ericm

I've always found that a tee works perfectly well for what the towel doesn't get.

Personally, I'd have to say not often enough nor long enough. Less succinctly, I normally hit the range a few times early in the year and then my practice time is limited to the time before a round. I usually can hit balls for 15 minutes or so and then hit putts for 5 or 10 minutes before teeing off.

Everything except my driver is fairly straight, with maybe a slight fade bias. My driver, is another story entirely. I rarely go left (I'm a righty) and sometime go straight, but normally have some amount of fade on it, with an occasional starts right and goes further right straight into jail disaster shot.

Keep it up. Sounds like good rounds are in your future.

The longest I've ever seen was by my brother on the 7th at Nairn Golf Club in Scotland. It was hot and dry and the hole was playing downwind that day. Since I don't recall the exact distance I won't give him a full 400 yds., but it was darn close. My own longest was a 330+ yds. plus drive on the 18th at Catamount Ranch and Club. It's a moderately downhill par 5. This was also at about 7,000 ft. elevation.

That was sort of what I expected. It sounds to me like you have a mental block against the putter. Any of the suggestions on this thread are likely to work for you. For me, when I get the yips, I have to re-convince myself that I have confidence in the putter. This usually involves a fair amount of practice from varying lengths and a switch in putters. Good luck, and hopefully you can use the mental image of a good chip to help you on the green. After all, they are very similar.

Absolutely an F1 fan. I'm kind of drifting about without a team/driver at the moment. As such, I haven't watched that many races this year, but I think I'll have to check out the whole Lewis Hamilton phenomenon. I've been to one GP, 1997 France. It was awesome, Schumacher won and Jos Verstappen made it like 20 whole laps before he went flying off, it may have been the race of his career!

Spectrums, You actually use this on the course? How long did it take to trust the move enough to go from range to course?

Agreed, but there just isn't enough match play in this world.

The four hole playoff works for the Open Championship because it is held in a place and at a time of year where you can play golf until after 10pm local time. It would never work for the US based majors. There is no way the PGA is going to have its majors end at 4-5pm Eastern time. I'm all for the 18 hole playoff the next day, someone mentioned match play and I'd say "absolutely" to that idea. It would be great theater. As for it being on Monday, that's what a DVR is for.

jcrew, How is your chipping?

I just saw it online yesterday and am definitely planning on doing some follow-up. I've done stuff like that for years when practicing, but had never really thought of taking it to the course.

Because he has no taste and no one tells him no.

Cameron Newport 2 Studio Style 34"

Nice! Hoping for an invite there myself and would be thrilled with sub-100. Reminds me to follow up with my dad on the topic.

Thanks for the reply, Erik. It really highlights what Sergio's "mistake" really was.

IMO, if sports (or life in general) teaches us anything regarding milestones it is that once set, there will always be kids who fixate on those benchmarks and use them to motivate the trajectory of their lives. Furthermore, every now and then one of those kids breaks through and pushes the bar up a notch or ten.

Does a player also have access to the data recorded by the group's official scorer? If not, I would submit that they should be able to review, side by side the manual recordings of the playing partner and the electronic record by the official scorer. That said, it is pretty hard to imagine that a professional doesn't remember what he scored on a hole played no longer than about 5 hours ago in a professional event.

Public, private or both?

Interesting. I'm not sure I've been on a course in the US in years that played fast enough for a stop at the turn to change the pace of play at all. I'm a bit envious.

If you are close, as some of the posters I read are, then you might try something I have used in the past trying to get over the hump. Change the goal. Make up your mind to shoot 85 rather than break 90. It changes the pressure point. Back when I used to be good, I would use that to break 75, which was a very difficcult number for me until I hit on this.

Learning to play on a par-3 course with my grandfather. Playing an evening round with my father when I was about 10, on a par 5, he chipped the ball in. I looked at him and said, "if you can do it, I can do it" and then chipped my ball in as well. Being in the group when my dad scored his only ace. My two eagles from the fairway. Every golfing moment in Ireland and Scotland The 8-iron that ended up about two feet away earlier this year. The 5-iron to about four feet two weeks ago.

Irrespective of what the group ahead of you does at the turn, IMO, "lapping" would depend entirely upon their position relative to the group in front of them. That said, I suspect the rules of lapping vary greatly based on whether the course is public or private. With respect to the thought that it is the "slow group" that takes a long time at the snack shack, I couldn't disagree more. Unless there is a phone on the ninth for ordering food, the speed of the player has nothing to do with the time it takes to get food. Our regular group is an under four hour group and I recently had to speed my play on the 11th and return to the halfway hut to pick up a tuna salad sandwich that they just couldn't get made in a timely manner.