Sherpat

I drove my first Par-4 yesterday. It was downhill all the way. The course is at a high elevation. There was a gusty wind at my back. The scorecard said 337 from the whites, but my buddy and I both agree whoever was doing the measuring was on acid. (For instance the Par-3 9th has on the card: "White tees: 100 yards...Red tees: 100 yards", and the reds when we got there were at least 20 yards farther from the whites.) So...my guess is the hole was closer to 280. But I got it to the green in 1 on a Par 4 yesterday for the first time in my life. So everything else can go to hell ( including the fact that I then *cough*4-putted*cough* on the rolling green. F*ck. ) In a way, I have the terrific reviewers at The Sand Trap to thank. When I took up the game a couple of years ago I also took up everyone-and-their-brother's advice to not bother bagging a driver for a while. So I didn't. Then earlier this year I got an e-mail from Golfsmith informing me of a 3-hour "Lunchtime Special" sale available only to online subscribers. One of the clubs knocked down: The MacGregor MacTec NVG2. Golfsmith must have gotten a bunch of old MacGregor inventory in the deal when they purchased the company, and they're trying to get rid of it. So they stuck those remaining MacTec heads on new shafts, and reduced the price. In this case, to 59 dollars. So I said "What the heck. For less than the price of a round at my boss's course I can see if a relative newbie with a driver really is the recipe for disaster everyone says it is." I ordered a 10.5-degree, with the Graphite Design YS7+ reg shaft. Had it delivered to my local store (no shipping charge) and it was there the next day. When I picked it up I just brought it back to the club maker's area and asked them to cut it down from 46 to 43 1/2 inches. No problemo. I did add another $4.50 by having them install a matching Winn DSI grip, though. Here's where The Sand Trap came in. I wouldn't have pulled the trigger on that puppy if I hadn't gone back through the review section archives here and checked out the NVG2 test first. I've based other purchases on Sand Trap reviews in the past, and they've all been spot on. Never a bad piece of advice. Never. So when I saw there was nothing but positives written about the club, I went for it. And I drove a Par-4 with it yesterday. Thank you, Sand Trap!

Damn. I mean, seriously. Damn. Way to go!

Hank, you don't know if your putter's shaft goes into the heel or the center of the face by looking at it?

I switched! ( Quick: what commercial do I sound like? ) Anyway, yeah, I went to the center shafted putter listed in my sig after several frustrating weeks of trying to align the heel shafted putter that came with my first set of clubs. For some reason heel shafted putters seem to fool my eye as I look down at the bottom bend. I was never able to compensate for that optical illusion. Once I switched (and changed to a left-hand-low grip), I was immediately a better putter. I say you should just take your new trophy out for a day or two and see what you think. You can always switch back. And btw - congrats on winning whatever you won!

Count the number of thread titles AND messages in the Sand Trap forums which begin with the word "So". ( Hint: I'm approaching triple digits .) Just my latest obsession....

