"Lowest Score Wins" by Barzeski and Wedzik

[saevel25]

On ‎4‎/‎20‎/‎2019 at 1:15 PM, billchao said:

Floyd is a little too conservative, IIRC. He's big on "taking your medicine" and chipping out from trouble instead of trying to advance the ball wherever possible, and he also advocates laying up and playing to specific full swing yardages. Everyone gets better the closer they get to the hole.

I try to advance the ball as far as possible. You kind of of get a feel of the gaps you can hit through. Even a 5 yard wide gap at 25 yards away leaves you with +/- 5 degrees of error.

 

[iacas]

On 5/10/2019 at 9:55 AM, Benit0 said:

I've ordered my copy yesterday, should arrive in 2 week. I've been wanting to get that book for a while but the shipping cost of ebay for canada is horrible! But with all the good comments on the book, I've decided that It was worth paying a little extra for shipping!! Can't wait to read it.

Gave you the award. Let me know when it arrives!

[hoselpalooza]

@iacas, are there any plans to make LSW kindle friendly? i appreciate this site and was hoping to support it with a kindle purchase since that's how i do the vast majority of my reading. thanks!

[iacas]

28 minutes ago, hoselpalooza said:

@iacas, are there any plans to make LSW kindle friendly? i appreciate this site and was hoping to support it with a kindle purchase since that's how i do the vast majority of my reading. thanks!

Asked and answered multiple times already: we have no plans to make an eBook version. I too like my Kindle, but the book is intended to go with you in your golf bag, etc. People don't do that with a Kindle.

Here you go: https://lowestscorewins.com/buy.

[hoselpalooza]

@iacas, thanks for your response, happy to purchase the paper version instead.

btw -- i searched for "lowest score wins kindle" before asking this question and there was just one (unrelated) result: https://thesandtrap.com/search/?q=lowest score wins kindle

p.s. my kindle is actually the kindle reader app on my phone. admittedly, i ordinarily don't bring my phone with me on the course but if i want to read a book it's usually my medium of choice. 🙂

[iacas]

1 minute ago, hoselpalooza said:

@iacas, thanks for your response, happy to purchase the paper version instead.

Thanks. When you do make sure I give you the "award" (badge) for it!

1 minute ago, hoselpalooza said:

btw -- i searched for "lowest score wins kindle" before asking this question and there was just one (unrelated) result: https://thesandtrap.com/search/?q=lowest score wins kindle

Yeah, but a lot of people will just say "LSW" or "ebook" or e-book, or even PDF, etc. 🙂 No worries.

1 minute ago, hoselpalooza said:

p.s. my kindle is actually the kindle reader app on my phone. admittedly, i ordinarily don't bring my phone with me on the course but if i want to read a book it's usually my medium of choice. 🙂

I appreciate that. Honestly, part of the reason why we've avoided it is just the extra work. But since we've sold the physical product (a big deal to me, a software guy who made a lot of products and things digitally, but never a physical product before), we might do an eBook (iBooks?) version at some point.

But it'll be months at least.

[Jrwatkins7]

In hopes of finding a "silver bullet" to help my game, I finally broke down and ordered Lowest Score Wins last week.  I've only gotten through the first 1/4 of it so far, but there are some interesting tidbits in there.

[The Flush]

I just ordered this for my son who will be trying out for the high school golf team this fall for the first time as a junior. He is athletic enough (plays baseball, soccer, and football) and enjoys golf, but has not played much. He has a medical condition that has him on blood thinners and the doctors won't clear him for contact sports. I am sure that LSW will help speed up his learning process.  I will be reading it as well. We plan to play a lot more golf this summer to help get him ready and more importantly just to have fun.

[DaveP043]

20 minutes ago, The Flush said:

I just ordered this for my son who will be trying out for the high school golf team this fall for the first time as a junior. He is athletic enough (plays baseball, soccer, and football) and enjoys golf, but has not played much. He has a medical condition that has him on blood thinners and the doctors won't clear him for contact sports. I am sure that LSW will help speed up his learning process.  I will be reading it as well. We plan to play a lot more golf this summer to help get him ready and more importantly just to have fun.

I think LSW is an outstanding book for a relatively new golfer to learn from, before he starts getting set into the "conventional wisdom".  Its a good book for everyone, I learned a lot even after playing for nearly 50 years, and have changed some of my decision-making patterns because of it, but its even better to learn the right stuff from the start.

[iacas]

19 hours ago, Jrwatkins7 said:

In hopes of finding a "silver bullet" to help my game, I finally broke down and ordered Lowest Score Wins last week.  I've only gotten through the first 1/4 of it so far, but there are some interesting tidbits in there.

