ettsn

154yd Par 3, third hole. I pulled my 7 iron, nice gentle swing and put my tee shot about ten inches from the cup! Putted in for a nice birdie that was easily my best hole of the day (and week, maybe month!). :)

Look for something with a 10-11* face and a regular stiffness shaft. Ideally around 460cc. Your options are numerous. Check out stuff from a season or two ago, such as the Big Bertha 460, Burner Superfast 1.0, R7 Quad, etc. What was a $400 driver a year or two ago should be well in your price range, and perform like magic for you. Ideally, you'd want to go swing on a launch monitor to see the right shaft, loft and lie for you. Then you can sort it all out perfectly.

Shot a 43 (on 9) yesterday! That is excellent for me. Started out well with a par, bogey, birdie, then I kinda blew up for a triple. Four bogies in a row, including a couple heartbreakers close to the cup, and ended the round with a par. Both pars were the par 5s, and the birdie was an excellent tee shot onto a par 3 that left me with only about a seven inch putt. Felt like a pretty good round for me! :)

Welcome, hey! My girlfriend's in Pretoria, and I recently went to visit her. LOVE your country! What part are you from? Save me some biltong and a Castle, yeah? :)

Although now I am a 5 handicap, when I was growing up I hated golf! To me, it was the worst thing ever invented. However, when i was 16 I watched my dad play and he taught me well. Since then i got hooked! I went up after school to the council courses in Scotland to hit the same club every day (which was a 5 iron), and now 9 years later I am 5 handicap! When people ask me how I got to be good, I say "practice". All these golfers coming into the game today need to relax and practice. I have seen people tearing up these great courses but can't play properly. So it's important to practice first! I have a set of Nike VR blades 4-sw, a Taylormade R11 driver and Mizuno 3 and 5 woods. I also have a Rossa putter from Taylormade. However they are nothing compared to the £20 wedges i bought: a Slazenger 56 degree, a Mitsubishi 58 and 60. No matter how you hit the ball or your touch, these will always produce. The Slazenger can be a bit off sometimes, but you have to open the club face up to get it to really work. I only use wedges around the greens, although now and again I will use it for an approach shot of maybe 120 yards. So if you're struggling with your short game, go to your local jjb (golf shop, pro etc) to feel the club, swing it, and see how it goes!

I've got a Garmin Approach G3, and really like it. No fees, it's had every course I've played since I got it (including a little executive nearby), it's reasonably small (but not as thin as the Callaway), I get great battery life off a pair of plain old AA batteries and it's durable as hell. I also picked up the carabiner lanyard for $10, and it makes it super easy to clip onto my bag and a lot more secure than the belt clip. It has distances to everything like front and back of greens and hazards, plus it takes about 2 seconds to move the pin to an exact location. My approach irons aren't accurate enough to need to move the pin personally, since I can easily see if it's front, back or center and those yardages are on there. I get as close as my game allows. ;) It does have some stat tracking and a scorecard, but I use neither. The main difference between it and the pricier G5 is the stat tracking. The only part of it I ever use is shot measurment, to see how long that drive really was.

Never forget that golf is a game. Really, it is. Go book a tee, and leave all apprehension behind. Listen, you can always pick your ball up if you feel pressured. Hell, your first few rounds, throw the scorecard away before you tee off. The score is absolutely unimportant. Just get out there, make some decent contact and practice being a golfer. Pay careful attention to that last bit: go be a golfer -- don't worry about other people, scores, bad hits, looking like a goob, if your clubs are "cool enough", if your hat is goofy or your socks don't match. There's plenty of time in your life to worry about real things that matter. Golf is a beautiful escape from all the real crap. Never let anyone take that from you, cool? Just go.

Irons. But something nice used. Always deals on sets abound. I recently picked up a set of Ping Eye2s for nostalgia's sake for less than $200. They play excellent still, and although not my daily gamers, are still fun as heck to swing (like the set I had 20y ago). A buddy of mine picked up a set of 2004 Big Bertha irons for less than $100 in excellent condition. Best part about buying used is that you can usually sell them for pretty close to what you spent on them, if you decide to go another route.

A wet Scotchbrite pad will do wonders to a grip that's lost its original tack.

