hendog

Here's the thing my man: At some point you have to make a living. Not sure what you do now to make money but eventually you will want to get married, have some kids, maybe buy a house, car, boat. Maybe not but that's what a lot of people end up doing. Having a plan B is not giving up as you mentioned previously. Its simply smart and if you want to be the golfer you say you do you better be smart. It doesn't have to be "go to law school" smart but maybe train to be a PGA professional while you are working on your game. Or maybe take some night classes towards a business degree or auto mechanics. Whatever works for you. Go hard at the golf thing if you want. This would not be the great country it is if people did not have big dreams and go after them but tight rope walking without a net doesn't necessarily make you more focused and thus more likely to succeed. It could very well make you nervous as hell and keep you from being the best you can be. If you have a fall back you can relax and not put so much pressure on yourself that you can't make a 3 ft putt and lets face it, you don't need to be tense and nervous knowing that this putt determines if you eat or not. Only guys named Tiger can thrive under pressure like that and he's a little weird (in a good way). I love playing competitive golf too, but I love living in the suburbs in a nice house with a pool, going to my children's school plays and watching my beautiful wife take a bath a heck of a lot more. Just be smart. That's all I am saying because if you aren't smart, you have already failed.

I am very similar to you I think. I played cavity backs for a long time (Mizuno MX20) and it got me to around 12 but I felt I was underachieving (aren't we all). My biggest thing was workability. I love to move the ball. Not only is it fun but for me its more rewarding. I mean the odds of hitting a ball straight are really low. But if you intentionally try to work it one way or the other there is a good chance you will succeed (at least in moving it that way). It makes me feel like I hit more good shots. Lame but true. I was in the same boat as you. "Am I ready" or more accurately, "Can I actually do it". I went to my club and asked for a fitting and told the guy I was thinking about blades. He gave me a blade (6) and put impact tape on it and said go hit this for a few minutes. After 5-10 minutes he looked at the tape and said "Yep, you can hit a blade". He also said that I should be a 6 with the swing I had at which point I started with my excuse routine (Driver kills me, I always have 1 or 2 blow ups, I get off to a bad start blah blah blah). He did few swing tests to get the right lie angle and shaft flex and then ordered the blades (TM Tour MB). I also got a new Driver (adjustable face angle so I could open it 1 degree), fairway woods (same deal) and wedges. With this set I went to 6 in about 4 months. Basically started getting the most out of my game. I have recently ballooned to around 10 but some of that is time off and some is a minor adjustment to hit more fades but I am hitting the ball better than ever now and ready to head back down to 6 and hopefully lower with some better short game and long iron game (recently got a couple hybrids to help there). So give it a try with a fitting. Check where you are hitting the face and see if you can work the ball more easily. If either of these answers is "no" or "not enough to pay for it" then stick with cavity backs. As others have said, it is not a measure of how good you are, just a personal preference. My 2 cents anyway

(If this is a duplicate thread my apologies) Anybody on here attempting to qualify this year? I'd love to try it one day but I have a loooong way to go.. 1.4 is the max so I'm sure like me the answer for most everyone will be "no" but surely someone here is going to try. If you are, I am curious where your game was 2, 3, 5 years ago and how old you are now. Believe me I don't have visions of grandeur but I'm all for setting goals and working towards them. Reach for the stars right? I need to shave about 8-9 strokes but I think about 3 of those are nothing but baggage right now (I am truly about a 6 but lack of time and higher taxes are eating into my golf allotment). Even still going from 6 to 1.4 is herculean but like I said there is no harm in trying and the practice I put into trying will at least make me a little better (I hope). Qualifying is about a month away...

I do this. I'll go play nine holes for practice. I'll tee off and if I don't catch it right or want to try again I will. I may play both balls but I will definitely play the first one. I'll do the same thing until its holed. The score for the first ball is what I note for the hole. Then when I am done I can look and see what I shot. I don't use it for handicap or brag about it but it at least gives me something to evaluate my progress. I know that the score is influenced by the fact that I took extra swings but its at least a data point and shows me what I am capable of.

Proximity to hole on approach shot. That is the best way to judge approach shots. Of course the ShotLink guys don't follow me around and walking off each one would be a pain. Could always guesstimate and that would probably be good enough. The previous scenario is a good example of why stats can't be applied to a specific instance. They only work on large sets an thus that scenario would not ultimately impact the stats unless you had an unusually high percentage of instances like that. 50% of marriages end in divorce but that does not mean I have a 50-50 chance of getting divorced. It would seem to make more sense to track the stats in a way that is consistent with the golfing world at large. However one thing that makes golf great is that you do not need another living soul to play so do whatever you want. If you choose to track stats differently from the generally accepted method then you become a demographic of 1. Either way my life is not impacted :)

I have only recently started using Hybrids and I have been surprised how difficult they were to hit. I've tried two different approaches. First is to set up and swing like a long iron. Second is to set up and swing like a fairway wood. I have found that the Fairway wood approach produces a much more consistent ball flight. There are many articles I have seen saying to swing like an iron but that is just not what I am finding. BTW my Hybrids are 4 and 5 R11 Rescues.

