justinp

78 Shot it a few weeks ago. It was my first sub-80 round.

I have to come up with a new one now. I achieved my goal before I had a chance to put it on here. My goal coming into this season was the same as last...break 80. A few weeks ago I shot a 78 at my home course. Of course I've played like crap ever since (too much brain in my swing at the moment). So, I need a new goal!

This argument doesn't make sense based on the other sports that are higher on ESPN's list. You are saying that because golf is easy to pick up from the start (which I totally disagree with), it is relegated to the bottom of the list. Well, alpine skiing is ranked 11th and I could teach just about anybody to snowplow down a hill in a half-day tops. You will still be a crappy skier, but you will have acquired the skills necessary to participate. Even the top sport on the list, boxing, isn't hard to learn how to do. Sure, it's hard to do well and requires all kinds of strength, agility, stamina, etc, etc. Getting in the ring with the minimal skill set to participate and getting killed is about the same as walking on the golf course with a minimal set of skills and topping, chunking, slicing and shanking your way to a 140 (only without the headache and missing teeth).

I'm bringing this thread back to life I'm currently looking to replace my Cobra stand bag. Straps are shot and I just want a new bag. Anyway, I walk exclusively (except when I'm traveling and playing a course that doesn't allow it). I'm evaluating the following bags... Titleist x86 Titleist x87 Sun Mountain Superlight 3.5 Sun Mountain Lightning Ping Hoofer Advantage I haven't owned a bag made by either of the three so I need some help. The Ping Hoofer seems to get either great reviews or bad ones. The Titleist bags and the Sun Mountain bags look very much alike. Does Sun Mountain make the Titleist bags?

I'm certainly no instructor, but here is one thing you could try (and it's hard to see if this is what's going on in your video). I agree with those that talked about forearm rotation through the ball. Once you get to the top of your backswing and you start down at the ball...do you feel like you are leading down with your right arm or your left? I'm guessing you have a little too much right hand in your swing and it's actually keeping you from rotating through completely causing you to block shots out to the right. At the range...try taking everything back like normal but when you start down, try to lead more with the left arm and keep the right side out of it (let it go along for the ride). Just a thought.

Hmmm...Let me get this straight (making some assumptions based on your description)... If I'm 240 to center and the creek is 60 yards in front of the green then I'm guessing a shot of about 170 is required to clear the creek (240 minus ~10 yards to get front of green distance minus 60 yards to creek). I have a dogleg at about 50 yards (assuming you are saying the dogleg is 50 yards in front of the green not 50 yards in front of where my ball is which is totally different). Anyway, that puts the dogleg right around the distance of the creek so any layup should be in front of the creek not beyond since there wouldn't be much room to land it there unless you are going for the green with a draw (assuming you are right handed). Personally, (depending on the width of the creek) I would hit my 130 club to the right side of the dogleg leaving me a wedge into the green for my third shot. The risks of hitting a 240 yard draw and putting it on the green when you are dealing with a dogleg and cluster of trees that could knock the ball down into the nearby creek if you cut the corner too much aren't worth it. If you pull off the shot but miss the green you are still looking at chipping/pitching on in 3. After my layup, I should be on in 3 as well with an easy gap wedge.

I think the key here is "average". I've hit 300 yard drives before. I've even driven the 334 yard par 4 10th hole at my home course (downhill when the ground was very firm). However, I probably only average about 250-260. Gotta count them all for an average...not just the good ones

Club Pros can, and often do, carry USGA Handicap Indexes. Most Tour Pros don't carry an Index because they never use it. However, there is nothing stopping Tiger Woods from posting his scores into the computer at Isleworth and maintaining a USGA index. Now Tiger can't compete in sanctioned "amateur events" because he doesn't have amateur status. However, it is up to each USGA member club to determine if a professional is allowed to play in a club tournament. So, using the above example, if Isleworth decided to allow professionals to play in its club tournaments there would be nothing stopping Tiger from playing in the Club Championship for instance. Carrying that over to your local club, if the Club Pro (or the golf committee in some cases) deem that he can play in club tournaments then he can play. Now, in most cases this doesn't happen because most club pros realize this is a conflict of interest. It would certainly look bad if your club champ 3 years running just happened to be the head pro.

Good luck. One thing you will learn...nothing is ever good enough I still remember when I broke 90 for the first time. I was happy for about 10 minutes and then I started thinking about breaking 80. I've yet to do it, but every time I shoot an 81 (my current personal best) I think about that one 3-putt or those couple of approach shots that got away from me My Dad is now hooked (3rd season he's played). He broke into the 90s for the first time this year and he was like a kid in a candy store. Gotta love it!!!

I agree with an earlier post. Even on short part 3s where you are hitting a short iron...using a tee (even if barely sticking out of the ground) it gives you a perfect lie. I think the problem is more mental than anything else. Some people have a tendency to overswing when the ball is on a tee no matter what club they have in there hand.

Is it a new course or something? ...and to answer your question...I don't think so. A handicap differential is calculated for each round you play. An average of your lowest X number of differentials (where X depends on the number of rounds you've played) is multiplied by...I believe .96...to get your USGA index. In order to calculate your differentials for each round, the course slope/rating is used... ((Adjusted score - course rating)*113) / course slope

Before this season I played an Adams Redline 460 with the stock Fujikura shaft in a regular flex. I was getting annoyed that every time I felt like I crushed one it flew high and landed soft (little if any bounce and roll) resulting in a much shorter shot than I though I should be hitting. I figured maybe I just needed a lower loft. I was using a 10.5 degree. I went and hit clubs on a launch monitor and talked to a pro about my issues and he explained it was likely the shaft flex and had nothing to do with the club loft. I left the store that day with a Cobra F/Speed with the stiff flex Aldila NV-F shaft. Without changing anything in my swing I'm easily averaging a 40+ yard increase over my old driver. My ball flight is slightly lower but more importantly I'm seeing a big first bounce and roll when my ball lands now.

