jaragon126

As one of the other posters mentioned: The tendency for me was to focus is on improving statistics versus playing my game. I kept lots of statistics to see where my game was failing ... and during the time that I kept stats, my handicap was about 3.5 strokes worse than what I am at now. After I stopped keeping stats, I played better ... in my opinion I was too concerned with all the numbers rather than just playing & recording my score alone. For me, I can usually tell what needs the most work: short game. Occasionally I have troubles off the tee box, but for the most part I spend about 70% of my practice time on short game.

Ya motteler, that's precisely the problem ... the high handicappers get all the skins money because once in a great while they shoot well on a hole that they get a bunch of strokes on. It's all I can do to keep the skins carrying over to the next hole by matching their scores. But once they par a hole while getting 2 strokes, it's all over. Our league only does gross & net skins, so at the moment I just keep dumping my money into the gross skins games & let the 0-4 handicappers take it all :-(

Question for Yanks & Ben, Do you guys get to play alot of golf? I spoke with the Golf Pro at the course I caddie at, and he RARELY gets to play golf at all (maybe 1-2 times a month) because of the busy work schedule.

Well, first season of being a caddie was awesome, and the start of season 2 is approaching quickly! I think I over-analyzed things in the beginning, the members of the course definitely know their way around the course and rarely (if at all) ask course management questions. Most of what I do is watch where the ball goes, fix divots/rake bunkers, clean clubs/ball, and hold the flagstick while on the putting green. About half the people I caddie for have distance measuring devices (laser rangefinders), and they DO let us use the rangefinders to get distances for them. The other half don't have measuring devices and they seem to be fine with us giving them yardages based on us walking off distances from the sprinkler heads for them. There was only one time that I caddied where a guy didn't have a measuring device & seemed upset because I didn't have one for him. There was one hole where I gave him yardage and he overshot that distance by a mile & ended up out of bounds. (In my defense, the yardage I gave him was correct ... but he neglected to account for the SEVERELY downhill shot & had way too much club for that shot) I know a couple of the older & more experienced caddies bring their own rangefinders, so I'm wondering if I should bring mine along as well. They aren't cheap so by me using it to caddie, I'm only shortening the life of the device before it craps out on me. Would a caddie make more money by bringing our own rangefinder? For the golfers that already have one, I'd be carrying extra weight (we already have to carry alot of items) for the whole round. But for the golfers that don't have measuring devices, would they be inclined to pay more for a caddie with their own rangefinder?

kingofcars08: I'd be interested in knowing what you make as a full time caddie (if you don't mind sharing). I'm a part time caddie, but would love to make it full time if the money was close to my regular salary. There's a guy at my course who started out as an assistant pro & saw that the money was much better as a caddie (and much more time for golfing), so he's been a full time caddie for about 8 years now. I couldn't get up the nerve to ask him what his yearly take home pay is ... :)

Just started my 2nd year of being a part time caddie (I work a regular job during the week, and usually caddie one day on the weekend). I'm currently an "A" level caddie now, so my rates are $40 per bag (mandatory) plus any type of tip. I usually make about $20 in tips for a total of $60/bag, sometimes more, sometimes less. So our club's caddies don't work COMPLETELY for tips, which is nice. New this year is the ability for "A" caddies to double bag (the rate for carrying 2 bags is $60, plus any tips that you might get). I would think double bagging would be ROUGH, but I've not done it yet so I'm just guessing. I LOVE it so far, our club is beautiful, we get free golf on Mondays (if there are no corporate events) ... so I try to go out on Monday after work for a quick 9 holes before it gets dark. As one of the other posters mentioned, I'd love to do it full time if it could come close to my regular salary!

I am a bit more aggressive if I get into a slump. If something in particular is failing me, I go practice that specific thing until it's no longer a weakness. I would devote maybe a solid week on it to see if I could get through the slump, and if not then I'd go right to a lesson. My lesson pro is spectacular so I don't go through too much headache to try fixing something myself before going to him.

I work VERY part time as a caddie at one of the courses here in town (I have a regular full time job during the week & I caddie for a day on the weekends) ... so I don't know if I "qualify" for working at a course or resort. The benefits we get are free golf on Mondays (if there are no corporate events going on), discounted merch in the golf shop, and new this year are discounted group lessons from the caddie master/assistant golf pro. There's also an end-of-year caddie tournament & dinner, where they hand out awards for different caddie accomplishments throughout the year. I had wondered what it would be like to be a course professional, and I actually got to chat with a couple of people about it last night. One was our caddie master who explained that he works 6 full days a week from spring to fall. Then works like 5.5 full days during the winter break. VERY LITTLE time to golf! He told me he was hoping to get more time to play this year, but usually he doesn't get much time at all. The other guy was a caddie who had started out working towards becoming a course pro back in the day, but quickly figured out that the caddies at his course in Southern California made over twice as much money as he was making in the golf shop folding shirts & taking tee times. So he switched to being a full time caddie & has been doing it for about 8 years. I wish I had more time to chat with him & get more information from him on being a full time caddie (I might like to explore that type of career change!), but we didn't get a chance to chat for very long.

