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This seems like something that might help those opens to have stronger fields more so than changing much about the eventual Masters field. Maybe not so much for the Scottish Open since lots of top players play that as a warm up for the Open, but for Japan, Hong Kong, South Africa I could see this being a big boon.

"Move to four days of competition reflects LIV Golf’s global momentum and evolution" This is incoherent. "to deliver more action and entertainment for fans" One-third more than 0 is still 0.

LIV ceases to exist. LIV Golf announces expanded 72-hole format for 2026 season as next phase of growth for the league continues Move to four days of competition reflects LIV Golf’s global momentum and evolution to deliver more action and entertainment for fans They are going to have to rename themselves LXXII.

You didn't even know about PCC. You seemed to be unaware of soft and hard caps. Saying that you know and demonstrating that you know are two different things. We know. It could take way, way too long to rise. It's what you're used to, and change is hard. That's the language we used to have here, too. Now it's "demonstrated ability." The new system more accurately reflects the golfer's demonstrated ability. Plus the soft and hard caps that limit upward movement. That's not true. The opposite is closer to true. It's more reactive than the old UK system (a good thing IMO), and it's much quicker to go down than it is to go up, especially if a golfer shoots an exceptional score. This is just math and is factual. This has been demonstrated several times for you. You refuse to acknowledge that you've got it wrong, mathematically, or you're being quite loose with the definitions of some words. Again, pal, post the handicap history or pipe down, because that doesn't make any real sense. The first good score you shoot drops your handicap. The next good score you shoot drops it again. The first twelve bad scores you shoot have the potential to not affect your index at all, if they bump off other non-counting scores. It's just math, man. And you're still a sample size of one, with some strange definitions and you play a lot of golf. I'm also not even really sure I believe you anymore. So, again… Please post your handicap record (like below) for the past year so we can all see exactly what you're talking about or just stop posting in this thread. It's going nowhere. Would look like a bigger version of this (not mine):

LEXXII sounds like a stage name for someone in the adult entertainment industry.

After reading through this whole thread, I actually have no idea what the hell your point is other than your apparently insatiable desire to get the last word in. It's more reactive when you're playing better, less reactive when you're not, which IMO, is the way it should be.

Where are you getting the opinions of the average Brit from? Most people I know are fine with it (or at least not fussed enough to complain about it). I've spent roughly half my golfing life under the CONGU system and half under the US/WHS system. I think WHS is a significant improvement over CONGU for two main reasons - one, it adjusts for how difficulty varies by ability, where CONGU does not and two, it catches up with changes in ability far more quickly than CONGU did. If your handicap was 5.0 under CONGU and you started shooting the course rating/SSS every time you played, it would take 21 rounds to get to 0.4 and would never get below 0.4. Under WHS, it takes at most 8 rounds to get to 0.0 and could be fewer. Similarly if you were 5.0 and started shooting 8 over every time, you'd get to 5.5 in 5 rounds and then you'd be stuck at 6 forever. WHS gets to 8.0 after at most 20 rounds and could be quite a bit fewer than that

Didn't say anything about your understanding in my post. Well, if you are not insisting on alignment with logic of the WHS, then no. Try me/us. What do you want from us then?? You are not making sense. You come here and post in an open forum, question a system that is constructed with logic, without using any of your own and then give us a small window of your personal experience to support your narrative which at first sight does not makes sense. I mean, if you are a point of swearing then I would suggest you cut your losses and humor a more gullible audience elsewhere. Good heavens.

So you play 3-4 rounds/week, post ALL of your rounds, yet these 'three best rounds' from summer JUST fell off?? Give us your score history or should we say, err..the plot thickens?

