The "Stop Conning Yourself" Thread

[CaddyCarl]

My con relates to shot distance. I think I can still hit that far. I'll look at a shot and think "7 iron". No it's not. At one time in your golfing life it might have been a 7 iron. At 57 years old, that is no longer a 7 iron. It's a 5 iron now, or more likely a 5 hybrid. I'm still learning my lesson with that. Amateurs tend to hit their shots too short, instead of too long to begin with. Compounded with advancing age, and limited play and practice time, I've really had to start rethinking my bag, and course strategy, when it comes to convertable distance. I played a par 3 last week that used to be 9 iron for me. Took a 6 iron to green it. That can be a hard pill to swallow for some guys...

[RJ1185]

Not too long ago I got the game golf device and realised I can be totally wrong about my strengths and weaknesses once I actually look at shots gained (lost) data etc. It's making it easier to confront my game as it is as oppose to the con I can be prone to telling myself.

One big takeaway from the stats has been that I just do not make up and downs and my game from 40 yards in not as good as Id thought. 

[3jacker]

Years back I had this discussion with myself.  I came away with that I'm only as good as my worst recent round.  

We have a tendency to focus on our best play, and since we're *capable* of doing that from time to time, we think that's how good we are.  With that line of thinking, why wouldn't we be as good as our worst play, and just get lucky from time to time when the stars align and our timing is on?

I get a kick out of the AT&T pro am because of the vanity handicaps.  And the commentators certainly keep it going.  I can tell the difference from an "odd action" that can get results versus a horrible move through the ball. 

[RWC]

On 3/18/2019 at 11:14 AM, CaddyCarl said:

My con relates to shot distance. I think I can still hit that far. I'll look at a shot and think "7 iron". No it's not. At one time in your golfing life it might have been a 7 iron. At 57 years old, that is no longer a 7 iron. It's a 5 iron now, or more likely a 5 hybrid. I'm still learning my lesson with that. Amateurs tend to hit their shots too short, instead of too long to begin with. Compounded with advancing age, and limited play and practice time, I've really had to start rethinking my bag, and course strategy, when it comes to convertable distance. I played a par 3 last week that used to be 9 iron for me. Took a 6 iron to green it. That can be a hard pill to swallow for some guys...

At 66 yrs old, I can certainly agree with @CaddyCarl about the challenge to be honest with yourself on club distances as we age. I spent several hours hitting balls on a simulator this winter trying to get reasonable fix on my club distances - now I need to trust the distances and make the right club selection on the course. As the old saying goes, the "ball doesn't know what club was used" to hit it on the green.

[DrMJG]

The game my heart wants me to remember playing (in my 20s) is with straight long drives (with a persimmon, no less) and a solid 6 HC.

My head, today, needs to stomp this down with a big iron boot. Age, injury and decades of not playing made that evident. 

I often think "I can make that" when, if I were honest, I would either lay up or take one club stronger.  That seeking of my honest assessment has made golf so much more fun than in my salad days.  I may never win another tournament, play my age, ace a hole, or break 80 (other than by dumb luck).

But, the challenges of my youth are almost the same at my advancing age: correct reading of the shot ahead, right club selection, good mechanics, and always thinking of the next shot.

I no longer play from the tips (usually a much shorter total number of yards), but the skill levels of the way I can manipulate (or no longer can manipulate) my weapons makes the round of golf fun or infuriating and sometimes both in the course of two holes!

 

Edited March 29, 2019 by DrMJG

[Chasing_Bogeys]

Hi, I'm Andy and I suck at Golf.

I have been conning myself into thinking I'm an 18 with aspirations of getting under 15. I already played more golf 2019 than I did in all of 2018. I have read the rules of golf (thankfully the big changes prompted me to do a full read of the rules. The local rule for stroke and distance for an OB/Lost ball opened my eyes to the difference between stroke and distance penalty and lateral hazard penalty). What I have learned is this, I have never broken 90 playing completely by the rules of golf. I'm not sure I have broken 100 playing by the full rules of golf. I certainly haven't broken 100 this year.