One bad day: Forget it. Something was off, Body fatigued, Stars misaligned. Whatever. Next time I go I forget it happened and it will most likely be back to normal. Two bad days (in a row): Concern. I have introduced a flaw. Simplify and grind it out. Maybe hit the range after the round and see if I can work it out. Three bad days: Panic. Maybe need to step away for a week or two and starve the gremlin out. Hopefully next time my body will have forgotten what it was doing wrong. Four bad days: Time to make a change. Switch it up, try a different approach. Ex. I normally hit draws so I'll start hitting all fades. Maybe change the stance or grip a little. Not going to blow it up but try some new things and give the body and mind something else to focus on. Also great time to do a lot more chipping and putting. At this point I need all the help I can get and a few chip ins or long putts have a way of putting a smile on anyone's face. I actually just went through this cycle. Something happened late last year and I lost my mojo (6 -> 10 in a couple months). Tried to simply forget it and let it pass but it remained. Tried hitting the range after rounds but it remained. Took a little time off but still it remained. Finally I shook things up and started hitting all fades (compared to my normal baby draw) and before long I started to see what my issue was. I am now back on track with the added benefit that I have an awesome fade in my arsenal now. So my game has emerged from the darkness even better than before. Hoping to be back down to 6 by the summer.

This is almost dead on for me. I am around a 10 right now and my average score across all rounds is about 85 and my golf stats say I average exactly .8 birdies per round.

Try playing 3 holes at a time. Set your target score (+/-) for each 3 and play. After each 3, start over. If the last 3 sucked, then let it go and make the next 3 good. Not "make up for the bad 3" good but just back to business. I'm around a 10 right now so for me I am thinking about +1 per 3 holes. If I pull that off I am +6 and feeling great. A little over and I'm still in good shape. Even if I have a nasty 3 hole stretch of say +4 or +5 even, I just let it go and make sure the next is back to +1ish. At the end of the day I may not have made up those strokes but I will be happy that I let it go and got back to business. At not even 1 your score for each 3 is a little tougher. Basically EVEN. But that should work too. If you go +3 on a stretch just let it go and have confidence that you will get those shots back but ONLY if you let it go.

When I am making a big change, for example new irons, I will explore other brands. My goal is to have clubs of the same type be of the same "family". So if I have a 3W and 5W for example, I want them to be the same brand and type so I have similar swing weights and feel. Hybrids the same, Wedges as well. Irons for sure. I do like a certain brand though so that is where I will start and if I can't find something I like from them, I will expand my search. Right now, the only club I have that is not the same brand is my putter and then only reason is because I have had it for a long time and I like it and don't want to spend the money on a similar one from my brand of choice PS - My brand of choice should be obvious from my sig so if anyone from that brand would like to complete my set with a new putter I will accept. I currently play White Hot XG #1 :)

Are you topping it on an upswing or a downswing? If upswing then your swing is bad and no one thing is going to help you until you get your swing fixed. If downswing then move the ball slightly up in your stance. I top the ball sometimes but it is never on an upswing. Sometimes I drift to far forward too fast trying to hit the ball low and catch the top of the ball. You've got to focus on driving the ball forward and DOWN not up. The physics of the club will make the ball go up so you don't need to help it.

I'd like to officially offer my services to anyone who wants to learn how to not spin the ball. I have perfected it.