What drives me nuts most about Elite Golf Schools/Milo Lines type instruction is: Claims about the "health benefits" of swinging like they prefer. Claims about how "athletes" should move Claims about the advantages of swinging the way they swing (while constantly listing golfers like Rory, Tiger, Scottie, Jack, etc. as "swingers") Basing much of their "analysis" on 2D video and what they think is happening versus 3D and force plate data. Ignoring facts and data in other ways. I didn't time stamp my notes, but you can pretty much follow along… Jimmy Walker (why Jimmy Walker? Because he has a "not great" swing that exaggerates some of what he sees as flaws?) vs. Viktor Hovland (even though he notes Scottie as a swinger), also notes that Rory has a higher ROC than Viktor at 18:40 (another swinger). Also… Jimmy won a major ("Hovvie" doesn't) in 2016, got Lyme disease in 2017, and this video is from 2018 when he was saying he couldn't practice, couldn't play, etc. Also, there's never been a correlation between Rate of Closure and either distance or accuracy. It sounds like there would be, but there isn't. You have accurate and inaccurate, long and short, and every combo of those players who have high ROC and low ROC and everything in between. No correlation. But it sounds good… Main reason for Riley's "preference" is injury prevention. D'oh! Never shown any actual evidence or support for this, and the rash of players moving away from the "extreme-right-side-bend/rotational" for their health is just ignored, I guess. He will talk about Jimmy Walker's shoulder tilt and "right side bend" at P8, but ignore that Viktor's right shoulder is about 18" below his left at P9. Then he goes into the high ROC stuff I wrote about above. Seriously, again, Jimmy Walker less than a year after a Lyme Disease diagnosis? From 2018? Riley now likes to say that golfers "express the golf club to the golf ball." 😛 Oy. Says Walker's swing is "lots of lateral bend" (right side bend) while the body moves up and pelvis goes forward. See Image 1 where he's comparing himself to Hovland and let's see if you can spot the differences! Riley is not doing ANY of this using 3D, just what he thinks and what it looks like on a video. If only we had measured data on these kinds of things. Word Salad just jumped to level 7. He's now using the words "antecubital fossa" instead of just saying "elbow pit" or "inside of your elbow." Also, you could just call it the cubital fossa if you want to use a medical term, but adding "ante" adds two syllables and makes him look smarter (he thinks?). Jimmy Walker is at P8.2 while Hovland is at P7.2 and he's comparing left arm internal rotation. Riley clearly doesn't know the YouTube shortcuts , and . Opening the chest is a clubface opener. It makes it tougher to square the face. Riley keeps saying Hovland squares the face with heavy rotation of the chest. Oh geez. Now he's saying they're "more or less stacked up" by guessing at where the centers of his rib cage and pelvis are at P5 by looking at an off-angle video on YouTube. We can and have measurements for these kinds of things. See Image 2. You want to know who's actually stacked up late in the downswing? See Rory McIlroy, a swinger, in Image 3. Almost all of the stuff around 18:40 and Rory vs. Viktor is laughable. a) Rory is as "stacked" for as long as almost anyone, b) Rory's high ROC and "swinger" pattern have led to a 15-year span in which he's consistently top 5 in the world, and often #1, and won the Career Slam. Riley doesn't seem to understand how pressure is generated at 21:02. Some of the biggest swayers generate the least pressure in the left foot, and some of the biggest rotators generate the most. He's guessing at Jimmy's and Viktor's pressure/force numbers. Lost steam after that stuff. He doesn't say much in the last six or seven minutes anyway. A summary, which is almost a comment I made on the YouTube video. If only we have actual measurements (3D, force plates). It'd contradict or show to be misleading if not outright false a LOT of what you have to say. Video was great… two decades ago, and it's an effective tool for practicing, etc. largely due to its availability, but you're guessing at things. We have better tools now than video. You guess at things golf instructors (and biomechanists, and others) have actually measured. What's worse, you wrap it in an "injury prevention" package with zero evidence of that (and the evidence at the highest level generally supports NOT moving like Will Z or Joaquin Niemann, who is moving AWAY from being the type of "mover" that you like). There are too many factual errors or asterisks to detail in a single YouTube comment, so I won't bother to list them all out. Also… Rory's had a 15-year career of being a top-five player in the world. Scottie and Tiger, both "swingers," have put up some of the best seasons we've seen in the last 30 years. The two greatest players of all time in Tiger and Jack are both swingers… While Hovland is constantly searching for his swing and tinkering. Jason Day, Will Zalatoris, Joaquin Niemann… etc. are moving away from this extreme-right-side-bend, rotation-heavy "hitter" pattern for health reasons (and quality of play reasons). Image 1: Image 2: Image 3:

What a way to kick off a good discussion! So detailed! We have a lot to discuss here given the breadth and depth of the info you shared. 🙂 Masters, Open Championship change qualifying criteria - ESPN The Masters and Open Championship changed their qualifying criteria by eliminating invitations to PGA Tour winners in the fall and recognizing winners of six national opens on every main tour in the world. Even though it was sold as a "big" change, I don't see it as such. They added six national opens as getting qualifying spots (Scottish Open, Spanish Open, Japan Open, Hong Kong Open, Australian Open and South African Open) The eliminated qualifying spots from the (seven) Fall Series events. I'm trying to tease you there, above, too… cuz you really could have posted more than just what amounts to a complaint about a lack of discussion… while doing nothing to create a discussion. This news dates back to August, too.