I am planning to play some tournaments over the summer so my conning myself and my generous scorekeeping near the end of last year will give me a nifty 18-ish handicap. That will likely go up over the next several months as four 90 or better scores come off the index.

What I have realized over the last 2 weeks is that my practice habits suck. I need to be much more focused on following the practice tips in LSW (rereading that section this weekend).

I want to be a "bogey golfer" who is around 90 most of the time, occasionally finds an 87 and understands that 95 is WELL within the likely range of outcomes. I started the year thinking that's where I was. Realizing that I'm not has been painful.

Onward and Upward. The good news is that I really enjoy the game!

 

[Bo the Golfer]

Hi I'm Shaun and I suck at golf. My con is that I run to every swing method thinking this will be the fix. S&T, One Plane Swing, Arm Illusion, the A Swing, etc. What I need to do is worry about the 5SK's and swing my swing. I love this game but I make it much more frustrating than it needs to be.

[trainsmokegolf]

On 4/17/2019 at 11:18 AM, Bo the Golfer said:

Hi I'm Shaun and I suck at golf. My con is that I run to every swing method thinking this will be the fix. S&T, One Plane Swing, Arm Illusion, the A Swing, etc. What I need to do is worry about the 5SK's and swing my swing. I love this game but I make it much more frustrating than it needs to be.

Keep working at it,  practice with a purpose and nothing wrong with taking one extra club!

[iacas]

You're conning yourself (or being conned) if you think your 7I in this set is actually a 7I.

It’s at least a 5I.

And as the comment says I have been the first to not care about loft creep. But everyone has a limit.

[downbylaw11]

my backswing is terrible which typically causes my entire swing to be a mess some days. 

[Cantankerish]

Do manufacturers do this to try to convince players that they hit the ball further with these irons?

[iacas]

I have a junior golfer that almost "reverse cons" himself.

He complains about a 78 shot in HORRIBLE conditions and bemoans how "it's the worst round ever. I missed three one-foot putts."

If there's one message that I hope to convey in this topic, it's to accurately and realistically assess your golf game.

It's rare, but occasionally, sometimes golfers don't con themselves into thinking they're better than they are, but in fact do the exact opposite. 😛

[Double Mocha Man]

I don't care what the loft of your 7 iron is.  It can be 18 degrees for all I care.  Just don't turn to your golfing buddy on that par 3 and say, "I hit a 7 iron, what are you hitting?"

[Bonvivant]

Just now, Double Mocha Man said:

I don't care what the loft of your 7 iron is.  It can be 18 degrees for all I care.  Just don't turn to your golfing buddy on that par 3 and say, "I hit a 7 iron, what are you hitting?"

Sometimes I take note of what an opponent hits on a new course with heavy elevation change. I know that my 7 iron goes as far as most mid 30 year olds PW. So I just look at their club and then go 3 longer and it's usually close. That grid that iacas shared shows the PW at 38^o where as mine is 49^o. That pair with the fact that I don't have a super powerful swing works out well for me.

I'm guilty of taking a shorter club often, as are most of the ego driven guys I play with. Had a guy say that 100 yards should be a 60^o for him, asked him to hit a 54^o at the same spot and he hit it perfect and it was perfect on distance. For some reason we like to think that clubs go farther than they actually do. I think a lot of this has to do with what we see on the tour, and an overestimation of capabilities. I like to think my 7I goes 140 yards, but more often than not, it's shorter than 133 or so. I am sure plenty of people are right there with me as far as overestimation.

[Pretzel]

23 hours ago, Bonvivant said:

So I just look at their club and then go 3 longer and it's usually close. That grid that iacas shared shows the PW at 38^o where as mine is 49^o. That pair with the fact that I don't have a super powerful swing works out well for me.

