hendog

I agree to a certain extent. Some times I have an approach that is possible but I know that a PW and then SW gets me tight where as the 5W or 4I might actually leave me a tricky shot that I may only get on but not close plus there is always the chance I poo poo it into the trees or something. I've been through the "always" go for it and rely on your short game approach but now I am leaning more towards dialing in my 100 yard shot and just getting there and then stuffing it tight.

This seems to come up in a lot of threads but I wanted to collect it all in one spot. (I searched and did not find a dedicated thread so if I missed it please redirect) How do you decide? Do you have an "always" or "never" approach? Maybe a yardage that gives you the green light? There is certainly no one "right" approach but I seem to go back and forth and make my decisions ad hoc so I wanted to see how others approach it.

I can't stand the guys who get really pissed off on the range. Slam their clubs down. Cus. Talk to themselves. I'll give a little on the course if you hit a bad shot and slam a club down (within reason) but on the range? If its that bad just go home or go sit down a while. Another one I love is the guy practicing long range lags on a crowded putting green. I understand you want to work on this but C'MON Man! Finally, at my club we have mats at the back and they use them a couple times a week to give the turf a break. Some guys want to hit driver and can't put a tee in the mat so they step out in front. Its one thing if there is no one there or you go down to the end, but when you are right in front of me I can't focus because I am afraid I am going to shank one up your @ss.

It seems like the main reason for getting new clubs for you is the look. Based on that then the time is right whenever you say it is. As for performance, you need to identify what it is you want to get out of them. Do you expect to get better with these new clubs? If so, how? Are you wanting to work the ball more? Do you want better feedback? Etc, Etc. Personally I played Mizuno MX20s for years and played well with them. I then decided that I was Mr Macho and was good enough for blades and switched to TaylorMade Tour Preferred MBs. My main reason was workability. I LOVE to work the ball both directions and felt that the blades would do that for me which they have (although sometimes to much so). So for me that was the performance motivation. I did improve by the way. From about 12 with the Mizunos down to 6 with the blades but I've leveled off around 9 now. No way to say though that it was the blades that did it all. I think I could play as well with the Mizunos right now because my swing has gotten better which I will give some credit to the blades for. They FORCE me to hit the ball well since there is no forgiveness so I had to put in some serious time on the range. I have recently thought about going back to the Mizunos (which I still have) and seeing if the improved swing coupled with more forgiving irons would trim a stroke or two. @Skillet - Swap those grips out. I put on new grips about 9 months ago and my world changed. I got some Winn Mid something-rathers. Little larger and softer. Made a huge difference although they do wear out quicker. My 2cents :)

I may regret this but I am going to throw out an actual theory here. You could be a supinator which means you walk on the outside of your feet. Wearing your shoes on the opposite foot put the arch of the shoe under the outer part of your foot. This corrected your gait and helped take pressure off your feet and shins. I too have this issue. I have actually taken arch supports and put them in the opposite shoes to accomplish the same thing. As for wearing the shoes themselves on the wrong foot... C'MON MAN!!! Please don't this. It just makes me sad.

Impossible to give you any reliable feedback. Driver loft is not an exact science. It is very personal and depends on many factors. Find you a local fitter with a launch monitor and see what it says. There are some numbers that I'm sure someone could throw out that are optimal for the launch conditions but different people achieve those results with different equipment.

Keep em. The club didn't buy those. They were lost on an errant shot. I keep a ziplock baggie of worn balls for practice rounds when I want to practice a tough shot and water or deep woods is in play. Besides, I have lost my share of balls into a driving range so I figure I am just balancing things out. The only time I don't pick up a ball is when there is a reasonable chance it is in play for someone or it is in someone's yard. I have buddies who are terrible and play whatever so I save off brands for them and any Pro V1s that look decent go in the bag. Penny saved...