I think this just means that 21 rounds ago you had a better day in the office. That's now history, so your handicap goes up a little. We don't do decimal points of shots, so sometimes 0.3 will change your course handicap and sometimes it won't. You happened to hit two fairly unusual events at the same time and this happens. I find if I have a good round, I watch for when it's going to drop off and when it does I know my handicap is likely to go up unless I have a very good round. Conversely there are days where your 20th score ago was not a good round and then you have a freebie - whatever you shoot today your handicap isn't going to change upwards. So you take the rough with the smooth. I've lived under both systems and the new one is so much better at keeping up to date with changes in ability than the old one. That's a good thing.

I don't know that these were the "best", but they were definitely the closest..... to each other. Those were my ball and Mary Anne's ball, maybe 6 feet from the hole, and actually touching. We both missed the putts!

I'll say again… you have a different definition of "temporary" and "speed" than I do. For your handicap to go up FOUR shots means you were through the soft cap and approaching the hard cap. If you did it over 15 rounds (leaving five potentially lower scores), then you played REALLY bad golf over that stretch because it's likely that only three or four of the best of those 15 rounds were actually counted, so if the three or four best scores RAISED your handicap five shots (three at 100%, 2 at 50% once you hit the soft cap), then that's some BAD golf over an extended (not temporary) period of time. And here's the thing… play 15 good rounds, or even just EIGHT, and it'll DROP again, even faster. Handicaps still drop faster than they rise, not only because of the way we calculate it (best 😎 but because of the caps. Right… it's not like you're not needing the shots. You're playing really badly, and your handicap is still lagging behind your play.

Those appear to the the Fast Twist 3.0 style, according to the Softspikes page: Golf Spikes – Softspikes Softspikes offers an excellent selection of innovative golf cleats and accesories. Just click on the appropriate picture below to learn more about our products. Here's another reference I've been using the Softspikes Tour Flex cleats for a while, they seem to last a little longer than some other cleats.

I have access to far more data (including surveys and polls) than you do with your anecdotes. I mean this as plainly and literally as possible: you’ve demonstrated that you do not. They would, one way or the other.

I've always been a big fan of "play the tees you want to play." Golf is supposed to be about fun for most people. @Hardspoon regularly plays up a set of tees or two on most trips and courses; good! That's what should happen. John won't take that as a shot at him, and I've not intended it as one.

038: Dr. Raymond Prior (Golf Beneath the Surface) and the Psychology of Practice | The Spin Axis Podcast - Golf Coaches Discuss Instruction Modern Techniques and Technology I think we did the latter part, but in the show we did talk briefly about block vs. random practice. I asked him on the show about how someone might appear to be doing block practice (rehearsing the same move with a 7I or something, hitting the same type of shot on repeat), and he said that would likely be what he and others in his field would call Variable Practice. Now, this is big, because I think block practice gets a bad rap. In the post-show conversation (not recorded), I asked more questions about this. Basically, block practice to people in this field is literally doing the same exact thing over and over again. Given that definition, and except for the guy literally just hitting drivers on the range, I don't think anyone really ever does block practice. It casts serious shade on the studies that show block practice is horrible and random practice is the only good way to go. If just altering what you're doing a little, by exaggerating more or less, or doing "the thing" a little more or less, or altering the speed a little is enough to make it "variable" practice, then… do that. It'll look like block practice to others, or at least what they think is block practice, but apparently… it's not! So, anyway, I'd like to have a discussion on this stuff. The value (or lack of value) in how we practice to ingrain movement improvements.

Day 17 (26 Nov 25) - Spent time with the wedges again as left foot has some skin breakdown on the pad area - so big weight shifts, full swings are out for a day or so - big goal, making picky nips that create those lower flying spinny checks for those green side hop and stops.

And that is why I wont google it from my work laptop!

So it's a good thing that it would take 5 years to go up 5 shots on the old system? If you want it to be slower, just post your competition rounds, not your regular play rounds (not an option in the US, but I believe it is in the UK). I don't understand how your handicap showing your current form is a bad thing. Why should we care how someone was playing 4 years ago when deciding how many shots they get today?

Just saw this, will now be known as Lexi!

