bjwestner

It's been almost a month and a half since my last update. Weather has already been more of a factor this year than all of last year combined. The last few weekends I've been lucky to be able to play one of the two days as there have been a couple of weekends when I could not play at all due to the weather/snow. I have not been hitting balls during the week either since it's not possible usually as it's dark when I get out of work. I've noticed that when I have gotten to play that there is rust to my game, not a lot but I can tell when I do not hit a golf ball for a week or more. Usually I end up "warming up" if you will after a few holes and then start feeling comfortable again. When I was hitting balls several times a week and playing both weekend days it was much easier than it is now as I've noticed little things that are creeping into my swing that I have to be aware of and fix immediately (i.e. backswing gets flat after not hitting balls for a while). I had intended to work on my fitness this winter as that is one area that I have not done anything to help my game. I did not think that it was that serious though until I went to the doctor a few weeks ago only to find out that I had suffered a heart attack. My blood pressure was high. Heart disease runs rampant in my family and I'm glad I got this when I did. I will turn 34 in March and while I could lose some pounds, I was not obese or anything. Still, my diet was terrible and the only exercise I got was from practicing/playing golf. At 5'11" and 200lbs, I had gained 60 pounds since college but again, was not obese, I figured I was just one of many that could lose 15 or 20lbs but not in any trouble. The good news is that I am on bp medicine and have already improved my diet. I have begun exercising as well. I've dropped almost 10 lbs in the two weeks since I found out that I had suffered a heart attack. I plan to continue the exercise and diet as I want to play golf for a lot longer. I was a victim of the mentality that just because I was not clinically obese and in my early 30's that I had plenty of time to change. I was very wrong. My plan for the next few months is to continue to improve my health through exercise and diet. I'll continue to practice and play when the weather allows me outside. Until then I can still swing with the swing trainer and putt with the Puttist. I'm sure I'll lose weight, how much? I'm not sure but I am hoping that the improvements will help my golf game.

I just purchased one, a 37 degree chipper golf club. I have never used one before but I bought it thinking that it would allow for more consistent shots from around the green, especially in the winter and the rough around the greens having some holes here and there. Previously I would use a wedge and while my short game is getting better, consistency lacks quite a bit on these shots which is why I purchased the chipper. I plan on working more on my short game next year so I'm planning on this being a short time solution until I can consistently hit these shots. I assume that this is a legal club as I have seen other people use them and have not heard anything about them being illegal in general (as long as the meet the standards in the rules of golf). Anyone use one of these and if so did you like it? Did it help at all?

I addressed why I have not taken lessons in the thread I started "a new golfers journey". I started it shortly after first hitting a golf ball/playing golf for the first time in June of 2012. To specifically answer your question: I decided not to get lessons then or now because I believed and still believe that one needs to be able to hit the ball first with the club on a consistent basis. I do not think that lessons will help your coordination and the only thing that I believe will improve this is experience and practice time. Thus I could have gotten lessons but it would not have made a difference if my hand eye coordination was not good enough to put the club on the ball first time after time. I've made a lot of progress but have a long way to go to get to be as consistent with my coordination as I want to be. With that being said, when I get to a point where I am consistent and if I am having issues with something that I cannot fix, I will seek out an insutructor for lessons.

I used to have an epiphany quite frequently at the range and think that I had found something that was the one key and make me improve so much. The next time I'd be at the range and it would be something else that I had to work on. Finally, only just a few months ago I stopped analyzing every little thing and stopped having "breakthroughs". I just focused on hitting the ball and making adjustments based on how the ball flies. Instead of copying what a swing looks like from someone else or from a book, ball flight is what really matters and adjustments to a swing should be made based on ball flight. In other words, you can have the ugliest golf swing but if the ball flies the way you want it to, that is all that really matters. History has proven that there is no one right golf swing and there are no pictures on the scorecard. With that being said I am not saying to not pay attention to the fundamentals of a good golf swing, you should, but you could have mirrored a swing very well but if the ball flight is not what you want then you still have to end up addressing that real problem....