75% of time: Full 56 25% of time: Smooth 52 Ultimately depends on misc stuff like contours and firmness of green, weather conditions (temperature, wind etc), the lie and the elevation change if any (even a few yards could be the difference between 6ft and 20 ft) Of course I will most likely screw up both shots and be 30 ft from the hole no matter what

I was around 6 but never lower. Got the blades when I was about a 12 but greatly underachieving and Club Pro who helped me get fitted agreed I should have been about half that. Errant drives were the biggest culprit there. Fixed the Driver and then blades took me down to 6 but I've slowly lost ground. If I go to range twice a week and play 1-2 times per week then I can stay around 6. From there I'm sure I could get my wedges and putter to the point where I was making more birdies and go even lower. That last part is just conjecture though. Reality is I don't have time for the range anymore and play at most 1 time per week.

Ok, I know there is no formula. Just looking for opinion. I play stiff flex TM Blades. I am 37 (closing in on 38). Not old but not getting younger and certainly not getting MORE athletic. Lately I've been feeling like if I had Reg Flex easier to hit irons then maybe I could swing easier and still get the same distance. Its takes quite a bit of work for me to stay on top of my game with the blades. Maybe that is an indication that I should not be hitting them in the first place. Just curious if anyone has had a similar feeling and followed through with Reg Flex/GI irons. Lessons learned? Good decision?

Forget it. I sometimes have terrible sessions because I was not focused on a target out in the range and was hung up on swing fundamentals. Once you are on a course and you have a target and a goal your body and mind should get back to normal, whatever that is for you. Just slow it down, find a good tempo and have fun. The rest is gravy.

Lay-ups go a little farther though. If I had 155 to the center of the green it would be a full out 7 iron. But laying up to 155 it may be an 8 since it would have a tendency to roll out a bit more (possibly)

Live and learn. The other big thing is just to use your head a little. Seems obvious but its easy to just grab a club and swing. Look at the total distance (say 2nd shot on par 5) and do the math. 280 to the center? Well you could hit 3W and then a little wedge but that 3W might end up in someone's back yard, in the lake or woods or 10 yards from where you just were. And that "little wedge" is harder than it sounds sometimes. Instead, take 280 minus a nice full club, could be wedge, 9I etc. Something you have confidence in and has a relatively low margin of error. If that distance is 125 then you need to hit 280-125=155. That's just a little 7 or 8 iron. Now you are one the green putting for birdie instead of dropping 3 hitting 4. So for me it was things like that.

Uncle! Uncle! :) Of course you are all correct. I didn't mean to imply I want a rule change or that golf can not at times be both very forgiving and very penalizing and yes when the ball bounces to a great spot you keep your mouth shut and play but when it takes a bad bounce you complain. Such is life I guess. :) To your point though Fourputt, sticking to PGA events here, how about players and groups that draw HUGE crowds versus players and groups in the same event that draw crickets? I guess this goes to your "controllable" conditions. I see times where Tiger or anyone that draws big crowds hits one sideways and it bounces off people and stays out in a playable location whereas another lesser known player might hit the same shot and have the ball bound into the trees or an otherwise less hospitable location thus costing him/her a stroke. I guess its like the great baseball player getting the benefit of a close pitch for a walk or a shutdown corner in football getting away with a little extra grabbing. Its just part of the game.

:) Not sure if you are serious or not. I admit there is not really a solution for this but its just frustrating I guess. I should just play better.

Since the title of this thread is "Some rules are unfair" and we seem to have exhausted the divot rule I would like to throw another one out there. This is about the difference between PGA rounds and regular rounds. How many of you have hit a shot into the rough and maybe over a hill or some obstruction such that you can't see it and you get down there and look but can't find it anywhere? Little do you know that it clipped a tree and bounced right about 20 yards and while its in play you can't find it. If you play by the rules, you are driving back and rehitting. Stroke and distance. In PGA events they have people everywhere spotting for them. In that same scenario, someone would have the ball spotted and marked before the player put his club away. So no stroke and distance penalty for them. This seems unfair to me.

