Splifton

I'm assuming you are putting on a hole with minimal break. Do you use this with holes that have a break? And if so, what changes are you compensating/looking for?

I agree with the previous poster to start and work on your short game: chipping, pitching, and putting. Working on these facets of your game seemed to help me improve my over all game as well.

Good job. With 14 putts for 9, it looks as if your putting was on. Keep up the good work

I've got three of them 50.8, 56.14, and my latest purchase 60.7. I love them all. Great clubs!

Good idea here! I just joined. At least now I'll be in some good company

Cinnabar Hills is supposed to be really spectacular. It has been highly recommended by my clients who come from the midwest every year. http://cinnabarhills.com/

I've had my Titleist Vokey 56.14 wedge now for about 3 years or so. The bottom three grooves are pretty worned down. Is it time to replace it? Will I notice much of a difference with a club and the bottom three grooves being present? I some how am attached to this .....why? Somehow I feel that I'm going to have to be like the kid from the movie, "Mr. Mom", when he has to get rid of his "wubby.".....lame....

I have an official one through NCGA/USGA. I use for all NET tournament events I enter via my club of through the NCGA. You could probably get one through an eClub or so. Most likely will have to pay a yearly membership fee. It is worth it. Ever since my club started up, everyones handicaps have been going down. It is a great way to track how your playing. Go and get one it is worth it.

I use Yahoo! It works for me http://golf.fantasysports.yahoo.com/golf

I thought he already did???? The way he has been playing the last couple of years you would think so....

I can't wait to retire so I can play golf all day.....ah well only another 25 years to grind it out.......

Thanks for all the great posts. I'll be working on my ball striking for 2011 and let you know if I break into the single digit HCP realm!

Wild stuff. That cat is fearless......I can't believe that one guy is bending down next to the gators. Nuts.....

You might want to look into using "PlayOn" and keep DirectTV. It is an application that you can install on your PC for about $59(one time fee). It allows you to watch many channels on your TV via your Wii, or console gaming application. Check it out on the web, it is pretty cool.

You could try exchanging the card for cash or trading the card to some other store. There are websites out there if you search for them: gift card exchange