Here's the problem with finding this out when you start as an adult. When you are young playing a sport, that's all you do. Practice, workout, play, repeat. You compete against the best in your town, state etc and you get a feeling for where you are. If you're good you move on to college and practice double, workout triple and play year round. You compete against the best in the nation and you get a feel for where you are. All the while you have coaches and trainers and video equipment and practice facilities etc etc. Could be golf, football, whatever. By the time you are done with college you kinda know but even then you have a long way to go if you do go to the next level. Starting golf as adult, if you are married with kids then you see the course a couple times a month. Practice a few times a week, maybe more, maybe less. If you are single maybe you get out 4-5 times a month and practice 3-4 times per week. You may even take lessons. None of this compares though to a full time golf life. As a result you get a lot of false positives and false negatives. Take a guy who plays 1-2 times per month but otherwise never practices and shoots 75 consistently. You might think WOW, if this guy wanted to he could be a pro. But who knows, maybe he's at his absolute max and more practice would just screw him up. Or how about a guy who plays 3-4 times per month and practices weekly, thinks about it, reads about it, studies it but still struggles to shoot low 80s. You might think WOW with all the time he works at it he's as good as he'll get. But who knows, with the right instructor and maybe a small change or two this guy's passion and dedication might help him go pro. I guess the bottom line is, to TRULY know, you would have to quit your job, dedicate a year to workouts, practice, tournaments etc. and lay it all on the line. In lieu of that you just have to be honest with yourself. Think about a time when you were playing awesome golf. How far was that from par? Where did you lose shots? Can you reasonably expect to not only continue to play awesome but actually start picking up those strokes? I think the best route is to find your happy place and be content with it. That in of itself may make you better. Mine is breaking 80 75% of the time. I am not there yet but I think its a reasonable goal. If I get there I will re-evaluate. Just my 2 cents.

Yep. This is where I'm at right now. Nice open stance, open face and swing just a little left of the target. Based on my setup I would say it is a push fade. The biggest misses right now are the double crosses and wipes. Basically both symptoms of pulling off with the double cross also including a wrist flip.

I guess this is really the reason for my change. I knew that what I was doing was not ideal and while I was pretty good at bringing it all together, it was not something that was a long term plan and I also felt there was a glass ceiling (or floor which ever way you want to look at it). Middle of last year I got down to a 6 before it started to unravel. Looking back I think it is fair to say that I was playing about as good as I could with what I had. 6 months later I was back to a 10 and barely holding it there so I figured that with my swing I would forever hover around the 8-9 mark, sometimes lower and sometimes higher. My goal is scratch although realistically I would simply like to be a low single digit guy. 5 or less. Thus to get there I had to make a change. Seems like what I am really doing is just improving my swing and cutting out some bad moves.

Interesting point. You have basically described my swing. Even with my draw swing I set up with an open face (meaning face points way right) and then slam it shut at contact which is the timing I talked about. Now I open the stance, leave the face open as before but now it is pointing at the target and I simply don't slam it shut (well at least not intentionally now). It HAS caused me to alter my swing path a little although I believe that I was getting to far inside before (getting stuck) and this is basically correcting that. The ball flies high and rolls over slightly to the right. Accuracy has gotten a lot better in fact I have hit a few shots to a couple feet which is not something I am use to doing since the ball rarely went exactly where I aimed or rather since I was curving it so much it was hard to know exactly where it would end up laterally. So perhaps my change is not as big as it seems. Certainly a different mindset since I am no longer aiming right and trying to bring it back hard but many of the mechanics are the same. That may explain why it feels so good and why at least so far it has produced results. Good stuff. Thanks!

You are right on here. I guess the ultimate question is, when I am standing on the tee box with a wide open fairway, what am I going to hit? Use to be draw, now it will be fade. I will reserve the draw for situations when the fade physically will not work. Where I have to be careful is on shots where the fade will work but the draw is ideal. Like hole in back left position behind bunker. Ideally you bring it in with a draw and let it release to the hole. I am not that good so it will be fade to center and par. So far I love it. Only issue is when I pull the double cross :(

I guess the short answer is because I think I can be better for a longer period of time. The long answer is the draw swing, at least for me, was very timing oriented. Hard from the inside and then turn the hands quickly. When my timing was on and my tempo was there I was awesome. Otherwise it was big push right or snap hook left. I've always had a fade in my arsenal and during a recent struggle I just found it to be a physically easier swing. I carry the ball farther, stop it quicker and the misses are much less penal. 2 rounds in the books so far. 84 and 81 which is at least as good as my normal swing and really better considering I've been struggling lately and was just happy breaking 90.

Curious if anyone else has made this transition. I've hit a draw my entire golfing life (about 12 years) and while I got pretty good I also struggled with consistency. I made the decision to move to fades and it feels like a swing I can be more consistent with. I'll still hit draws when necessary but in general ill go with the fade. Just looking for perspective from others who have tried.