My doctor, defying all stereotypes, plays golf. My doctor is a 62 year old lady with Coke-bottle-thick glasses, who's all of 4 feet 11 inches in heels. She plays 15 year old Square-2 irons with rotting grips, a 1-3-7 set of original Callaway Big Bertha lady woods, and a '60s era #10 no-name blade putter. She uses range balls the range fished from the water and weren't good enough to put back into play because they only charged her 5 dollars for a hundred. She bought them back in 1993, and has 42 left. If she really catches her driver on the screws, it'll go 150. But I've only seen that miracle maybe 4 times this season. Because since she doesn't like the visual of a ball elevated above the ground, she jams the tee so far down that it almost disappears into the turf. She therefor always hits driver off the deck, and with her steep "Reverse C" swing it guarantees she'll either top the ball or catch it fat 9 inches behind, 99% of the time. She's lucky if she walks 50 yards ahead to take her second shot, generally. My doctor kicks. My. Ass. Every time we play. Back around 1990 my doctor married a senior rep for some mega pharmaceutical company. He traveled around the country dragging hospital board members onto golf courses where they would sign mega pharm deals. And he needed HER to play so when a board member brought a wife along (or if the board member was a woman), he could produce a wife of his own to match her. The problem was, my doctor had never played golf before. So hubby got her clubs, private lessons, and sent her away to numerous of golf "camps" where she would bunk for a week or three and do nothing but take instruction, practice and play. After a year or so she was deemed fit to join him. And join him she did. At Doral, Spyglass Hill, Bay Hill, TPC Sawgrass, right on down the line at all the courses you see on calendars every year. Mega Pharm spares no expense trying to secure deals. My doctor hated it. The guys were boors, husband especially, and it kept her from appreciating the game itself. When they divorced in 2000 she threw her sticks up in the attic and walked away. Until last year, when during my physical exam with her I happened to mention I was considering returning to the sport after a year's economically induced hiatus. "Oh yeah?" she said. "You know, I used to play. Maybe I'll join you." There's a little 9-hole muni just outside our town, two par-4's and seven par-3's that costs 10 bucks, 15 if you want to go around for a full 18 using alternate tees. Amazingly, the course is always in absolutely pristine shape for a little muni. I don't understand how they can afford it, but there you go. Doc was camped out at their front door on opening day 2010, as if it were Bethpage Black. And she called me from there. "Scenic Farms is open! Scenic Farms is open! Get down here quick - there's nobody here yet!" So I grabbed my clubs and hustled down there, where she promptly beat my by 3 strokes over 9 holes in her first game back in a decade. And she's BEEN beating me there at our weekly Thursday afternoon games ever since. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not so good that I expect to win whenever I lace up my FootJoys. I'd only been playing for a little over two years before I had to take last year off. But still. I'm big, and strong, and male , dammit. I blow it by her A HUNDRED AND FIFTY YARDS off the tee on the par 4's. How could this little birdlike... woman! ...end up taking my money time after time after time on the 9th green? It's just not natural. Remember back there I mentioned she took lessons, was chained up in golf gulags, and played against all those men for about a decade? Apparently that's the difference. Muscle memory is long term memory, and as soon as she got those Square-2's in her mitts it all came back to her. She may have absolutely no length off the tee with driver, but once she's over that hurdle - and since we play only two par-4's per round that means only two hurdles - she's killer. She still doesn't get anywhere near respectable length with irons either, but she's laser straight. When she misses it's a pull (every now and then a push), not a slice. And she's perfected the infuriating art of placing the ball to her perfect wedge distance, instead of going for it like a real man. When she finally makes it to around 50 yards to the green (normally her second shot on par 3's) she pulls out this battered, crummy little wedge that has no grooves left in the center third of the face, takes a crummy little practice swing that looks like it could never ever produce an actual impact, then lobs the ball up in a gentle arc onto the green and within smelling distance of the cup. Every. Single. Time. If I don't land my ball on the green in regulation, she beats me that hole. I could have sent it down the fairway off the tee so far that it takes her three swings to reach it from the reds. If I sail my second shot over the green, chip to the far side on the way back, then two (or three) putt...I'm down a stroke. And that happens a lot. It is MADDENING. But.... I just got back from our Thursday round an hour ago. I hit 7 of 9 GIR's. I beat the bitch. By 4 strokes. YES! I am a man! In the parking lot I told her to keep her cash. I had her write me a prescription for Ambien instead. I mean, who could fall asleep on their own after that kind of thrill? I'm leaving tomorrow for a week's vacation, so her attempt at revenge will have to wait a fortnight. I'll let you know if she was able to come back and even the score then. In the meantime, hope you all manage to attain your own impossible goals on the course. It's sweet... so sweeeeet. .....