I guess I am one of the guilty parties that leaves these. It is not intentional but I walk a lot and of course I have no sand. My divots are either blown up or a long ways away and I am already focusing on my next shot and don't run and grab it and put it back. Then when I ride I am use to hitting and leaving so I don't even use the sand that's on the cart. I promise to make this more of a priority but still with the walking, what am I supposed to do if I can't find or there is not a big piece of turf? PS - A guy I played with the other day would take 2-3 big practice swings and take monster divots on each one and not fix them!! Every time!! Not saying that makes me innocent but at least I have someone to point at :)

I agree. I love golf and hate to criticize someone for playing but the POTUS is not your everyday job. Certainly there is room for vacations and some relaxation but if nothing else it is a matter of perception. Bush played but after 9/11 he decided that it was not right for him to be out there playing golf while the nation was "under attack" and he didn't play again to my knowledge his entire term. I don't see anything wrong with trying to get out once a month. That's 48 rounds for 1 term. Assuming some months you can' find the time but you play a couple on a vacation then I think this is reasonable. Especially considering some of them will be with foreign dignitaries etc. at least I would hope. With unemployment above 8 (truly it still is) I just think its a big middle finger to the country. He'll have plenty of time next year and the rest of his life :)

For people I play with or have seen play, it is 1 of 2 things: 1) Ignorance. They have no idea what makes a ball go far from swing path, to face angle, to ball spin etc. They swing and the ball goes where it goes and its usually not straight. 2) Fear/Restraint. Many people who CAN hit the ball far struggle to do so consistently so they pull back and try not to lose a dozen balls a day. I have 2 perfect examples. Friend A swings for the fences. He can crush it but its a terrible swing. When he catches it right it goes 265-280 depending on conditions. He does not know what is happening though. Some days he is on fire. Other days he drop kicks everything and slices the ball out of play. So for him it is ignorance but to his credit he does not care. He just plays to have fun. Friend B is very calculated. He thinks about his swing, reads about technique, watches videos, buys good equipment. He can hit the ball a long way but sometimes its a long way OOB. He knows that a more calculated and calm swing will keep the ball in play more and ultimately improve his scores more than a few long bombs. So for him it is fear/restraint. I try to incorporate both and find a balance. If I am feeling it I will cut it loose. If its wide open I'm going for broke. If I'm struggling or if the hole is tighter or short enough that a solid 250 would work, I pull back. Its all about personality and physical ability. The combination of the two will answer this question I think.

I'm no doctor but assuming you are right handed, you have probably just bruised your metacarpals with the butt of the club. I would suggest obviously not hitting off the mats until you learn to stop hitting fat shots so often and to just take a week off. RICE it. That's all I got.

Bullet list plans seem to be in vogue these days (at least if you've seen a debate or two recently) so I came up with my own. In my last thread ( http://thesandtrap.com/t/62593/talk-me-down-or-give-me-a-push ) I described how a particularly bad round of golf made me re-evaluate my entire game from my swing to my motivation. I got a lot of great comments and from that along with my own self-reflection I have come up with the following 3pt plan to get my game back in shape: 1. Attitude Adjustment - My biggest improvement this year was a better attitude. Let bad shots go, let bad holes go. Get the most out of what is left etc etc. Over the last couple of months I have lost that. I blame stress from a job change but the reason is irrelevant. As soon as I started getting mad and giving up on holes my scores went up. So its time to fix that. Positive attitude, don't get mad and never quit playing until the ball is in the 18th cup. 2. Back to the Basics - I was playing great and then decided that I was so good that I should hit cuts and fades and knock downs and draws just because I could. Well I spent so much time messing with those shots that my normal swing eroded. So its time to get back to the basics. For me that means approach every shot as a slight draw and only make a change if something is physically preventing that (ex: a tree). None of this "well the flag is back right with a bunker protecting it so I really need to come in with a slight fade to avoid danger." No I don't. Just hit to the center of the green or don't worry about the bunker. Keep it simple, stupid. 3. Modify Expectations - Hand in hand with #1. I play about once a week, twice if I'm lucky and I don't get to the range very often other than that. I can't approach each round like it is the most important event of my life. Just play, have fun and take what I get. That doesn't mean I won't try or that I'm not going to keep score, but just let it happen. If its a great round or crappy round, just take what is there and enjoy life. Don't expect a certain score, expect a good time and make that happen. So as you can see this is a plan to get the most out of my time playing golf and not necessarily a plan to improve. I may find that I am only a 10 or 11 handicap instead of the 7 I am at right now. But 10 or 11 is still pretty darn good and if I'm having fun shooting 84 every time out then that is better than grinding miserably for an occasional 77.

