beisenhauer

I have the same problem. My last two 18-hole rounds went 55-39 and 50-42. This week I was 12 over par on the first 4 holes and 8 over on the remaining 14.

So, does a 2-putt from the fringe count as an up-and-down?

The worst I can recall was a 120 back in high school. That would be, what, 48 over?

Disclaimer: I am not a physicist (nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night,) though I do have a degree in engineering and am generally a physical sciences geek. The only way Ringer's original diagram could be correct, with the initial path of the ball perfectly perpendicular to the club face, would be if the club face was a frictionless surface, which of course it isn't. The diagram assumes that the initial direction is determined solely by the club face angle. The initial flight of the golf ball at impact is a question of forces. There are forces perpendicular to the club face, but there are also forces parallel to the club face (the ones that make the ball spin.) Both contribute to the direction in which the ball travels. Attachment 512 This diagram is going to take some explaining. In figure A obviously the circle represents the ball and the triangular wedge is my representation of a golf club. It doesn't matter if your looking from the side or from the top. (Yes, physics really does work the same in all directions.) The arrow inside the wedge indicates the direction of travel, i.e. the swing path. At impact the club face imparts force to the ball, which for the sake of analysis, I have broken down into forces normal and tangential to the club face (that's perpendicular and parallel to most people.) Vector 1 represents the normal force and vector 2 represents the tangential force. In figure B I have removed the "club", leaving only the forces it imparts to the ball. I have also introduced two new vectors. These don't represent forces per se/I], they're just conceptual fictions. Vectors 3 and 4 are equal in magnitude to the tangential vector (#2), but they point in opposite directions and run through the center of gravity of the ball. They could be forces, but they'd just cancel each other out. In figure C I have combined vectors 1 and 4 to produce a single translational force acting on the center of gravity of the ball. I have also combined vectors 2 and 3 into a rotational torque on the ball. I can do this because they are of equal magnitude but opposite in direction with an offset in their lines of action. The initial direction of flight will be in the direction of vector T, while the spin of the ball will be determined my the magnitude of the torque R. Diagrams D, E and F show the same analysis but with a different swing path. Note the change in initial direction, despite the identical club face angle. All of this assumes of course that the ball is a rigid body (which in the context of impact, it isn't) and that it is also a free body (which if it's sitting on the ground and we're swinging down on it, it isn't.) The exact proportions of the normal and tangential forces imparted to the ball will depend on club head speed, compression of the ball, friction between the ball and the club face, etc. Conclusion: For the time being, I'm siding with the "swing path" people. The initial path of the ball is determined to some extent by both the swing path and the face angle, in combination with the surface characteristics of the club and ball. For the most part we're talking about deviations in swing path and face angle of a few degrees from the target line. In that range, I think the swing path is going to be the primary determinant, particularly with lesser lofted clubs. I know there are at least a couple of books on the physics of golf, The Physics of Golf by Theodore Joergensen and Newton on the Tee by John Zumerchik. Has anyone read either of these, and if so, do they have anything to say about what goes on at impact?

92 this morning. I was 15 over par (50) on the front and 5-over (42) on the back. Most of the damage on the front came on two par-fives where I scored a 12 and an 8. I think I need to do two things to improve my scores: eliminate the three-putts (that alone would have saved 6 shots today) and either warm up before playing or really play conservatively until I get warmed-up. I was twelve over for the first four holes (which included those par-fives) and only eight over for the remaining 14.

I'm not even sure this is a cliche, but at least once every round I play with my dad he'll say, "There's no substitute for youth," after I hit a good shot, particularly if it's a good drive. I've recently started responding with, "Yeah, and there's no substitute for practice either."

The courses close by to where I live a) aren't the most challenging/long to begin with and b) don't generally have much difference between the whites and the blues. So even at my handicap, I still play the blues. I find that I use a greater variety of clubs from the blues, where from the whites I had several clubs I almost never touched. At a tougher course, I would certainly think twice before taking on the longer tees.

I'll practice pitching around the back yard about once a week or so. Usually I'll just pick a tree and try to land the ball near the base of the trunk. I really should start using the chipping area at the local range more often, which is to say, at all.

I just got a new 3-wood and a couple of hybrids to replace my ancient fairway woods (got them in Jr. High) and also picked up a sand wedge (which I've never had before), so I was eager to try them out. I took them out to a local track this morning and proceeded to shoot my worst 9 holes of the year (55), followed by the best 9 of my life (39). I hit for the cycle on the first four holes (triple-bogey, bogey, double-bogey, quadruple-bogey), and took a 10 on the ninth (par 5). I don't feel like I played spectacularly on the back. I knew I was doing better than the front, but I didn't know how well until I added up the scores afterwards. I three-putted 10 and 11 after hitting both greens, so that's two easy shots I left on the course. I suppose that either a) I was getting more used to the new clubs, particularly the SW or b) after the front nine I didn't care what I shot anymore, and so I relaxed. It was probably some combination of the two. This is why I keep playing the game, frustrating as it may be.

Maybe not the best; definitely the luckiest. Last Thursday I was playing a three-man scramble with my dad and one of his co-workers. The 10th hole is a very short par 4, about 215 yards from the middle tees. There's a lake right in front of the tee extending maybe 85-100 yards. I hit a 5-wood off the blade and sent the ball shooting out over the water. It skipped about 20 feet from the opposite side, hit the rocks on the embankment and popped up in the air. It came to rest dead-center of the fairway about 50 feet in front of the green. That turned out to be the best out of the three of us, and we proceed to make par, feeling at once very fortunate and yet disappointed that we couldn't make birdie.