sjhwilkes

+1 on get used to it. Sounds like you're tall, if you're using irons at +1/2", choke down a bit if you need to, and get some more of them there lessons :)

Yes people exaggerate, men especially :) It is possible to hit it a long way though... A decade ago when I first took up golf I remember going to a Ping fitting session in London and selecting and buying my T-ISI driver, it was a nice range with decent balls and I was pounding them repeatedly into the fence which was at 290 yards, the Ping guy was pretty impressed. Skip forward to last year when I started playing again and my drives go 255, sometimes rollling to 285, not bad, but I begun to doubt my rememberance of the above, thinking I must have exaggerated big time, I'm 35 now, so not in that much poorer shape. Finally last week I went to the range every day for a change. Sure enough by the end of the week I was able to knock crappy range balls over the top of the fence at 240 yards. Sorry this was a long ramble with very little point, people do exaggerate, but some also hit it a long way, I don't think that's the most difficult part of the game, modern drivers and balls have seen to that - 300 is attainable now. Don't forget that the PGA longest drives are all over 400 now!

No Ping can change the lie angle no problem on all recent clubs, the only exceptions are the older exotic material clubs, BeCu etc. that have lost there malleability with age - and Ping will even bend them, they just get you to sign a disclaimer that if they break in the process they're not liable. I find the Maltby tables useful to some extent in seeing the progress over generations of clubs. The G2 is an 817, the G10 878, so the G10 is a bit more forgiving but it's not a huge difference by any means. Go find a place with a Ping fitting cart and figure out what you need, I'd suggest getting your G2's bent and waiting for the G11's or whatever before buying a new set, but then I'm still playing ISI's :)

The Sand Trap has a much easier volume of postings to keep up with. GolfWRX has been driving me nuts recently with so many near identical 'I'm this handicap, can I play these irons?' threads. In both cases it would be better if newbies were better at searching before starting new threads on already covered topics.

I like the X-hot 3 wood a lot, it's great for me off the deck, though I suck at hitting it off a tee. From the deck it's 230 - 245 yards and pretty straight no matter how I mishit it :)

Yup, here in LA it's only rained once since I had LASIK, but the joy of not having drops on my glasses :) For the whole 20 years I wore specs I had a fetish for keeping them clean too (to the point people would come up and ask me if there were lenses in them), so rain always drove me nuts...

I used to play with glasses or prescription sunglasses according to weather - led to a couple of twilight disasters where I'd left my glasses in the car and had to play the last couple of holes blind :) Had LASIK 3 weeks ago, it rocks, I can see better than ever and don't have the eyeglass frame right in my line of vision at address anymore.

My 61 goes 80 yards exactly with a full swing. Awesome on a couple of the holes on the local pitch and putt - I'm horrible at hitting with a partial swing, something I need to work on. Hitting SW and LW saves me the embarassment of the 150 yard freak PW I hit out onto the street on one hole there...

It's the lie that varies by dot. Mine are White - 3* up, which is probably a bit much, but I was fitted for them 10 years ago by someone who hopefully knew what they were doing, they seem to work for me, though I'm only 6'2. I just bought a couple of wedges in Blue dot so I'll see how big a difference it makes - I'm guessing not that much on the wedges anyhow due to them being so much shorter anyhow. Can anyone speak to this? It seems lie adjustment is most critical on the irons, but less so on drivers and wedges - just from what's available out there off the shelf. Wedges you're less likely to take a full swing, whereas drivers are so long?

I try to be good and stay away, at my level new gear ain't gonna make much difference...But then I was stuck in traffic Thursday night and figured if I just popped in and killed half a hour it might subside a little, and anyhow I could replace my worn out glove. 45 minutes later, two new wedges, Ping Tour W 52 and 56 - they seem really similar to the Vokey ones but they were cheaper and match my irons. I suck as a person, no self control at all - though I didn't buy a hybrid as well at least. Remembered to get a glove too, reduces my excuses for a revisit too soon.

Have two pairs and rotate them - works for running shoes too. Also different socks can be the cure, Thor-Lo's are artificial fibre and stink, whereas Superwool socks aren't and don't.

Another Interlock here, and like iacas I interlock when putting too. My teacher tried to get me to change and a did try overlap for a few weeks but it didn't stick. My grip may not be perfect but it's low down on the list of things wrong with my swing.

For me the range ball compression is offset by being on a range versus the course, depends on the range balls though - decent Top Flite range go just as far as I can hit Taylor Made TP or V1x's, one range I go to uses terrible balls though, I can barely drive them 190. The markers seem more than good enough for my level of consistency :)

I too would suggest 50/51 degree wedge and 55/56. I have 47 PW, 54.5SW and 61LW in my old Ping ISI-K irons, and find the gaps too big and the 61 difficult to hit. When I have some cash I'm thinking of getting a 51 and 56 to reduce the gaps. I'll also then have the option of carrying a boatload of wedges when I play short Par 3 courses.

Nice. My best effort was on the Rancho par 3 course, managed a crazy 150 yard pitching wedge which bounced between cars on Pico then landed in the giant hole at Fox where they're building a new underground parking lot.

I had been playing with various inexpensive Top Flite and Callaway balls, but someone gave my a dozen of the TP Black Taylor Made's and I was surprised even at my skill level that I could feel / see the difference, particularly in putting. Whoever used the chipping green before me last Saturday left 8 new Pro1Vx balls behind, so I guess I'll be trying those out now too. I'm trying to save my money for rounds and lessons rather than splurging on equipment until I'm a better player, so I won't be purchasing any balls for a long time now.

Rancho Park is my local course, but it plays soooo slow, even for the likes of me. Last couple of times I played I got stratch golfers in my group and I felt really sorry for them. Penmar (9 hole down in Venice) is even slower, partially due to sending eveyone out in fivesomes. Can anyone answer on the pace of play at Wilson and Harding? I havn't made it up there yet - the one time I booked there was a certain fire in Griffith park the day before :)

Yeah I find it takes me 3 trips to the range, hitting 2 buckets each to get back to a place where I'm ready for another lesson - then my pro can see what I've succesfully taken onboard and what I've missed. My second lesson this year (after not playing golf at all for 8 years) completely wrecked my swing and I waited two weeks and much heartache before going back to my old swing and taking another lesson. He was totally cool, and just said, 'fine if that's not working we'll try this instead...' three months later and I'm close to the swing he showed me back on that second lesson - I just had to do it in stages.

I have a similar issue - but I'm fairly sure it's entirely mental in my case. Basicall LW - 7i have appropriate gaps, 7i is about 160 yards, then on the longer irons the gaps decrease almost to nothing; 6i 165, 5i 175, 4i & 3i both about 190. The 3 used to be my favorite club too, but now I've spent a couple of months dialling in my stroke for my driver & wedges I have lost the long irons. Guess I need to get back to the range...

I use my sand wedge a fair amount as it's the perfect club for my local par 3 course. I have to keep the ball pretty far back in my stance though. I bought a lob wedge earlier in the year and agree with LMGR that it takes a load of practice to use. After a few hundred balls on the range and chipping area I'm just getting the hang of it - with a full swing it's 80 yards, or with a tiny chop down onto the back of the ball it's 5 feet - I like it a lot now.

Average is 240, my Ping isiT 13.5 is getting on a bit, I don't know how much difference a more recent driver would make. Distance is pretty consistent though, the occasional 280 plus miracle, but not many < 230. My X-hot 3 wood is current technology, and much more forgiving/consistent, seems it goes 200 yards straight regardless of how I hit.