I'm sorry that this is long winded..... but Ray you asked...... What did it for me was a horrible day playing golf in a club tournament. I would come to these once a month tournaments expecting to post sub 90 scores when most of the time I was posting mid 90's to low 100's. I always left the course ticked off and upset. It then dawned on me that I had no right to get upset when I only came out to play once a month. I realized right then and there after that tournament that I needed to do something more than playing once a month. This horrible day on the course gave me that internal burn inside to make a change for the better. So I basically gave up playing golf from the end of the 2008 summer to the beginning of next spring and focused all my efforts on four facets of my game: pitching, chipping, putting and mental preparation. I found a local practice facility and began practicing my chipping, pitching and putting: chipping - I would spread balls all over the practice facility in different spots and just come up with games/drills to keep me interested. One game I used was to chip a bucket of balls from different spots, any ball withing 4 feet of my target/pin would get put back in the bucket. Anything outside of 4 feet would have to be sent back to the drill until it got within 4 feet of the pin. I would just chip for hours until I felt like I was in the zone or until all or most of the balls were back in the bucket. pitching - I would set up four cones and pace them out 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 yards from my bucket of balls and I call out shots, like ok I have a 50 yard pitch and try to nail it as close to the 50 yard cone as possible. I would do maybe two-three buckets of 50 balls or so. From doing these drills I would come up with games off of the practice facility such as walking from the parking lot at work. I would stop where I was at and find a landmark in which I needed to walk by or get to. Then before I started walking to it I would say to myself that landmark is about 40 yards. Then pace it off to see how accurate my judging of distances was. Kinda of lame, but kinda of cool when you can nail it! putting - I divided this into two areas: long putts and short putts. long putts I would pace off my putts from 10, 20, 30, 40 feet etc and worked on my lag putting using my feet as a guide to determine how far to bring back my club to hit let's say a 40 ft putt. Then I would work on other distances. After awhile it's amazing how you can determine a feel or touch for long putts. for short putts I would do a simple five star drill. Where I would put tees in a star around a flat, no break pin from distances of 3ft, 4ft, and 5ft. For the 3ft star, I would have to hit all 10 putts in a row. If not I started all over. Once I got all 10 in a row from 3ft. I would move the tees out 4ft and have to hit 9 of 10. If I missed two, I would start over still hitting from 4 feet until I hit 9 of 10. Then I moved to 5ft and would have to hit 8 of 10. If I missed, I would start all over again from 5ft. I would putt for hours. Some days the drill moved quickly. Trust me the nerves are there when you need to make that 8 out of the 10 putt. All of the above items, I did regularly. Maybe one day chipping, another day chipping and pitching, then another day just putting. Or combine all three. Whatever I felt in the mood for, but stayed disciplined to keep working on all of the above. I would go out anywhere from two-four times a week to practice these items. I have three small kids so finding time was hard. Luckily they were 3,4, & 5 and took naps regularly, so my wife would let me take off while they took their afternoon naps on weekends. I would also get up at 5AM and hit the practice range from 6:30AM - 8:30AM then off to work. Or after work, I would stop by for an hour and practice. I was determined. I did not really focus to much on driving nor iron play, since with my driving I could keep the ball in play most of the time and I accepted that I would be unwieldy with my driver for awhile. My iron play was pretty good, not consistent though. Some days good, some days bad, but for the most part I could get away with what I had in the arsenal. I did go to the range, but maybe once a month or so. For the mental preparation I read the books by Dr. Bob Rotella, Golf is a Game of Confidence and listened to some guy who put out free 4-5 minute podcasts about staying in the present. I think his name is Michael Anthony. If you want more info on this guy send me a message. I tried to apply everything that I thought was applicable to me for instance staying in the present, coming up with a good game plan etc. One of the biggest things I learned during the mental preparation was to have a game plan before going to the golf course. Before every new golf course I played that summer, I would know exactly what club or range of clubs, depending on course conditions, I was going to hit off the tee before I went out to play. This way I could be as mentally prepared and not have to second guess my initial shot on the course. Leave the brain out of the equation as much as possible. Also I worked on staying in the present as much as possible. This is a hard one, but I think the more you accept your mistakes the better off you'll be for the next shot. Also I never would add up my score until I got to the clubhouse. Knowing the score always killed me mentally... There is so much to the mental game that I don't know where to begin. But books like the one above are eye opening... When spring came around I began to start playing golf. Results were about the same at first, mid 90's some 100's. But then as summer picked up I would go out once a week religiously, mostly by myself. I started scoring in the high to mid 80's, then by near the end of summer I scored in the low 80's and cracked 80 four times by the end of summer: 79, 77, 79, 78. I could not believe that I improved that much. All the while I was still practicing during the summer, using the routine I developed above. I think I had about 30+ rounds of golf that year. When I look back today, I realize that I did put a lot of work into that year. There were times when I doubted that all of this practice was going to pay off. But somehow I knew inside that if I stuck with it, that I would persevere and have a break through.... As of today, I'm stuck at 10 HCP. I moved the last year to a new house and had been busy all summer painting and doing chores around the new house. Also I have not had the internal burn to practice or play until about a month or so ago. Now I want to get focused again and attain a single digit HCP by the end of 2011. We'll see..... Hope this helps you Ray....good luck!

I manage a team of off-shore developers as well as a team of client support techs.

My brother was telling me this story on Christmas day of his experience golfing in Mexico where he said he shanked his ball in a pond/lake. When he went to go retrieve his ball he said that he saw an alligator within five feet of his ball. He got the ball no problem. Apparently after my brother hit his shot and approached the green, some bystander was walking his dog and his dog was headed towards the pond to get a drink. As the dog lapped up the water, my brother started running towards the dog owner and his dog while yelling at the dog owner trying to warn him about the alligator(s) in the pond. During this time my brother could see the alligator move in towards the dog. Luckily the dog owner got his dog away from the pond in time. My brother however said he was tempted to not say anything to see what would happen, but some how he could not help himself from saving the dog. I told him that if he video'd it and put it on YouTube it would go viral like Antoine Dodson. I live in California, so alligators are rare in this part of the country. The question I have is: has anyone seen an alligator get crazy or should I say do create some mayhem while on the course?