My friends and I have helped several people get started up recently, and our general plan is: 1. Go to the range with them and give them just enough to start swinging a club in a reasonably decent "tweakable" fashion (meaning you don't have to fix everything, just ensure they aren't developing habits that will require a complete starting over to fix). 2. Hit an Executive/Par3 course in the late afternoon. Throw away the score card and just focus on hitting in real scenarios. Executives around here are ghost towns after about 4p. Otherwise let any group catching you play through. If you only manage to play 12 holes, so be it. Completing the round is unimportant. 3. Go play a real course, but play a scramble pairing a decent golfer with each noob. You're making shots without taking forever, because you get one swing from each lie. We did this the other day, and I actually took two of my partners shots on his second ever attempt at golf! You're having fun, with less penalty in time or frustration. This pattern seems to work great, and usually after a couple more range sessions, they're decent enough to hit the links for real. I also matched up some of my older irons with an old bag and a recent driver that a buddy had just upgraded from. Now we have a loaner set of Pings/Mizuno/Rossa, so they're playing with quality gear unlike a lot of the uber noob sets. Gives them a round or two to decide if it's their thing before investing real cash in clubs. Which brings me to my next point: when your newbie buddy is ready to buy clubs, have him set a budget and go along to look. Picking up a nice, used set of irons from the preowned section of Golfsmith or wherever is a much better solution than getting the Department Store Specials. For example, a buddy picked up a nice set of 2004 Big Berthas from Edwin Watts 4-10(W) in great shape for $89. Added a Cobra F-speed driver for $30 and a putter he liked for $20. He popped for a bag he thought looked cool, but still managed to be ready to rock for about $250. This was MUCH better (IMO) than spending $250 on the premade kit he was eyeing prior. Our buddies gave him a dozen balls one guy bought but didn't like, a pile of tees, an older sand wedge and now he shows up at the course looking and feeling like he's "for real".

Adopt the rule that there's only talking while the carts are moving (or your bag is on your back if you're a walker). I couldn't play a round in silence, but completely agree that on tee boxes, greens and during address and backswing, talking is verboten.

Do you wear a glove? Was the slippery-ness a condition of sweat or condensation? If sweat, pick up a can of aerosol anti-perspirant (like Arrid or whatever) and give your palms a quick spray before you go out. If it's condensing from the air, not much beyond drying you can do. That said, even in rain you should be able to hold the club. How old are your grips?

I tend to hit range balls [i]longer[/i] with my driver than I do normal balls. I liken that to a combination of range rocks being much harder versus premium balls and the reduced stress of not really caring if I mishit. I mean, I want them all to go well, but on the range it's "oh, that was a duff" compared to "oh man, my next shot is gonna be tough" on the course. Do you know what I mean? Fewer consequences make for a little more "free-wheeling" swings at the range maybe?

I *really* like the NXT Tour. It's 90% of the V1 feel for about 50% of the price. I give up a touch of the feel around the green (wedges, chipping) but feels a tad bit better off the putter to me and is slightly longer and straighter off the tee. Easy compromise, and they're much cheaper than V1s.

You could also buy regular hand towels and punch grommets in. http://www.amazon.com/Michigan-Industrial-Tools-Grommet-Grommets/dp/B0037UWDN2

Chi Chi

There's a reason they call them Majors.

Not trying to jump in the fray, but Northern Ireland is NOT part of Great Britain. It IS part of the United Kingdom. Those are not synonyms. Great Britain is only England, Scotland and Wales. That's why the formal name of the union is The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

I like full cords on my wedges and tour velvets on everything else.

Might be the loft rather than the shaft. Can you go to a launch monitor to see what the culprit is?

Driver: 260 3-wood: 220 4i: 180 5i: 175 6i: 165 7i: 155 8i: 145 9i: 125 10i/PW: 105 GW (50): 85 SW (55): 65 LW (60): 50 HLW (64): 35

As a proud Ulsterman living in the States, I'm pleased as I could be at his win (couldn't happen for a nicer guy), but I do look forward to seeing another American take a major. Perhaps I'll get to see it in person at the Atlanta Athletic Club in a few weeks? Similarly, I love seeing guys who've "deserved" a major win finally get their due, but I also love seeing the young guns atop the leaderboard. I suppose a Rickie Fowler win would solve both, eh? :) My girlfriend is South African, so I love seeing those guys play well and win too. This year has been a peach for me!

There are a LOT of good drivers out there, many that would fit the bill perfectly for you, and very likely much less expensive than the R11. That's not to say you shouldn't get the R11, but rather to keep your options open. Go to a good golf store where you can hit them with a launch monitor. Have someone there help you narrow choices based on your launch angle, spin and clubhead speed. It will be very obvious what loft and shaft is right for you, and a fitted club is worth everything. I guess what I'm saying is, if you want the sexy new thing go for it, but if you really want to improve your game, go get fitted. Those options aren't mutually exclusive by the way: with the myriad shafts available for the R11, along with the adjustments, you could have it zeroed to your swing and then your "might love this club" would be a "damn, I love this club!!!!!!" :)