Leave the Driver in the Bag?

[tsdugger]

13 hours ago, Denny Bang Bang said:

Now a question for you... where did you catch that beauty of a smallmouth?!?!?!

 

Haha that Largemouth* was caught at my club on hole 14 here in NW Arkansas on 4th of July - eyeballed her about 4lbs, maybe a little more since she is full of eggs (which I found EXTREMELY strange for July)

[jsgolfer]

23 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

I'll chime in, and probably echo what many others have said.  When you're playing for score right now, hit the longest club that you can reliably put in play.  This selection may change if there are bunkers or hazards or doglegs, make the right choice for each shot.  For the future, learn to hit the longest club in your bag reliably.  Its not that much different hitting a good driver than it is hitting a good hybrid, learn to do it!

This^^

[Killa]

Well I have the same problem as the OP. Another thing is that the two courses I play the most are really tight and pretty short - about 5500 yards (at 68,8 and 131 from the mens tees).

But some holes have fairways that are 20 yards wide and lined with trees. So a bad shot gets you into really big trouble. So for now I'm hitting pretty much only my 3 wood from the tees and I might even pull out my 4 iron on some doglegs where you have to go about 200 yards to it. But I'm working on my driver and hopefully I'll soon be able to pull it out even on tighter holes. 

[kpaulhus]

Just a heads up to everyone, @tsdugger shot 77-82 this weekend. They had a hell of a chance to win the whole net tournament. Great play overall. 

Edited July 30, 2017 by kpaulhus

[David in FL]

8 minutes ago, kpaulhus said:

Just a heads up to everyone, @tsdugger shot 77-82 this weekend. They had a hell of a chance to win the whole net tournament. Great play overall. 

That's the end of that 11.9 index!  

[tsdugger]

15 hours ago, David in FL said:

That's the end of that 11.9 index!  

Yeah... thanks for everyone's help here.

Regained the confidence in the driver (although it is still a pretty wicked fade) and broke 80 for the first time in my life!

Trending 9.5 now.

[Denny Bang Bang]

On 7/28/2017 at 8:21 AM, tsdugger said:

Haha that Largemouth* was caught at my club on hole 14 here in NW Arkansas on 4th of July - eyeballed her about 4lbs, maybe a little more since she is full of eggs (which I found EXTREMELY strange for July)

Ahh, I should have known better.  July and hasn't spawned yet?  Very strange

Great catch!

[tsdugger]

11 hours ago, Denny Bang Bang said:

Ahh, I should have known better.  July and hasn't spawned yet?  Very strange

Great catch!

I thought the same thing. I couldn't find any info on a second spawn here in Arkansas and the water in these ponds is far to warm to warrant a late spawn. I can just assume she just had a full belly. Picture attached shows a fin in her throat from another bass she had just eaten - pretty wild.

[Antneye]

If anyone should have given up on the driver it is me.  It is my nemesis and has been the focus of my golf swing for about a year.  Should I give it up?  Maybe.  But then I would not be working on improving my game and that just wouldn't be fun to me.

I'd rather shoot 100 with the driver, knowing that if I figure the club out I can get myself into the mid-80's, than settle for 92-95 but knowing that I have a gaping hole in my game.

Besides....Hitting driver is fun!

 

[b101]

On 27/07/2017 at 4:09 PM, tsdugger said:

It can be 2-3 clubs different. P-7 are 15 yards between but 6-4 are around 10 yards between. I play my 7 iron 180.

On 27/07/2017 at 5:05 PM, jkelley9 said:

I imagine you take a large divot, too.

I would strongly recommend you get on a launch monitor. My bet is that your angle of attack (as @jkelley9 is implying) is way down, meaning you de-loft the hell out of your hybrid, but just enough to get away with it, but can't get away with it on a driver. If you're hitting down 8 degrees or so, in an extreme case, you're essentially making a 21 degree hybrid a strong 3 wood, but trying to hit a 3 degree driver... The only way to do it is to hit across the ball and try to get it up in the air that way, but as you're always hitting down on it, you cut across and down, putting massive amounts of spin on the ball.

N.B. These symptoms exactly echo what I was doing about 3 years ago... I'd be able to hit my 3 wood 280 but hit all sorts of shots with the driver (mostly low slices, but also pop ups and just about everything else). Takes a lot of work to change the angle of attack, but it's definitely worth doing. It will take some distance off the hybrid, but in the long term, it's a good thing as that, too, will launch higher and mean you can actually stop it on the greens. 

Again, I'd recommend you post a swing thread and use the thread that you were first linked with about hitting up on the driver. Good luck with it - it's so worth having the driver though as you can get away with a slightly crap hit much more than with other clubs. 

[gregsandiego]

10 hours ago, Antneye said:

If anyone should have given up on the driver it is me.  It is my nemesis and has been the focus of my golf swing for about a year.  Should I give it up?  Maybe.  But then I would not be working on improving my game and that just wouldn't be fun to me.

I'd rather shoot 100 with the driver, knowing that if I figure the club out I can get myself into the mid-80's, than settle for 92-95 but knowing that I have a gaping hole in my game.

Besides....Hitting driver is fun!

 

Maybe you're like me. I hit the driver pretty good - once in a while, on the range ha ha.

On the course I need to aim way left to keep it in the fairway. Sometimes close the face a little too.

[arturo28mx]

It took me five years to learn to hit the driver. I had to make many swing improvements in the process, like learning to stay on plane (which also helped my irons). I then cut the shaft to 44 inches. The driver is now probably the most forgiving club in the bag.