Do You "Slow Drop" the Flagstick?

[boogielicious]

15 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

I generally dislike dropping the flagstick from any distance.  Sometimes I'll do just that, use my putter to lower it most of the way.  Other times, I'll grab the flag itself and lower it down suspended from the flag until its fairly close to the ground.  I can't imagine that dropping it causes any problem or damage, but somehow it just seems like the wrong thing to do.

I do this as well.

[mcanadiens]

Maybe we are getting a bit semantical, but I see damn few that don't let it drop a to some degree. Obviously people can be a bit more casual and careless with it than others. I've never seen anyone use a putter to lower the stick and have hardly ever seen someone lay it on the ground

If you put the business end of the flag stick on the ground, lower the stick to the bottom of your reach, bend the knee a bit and let it drop from there, surely it isn't going to do much of anything to the green.

[Bucki1968]

17 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

I generally dislike dropping the flagstick from any distance.  Sometimes I'll do just that, use my putter to lower it most of the way.  Other times, I'll grab the flag itself and lower it down suspended from the flag until its fairly close to the ground.  I can't imagine that dropping it causes any problem or damage, but somehow it just seems like the wrong thing to do.

I use my putter to lower the flag stick. I play with a guy who uses the flag to lower the stick to about a foot and then drops it on the green. 

[saevel25]

Most of the time I will use the flag to lower the flagstick to about knee height then drop it. Sometimes I just get lazy and tip it over. I usually only do that when I am playing by myself.

[phillyk]

Well soon enough I won't be taking it out much, so no need to drop it anywhere.  But for now, I usually let it down easy enough to not damage but it drops a bit.  In tournaments, I do let it down easier and try to wrap the flag underneath so that it doesn't make noise if it's breezy.  I also try to put it in the fringe, if it's close.

[ChetlovesMer]

Well, God bless it.
I was hoping I wasn't a "Flag-Dropper". But I went back and watched my VLOG... Yep, I'm a "Flag-dropper". 

Just one more thing to work on next year. 

If you wanna see me drop the flag go to page 21 off the "Video Logs (VLOG)" thread. I'm guilty. 

[iacas]

14 minutes ago, ChetlovesMer said:

Well, God bless it.
I was hoping I wasn't a "Flag-Dropper". But I went back and watched my VLOG... Yep, I'm a "Flag-dropper". 

Just one more thing to work on next year. 

If you wanna see me drop the flag go to page 21 off the "Video Logs (VLOG)" thread. I'm guilty. 

I drop it from varying heights, but virtually never so high that it'll cause even temporary damage.

The flagstick weighs a lot less than people walking around, even with the force of dropping it from four or five feet up (so long as you don't let one of the pointed ends drop and it's more like you're dropping it with the cup end already resting on the green).

I don't think this is something you have to "work on" unless you're actually causing damage to the green(s).

[ChetlovesMer]

9 minutes ago, iacas said:

I don't think this is something you have to "work on" unless you're actually causing damage to the green(s).

I was being a little facetious. By the way, I just got your book in the mail. I'm looking forward to reading it this weekend. May as well, it's flipping snowing here. 

[boogielicious]

37 minutes ago, ChetlovesMer said:

Well, God bless it.
I was hoping I wasn't a "Flag-Dropper". But I went back and watched my VLOG... Yep, I'm a "Flag-dropper". 

Just one more thing to work on next year. 

If you wanna see me drop the flag go to page 21 off the "Video Logs (VLOG)" thread. I'm guilty. 

Did you edit out the part where you used it to pole vault over your putting line?

[ChetlovesMer]

4 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

Did you edit out the part where you used it to pole vault over your putting line?

No no, that's coming up in Part II. 

[Sandy Divot]

As long as you don't throw it like a spear, I really don't think it will damage the green. I've seen footprints on a green, but I can't remember ever seeing a mark from a flagstick.

[jimnm]

I usually place the bottom of the flagstick on the ground then lower the top end of it and let it go once my hand is about knee high.

[bkuehn1952]

A couple years ago I experimented when the greens were a bit soft (a bit of rain the night before).  I let the flag stick fall like a tree cut down ... timber!!  It left a visible groove on the green.  I can't say how long the groove remained or if a putt would have been affected by the groove.  After that, I began to use the flag to lower the flagstick or dropped it on my out stretched leg/foot.

Admittedly, the flagstick in the "test" was a heavy duty muni-type stick.  Hard to imagine one of the whippy lightweight sticks making as much of a dent.

[Piz]

I lower the flag stick to the ground with my putter.  I don't know why, exactly, but I've always done it that way.

[BogeySwine]

Once I am on the green I mark my ball and fix my ball impact mark if necessary. Next I repair the four or five divots left from the previous day or earlier that morning.(Not likely as I am usually in the first four groups in the morning.)   If I am closest to the pin I will avoid my playing partners' line and tend the flag. When the rest of the group are finished fixing a few ball divot marks I'll ask if anyone needs the pin tended. Once no one needs it tended I'll set it down away from the area where any putt can reasonably reach it.(Sometimes someone will have to dash over and pick it up!) Even old guys sometimes hit them twice as far as needed!

[fever]

On ‎11‎/‎15‎/‎2018 at 7:41 PM, jimnm said:

I usually place the bottom of the flagstick on the ground then lower the top end of it and let it go once my hand is about knee high.

I think this it the perfect answer. +1

[Patch]

Not sure if this fits this thread, a dropped flag, and other golfers' balls can enhance one's read of the green. 

When compared to the cup, flags and sitting balls can show slopes that are not easily seen by the naked eye, or one's feet. 

I was re-reading my golf note book the other day, and found this tid bit, which I had totally forgotten about. 

So, maybe in an important match, one might want to be careful where they drop the flag. 

[Fourputt]

On 11/14/2018 at 12:36 PM, DaveP043 said:

I generally dislike dropping the flagstick from any distance.  Sometimes I'll do just that, use my putter to lower it most of the way.  Other times, I'll grab the flag itself and lower it down suspended from the flag until its fairly close to the ground.  I can't imagine that dropping it causes any problem or damage, but somehow it just seems like the wrong thing to do.

This is how I do it, by holding the flag cloth and lowering it to the ground.  I've done this since I first started playing golf.  A couple of years ago, I actually saw a guy break the shaft on his wedge by just letting the flagstick drop all the way from vertical and the top of the stick hit his wedge lying on the green.  Likely a rare instance, but it helped give me validation for my method.

On 11/14/2018 at 12:37 PM, NM Golf said:

I would have to ask why? Does dropping the pin from 3 feet above the ground harm the green? I mean its not like I am throwing it like a javelin across the green. 😜

From 3 feet, probably can't hurt anything, but I see far too many casual golfers just stand it up vertical and just give it a shove in the direction they want it to fall.  Don't know if that hurts either, but it makes a much harder impact than just simply lowering it close to the ground. 

In the incident I mentioned above, there was a stiff breeze and the flagstick didn't fall straight where he intended.  The graphite shaft on his wedge was hit just above the hosel with a point in the flagstick about 3 inches below the top, where the greatest amount of kinetic energy was achieved in the drop. (just as a point of record, it was a steel flagstick, not the more common fiberglass type) 

Edited December 11, 2018 by Fourputt