TD22057

I decided last year to really work on my score. I tried to mentally redefine what I considered to be "fun" to be the lowest total score I could shoot. It's definitely made a difference - my handicap dropped 4 strokes in the months after I made that mental switch.

You might try paying very close attention to the quality of contact. Are you hitting every putt in the center of the putter face? I'm at the tail end (hopefully) of a poor putting streak. As my putting got worse, my confidence in my stroken went down and I'd end up manipulating the putter with my hands. This caused inconsistent contact and it all spiralled down from that. I've been working the last month just on putting contact. I'm looking at a spot right in front of the ball before, during, and after a hit the putt. Since I'm not looking directly at the ball, I find it eliminates the tendency to follow the ball with my eyes/head as I hit it. It's improved my quality of contact a lot which has improved my distance control which improved my confidence, etc etc.

No - I talked to them but they weren't even interested in looking at my yard unless I was going to drop $30,000+. I found a smaller place to do it - but I wouldn't recommend them either as I had nothing but problems getting them to actually finish it (glad I didn't pay them anything until it was done).

36/round (with 3 3 putts). Worst part of my game by far. Last 3 rounds have been 34 (w/ 1 3 putt) though - pulled out the Pelz putting bible and started working on a straight to straight stroke which seems to be helping.

There's a simple solution to this -- dome your backyard

Thanks everyone - I'm totally stoked about this. FYI cost was just under $10/sq ft. I don't think it's all that difficult to do - the expertise is in the cutting and seaming. It starts with a bed of heavily compacted decomposed granite that's sets the slope. Then the grass is nailed (big stainless steel nails) down to that. The expertise is in getting the seams done right. I didn't watch that part so I'm not sure how it's done. The heavy labor is in filling the green w/ sand - put down a layer of sand w/ a fertilizer spreader and then work it in with brooms (they had a snow blower like machine w/ big bristles to do this). When done, top dress it with green sand to make it look nicer and roll it to lock the fibers down and get the desired green speed. There are basically two kinds of artificial greens. A carpet like version that's just unrolled. It's smoother and more uniform but over time the fibers lay down and you can't fluff them up easily, and it won't react to chips very well. The sand/grass version (what I have), is 1-1.5" long grass that's filled with sand and rolled. It's harder (impossible) to get a completely uniform surface like the carpet but it should last longer and reacts more realistically to chips. There is more maintenance w/ this model (refill sand, brush with broom to fluff fibers up (slower green), roll to heavy roller to smooth (faster green) but I think it's better in the longer run. I put in some gentle slope but in hind sight I'd do more. I was worried about that part - too much slope and it would be unusable - not enough and it's a little boring. Since it was really hard to tell how much the grass was going to dampen the slope when forming the decomposed granite, I opted for less slope since that was the safer choice. I went a little too far on the "less slope" path but I think it was the right way to go w/ the information I had at the time.

Ha - you need to look around the internet some more ;) ;) No real idea - I'll let you know next year. From what I've heard: sweep it off to get rid of debris. Work new sand in w/ a broom and to keep it from turning into a sold mass once a year or so. After watching the guys work, I could do it myself. It wasn't very difficult and I had to beat on them to get what I wanted (they tried to claim "we're done" with 1/2" of grass sticking up from the sand - a ball wouldn't roll at all on it). It worked out fine in the end (after a call to their boss) but I'd be tempted to do it myself if I was doing it again. It wasn't cheap but it should be fun...

Here's our new backward w/ a sand filled artificial putting green. 4 holes and about 600 sq ft. The small area near the patio serves as a chipping area. Overall it turned out great (after the usual contractor head aches). The lava rock beds are going to end up containing cactus and succulents (very low maintenance and low water). The only down side is that I'm running out of excuses for my poor putting...

I'm always disappointed in the host list. They have all that track man data and they rate clubs on innovation and demand? Show me distance, dispersion, carry, roll and trajectory data from track man for each club!!!!

My putting is a continuous struggle. When I practice, I do OK - when I don't, it's not very good. I can definitely tell that using the z-factor helps keep my putting at a decent level. I quit using it over the summer and it's pretty obvious from my stats. On the flip side, my full swing and ball striking doesn't change much even when I don't practice so at least I know where to concentrate my practice time.

I'd say they are excellent! I've traded in a couple of clubs and purchased 3 clubs. All of them were much better than the condition rating might indicate. I'd shop there again w/o any worries.

Love the 4-wood! Mine is +1" and I like the longer shaft. Normally I grip down for control but it's nice to be able to get more distance when needed.

FYI: Kim won her first tournament today in a playoff. It moves her up to 7'th on the money list. Hopefully this will be sort of a break through tournament for her - it looks like she'll need several more top 10's to get her card this year. Interestingly, the Futures tour web site has page to show you what an even par shooter would be doing on the the tour for the year: http://www.duramedfuturestour.com/En...nt/EveNPar.asp So if you could shoot even every tournament, you'd be 3rd on the money list!! Not quite like the Nationwide tour where you'd be somewhere near last shooting even par.

