that and reached any conclusions.

I just go the 712's. Absolutely LOVE them.

ban it. Golf clubs are designed to be held in the hands and swung. The problem isn't the length, its the act of using the body to anchor it. That goes against the spirit of golfing, which is taking a stick and swinging it in your hands. What if someone came up with some new fangled kind of iron which could somehow be connected to your body in a way to eliminate casting? Would we tolerate that? I don't think so, not in a million years. Being a good golfer is a huge part about mastering control over your hands. If someone is able to bypass this issue by anchoring the club or some such thing, then they are essentially kind of cheating the spirit of the game. Anyone using a belly putter knows they are doing it because they thought they could solve some problem in their putting by using this gimmick. It never should have been tolerated to begin with. ban it, keep everyone on the same playing field.

oobgolf's iphone app is very well designed. You can configure which stats you want to track to keep the entry screen compact and un cluttered. If you make par, you just tap the score button to accept par, or hit +/- for bogie or birdie, etc. Takes one or two taps to enter the score basically. All of the stats have sensible GUI controls to make them very fast to enter. It takes only a few taps to enter all my stats that I am tracking, while walking/riding to the next hole. I track also Playable drive, fairway it(left, right, hit miss), putts, 1st putt distance, approach(left, right, long, short, hit miss), chips, up/down (yes,no), sand saves (yes, no). Some of those I don't have to enter every hole. The hole thing takes anywhere from 5-10 taps to enter. From that, They generate a lot of interesting stats such as GIR, etc... I used to use GolfShots, but ever since I got a laser I've given up on GPS, it takes too long. One very interesting feature of the iphone app is that as you play the round, it puts a "projected score" at the top, based on how you're playing so far. Then you can go to their website and see all kinds of cool graphs and charts for different stats over time.

I just tried this app for 15 sessions or so and settled into a Phdcp that is floating up and down between 2.5 to 3.5. I consider that pretty good, especially compared to the pros. Ha my scores don't reflect that, so I know I need to work on other aspects more, such as green reading, lining up and distance control. I think this is a very valuable training device if used the right way. I do not think its good to groove in your putt strokes with this device attached, due to the weight. You should do much much more practice with it detached. But when you are ready to break down your swing and get into the nitty gritty of what you're doing with your stroke and what that results are, its extremely valuable to have it attached. I was starting to get pretty good at feeling what I did before looking at the display. But most importantly, I could do a putt that was outside my desired parameters, get the feedback that it was off, then think about what aspect of my stance or swing I needed to focus on in order to correct it, then take another swing and see/feel the result. This is extremely invaluable, AS LONG AS, you know the fundamentals and biomechanics that are related to putting so that you can take the results and make proper changes. Once you have worked on that for a while, then go out without the device and try to groove it in for a while without the device, but your awareness of the biomechanics and the results of those biomechanics will increase a lot by working with this device. TEMPO I don't even have to think about tempo, mine is very consistent 1.8-1.9. Consistency is all that matters here. IMPACT ANGLE - my goal, 0 - 1.0 degree range. I could get a feel for what it means to close my putter face down to zero, or actually for me I found around 1.0 degree impact angle to be what I could do most consistently. But I could also tell that when I was lazy about certain things it was very easy to see higher numbers of impact angle. If I wasn't using this device I don't think I would have even realized. But having this device on got me to become much more in tune with what it "feels" like to hit the putter square or closer to square under 1 degree. After a while I could tell without looking at the display when I over did it and went closed negative impact angle or when I was lazy and hit it open. I guess for me about 1 out of 10 shots I tend to have an overly open face, maybe 1 out of 50 go overly closed. But I can feel it now. SWING PATH - my goal - around 4.0 - 5.0 degrees (considered slight arc) The swing path is harder to feel what I did, but the device measurements told me. But I could usually correct the next swing and I was getting better and better and consistently getting in that 4-5 degree range of swing path. I became more aware of what I needed to adjust to impact this parameter. Not as much feel as the impact angle, but somewhat there too. BIOMECHANICS One important aspect to using this device is to never ever under any circumstances try to manipulate the putter with your hands to adjust the results. You have to think about proper putting mechanics and how those things effect things. This isn't always obvious. I discovered a few things while using this device and I believe my awareness of putting mechanics has gone up. If something is wrong, then try to figure out what aspect of proper putting you're missing. Fix that thing and try again, see the result. For me, my follow through is sometimes jammed up. We talk about making a triangle with our shoulders and arms. I have a tendency sometimes to maintain that triangle for the backswing and then on the actual stroke the shoulder line blocks. This causes me to hit too high on the ball for one thing, but I also found this had a dramatic impact on not closing the putter fact at impact. If I make sure to follow through with my right shoulder, the face hits square and my strike more pure. The device shows the open face results, then I think to myself, did I block the shoulder again? Next stroke I correct that and wala, straight putt. Swing path has a lot to do with stance and everyone has their own way they like to do it, there is no right or wrong. But using the device helped me to figure out that I am most comfortable with the stance and swing of a 4-5 degree slight arc swing. Once I realized that once and for all I could really think about where my eyes need to be over the ball to make that happen, which part of the putter grip to use, how far away to stand from the ball, etc. It gave me data points to stop second guessing myself. I know now I'm a 4-5 slight arc back swinger, so accept that and setup for that. Very useful device. I really think it can increase awareness. But yes, its important to detach it after a period of nuts and bolts practice, then go out and groove the swing with this heightened awareness.

I love my Scotty Cameron Fastback. Best putter I've ever owned without question. I always try out different putters when I go to golf shops, and I just keep coming back to the SC's, especially the fastback. It has just the right amount of weight and has a comfortable swing , its very nice to look down at with just enough straight lines and curved lines to help me line up right. Worth every penny. I've spent far more on drivers over the years then putters, but putting is 50% of the game.

+1 oobgolf.com

So is it fair to say that most modern day "blades" are in fact muscle backs, due to the beefing up that manufacturers have made to them in terms of trying to put just a bit more weight under the ball without carving out a cavity?

and what is the purpose to begin with?

ahhh. So a muscleback is a cavity back + the muscle at the sweet spot?

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't a larger offset also change the trajectory? It seems to me that with less offset, in order to close the face square, while keeping the hands ahead, the club will be de-lofted more then it would be with offset. I am thinking with offset the hands don't have to be as far ahead, and thus the club is not de-lofted as much, something like that. Just thinking out loud here.

Sorry I'm still not getting it. A blade is pretty much flat on back right? A cavity back moves the mass away from the sweet spot. I thought I read that a muscle back actually puts MORE mass behind the sweet spot then a pure blade. WHY?