As luck would have it, I was looking at Srixon's pretty yellow balls yesterday ( take that however you want ) and just happened to watch a vid they posted of Jim Furyk giving a chipping lesson. It's in their "Blog" section at: http://blog.srixon.com/ (as of yesterday it was the top post, but if you read this in a few days it may have migrated down. If so, scroll down to the July 22 entry should you want to watch it.) In a nutshell, this is what I took away from it: 1. Drop a ball 10 feet or so off the side of the green. 2. Take a club, any club. 3. Hold that club like it was your putter. 4. Take a putting stance. Grip down on the club as low as you need to achieve this, even onto the shaft if need be in longer irons. (This will stand the club up more than if you addressed it for a normal full swing, and allow for contact more on the toe so there is less chance of a fat strike.) 5. Put your weight on your left side. 6. Make a putting stroke. 7. See how far the ball goes. Now do that again with all your other clubs. If you make the same stroke each club should go a different distance. Once you get that distance memorized, you'll know which club to grab on the course when you find yourself off the side of the green. If the pin is 25 feet away, grab the iron you know went 25 feet when you used a putting stroke with it. If the pin is tighter, take the appropriately shorter club. So distilled down, it's: Don't vary your stroke, vary the club. Make a slightly modified putting stroke, make the SAME stroke each time, and practice til you memorize how far each club goes when struck that way. I understand Mr. Furyk's had a certain amount of success using this technique himself. I may just give it a shot..... Either way, good luck and I hope you find a technique that works for you! :)

Dude. What did you expect? You posted your question on the 4th of July. All 95 of us had to get to a BBQ. We still love you. Chill. Yeah, post a video if you can. If you can't, the "Instruction" sections of golf.com, golfdigest.com and golfchannel.com (among others) must have TONS of article reprints and videos with tips and drills. Why not give a few a glance while you wait for the rest of us to sober up and post? I will say that when I hurt my lower back and had to swing very upright for a while, I was still able to get a good swing out of the Medicus (well, the Sklz version of the Medicus). So it's possible to keep the hinge from breaking even when swung on a steep plane, if you're careful. So it may not be a good indicator. Good luck!

I bet you're looking for this: Still a hoot to watch!

Hey Erik, I just want you to know that I'm one of the 2% of posters who's managed to be sincere with his congratulations on his very first attempt. About half the posters here will be able to muster true sincerity eventually, but I'm one of the rare breed who managed it the first time out. (The other half are pathetic sycophants shamelessly trying to curry favor with you. Fie! Shame!) So yeah: A hearty and sincere CONGRATULATIONS on achieving something so few will, regardless of desire or ability!! I am, all kidding aside, in awe. How you managed to get as good as you are despite holding down a day job, kids, a fan club, and bookie appointments is beyond me. I throw a 3-day fete when I break a hundred, thinking I'm hot shit. You're in a league I can only dream of. Well done, and keep going! I need to live vicariously through someone who golfs well and still leads a "normal" life - and you're it. Do it for me! ;)