I don't know about a "silver bullet" but you should be able to learn quite a number of things, as you seem to have realized already. Thank you!

3 hours ago, The Flush said:

I just ordered this for my son who will be trying out for the high school golf team this fall for the first time as a junior. He is athletic enough (plays baseball, soccer, and football) and enjoys golf, but has not played much. He has a medical condition that has him on blood thinners and the doctors won't clear him for contact sports. I am sure that LSW will help speed up his learning process.  I will be reading it as well. We plan to play a lot more golf this summer to help get him ready and more importantly just to have fun.

Thank you as well. Hopefully he can learn some of the ways to play the game while avoiding the old school "common knowledge" that's often just plain wrong.

2 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

I think LSW is an outstanding book for a relatively new golfer to learn from, before he starts getting set into the "conventional wisdom".  Its a good book for everyone, I learned a lot even after playing for nearly 50 years, and have changed some of my decision-making patterns because of it, but its even better to learn the right stuff from the start.

Got a few examples, Dave? 🙂

[CarlSpackler]

It’s been a few years. I think I’ll dust off my copy and read through it again. 

[Shindig]

46 minutes ago, iacas said:

Got a few examples, Dave? 🙂

I can't speak for Dave, but there are a few things in LSW that changed how I play when I learned them -- some I may have learned from the book, others from this site and they ended up in the book (I am also sure I was one of the high handicappers referenced at one point who insisted he was a good ballstriker despite hitting at most 4 greens/round).  

Minding of gaps (Ch. 7) and #DeadCenter (Ch. 26) are the first two that come to mind.

[woodzie264]

Steady head made a huge difference for me. I’d only had 2 lessons in my life and sucked at golf, until I got Erik’s book. Focusing on Steady head and having some of the forum guys help me on turning (wall drill), my HCP fell from around 14 to now a 7.6. I realize that’s not great in the minds of some here, but that’s marked improvement for me and I credit LSW for it.

[Phil McGleno]

11 hours ago, woodzie264 said:

Steady head made a huge difference for me. I’d only had 2 lessons in my life and sucked at golf, until I got Erik’s book. Focusing on Steady head and having some of the forum guys help me on turning (wall drill), my HCP fell from around 14 to now a 7.6. I realize that’s not great in the minds of some here, but that’s marked improvement for me and I credit LSW for it.

I do not find it to be a instructional book-More about what skills to practice without saying how to do them mechanically. And game planning and stuff too.

[woodzie264]

2 hours ago, Phil McGleno said:

I do not find it to be a instructional book-More about what skills to practice without saying how to do them mechanically. And game planning and stuff too.

Agreed. It gave me guidance as to where to invest my time...what to work on. 

[DaveP043]

15 hours ago, iacas said:

Got a few examples, Dave? 🙂

Two things come directly to mind, without taking time to go back and review the book itself. 

I've changed my attitude about lay-ups.  I no longer choose to give up yardage without a good reason, I don't lay back to a specific distance.  Sometimes there's a good reason to do that, danger spots like bunkers or penalty areas or steep slopes, a need to hit a shot with lots of spin, but now I get as close as I reasonably can most of the time. 

The second is aiming at the center of the green unless I'm within maybe 120 yards.  Even with wedges, I'll often aim 5 or 10 feet from the pin, closer to the center, if the pin is close to the edge.  I'll aim at the "safe" edge of a fairway off the tee if there's a danger on the opposite side.  All of this is a reaction to the decision-making systems discussed in the book.

I've been playing for about 50 years now, so a lot of what is presented coincided with the way I'd learned to play.  But some of it didn't, and it opened my eyes.  I think the discussion of Shot Zones  and "shades of gray" decision-making is an excellent way to explain the smart way to go about it.  I honestly wish I had been exposed to this way of thinking decades earlier.

[Benit0]

On 5/12/2019 at 9:57 PM, iacas said:

Gave you the award. Let me know when it arrives!

It arrive last Thursday. I'm at chapter 12 now practice plan. So far there is good information that summarize what I read here and there but having it at one location is a good thing. The practice and strategy portion is what is interesting me the most so i'll post my though on it once i'm done.

[The Flush]

I received the book today.  I actually ordered from Amazon before I read on a thread here that those were not authorized copies of the book. I am returning that copy and keeping the copy I received from the LSW website.  You can definitely tell the difference in quality.  The legit copy is at least 1/8" thicker due to heavier paper.

I will start reading as soon as I hit submit on this post.