I guess it all depends on the purpose of your round. If you want to score as low as possible in a given round then you should absolutely do the things you are talking about. But if you are looking to improve then I fear this might be a hindrance to that. I am not saying course mgmt isn't a sound goal as I work on that constantly but there is a difference between putting driver away and hitting 3W or lesser and hitting a 3/4 5 iron 3 times. Hitting balls on the range is not the same as hitting them on the course and you need to put your practice to the test sometimes and get comfortable with it. Anyway, I guess my point is that mathematically you are on the right track although you are talking best case of course so just remember that there will always be mistakes. Just don't always make lowest score the goal (call it a practice round for example). Sometimes you have to hit shots you are not comfortable with to improve. My 2cents

My handicap has been in free fall. I believe my biggest issue (and I think I confirmed it last night at the range) is that I am not getting off my right foot (I'm a righty). So my swing has become the Willie Mays Hayes golf equivalent. For clarity this is a reference to the movie Major League where this character hits the ball straight up in the air because he is swinging up at the ball. Of course in golf that means you hit the ball fat. My best swing thought to fix it is to pretend I am in the starting blocks and push off hard with my right foot. Anyone else dealt with this and have some suggestions? Sorry I don't have any video right now but you can seriously just watch Willie Mays Hayes swing a few times and you'd get it :)

An issue I see is that each individual person may not think of themselves as slow and in fact may not be much worse than average to slightly below average but when you have 4 golfers like this in a group it adds up to a very slow pace. Even if each guy is doing their part it always seems like at least 1 will have an issue on each hole and that's all it takes. So I guess my point is that is seems futile unless you have 4 people who declare on the first tee that they are going to play quickly. That's just not a conversation that you are going to have most of the time. The most useful tips aren't how YOU can play faster, but how you can help other people play faster without them really knowing it. Things like 1) being a hawk and seeing where every ball goes so you can find it quickly for them or tell them its gone; 2) tell them you'll bring they're putter so you can move on; 3) always have an extra ball for them to use (either one of theirs if they are particular or any thing if they are not). I could probably think of some more but you get the point. I hate being the guy rushing everyone and many people are out there to socialize as much as golf so you have to be a little sly and subtle to get them moving without them deciding to NOT play with you anymore.

Total agree that there is no "right" way but its great to understand others' perspectives. I think a person's handicap and overall skill set is a big differentiator. When I was 12-15, I went for it a lot more than now precisely for the reason you stated. One shot versus two. As I have gotten better, my ability to hit those two shots, usually two fairly simply shots, has greatly increased so lay ups have become a much better route for me. Especially when that second shot is a wedge that I have total confidence in. Of course the fact that I am not particularly strong with my fairway woods from the deck is also a factor. 1 fairway wood vs 2 short irons is a no brainer for me. Finally the courses make a huge difference. Many of the par 5s I play have woods and water lurking. When I have played more open courses I have been more aggressive because I know that it will take a horrendous shot to find trouble.

I was going to reference this earlier but my post had gotten too long. Reading about this is what turned me back to laying up because I am a lot more like Zach than Phil, Tiger or Ernie (not that I am anything like Zach either but you get it). I have a really good short game but I have finally played enough golf to understand that 1 good hole (some unlikely eagle for example) will not make up for a lofty score at the end. It might take some of the sting out but in the end I want to shoot low scores. That is why I have started to play smart. One example: 473 yd par 5. Tight dogleg left with water all down the inside of the dogleg. Its so narrow that cutting the corner makes it hard to keep it in the fairway and there are pine trees lining the water that you have to clear. I hit 3 wood and since I play a draw I thread it around the corner as good as I can do. Leaves me ~220 to center with flag up. I'm thinking 5W gets me there right (wind at back also). Then I think, I am 4 over after 8, feeling good and just hit a perfect tee shot. A 5W could be disastrous and for what? So then I think, to get around 100 I hit... PW?? I was like PW??? Come on man. That's weak. So then I consider 6I or 7I. But then I think, what does that do for me? Leaves me 50 yards? When was the last time I practiced a 50 yard shot? Uh never. So then with conviction I say, its either 5W or PW. Take your pick. I decide on PW and commit. Stripe the PW down the middle and I'm let with ~88 yards. Now this is a shot a wear out at the range. I pull out SW, take the shot, one hop stop about 6 inches from the cup. Tap in birdie and a 39 front 9. From there I was hooked. Ok, now this post is too long so that is all.

Lots of great responses. I see a lot of "get it as close as you can" strategies. I have found that I am more accurate from 80-100 than 20-80 so that is why I will lay back. From 80-100 I know how to dial in a SW but inside that it just becomes guess work and I may get it close or I may not even get it on. So if I can get to a chip or putt then I will go but my wedges are so accurate right now its hard for me to "take the bat out of their hands" to use a baseball saying. Bottom line is if I am 80-100 out with my 3rd shot, I am getting a par or better 95% of the time if not more. If I go for it, I bring in bogey, double or worse and I just can't stomach that. Obviously we all have different course setups we are playing too and since most of us don't travel and play a lot of courses, our strategies will be honed for those courses. Good stuff. Keep em coming.