I agree with what a couple of the other guys just posted. Mats can mask a bad shot - particularly fat shots. The club head will glide through the plastic without digging down, and eventually make contact with the back of the ball. Perhaps even square, resulting in a decent looking (if slightly shorter) shot. That's exactly what happened to me. When I took up the game a few years ago, I decided to start by buying a cheap set of used clubs and spending the majority of my budget on lessons. The little driving range on my way home from work had good prices and friendly people, so I signed up for two month's worth. All they had was plastic mats, but at that time I didn't realize ranges had anything else. The guy giving me the lesson was a Jack Nicklaus fan, and taught me to play accordingly: the ball is always placed well forward, off your front (left, for me) instep, and doesn't vary from club to club. You just move your right foot back the longer the club you have. But the ball position never changes. It's always up near your front toe, from driver to wedge. After 10 or 15 lessons I looked GREAT. Putting the ball that far forward means a lot of high, arcing shots. And when you're new, that makes you feel like a god. So when my two months were up I figured I was ready for a real course. My first tee shot was fine. I didn't have a driver yet (still don't, come to think of it) but the 5-dollar garage sale 3-wood popped it down at least straight. Then came my first iron shot. I pulled out my (t)rusty Northwestern 'Tom Weiskopf' 7-iron, and took a perfect swing. The ball disappeared. Under a 4" x 3" square of upside-down sod. It turns out EVERYTHING I WAS HITTING ON THE PLASTIC MATS WAS FAT. I just couldn't tell, because the club eventually hit the back of the ball, which then went up. It took me almost two freakin' years to 1. figure out what the hell was going on. and 2. erase the muscle memory of all those lessons so I could fix it. I had developed a "lean back and sweep up" downswing, which works PERFECTLY on plastic mats with the ball placed across from your big toe. But on grass...? Ouch! Anyway, that's my cautionary tale. BUT...I think you're different. You've been playing off grass since you were 10, so you've grooved a swing and can make consistant contact with the ball in a more updated (back) position, I assume. So if you practice on plastic mats now I don't think it's going to change the years of muscle memory you've built up, unless you completely switch over and never play on grass again. Yeah, if you are looking for honest feedback from your strikes you'll get better results off natural turf. But for just getting out there and hitting a bucket now and then to feel your swing, I think plastic mats are fine. My concern would more be more for guys like me: if you're still trying to learn a swing, artificial surfaces may slow that learning curve. Oh - and they can be tough on the clubs. I snapped a couple of heads off the shafts during my lessons. I thought it was just the el-cheapo sticks at the time, but now that I've played on various surfaces I more suspect it due to swinging the club straight down onto a 1-inch thick piece of plastic laid over a concrete floor, half a foot behind a little white ball. (Having said that, I purchased a Vijay Singh "THE Golf Mat" for my back yard, because the nearest range is some distance away. It at least absorbs impact and you can tell if you've hit it fat. But I still prefer grass.) Enjoy, whatever you hit off of! :)

I think he'll have a penalty added to his spore.

You're nervous and tense in a cart? Let me introduce you to the concept of the "beer cart".... Just kidding - good for you! I couldn't agree more. I almost always opt for walking also, although up by me that's an option which is becoming harder and harder to find. But I'm with you; it feels like a whole different game when you hoof it. A game that I enjoy more. (Not that I don't enjoy golf if I'm riding, of course.) Have fun, and best of luck in your leagues this year! Don't let them make you nervous or tense

Thanks very much for passing along your experience with this driver, and the Diamana shaft, Walfice. That's the kind of insight I was looking for.

Hi guys - I've been using my Wishon #3 fairway driver off the tee since I started golfing around 3 years ago. I love it. Got it from a great clubmaker after a thorough fitting, and it never lets me down. But for some reason, I feel the need for bigger testicles. Er, a driver. And guess what? Golfsmith.com sent me an e-mail saying if I used their enclosed code I could get 15 dollars off anything 100 bucks or more. They just happen to have a Ping Rapture driver (the original, not the V2) on sale for 100 dollars. So with the code, that's $85. No shipping charge either, if I have it delivered to my local shop. What do you guys think? Is this a bargain? I didn't see a review here at The Sand Trap, but I figure there are enough Ping fans who would know. I have until midnight tonight to pull the trigger. (BTW, if you want to get in on it, the checkout code is: EPS016SAV .) Oh, and while I'm at it, got an opinion on the choice of shafts they're offering? Here's the scoop: at my fitting, my driver swing speed measured a consistent 98 - 100mph. The two shafts offered on the Rapture are 1. The Diamana Blue 63 (stiff), and 2. the Ping TFC909 ("light"). I have to admit I'm hesitant to order any club before trying it, particularly since I'm so sold on being fitted. But I have to do golf on the cheap this year, and this may be the best I can do for a while. Any thoughts you have pro or con, on the driver and shaft(s) at this price, would be appreciated. Thanks! Tom

'Atta boy! Whether she didn't notice, or noticed but didn't say anything, you're a lucky guy. You're right: win-win :)

Glad it made you laugh, regardless of why :)

I may have posted this last year, but it just happened again. I thought some of you guys might get a kick out of it. THE big sport in my house is motorcycle racing. The wife and I both compete (it's how we met). Every year one of our racing buddies gets a brand new bike. Over the winter he sets up the sale of his old machine and then delivers it at either our first race or a club practice. At the same time he arranges for a dealer to show up at the same place with a brand new bike that he can cart home in its place. He probably adds between 2 and 4 grand each year to make up the difference (racing equipment depreciates faster than machines you don't thrash to hell every time you go out). A couple of years ago I asked if his wife minded him coming home every year with a brand new bike. " As long as I bring home the same color " he said, " she never notices ." Can't get away with that with my own wife, alas. She's got three bikes of her own, and notices if I even change a clutch lever. But if I ever get a new driver, I'm putting my old head cover on it....

