Warik

I only have one set. I can afford backup clubs, but what for? If I'm a good player, then unless I'm playing a tournament in difficult conditions, my normal driver or sand wedge should be just as good as any other for a typical practice/recreational round. If I'm a bad player, I could have my local golf shop's entire inventory at my disposal and it wouldn't make any difference. I say pick an iron set, some wedges, woods, driver, and a putter and stick with them.

Thank you for your suggestions. I went to Edwin Watts and got a look at a couple of grips and ended up liking the Golf Pride New Decade Multicompound. The upper hand area is corded and the lower hand area is a softer material. Felt good on the demo club they had and felt a lot better than my 3+ year old grips. They only had 10 in the color I chose, so I grabbed those and the DIY materials. I regripped my 3-PW, SW, and LW. Driver is brand new so I think the grip can stay as-is for a while. I'll regrip the 3-wood when they get more in stock in that color. I probably won't do the 5-wood because I'm thinking of dumping it in favor of a gap wedge. Regripping was fairly easy but a bit of a pain at the beginning since I didn't have a vice and had to do it all by hand. They're drying now and I'm going to try them out at the range/practice green tomorrow in preparation of Sunday's round. Thanks again for all of the suggestions.

If the group in front of me is so slow that I'd expect them to still be teeing off on the 10th when I got there, then there's no way I'm NOT jumping ahead of them.

I watched my friend play this on his 360 tonight. This + Tiger Woods 2008 + Assassin's Creed coming later this year might be enough to get me to spend the few hundred bucks to get an Xbox 360.

I'm a ~35 handicapper slowly but surely making his way down to the high 20s (I've been shooting better than my handicap for the last 5-6 rounds after a series of 6 lessons, so I think I'm on my way). My equipment is listed in my signature and I've had all of those clubs except the SasQuatch for close to 3 years. The grips aren't totally destroyed or anything, but am wondering if new grips on my clubs would be of any benefit to me. As the thread title implies, when is it time to start thinking about upgrading from stock grips, why would a player at my level of development benefit from a change, and what should I look for in a new grip? Assume I am neither on a specific budget nor willing to spend what most players would consider an outrageous amount of money for something whose advantage over a more economical replacement would only be noticeable to someone light-years ahead of me in playing ability. Oh yeah... also assume I play in 90+ degree weather with 70%+ humidity, change gloves every other hole, and say "dang, the club slipped" at least twice a nine. Thank you!!

None whatsoever... Rule 24-2 states that a player is entitled to free relief from an immovable obstruction. An out of bounds fence is clearly immovable; however, according to the definition of obstruction "An 'obstruction' is anything artificial, including the artificial surfaces and sides of roads and paths and manufactured ice, except: a. Objects defining out of bounds, such as walls, fences, stakes and railings; b. Any part of an immovable artificial object that is out of bounds." Hence you can either make a futile attempt to play your ball as it lies right up against the fence or you can declare it unplayable and drop it within 1 club length of where it no longer interferes with your swing & stance (if I'm not mistaken) with a 1 stroke penalty. Then again, if the fence weren't there to stop your ball you WOULD be OB and would have to take stroke-and-distance, so declaring unplayable lie and taking a 1 stroke penalty doesn't sound all that bad anymore. That would be one of my candidates for a rules change though BTW. I'll pick a new rule to change as soon as I stop sucking at golf and ending up next to those fences. I wouldn't change the scorecard rule that inspired this thread though (and I made the original comment in the other thread). It is a stupid rule but it only affects careless tournament players - a group to which I do not belong.

No... all of my friends stopped playing because they didn't like the scorecard rule. I'm a rebel though.

Wow, what a childish reply. Anyway... this rule does not apply to me because I don't compete professionally; therefore, I will continue disliking the rule and playing the game. So there.

It's a stupid rule and a stupid reason to be disqualified. How do the tournament officials know that Sergio Garcia turned in the wrong score? Because the whole freakin' world knows what his real score was because this is a televised professional event . It was obviously a mistake. Nobody in the history or future of televised golf has ever or will ever finish the 4th round with a different score from what he actually shot because it is impossible to successfully post the wrong score. Do away with this nonsense already. That being said, remember to compare notes next time, Sergio. Jeez... it's common sense.

Don't you mean "broke his head with his putter?"

The web coverage is better than TV. They have a "Tiger Cam" where they basically just follow Tiger around all day. Too bad I can't TiVo that instead. =(

Bag fell off the cart once when my friend loaded both bags on the cart while I went to buy a Gatorade before the round. Luckily he forgot to strap his in too and his bag broke my bag's fall. =) BTW: You don't have to buy an all new driver. Most good golf stores offer club repair and can reshaft it for less than half of what a new driver would cost.

The course I normally play has a relatively secure water cooler every 4 holes or so. It is SO HOT down here (96 F today) that my 20oz bottle is empty long before I reach the next cooler. Nothing is going to stop me from filling up and chugging down in this weather.

Use of the "big dog" is precisely what let my first < 100 round slip through my fingers today. It was the same thing on almost every par 4... slice the driver 20-30 yards into the right rough, then hit beautiful shots with my irons onto or close to the green. I shot a 102 and probably could have shot ~95-98 had I used a 3-iron or something off of the tee instead. So I vote yes... high handicappers leave your drivers at home for 1 round and watch your scores go down.