Actually when we usually play (weekend mornings), there is almost always morning dew on the greens and they still are quick and stimp around 11 give or take. With the greens being frozen recently, there has been no moisture at all or less than the usual dew. It seems like almost backwards logic which is why I asked the question because if anything they should be faster? I'm wondering after reading your post if they are slower because they are dry (although the opposite would seem to be true), but maybe the lack of moisture combined with them being frozen some how increases friction on the ball leading to slower speed where as the unfrozen temps and the water somehow decrease ball friction with the ground? Kind of like how the dimples of a ball improve ball flight by reducing friction with the ball, maybe frozen/dry blades of bent grass somehow increases friction?

update: my last post on this was from back on 6/26/13. I know nobody else that has the Puttist and figured that I should follow up on this thread to anyone wondering about it......yes I still have it and I use it all the time. The product works the same way that it did when it was brand new and if anything I use it more now than ever before. I estimate that I use it for at least 5 hours per week. I have changed the settings to allow for slower greens (winter) to practice as it has 3 green speeds. I have noticed that my speed judgement in my putts has gotten much better. I am making more birdies (still not as many as I'd like) and converting a higher percentage of birdie putts. My three putts have decreased. My club has difficult and fast greens that are well maintained and I can say confidently that the Puttist has made a difference and helped my judgement of speed with my putts. It does not take up much room at all and still allows you to practice putts of up to 45 feet in just a small space. It is so much better than having an indoor green which I have but the only thing you can do with that is putt up to the max distance of the green which unless you are super rich, is not going to come close to 45 feet. The only thing you can do with an indoor green is putt back and forth and you have to retrieve the ball usually. I do not use my green at all anymore and only use the puttist. It has several games that you can play like 7up or 7down and distances from 5 feet to 45 feet. I recommend the product. No I am not getting paid or anything, hell, I did not even buy it from Puttist, I bought it from someone selling it new on Ebay for $150. Yes it's expensive but I use it a lot and it allows me to practice putts that I would not be able to practice indoors. Yes it is expensive but I would buy it again if I had to do it over. Also I noticed that there is a difference in balls that you use with the puttist. Obviously there is a feel difference that you will notice with different balls but just like out on a real green, if you are playing a Pinnacle that "rock" goes much further with less control than a softer ball like a Pro V1 for example. I hope that helps anyone that is curious about this product. If you have any questions, please let me know and I will try to answer them for you. I know that when I was considering buying it there was nothing out there on it and I do not know anyone else that has it and many people do not even know about it.

So the last few weeks has brought temperatures below freezing at night, almost every night. This means that many times over the past few weeks the greens have been frozen. Obviously this sucks for ball striking but that is understood. What really shocked my friends and I was the dramatic change in green speed and not the way that we expected. The greens at my club are very nice and well maintained bent grass. There is just a small amount of zoiysa but you do not notice it at all if you play in the mornings (it only shows up in late afternoon). The greens usually stimp at 11 or so. We always play in the mornings on the weekend and even with morning dew on the greens, the speed is fast but consistent. We expected that the frozen greens would increase the speed as the ground/grass was harder and also has no dew on them when they are frozen by the time we are allowed to play (after frost delay). Strangely the speed of the greens decreased quite a bit while frozen. This was not due to wind. My friends and I cannot figure this out as we remember last year where the green speed increased if they were frozen/almost frozen, not a decrease in speed. The decrease in speed seems to be on all holes and all kinds of putts (up and downhill). It is a significant distance and since we play there all the time it takes adjusting too. I know the easy answer is just to adjust to it and we will have to do that but I was just curious if anyone out there can answer why did the speed decrease when we thought and experienced an increase in speed last year under similar conditions? The greens are the same and no other outside factors have changed from last years comparison. The greens are maintained the same and cut the same as far as we can tell. Thanks.