I have always been a right to left player (right handed). At first it was uncontrollable but I educated myself on different grips and figured out how to control it. I quickly found out though that I can't expect to hit a draw on every shot. Sometimes the landing area is not setup for it (water left or pin back right) and sometimes the path between ball and target does not allow for it (trees tight down the right). So I started working on hitting a cut. I got pretty good at it but the fatal mistake I made was I focused to much time on it and took for granted my "normal" shot. I got to where I was hitting cuts more than draws because I was trying to force it and because I had lost confidence in the draw. But I couldn't hit the new cut as well as the old draw so my scores started going up. So while I was "working in" the cut my scores were going low. Mostly hitting draws and then pulling out the cut when I needed it. But when I started getting cocky and trying to hit cuts when I really didn't need to things turned sour. Imagine a par 3 with the flag on the right side. I could easily just hit my normal draw and land the ball in the middle of the green and even get a little greedy and try to land it right of center. But I started trying to be Mr. Hot Shot and hit the cut and of course I just wasn't as consistent with it so I started dropping strokes. Bottom line is I went to far to fast. The cuts are necessary to escape trouble or access a green/pin that is otherwise inaccessible but I was trying to use it like I was a tour pro and I just couldn't do it well enough. Too much trying cost me my feel and confidence for my normal swing and then things fell apart a bit. I am now back to nothing but draws except for trouble situations in which I will hit the cut. So shot workability I think is huge if you want to get down into and stay in the single digits. Since I lost it I have been playing more in the low teens although my handicap has not yet fully been impacted. I am hoping that I have caught it in time to limit the damage because I sure like being a single digit player :)

DD, I was reading this again and was curious about the club situation you had. What clubs did you have and what did you move to? About a year ago I went from some muscle-back Mizunos to some TM blades. It was a little tough at first but I love them now and at least I THINK they have helped me get to where I am. However they are blades and rated for 7 and below (I think) so I wonder if I could be just as good with some clubs that were a little more forgiving. I do love working the ball though so that was the main consideration for the blades. Just curious. Thanks

OP Update: Thanks to everyone for the encouraging words. I was worried I'd get a lot of "Stop crying baby" responses but I didn't see any. Stress has been a big key for me lately as I changed jobs recently after a 7 year run at my previous job. If I line up the time lines of when I started interviewing and contemplating the change with my golf stats (I do track everything by the way, I've even made up some stats) then I'm sure it will be synchronized with the down turn in my game. I went to the range yesterday and walked 6 holes. Totally practice and not playing for score (extra practice shot here or there) and I tried to reduce my focus to one thing (my Curly moment): Hit the ball at the target. Fat, Thin, little slice, little draw, whatever, as long as it ends up going in the direction I was aiming (generally). I did that and was really happy with the results. Not always great but rarely awful. I par'd 3 holes, bogied another and had 2 holes that I didn't keep score on because I hit some bad shots and rehit a couple times and didn't really play my first ball out. Finally a quick note on how I keep score: I play 3 holes at a time and try to be 1-2 over on each 3. When I get done with 3 holes I start over. I may just move more to 9 at a time and write things down at the turn and at the clubhouse. I can remember every shot on every hole for about 3 rounds especially if they are on different courses (shots on same course can run together sometimes). The point is I can remember it well enough to not write it down for a while. Anyway, thanks for talking me down :)

And a good thought it is. In fact you made me realize something. I have been playing with strangers/new friends a lot lately and while not playing great I was playing pretty good. The 94 came in a solo walking round. Usually very prime conditions for me (see my other thread on playing fast) but for whatever reason I lost focus and didnt have any distractions to mello me out and I just spun out of control. There may be hope yet for that FedEx Cup!! :)