It should be noted that isn't the norm, even for modern irons with their loft creep. The modern MP-18 blades (and my MP-4's) have a PW loft of 46 degrees. A PING G400 iron has a PW with a loft of 44.5 degrees, or 42.5 degrees even if you opt for the "Power Spec" options (4-7 lofts cranked 1.5 degrees stronger than standard with 8-PW 2 degrees stronger). Even TaylorMade, one of the companies most notorious for screwing with lofts to make distance claims, doesn't sell a set with a lower PW loft than 41 degrees. This is in their M Gloire irons, which are sold as a compressed 6-SW set to span between 24 and 53 degrees of loft. The same span, or a similar one, is usually covered by a 4-SW set with two more clubs so it makes sense that the PW is strong to help compress the set into fewer clubs like that.

Most irons will have a PW loft that falls comfortably between 43 and 46 degrees, which does make them approximately one club stronger but not much more (my MP-4 9-iron is 42 degrees, the TW spec irons have a 43 degree 9-iron). Some older sets, like PING Eye 2's at 50.5 degrees, had particularly weak PW's even for the time period but those sets also had similarly weak SW (57.5 degrees) and LW (61 degrees) lofts. Even with those very high lofted sets like the Eye 2's you still had a 45 degree 9-iron, so realistically most PW's today are still comparable with that 9-iron.

I do find myself getting caught in the "not enough club" trap more frequently in recent times, but it has more to do with the quality of contact than how far I can hit the ball on a clean strike. My handicap has slid backwards to somewhere near a 5 or so throughout college but I still play my MP-4 blades, so the distance for my long irons can sometimes be off by as much as 30 yards short of expected when I catch one a little too high/low or toe/heel on the face. That's just something to be remedied by playing and practicing more often, however.

[uitar9]

I am not a long hitter (driver runs 185-210) and I was constantly playing the blues (mens tees) whenever paired with other men. This year, gave it up. Moved to the whites, wherever I play.

I record my handicap every 9 and 18 I play. Been out 57 times. I may have taken 5 mullies this season.

Started seeing better scores at every place I play. Not as many bunkers, even getting a few pars.

My informal hcp (just something I found for the phone) has moved to low 19's instead of high 22's. 

My con was that my short game would make up that lack of distance off the blues.

I just feel better about golf

 

 

 

[Darkfrog]

I conned myself for years into believing I was a good iron player. I usually was hitting 2 clubs less than my friends at the same distance on iron shots, so this impressed them. We looked at each others games with rose tinted glasses which reinforced our cons.

"Darkfrog is a great iron player"

"X has a great short short game"

"Y is a fantastic putter"

"Z can crushes his drives"

Truth is we all sucked, and our best rounds often included breakfast balls, second breakfast balls, and n breakfast balls.

My con didn't end until I had a horrible case of shanks, and committed to lessons. That's when I learned how bad I really was.

[Buckeyebowman]

On 3/29/2019 at 6:08 PM, DrMJG said:

The game my heart wants me to remember playing (in my 20s) is with straight long drives (with a persimmon, no less) and a solid 6 HC.

My head, today, needs to stomp this down with a big iron boot. Age, injury and decades of not playing made that evident. 

I often think "I can make that" when, if I were honest, I would either lay up or take one club stronger.  That seeking of my honest assessment has made golf so much more fun than in my salad days.  I may never win another tournament, play my age, ace a hole, or break 80 (other than by dumb luck).

But, the challenges of my youth are almost the same at my advancing age: correct reading of the shot ahead, right club selection, good mechanics, and always thinking of the next shot.

I no longer play from the tips (usually a much shorter total number of yards), but the skill levels of the way I can manipulate (or no longer can manipulate) my weapons makes the round of golf fun or infuriating and sometimes both in the course of two holes!

 

I think this hits close to home. We REMEMBER how well we used to hit the ball, and think we can still do so. It took me a few years to realize that I was playing one set of tees too far back! Every long par 4 turned into a par 5! What's going on here? It took me a couple more years to convince my buddy to do the same. He thought he was busting it out there 260-270 every drive, when he was actually hitting it about 220-230. We started playing the gold tees and began enjoying golf again!