I bet money they spend 29 minutes of your 30-minute session trying to get you to buy lesson packages. I would take that $40 you would spend at GolfTec and pay a golf pro at an actual course & get a half hour lesson from him. But, lots of other ppl have had good things to say about GolfTec, so if you're interested in them, spend the $40 & see if you like them or not. If you have your 30-minute session with them & you realize that it's all a sales pitch, you can always decline to buy their additional lesson packages. Just my 2 cents ...

Thanks for the info RicoLi. I decided to go with a laser rangefinder. I tried a few of the Blackberry GPS apps on the phone & many were much less than stellar so I decided to go with a laser. Plus I had a hookup & was able to get the laser for about half price!

Ripping long irons with a nice slight draw.

dpmille, why not get fitted? http://www.golfsmith.com/ps/display/?page=ps/titliest

Another vote for Oakley. I think I also have the Flak Jackets (I've had mine for like 5 years now). What's great is that you can replace the lenses so they last a long time! I recently bought the brown-ish tinted lenses that work great for golfing ... green & white colors really "pop" now.

You are exactly right TourSpoon, he shot an 80 for that round ... but for handicap posting purposes he records a 78 because of Equitable Stroke Control. The 78 shouldn't come up at any other time other than for posting to handicap system. So if you were playing for money or anything else, he shot an 80.

I just had a fitting done with my irons/wedges and my guy did take my Cleveland 50* wedge & bend it, but he didn't do my Cleveland 56* nor my Vokey 60*. He said my 56* & 60* didn't need to be checked (I don't usually take full swings with those clubs anyway).

Not a fan of scrambles either, I feel like I play a different game than when I'm playing stroke play. In stroke play, certain holes are better played conservatively, and when in the rough sometimes it's best to punch out rather than try the "hero" shot. But in scrambles, it's like everyone is just trying to hit it as far as possible ... no course management, when in the trees, try to get up/go around/or go under the tree to hit some miraculous shot that you know you'll never pull off but your scramble partners insist you try. But as talismand brought up, if your golf day is off and you feel like you'd rather throw your clubs in the lake than to continue playing your round ... a scramble might be fun to lift some spirits!

1 vote for just taking the clubs in & having it done professionally. I'm sure it's not brain surgery to learn to do it yourself, but I like the "no-hassle" approach of letting someone else that knows what they are doing take care of it. Getting your clubs re-gripped is DEFINITELY a must, but I'd rather have someone else do it. :)

Well I finally went in & got my old crappy shoulder tattoo covered up, I LOVE the new piece ... so much black & some cool shading! Now I'm in the same boat as Ben ... I've got the tattoo bug! I went in for the first session of my next new piece about a week ago. It's a big Polynesian leg band about 7" thick, going all the way around my thigh. First session was doing all the line work (that was about 2 hours), my next session in a couple of weeks is going to be fill in & shading work ... all black & gray again. Getting a tattoo on the inside & back of your thigh is WICKED painful! I met a really cool tattooist, it's a shame she's going to be moving to Hawaii for a few months. Hopefully I can keep in touch with her & get more work done in the future!

I have been considering dropping my 3i for a hybrid lately. I don't think I hit my 3i very well when I'm playing. When I'm banging balls on the range, it's pretty much 50/50 hitting good & bad shots. I've never even hit a hybrid yet though ... but I have heard lots of good things about them.

Do it ... it's free ... it's a great way to try out different instructors to see if you find someone you like well enough to continue with regular lessons. Keep in mind it's a 10 minute lesson. You aren't going to get a complete swing overhaul. You might get a quick tip, or in my case with my current instructor he gave me much more than 10 minutes since he wasn't too busy at that time of the day. Ya Felenah, don't over analyze.

Welcome JMarq83. I'm just up the highway from you in Denver. You found a great golf site here!

Not sure if this counts as a "golf school", but when I first started playing golf I went to one of the ESPN Golf School events in my city. It was a 2 day event over the weekend, and the focus of mine was: Driving, Chipping, and Putting. I still have my notebook with notes I took at that awesome event, although I should probably look through it more than I do now (it's probably been about 6-7 years since I went to the golf school). Another one of the AWESOME parts about the golf school was that as part of the $400 entry fee into the 2 day school, everyone got a Taylor Made R5 Driver (which I still use today). The school was definitely expensive, but you got a driver fitted to you for that fee. I looked back over the ESPN Golf Schools again in my area over the years, and I believe they did a similar thing where as part of your entry fee they gave you clubs so it was pretty cool. But I took a quick look on google today to try to find a website for the ESPN Golf Schools and it looks like they aren't around any more. On the other side of the coin, I dumped even more money into a pack of lessons from GolfTec last year (again, not sure if you can count GolfTec as a golf school) ... and it was a complete waste of time & money.

I have a 60* Vokey that I like, but I have a 50* and 56* Cleveland CG14 that I LOVE!

Thanks for the info Pat007, so you don't keep any stats at all? I was thinking maybe to just keep Fairways, GIR, and putts from now on. Still too much?