For what it is worth, I have calculated that I have spent approximately 1200 to 1300 hours playing and practicing golf since June 2, 2012. I've played around 170 rounds during that time with the rest of the time spent practicing (range or home including putting in my basement). It would be great if everyone knew exactly how many hours they had put in to playing and practicing because you could then divide that how long someone has been golfing to get a numerical value of one's talent or natural ability at golf. Of course that is not a perfect measure since handicaps fluctuate and while there is usually some kind of correlation between years played and skill level, it's not the only correlate. Between reading the responses from those that have been kind enough to share their stats and from the information that I have been seeing/reading/watching over the last several months, it can be reasonably expected that: - there is a very strong correlation between GIR and score, but only to a certain level/handicap. It appears that somewhere around the high single digits is the time where the number of GIR per round mean less and less. I believe that this is because at this point the quality of one's short game has a much greater impact and can save pars by getting up and down. Thus the real key is being on the green in regulation or being around the green in regulation. I wish I had tracked how many greens I was on and or around because I know that it was the main reason that I was able to go from 15.5 to 8.5 in one golf season. I could see my GIR improvement but it was also about being around the green in regulation which allowed me to sometimes save par. - there is an even stronger correlation between number of holes per round at par or better and one's handicap compared to any other stat I've seen. There seems to be very little variance at all with this stat because a high number in this statistic almost certainly means at least average if not better than numbers is other key categories. With all the issues surrounding handicapping and how some people try to artificially increase or decrease them, I'm thinking that number or percentage of holes at par or better per round is an even better way to evaluate one's golfing skill. Think about it, if this was used instead of or in conjunction with handicap, then sandbaggers could not get away with it because this would take away using one or a few holes to artificially raise a handicap. Also, it really is all about getting to par, right? - I've found that the formula out there of 95 - (2 x GIR) = your score, works better the higher one's handicap is. As the handicap decreases, so does how well this formula works. - the putts per round statistic becomes less and less accurate as a value showing your actual skill at putting as the handicap decreases. There seems to be a level like GIR where at some point putts per GIR seem more important than overall putts per round (this is just the way that it seems to me as putts per round for a 20 handicapper may be fine but for a 7 handicap there is much more to the story possibly than putts per round and it seems a better stat for the 7 handicapper would be putts per GIR from which is arguable more important to the 7hc versus the 20hc) and finally, for those that have mentioned that they should have/want to keep stats.....I suggest a site like www.fairwayfiles.com as it's free and will allow you to keep your main stats over time. I still have my account that I got before I had an official handicap. I've found that the site for my official hc through the Maryland Golf Association is not as good at keeping stats which is why I use both.

Yesterday I broke 80 for the 5th time. As of yesterday, it had been 17 months and 15 days since I first hit a golf ball. Lots of great posts from people that have figured out how to break 80 and shoot in the 70's in a way that works for them. I have not had any lessons and instead learned as much as I could from online, books, and tv. Everyone is different.....the most important advice that I could give to anyone is that you are going to get the most bang for your buck as far as improving your golf scores by being able to put the club on the ball first consistently. Most would respond to this with "no sh*t sherlock", but it worked for me because I thought of things this way.....when I first started and many were telling me to get lessons I realized that whether I got lessons or not, I knew that my coordination was not good enough to be able to strike the club on the ball first and that the only way to improve my consistency was to practice and play as much as possible. Someone mentioned about those people out there with awful ugly swings but they shoot great golf scores, I'm betting that the reason they score the way that they do is because they hit the ball first. You will hear people tell you to work on this or that first but putting the club on the ball first encompasses all of that (except bunker shots and other specialty shots). Once you get to a point where you are comfortable with your consistency then you can tweak this or that or get lessons or etc......All summer I worked on ball striking with my irons to improve my GIR. My consistency has gotten better and thus I was able to break 80 five times. Do I still hit a fat shot every now and then? Absolutely. But my misses are not catostrophic and thus this has been the way that I was able to shoot in the 70's. My way is not THE right way. There are lots of right ways to shoot in the 70's. It's about finding the way that works for you. No pictures on the scorecard so as long as you shoot your goal legally, that's all that matters right? Good luck!

have not read the whole thread so I'm not sure if this has been suggested or not? I am a big fan of the Puttist. Expensive? yes. But it has improved my putting quite a bit and it does not take up much space and can be used almost anywhere indoors.