That helps a lot, Parplease. Thanks very much! > Ack, forget it, then. If it ain't the original guy, it's a sham. ;) Tom

Hey Parplease - Do you have any inside info on who the exhibitors might be? The page just says "This page is being updated. Please check back." I know there's a scroll bar on the home page listing a few events, but there are no specific vendors listed yet. I ask because a little while back there was a thread on this forum about a Texas golf show which apparently disappointed a lot of people for being packed mostly with vendors who had nothing to do with golf - roofers, vacuum cleaner sales, landscapers, and so on. They felt it was a waste of time and $$. I'd be more comfortable knowing the list of vendors beforehand, as it's a fairly long trip for me. I'd hate to waste an entire day if the most interesting thing when I got there was the Sham-WOW! guy. Any idea? Thanks! Tom

Great, thank you again for your help. Gotta hit the sack now (I leave for work at 3am...sheesh....). Have a good night - and good luck tomorrow if you have to venture out! Tom

Thanks for taking the time to find and post the link, Parplease. Looks like a lot of guys like it, from reading the 16 reviews. But a few of them noted that the thing doesn't come with any instructions. Are they just being idiots, or is that a reasonable gripe? ....and trust me, I'm never the coolest looking person on the driving range Tom

Thank you also, Gioguy! Great ideas, all. I actually have some long dowels that I use as alignment aids at the range (and btw, that was a terrific post on the front page a few days ago about pros who use them, wasn't it?) The 2X6 (or 12) I hadn't even thought of, but sounds like a nifty practice drill. Thanks much! Tom

Thanks very much, Parplease! Great to hear about the positive experience(s) you've had with other products. I'll keep them both in mind, particularly the arm bands if you think it's a good value. I know at Golfsmith I've seen that dense foam ball with the two indentations that I think is meant to do the same thing (you nestle your forearms in the indentations and swing without letting the ball drop), but I'm not paying 40 dollars for a foam ball. I'll steal a balloon or a nerf soccer ball from a clown somewhere and use that. Anyway, I appreciate you letting me know about those! Ah, video games. Between that and beer, we'll get through this weather. (Although seriously - does this suck, or what? Even for us, who are used to getting slammed, this is bad. I'm not looking forward to the commute tomorrow, especially the drive HOME.) Hang in there! Tom

I've resigned myself to never seeing my lawn again. Another Nor'easter is heading our way tonight, and by the time we dig out of this one it'll probably be August - just in time for the start of NEXT winter here. In the meantime, rather than just sitting around pouring tears into my Ogio's waterproof valuables pocket, I've decided to get some kind of training aid that doesn't involve putting on a rug. My garage has a high enough ceiling to make a full swing (although it's too small to hang a net, if anyone was going to suggest that). Has anyone here tried: 1. That "SKLZ Gyro Swing Trainer"? Just about everyone has it for around a hundred bucks these days, less than half the release price ( just like a real driver after two months ! ). Waddaya think? Is the swing that thing promotes a good one? 2. An impact bag. I almost feel ridiculous asking about this one. It's a product that's been around for so long, you'd think I knew what the hell it was for. But...what the hell is it for? How can you tell by slamming your club into a mound of wrapped sand if your swing is sound or not? (By the way, I see TGW has one on sale for 18 buck, far less than the Hank Haney water filled impact bag for 40 over at Golfsmith, if anyone's interested.) Thanks for any thoughts, shared experiences, or sympathy you guys care to extend! Tom