Context: while I have been practicing when I can, I have missed enough days that I'm not recording it for the "5 minutes daily challenge" until I believe I have the time to practice daily again. Played Navy, from the white tees (71.1/125/6463). Shot an 86; as I type this, my trend index is 14.5, so that's a good score for now. Can you tell I've practiced primarily full swing? SG in the three areas other than putting all beat the 5-handicap mark today. I don't recall the last time I had such a great outing. 10 GIR helps, with three additional "hit the green on a full shot after having to play positionally on a previous one." And on two of the near-GIR, I chipped one to about 10' and another to 4', which probably helped SG:SG score quite a bit (as did having so few short game shots). 18 GIRPs. And yes, I know what I've been neglecting in practice Don't worry, I know what I need to do... I just need to do that.

Day 13 (22 Nov 25) - Played in club Thanksgiving 2-man Scramble tourney (9 holes straight scramble, 9 hole Texas scramble) - was a fun exercise is playing from yardages shorter and longer than usual. Did have a great closest to the pin hole (called the turkey hole) - was closest and came away with a fresh dozen of balls of my choice…came away with some Bridgestone Tour B RX balls….

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And here I'm wondering why the dogpile I have accumulated in the last 15 rounds hasn't raised my HCP faster (has gone up by 1.6 shots)...🫤. It seems I keep shooting enough +1/+2 diff rounds once every 4-5 rounds to slow down the increase to a crawl. I think mine is way more likely scenario for the general populous than whatever you have done to make it go up by four shots. I mean four shots over 15 rounds is some consistently TERRIBLE golf! @wackeryou must play everyday or darn near to think it 'quick'.

To be honest I don't really care about individual one-off sample sizes. You could create all kinds of strange scenarios where a 16 differential when you had a lot of great golf is bumped off by an 18 differential and thus your handicap goes up. I think mathematically, too, it's really difficult for your handicap to go up one shot by playing to your handicap Let's say that you were a 14 who has now gone to an 18 (which means the best 8 of your last 20 have actually averaged 19, because that additional stroke was credited at 50% once you hit 17). So, to drive your index up the last full shot until you hit the hard cap…: Playing to your handicap would be shooting an 18.0 differential. For two differentials to boost your handicap by one shot: The rise is capped at 50% It's 2 of 8 rounds that count, so their individual contribution to your index is 0.25 This gives us the formula of 1 = 0.25 * 0.5 * x. Solving for x, your two replaced rounds would have to be 8 points shots lower, or 10s. In other words, in this example, you were a 14.0: 10, 10, 14, 14, 16, 16, 16, 16 = 14.0 differential You're now a soft capped 18.0, keeping the 10s: 10, 10, 22, 22, 22, 22, 22, 22 = 19.0 average, for an 18.0 differential Playing to your handicap is an 18.0, so let's replace the two 10s with two 18s: 18, 18, 22, 22, 22, 22, 22, 22 = 21.0 average You get the first three at 100%, so 17.0 The next two come at 50%, so 4 shots (21) becomes 2, and thus 17.0 So, unless you have a situation where the two differentials coming off are about 12 shots worse than the scores you've shot lately (10s -> 22s), and you replace them with 18s… it's really, really difficult for your index to rise a shot in the soft cap phase by playing decent golf. Even if you replaced the 10 with a 14 - your old index - you'd see this: 14, 14, 22, 22, 22, 22, 22, 22 = 160 160/8 = 20.0 - You get the 14.0 to 17.0 for free, and then the other three shots are at 50%, so 1.5. You'd be an 18.5. That's only half a shot. And it'd require you to shoot your old index in amongst a run of 22.0 differentials, and for the oldest two scores to both be 10.0s. It's highly unlikely. And even if it's an accurate version of what's happening… you're one person. It's one sample point. One data point. Most people don't go from having 10.0s and then consistently shooting 22.0 differentials for six of their BEST rounds out of the last 18 rounds. Again, I wouldn't call that "temporarily slightly worse form." That's a big difference. If you want to continue the discussion, please post your handicap record showing the last 40 rounds, scores, ratings, and differentials (or at least 35 to the point where you said you'd played 15 rounds).

Many thanks DaveP043 , much appreciated

It wasn’t a single shot. It was 15 rounds. It goes up slower than it can go down, too. It can go down more quickly. There’s not a cap on downward movement and there is still an adjustment for exceptional rounds. You may be coming from a place of assumption that the old system was inherently more right or better. Also, bad form can be temporary and have almost no effect on someone’s handicap if it’s 6 to 10 rounds. When you get out to 15+ Rounds, it’s hard to call that “temporary.” It’s quite likely you play a lot more than most people.

