5 minutes ago, billchao said:

Skip the driver and get those lessons. IIRC you haven't been happy with your play over the last year or two. Now is as good of a time to get working on that as any.

+1

@billchao, @CarlSpackler, thanks for your responses.

I'd had the whole idea of replacing driver in my head since I gave up on my old Nike VRS last year. I took it out of the bag and put in a 90s era Taylormade Burner. It's about 10 yards shorter on decent strikes, but tends to stay in the yard on the bad ones. So I can make due with that. 

The trick to the lessons is that I need to get a lot more out of them than I did last year. I took one at Kittyhawk and one at Miami Shores. I like the kid down at Kittyhawk, but all he had for me was to relax my grip. No doubt that is often true, but its also the tip of the iceberg for me.

The Shores pro was definitely more impressive. He used his video equipment and changed up my stance a bit. A lot of what he said made sense. The part that was bit rough was he wanted me to square my back foot to the line. Normally, I flare my feet on any shot. I tried and tried to square that foot, but just couldn't keep my balance doing that. I'll probably give him another stab.  Probably trying to do these lessons regularly, every three or four weeks say, might make more sense. Not getting that driver frees up at least a few lessons worth.

So the driver is out. Maybe the better question is whether I bother with the ghin and the business of keeping score this year. Getting on the course is going to be a big enough pain in the ass by itself. Focusing on nothing more than hitting the ball solid might be a good approach.

Congrats on the refund. Having a bit of unexpected cash to spend is a good problem to have. I won't weigh in on where you should spend most of that cash, but I do have a question.

Why would tracking your handicap be more trouble than it's worth? Punching in your score to the app literally takes about 30 seconds after each round. Whether I'm playing competitively or not, keeping a handicap has always been a no brainer for me, as it's a cliff notes version of which direction my game is headed. Now, sometimes, I may not like the story it tells, but that's another story altogether. 

So yeah - spend $30 to renew your ghin. Unless there is more to the story, I'm really not understanding why you wouldn't

4 hours ago, Big C said:

it's a cliff notes version of which direction my game is headed

Yeah. It tells me where mine is headed... right down the ole crapper.

Hey @mcanadiens, If you quit smoking, then you could afford that new driver. Just sayin...

8 minutes ago, CarlSpackler said:

, If you quit smoking, then you could afford that new driver. Just sayin...

Smoking is a lot cheaper than a lot of other coping mechanisms that some people use. Money itself isn't really what would stop me from getting the driver anyhow. It's more a question of whether its worth bothering with under the circumstances.My swing is the problem. If any sort of competition is out of the question, there is no point to paying that money out. Try to get better this year and regroup next year.

5 hours ago, Big C said:

So yeah - spend $30 to renew your ghin. Unless there is more to the story, I'm really not understanding why you wouldn't

It's all really a matter if I want to remain eligible to compete in something this year.

1. The only real purpose of an HI is to level a competition. If there is no competition, there is no point to bother with it.

2. Without messing with handicap posting I won't need to care about playing by the rules of golf. The main point will be figuring out how to hit a ball, not what the score turns out to be.

3. Posting for handicap requires playing against someone. Maybe that will turn out and maybe it won't. I don't have a regular game yet.

4. $30 isn't a big deal, but it is still money. 15 minutes of our pro's time if the price hasn't changed.

It's a question of what I want to focus on for the remainder of this truly f--k'd up year. There really is a liberating quality to not bother with some of the formalities. If I'm going to try to compete on some level I need to do it right.

That's the consideration.

.

17 hours ago, mcanadiens said:

@billchao, @CarlSpackler, thanks for your responses.

I'd had the whole idea of replacing driver in my head since I gave up on my old Nike VRS last year. I took it out of the bag and put in a 90s era Taylormade Burner. It's about 10 yards shorter on decent strikes, but tends to stay in the yard on the bad ones. So I can make due with that. 

The trick to the lessons is that I need to get a lot more out of them than I did last year. I took one at Kittyhawk and one at Miami Shores. I like the kid down at Kittyhawk, but all he had for me was to relax my grip. No doubt that is often true, but its also the tip of the iceberg for me.

The Shores pro was definitely more impressive. He used his video equipment and changed up my stance a bit. A lot of what he said made sense. The part that was bit rough was he wanted me to square my back foot to the line. Normally, I flare my feet on any shot. I tried and tried to square that foot, but just couldn't keep my balance doing that. I'll probably give him another stab.  Probably trying to do these lessons regularly, every three or four weeks say, might make more sense. Not getting that driver frees up at least a few lessons worth.

So the driver is out. Maybe the better question is whether I bother with the ghin and the business of keeping score this year. Getting on the course is going to be a big enough pain in the ass by itself. Focusing on nothing more than hitting the ball solid might be a good approach.

 

I'm not sure how much those lessons were, but you could always try Evolvr for a couple months and since you get multiple submissions per month it comes out to a cheaper per lesson rate than most in person instructors and you could get help in a variety of aspects, submit a full swing video one week then the next week submit a short game video while you are working on the full swing stuff.

14 hours ago, billchao said:

Given that you used to play in tournaments in the past, it’s likely that you’ll play in them again. I see no reason beyond the $30 not to do it, especially if not keeping score properly means you won’t be playing by the rules.

Maybe so. 

Again with the courses jammed, there isn't much room or time for practice anyway. Used to hit a lot of balls from various positions on my old executive course, but that's history now. 

Perhaps too much of that would create bad habits. Doing so leaves the door open for it and maybe by August playing in that County Championship may actually seem worthwhile. If nothing else, I making a contribution to the Miami Valley Golf Association so they can continue doing their fine work.

3 hours ago, klineka said:

I'm not sure how much those lessons were, but you could always try Evolvr for a couple months and since you get multiple submissions per month it comes out to a cheaper per lesson rate than most in person instructors and you could get help in a variety of aspects, submit a full swing video one week then the next week submit a short game video while you are working on the full swing stuff.

It's a thought. That would involve buying a camera, but I could probably do that for a lot less than the driver would have cost me. 

I'll look into their price scheme.

1 hour ago, mcanadiens said:

It's a thought. That would involve buying a camera, but I could probably do that for a lot less than the driver would have cost me. 

I'll look into their price scheme.

Do you have a smart phone? If so that's probably sufficient unless its 10 years old, so all you'd really need to buy is a tripod that can hold a smartphone, which can be found on amazon for like $20

7 minutes ago, klineka said:

Do you have a smart phone? If so that's probably sufficient unless its 10 years old, so all you'd really need to buy is a tripod that can hold a smartphone, which can be found on amazon for like $20

Not sure if my piece of crap phone is technically smart or not. It's for emergencies only and I suspect the video quality isn't sufficient.