Stretches headcovers are pretty unique.....

I do keep stats on this but when I look deeper in the stats based upon the comments on this thread, it's making me look at my stats in a totally different way then ever before. I believe it is leading to one area of my game that I need to really work on. Let me disect from my last round where I shot a 84 on a par 71, or +13: * NOTE * - Understand the course was extremely wet. The ball was not rolling at all on the fairway so everything played extremely long. This really only matters on my long approach shots to the green on #2 and #15 FIR: 85.7% or (12 of 14) GIR: 50% or (9 of 18) Scrambling%: 22% or (2 of 9) Putts: 38 Putts GIR: (9 GIR; 20 putts) Putts MGIR: 2.0 (9 missed GIR; 18 putts) Hole#2: +1; missed green right with 5w, 2 putt => cause ballstriking Hole#3: +1; missed green deep with 8I, 2 putt => cause ballstriking Hole#9: +2; missed fairway causing punch out; mental error when played shot for 85 yards when shot called for 65 yards => cause missed fairway, mental lapse Hole#10: +1; GIR; missed 4 foot putt => cause missed short putt Hole#11: +1; hit approach shot FAT, two putted => cause ballstriking Hole#12: +1; missed green to 3 feet off the fringe => cause ballstriking Hole#13: +3; hit tee shot fat, mental mistake hitting too much club on 2nd and 3rd shot(pitches within 100 yards), two putted => cause ballstriking, mental x 2 Hole#14: +1; three putted; approach shot left third shot withing 45 feet of cup => (ballstriking or lag putting was the cause, I'll go with the former) => cause ballstriking Hole#15: +2; long par 4; hit approach shot fat, left thirdshot within 90 ft. from hole. Honestly the best I could of done here was +1 with the distance I had off the tee => cause lack of distance + ballstriking Hole#17: -1; stuck 56 degree wedge within two feet of pin, sunk putt for bird => cause good ballstriking or luck Hole#18: +1; three putt, another 90 ft. plus putt, left 2nd putt 5ft short and missed => (ballstriking or lag putting was the cause, I'll go with the former) => cause ballstriking If I talley all of the +14 strokes: ==================== mental mistakes = +3 ballstriking = +8 missed fairway = +1 lack of distance = +1 putting = +1 Verdict is: ballstriking You could make the argument that my chipping and lag putting need to get better. But when you leave it 90ft. from the pin after your approach shot, it is going to be hard to get it there in two everytime. Same with the chipping. I do need to get it closer, but again if you hit the ball to the green within regulation, you won't need to be chipping. There are other things I need to be crisper on as well and that is the mental mistakes. I did not have the distances correct in 2 of the 3 bad pitch shots. One I was off 20 yards, the other I did not even have the distance in my head and just hit it. So I could shave off a couple of strokes by being a little more precise. The short putts I will need to work on, but again I will miss those from time to time. One or two a round will not kill me. Sometimes I think that the statistics mask the problem, like chipping, scrambling% and putting. It appears that real issue that I need to devote my time to is working on ballstriking.

Well done. What are the perks of becoming an Apprentice in the PGA program? What is the next step after that?

I have read Golf is Not a Game of Perfect , Golf is a Game of Confidence , and Your 15th Club ). I read these books at least once a year especially in the winter when things are slow. I highly recommend Golf is a Game of Confidence, great book.

Over the 2009 season, I was able to lower my handicap from a 21 to a 10. In 2010 I couldn't seem to break the barrier into the single digit HCP realm. My goal for 2011 is to have a single digit HCP. Any suggestions or help here?

Quote: So what did your wife/husband/parents/kids/self get you for Christmas? For those of you who posted in the 'Santa Claus' thread, did you end up getting what you were hoping/asking/planning to get? My mom got me a 60 degree Titleist Vokey wedge, plus a round of golf. I can't wait to break in my new club!