I have 3 - 44 degree PW, 56 degree SW, and 60 degree LW. Thinking of dumping my 5-wood and getting a 48-52 degree Gap wedge. At my handicap I think I will use a Gap wedge far more often and with better results than I use my 5-wood (which is just 1 degee of loft off from my 3-iron, which I actually have less trouble hitting straight). Or maybe I can dump the 3-wood and 5-wood and get a Gap wedge and a hybrid of some sort that I can hit around 200-210 yds.

In his book "Putting Out of Your Mind," Dr. Bob Rotella is effectively saying that the best way to reduce 3-putts is to increase 1-putts. 90% confidence that you will 2-putt means 10% confidence you will 3-putt and 0% you will 1-putt. During those rare rounds where I start the first 3 or 4 holes with halfway decent tee and approach shots, there is not a doubt in my mind that every single putt I make, regardless of distance, is going to hit the back of the cup and go in the hole. Consequently, I find myself ending up within tap-in distance or lipping out from beyond my typical 3-putt range on the first putt. I've even made a few "oh wow it's going in!!!" 15 footers. Of course, when my handicap catches up to me and I start slicing tee shots and hitting approach shots fat, my positive putting thoughts disappear and so does my good putting. If there's any useful, accurate golf advice a 30+ handicapper can give to anybody, it's that your mind is going to play a far bigger role in improving your putting than your technique will. iacas is dead on when he says 100%.

Ugh... I've been playing for 2 years, have ~$2,000 worth of equipment, have taken ~$500 worth of lessons, and have a worse handicap than 98.66% of the handicap-keeping golf population. I've just lost all my will to play.

Crystal clear. Thanks!

That makes sense. In stroke play though you just subtract from overall score and an individual hole's handicap doesn't matter then, right?

I'll tell you my average putts/GIR as soon as you tell me how to divide by zero.

I guess that makes me 1.5 strokes worse than absolutely terrible. Ouch :( Part of this doesn't make sense to me, maybe you can help make it clear. You play to a 10 and (in my wildest dreams) I play to a 15. Let's say I bogey the #1-5 handicap holes. You owe me 5 strokes on handicap holes 1 through 5, so now I've parred the #1-5 handicap holes and my net score is 5 strokes less than what I actually shot. Reverse the scenario... now let's say I PAR the #1-5 handicap holes and bogey the #14-18 handicap holes. Ok, you still owe me 5 strokes on handicap holes 1 through 5, so now I've birdied the #1-5 handicap holes and my net score is 5 stroke less than what I actually shot. That's the way I've interpreted how handicap strokes are assigned... so that being the case, why bother specifying the hole handicaps since the result is the same...? Or am I only allowed to take 1 - or in the case of my horrendous handicap, 2 - strokes on a hole provided it does not improve my score to below par?

The courses I play have a post-round club cleaner at seemingly random times, and when they do, I tip him a buck or two depending on if he's really cleaning my clubs or if he's just grabbing each clubhead with a wet towel and not making an effort to wipe. No tip for the "take your clubs out of your trunk and drive them 20 feet to the starting area" guy. Nothing for the beverage girl. I have to wait 3-4 holes AFTER I'm feeling thirsty for her to show up and then I have to pay 2-3x for a beverage than what it's worth? $2.50 for a $1 gatorade or $5 for an Amberbock when I could get 6 bottles for $6-$7? No thanks. I'm normally a great tipper at restaurants, but there are some services that just don't require anything above-and-beyond the call of duty for which a tip is warranted.

Thanks a lot for the suggestions. I do happen to have some iron headcovers and am going to use those. I'll wrap some towels around the driver shaft and maybe a broomstick like iacas suggested - hopefully a broomstick in my golf bag won't cause a security ruckus, though I can't imagine a broomstick would be a issue considering I'd have 14 other potential weapons capable of far greater destruction.

One time a friend and I drove about 20-30 miles south to play a golf course that had not been and would not be affected by a rainstorm we were having that day. We get there and find the course pretty much clear except for the eightsome in front of us. Yes. An eightsome. Rather than call the pro shop on my cell phone right away to get a ranger out here, I give these guys the opportunity to let us play through on the next tee. They wait for us on the next tee and my friend tees it up. Nothing special - a lackluster drive down the right side of the fairway. It's my turn, so I tee up and prepare to hit it with my 5-wood. Was it the rush I was in to be out of these people's way and enjoy my round? The fact that my last 4 holes I played were not played very well? The fact that I now had 9 people watching me instead of the usual maximum of 3? I don't know, but I topped that ball worse than I've ever topped it in my whole life. It came up about 5 feet in the air, landed 5 feet in front of me, and rolled another 5 or 6 feet. 330-yard par 4, with a 5-wood, as hard as I can, with 9 people watching me, and the ball goes 10 feet. My friend cracks up, the other guys say don't worry about it take your time. Redemption: I walk up to the ball and hit my second shot so squarely that it flies down the middle of the fairway past my friend ball and I hear at least 3 guys say "wow." =)

They're going to make me sign a limited liability waiver because it's not a hard shell case. That doesn't mean they're going to go out of their way to destroy my clubs, but it does mean I'm up the creek if it happens. Yeah I got the travel bag because this is only for this trip. Don't have any out of state golf adventures planned for the near future. Hoping some of you have traveled with a travel bag before and can assure me that I'm wasting my time by worrying.