I agree. One of the main problems with the old UK system was how slow it was to catch up to changes in ability. The WHS reacts far more quickly in both directions too (maybe different at 20+ handicap, but below 5 it for sure does).

I know, and so he's got to consider that if his handicap went up FOUR strokes, it was through play likely quite a bit worse than even that, because that's into the soft cap, and so… keeping his handicap down at only 1 or 1.5 higher would not represent how he had been playing over 15+ rounds. Again, it's still fifteen rounds. And some really bad scoring for 15 rounds. He has an "outdated" definition of "quick." It is the way it is because of reasons, and my suggestion is that he consider them. Not just react with "this isn't like how it used to be…".

The league golf season is now over, and we were able to successfully navigate this whole Handicap vs Index confusion successfully. Several explanations, emanating from some of the posts in this thread, were published in the league newsletter explaining that what people think is their "Handicap" is really their "Index" and the number of strokes they get each week, their "Course Handicap", is based on the index and slope numbers printed on the scorecards - those numbers reflecting the relative difficulty of the several courses we play. The course handicap formula was also listed with the advice that everyone should calculate their own course handicap before each round. I don't know how many actually bothered to do this but after that, I didn't hear any more complaints or questions. A nice byproduct of this system is that we were able to allow those 70+ to play from the senior tees without worrying about anyone having an unfair advantage or disadvantage. The fact that we do the calculation ourselves from only league scores and don't use GHIN makes this even more fair.

I don't know that Phil is as smart as he thinks he is.

Do they run out on the course and kick sand from the bunkers on the green and yell at rules officials?

I watch Bryson and Phil.... on YouTube. Does that count? 🙃

Can’t wait to hit 79 years old!

I've finally reached an age equal to the lowest score I ever shot.

Tech Talk with Dean Snell - Episode #01 Join us as we launch a new Q&A series with Dean! Submit your questions and each week we will answer one or two to continue educating golfer's about golf ball technology and other questions about the game! This...

Edit (2017-10-29): I've updated the site with a plugin that provides a simpler to use, more feature-filled member map. You can access it here: https://thesandtrap.com/membermap/. The original post is below, but please, use the new Member Map. I stole this idea from another site, I hope you all will enjoy it. In reading some of the threads about member get-togethers, I thought about how far some of us will travel to attend. Which in turn made me wonder about where some of my TST friends live. So I created a map in Google Maps, and added my home golf club, as well as my primary vacation spot. The link is here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1NwaKZanJPQ1wXT_ysLN7csLjEZg&usp=sharing I think it would be fun if the members here wanted to add themselves to the map. The directions from Google are: Open a new or existing map in My Maps. In the left panel, click the layer you want to use. The selected layer will be blue on the left edge. Search for the business, address, or point of interest that you want to add. ... To add that pin to your layers, click "add to map" Once you've added it, you can edit the name to indicate your user name I'm not looking for home addresses or anything so specific, maybe a home town or home course. We might find out that we have online friends who're much closer in real life than we ever thought. I hope I've set this up so that anyone who uses the link will be able to add themselves, without having to sign into a Google account. If you have problems, let me know and I'll try to work them out.

Its in there now, I think you had it already. Either that, or someone else put it in before you did. Thanks for playing along.

I guess I am too dumb, but could not add The Vineyards Golf Course, Escondido CA. It came up with some golf shop on Auto Park Way.

Probably out there playing. Weenies.

The west coast people need to... Wake Up! It's not that early in the morning.

Added mine. Great idea @DaveP043. Thanks for sharing this.

So you are! But you never know when someone from TST will travel to Argentina for business, look at this map, and decide to get in touch with you. This was really my ulterior motive in starting this, I might find more friends to play golf with when I travel.

Added my home course. I´m a little far away from U guys.

Great idea, I added my "home course" as it were, basically just the course I play the most.

How do you attend to and prioritize Purestrike 5SK, TST, LSW, Evolvr, Analyzr, your golf instructor business in Erie, etc? Does one of them ever conflict with another (publishing a book might conflict with instruction of 5SK, for example)? Not sure exactly what my question is, but it just seems with all these things going on that while they are complementary in many regards, there must be stories you've had where one might've had to suffer at the expense of another.

Biggest obstacle and greatest achievement in TST history?