I carry a 52-degree gap wedge, 56-degree sand wedge and a 60-degree lob wedge (in addition to my stock Cleveland CG4 PW).

Jumping in here late, but my goal for 2007 was to set a new personal best score and hopefully break 80 for the first time in the process. My personal best (set in '06) is an 81 and my 9-hole personal best entering '07 was 39. So far this year I've tied the 81 twice but have yet to beat it. I did set a new 9-hole best with a 37. I also shot what was probably my most consistent round of golf ever with 9 pars and 9 bogies. I'm running out of time to find the elusive 70s this season

I'm honestly not sure what is non-standard about it. It's MPEG-4, AVI. I had no trouble getting it to play in Quicktime on my MacBook Pro. No additional codecs/software required. It seems to be a Windows related issue. It's not like this is some vendor specific codec. MPEG-4 is a widely used standard for video encoding. Sorry.

Wow. Those guides always make me feel like I'm doing something wrong I play my driver about halfway between center and my front instep. I play my fairway woods from the middle of my stance as well as 5-iron and longer (although I typically don't carry anything longer than a 5 in my bag). I play my 6-iron between the middle and my back instep and then move each shorter club 7, 8, 9, PW, SW, GW, LW back slightly until I'm pretty much hitting the wedges off my back foot. I've been doing it this way for a while because I used to pick everything clean and it was very inconsistent for me. Now, despite the ball being back in my stance, it takes off with only slightly lower than normal ball flight and the ball spins like crazy on the greens. My partners have nicknamed me "trenchy" though as I do tend to throw up quite the divot after contacting the ball.

I'll make you a deal. How about I give you the last 1/3 of my rotation

Apparently the codec comes with the software provided with the Flip Video camera...which doesn't do anyone else any good Anyway, I have XP running in parallel on my MacBook and installed some free video decoding/encoding software called ffdshow. http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow The video is MPEG-4 ASP encoding and AVI format. I'm sure there are other places to download the appropriate codec. This just happens to be the one I used. After installing the software I was able to view the video in Windows Media Player.

I initially had an issue playing the clip on a Windows XP machine. My MacBook Pro played it right away without issue. On the XP machine I had to download another codec to get it to play. I'll see if I can go back and see what codec it was and post it. $2 Nassau - Yeah...I want to get some clips of me actually hitting balls at some point. My personal digital camera is old enough that it only takes video at 15fps which is no good for slowing down a golf swing to see what's going on at each step. This vid was taken by a tournament volunteer that I knew (I think using a Flip Video camera). I had no idea she didn't get my "real" swing until I got the video in an e-mail the next day. VanillaEPS - No back pain. Just very flexible still. Ask me again in a couple of years though. I agree that major changes aren't in order. For the most part I think the major pieces of the swing are ok. I just need to get myself to stop the backswing at parallel to keep my hands and the club in front of me.

I've never taken a lesson. I typically just read things and watch other swings and then go the range to play and tweak. I've worked my handicap down to a 12.5 (actually hit 11 at one point last year) and I'm fairly comfortable with my swing now. The biggest problem I have right now is with my driver. I've been crushing it off the tee this year with my new stick (Cobra F Speed) but at times I get into a rut where I'm blocking a lot of drives to the right. They are still hit on the screws, I'm just blocking it seems. Anyway, for the first time I was able to get a video of my swing at a tournament I was playing on Monday. It's actually a full speed practice swing, which is why you don't hear any contact. http://www.personal.psu.edu/jpp11/GolfSwing.AVI My own evaluation: #1. I've always had a little bit of a forward press. I don't do it on purpose, it just works that way with my setup and strong grip. #2. Going back to waist high everything looks good I think. I have a flatter swing (more of a one plane swing) and usually hit a draw. #3. Here is where I see a big difference with most single digit handicappers. When my left arm is perpendicular to my chest I have yet to set the club. Most swings I see at this point the club has been set to about a 90-degree angle with the left forearm. I continue to rotate around rather than taking the club up. #4. This is where it gets scary. I had no idea I over-rotated that badly. If you step through frame-by-frame you'll see my hands get WAY behind me and the club not only goes beyond parallel but it ends up pointing back across the target line. Not sure how I don't reverse pivot here...good flexibility I guess. #5. Things look good coming down for the most part. I think I just put my hands so far behind at the top that they never have a chance to catch up coming down. The club gets stuck lagging behind and...block right. Does this seem to be a correct evaluation? Any thoughts?

I'm going to have to go with Tiger. I'm too young to have witnessed what Jack did other than in old highlights. Obviously I know he was dominant in his time. Tiger, to me, is just so efficient. To achieve what he does in the smaller number of tournaments he plays is incredible. Everyone marvels at his golf skills, but I think his will, focus and desire are what make him great.

Network Engineer at Penn State. I surf the web all day to make sure it's still working

http://www.bellessprings.com Hogan Fan - Small world. I just joined this forum today and I open this thread to get my first of 3 posts required to change my status and the first home course I see is Walden Ponds. I have family in the Cincy area and have played Walden Ponds while visiting. Great course!