I agree in theory but disagree in practice. It's just not a very complicated rule and it just doesn't come up that often because it is so easy to follow. There's multiple tournaments every week and it just doesn't happen that often. It does seem somewhat silly but then again, every sport has it's share of silly rules. Why can I take two but not three steps w/o dribbling in basketball? What about the baseball balk rules? Football's illegal receiver down field?

Yikes. Nike doesn't just need to get her public speaking lessons, they need to get her a total life instructor. Things this person could start with: - public speaking - the proper way to sign your card - how to take a legal drop - how to tell your parents to back off

Since this is a spoilers thread... Did anyone look at the current leader board? http://www.lpgascoring.com/leaderboard.html What happened to Michelle?

I have a hard time feeling any sympathy for people with this problem. The value of your house does not change the payment you're making. If you can't afford the payments, you shouldn't have bought in the first place. It's extremely annoying to hear people on the news say things like: "The price of their house fell drastically and so they had to declare bankruptcy". What? What they meant to say is something like "They made a very bad investment with money they didn't have and they bet wrong." I do feel bad for people who lose their job because of the economy and can no longer afford their house but it sounds to me like those people are in the minority. Most of the problems seem to be from people thinking they could flip the house for $$ or signed up for loans they couldn't afford assuming they could refinance to a better rate later on.

I'm on the path to getting one. Living in a desert is a royal pain for any normal plants. We're going to rip out our back yard (grass + plants), reduce the size of the patio we never use, and put in a putting green, and raised planter beds around the edges with cactus and succulents. I talked w/ several companies last year here in Southern California. Two seemed just fine, one was terrible. The terrible one happened to be the one that Furyk advertises (forget the name) - they wanted a ton of $$$, wouldn't provide an itemized quote, and broke the law. They tried to get 50% down which is violation of California contractor law and when I pointed that out to the guy he just laughed and stopped returning my calls. At least he made choosing a contractor a lot easier... What kind of prices are you seeing in your area? I was getting quotes of roughly $8-10/sq ft for a polyethylene sand filled green assuming that the ground was roughly ready to go (no sod removal, no additional drainage to add, etc).

You might want to give the lovely Sharil a call: http://www.angelesnational.com/membership.html We played there a couple of weeks or so ago and some guys were saying that they are no longer accepting new memberships or renewals. I didn't hear it from anyone official so it could be completely wrong...

Nope - sky caddie all the way. However - I would be interested if they sold books that had very detailed layouts of the greens. Slope, grain, dimensions, etc would be very nice to have. I keep meaning to start making my own "green slope" book since I have a hard time remembering the nuances of all the different courses that I play. There is one course where the overall slope of the land is one direction and it really makes reading the greens very tricky. They look level or sloped relative to the terrain but since the terrain is sloped very gradually to begin with, it's easy to completely mis-read some putts. Unfortunately lack of time and general laziness is preventing me from doing the work to make a detailed book to help myself with this...

That's one of my favorite courses in LA. The greens there are always in great condition - they just roll true all the time. It's a very tough course but you can make some putts there you might not normally get to fall. I heard a rumor that they may go private (mega $$) once the giant new club house they're building is done. I believe all of the current "memberships" end sometime soon and they aren't extending them. No idea if it's true or not but it would be a shame to loose the ability to play such a nice course...

I was curious about this with regard to a line on the ball. Last week they mentioned that Anthony Kim had a line on his ball but he wasn't using it for putting - he was using it on the tee. It seems like this could be in violation 8.2 - or not since it's on the ball itself. If they were correct and he was orienting his ball on the tee to indicate the line, it must be OK since he wasn't DQ'ed... It was of particular interest to me since I started doing this a little bit this year. I found that my alignment was drifting a little bit to the right and orienting the line on the ball to my aim point off the tee really helped get my brain back "on line" for what I should seeing. I kind of assumed this would be illegal under 8.2 but maybe not...

Agreed. At least Kim has the length to compete and her stroke average on the Futures tour is dropping by 1/year which at shows that she is improving - unlike a certain person (or is that person and half?) who's been the development tour for 15 years. Of course I may be biases since I'd say Kim is the most attractive one on the show. Hmmm - reading that back makes it sound like a very petty comment about Lori on my part but I think I'll let it stand anyway...

I think it depends on what you want to accomplish. If you're trying to fix a specific swing flaw, then you're going to be doing drills and a net is a great place to do that. It's cheaper and usually more convenient than the range for hitting the 1000's of balls you'll need to groove a swing change. For example, I'm trying to slow down my transition and stop my (minor) over the top move. A net is the perfect place to do those drills since I'm working on a drill to change my swing motion, not trying to hit the ball. Many times I don't even bother with the net or the ball.

Just an FYI: I've had the z-factor for almost 4 weeks now and I've tried to use it for about 10 minutes a day. On average I probably have put in those 10 minutes about 5 days a week. In that time I've played 4 rounds and my putting average is down 2 strokes per round! It's definitely cut more strokes off my score than my $400 driver ever did...