So the season officially ended on 11/15. Thus any scores that I post from Maryland will not count for my hc. Virginia is open all season long though and I'm sure I'll play a course or two during the winter down there so it will count towards my hc. I ended the season at 8.5. The weather was unusually nice this past Sat and Sun and I took full advantage, too bad neither round will count towards my hc since I played at my club....on Sat I shot 40/40 for an 80 with just 33 putts. On Sun I broke 80 for the 5th time this year by shooting a 79 (38/41) with 34 putts. It was one of the best ball striking days I have had as I had just 45 strokes other than putts. I played with a friend of mine on Sat and Sun and I have not played with him in a few months. He noticed that my putting had improved, especially the speed. I figured that I was slowly but surely getting better but had not paid that much attention to it. I am 3 putting much less though and it's clear that my work with the Puttist is helping. I bought that machine several months ago and use it for several hours each week. It's selling point is that it will help improve your speed on putts and apparently that is working for me. My short game needs lots of work. While I played what may have been the best weekend of golf of the year for me, or close to it, there was so much room to improve. If I could have gotten up and down a few more times instead of getting up and then 2 putting because I could not get my chip/pitch close enough to the pin, I could have lost a few more strokes per round. I just have not really put time into the short game though. It's hard to work on everything at once and that just was not my focus this past year. I needed to be on or around the green in regulation to score and save pars which is why I had ball striking as my number one priority. It's clear now though that short game has to be next.... Tied into short game work is shots under 100 yds. I have so many opportunities to score from 100 yd and in only to not get it close enough and come away with pars instead of birdies. So while my main area of focus for 2013 was ball striking, I think for 2014 it is going to be short game and 100yds and in. Anyways, I'm a bit surprised at how well I played this past weekend considering that I have not hit balls during the week for the past few weeks. Only playing on the weekends. Work has been busy and now with DST taking effect, it's not as easy to hit balls after work when it's dark out. I'm still using a weighted swing aid that I swing about 50-100 times per night so maybe that is helping? Nothing is as good as being able to strike the ball with a club instead of swinging a weighted half club into the air

1) current hc: 8.5 2) < 1.5 years 3) 7.6 GIR 4) 9.9 FIR 5) ~32 putts per round 6) 8.442 par or better per round (46.9%) 7) ~100

I noticed that several people have asked questions like how long till I can shoot x? and obviously there is no way to answer something like that, but I've seen questions such as how many GIR for a x handicap player on average? I've been curious myself of this and figured I'd start a thread where people that keep stats can share their current handicap and their main stats. If everyone who keeps their stats contributes then people can see the ranges for various skill levels/handicaps. The stats will be: 1) current handicap (actual usga hc or unofficial hc you keep yourself) 2) how long you have been playing golf 3) average GIR per round 4) average FIR per round 5) average putts per round (actual putts from the green only, same way the PGA tour counts putts) 6) average number of holes par and better per round 7) number of rounds you played in the last 12 months Hopefully this will help answer these kinds of questions and be able to see where others are at and areas to work on.

Sorry I have not posted in almost two weeks, been busy at work. Weather is getting cold fast and the golf season officially ends (for handicap purposes) on November 15 for me as a member of the MGA (Maryland Golf Association). Thus any rounds I play in Maryland between 11/15 and 3/15/14 will not affect my handicap. I will probably get to play in Virigina and other places with an open season, but for all intensive purposes, my hc is very close to what it will be come the 15th. My main goal for the 2013 golf season was to get to a single digit hc and I was able to accomplish that goal. When I told everyone in March what my goal was most people said no way and even I wondered if I bit off too much to chew. Ultimately it was not that difficult, it was not easy either, but it just took practice and playing consistently and I made my goal with a few months to spare. The fact that I accomplished my goal while frequently changing equipment makes me proud. I have finally settled on a putter and the same one has been in the bag for months. Too bad it only took almost 30 different putters before I settled down. The Rocketbladez irons were put in the bag less than two months ago but they have been solid so far and have stiff shafts. If during the winter the cold temps reduce the flex too much, I still can play my TM R11 irons that have regular flex if need be. I have a feeling that this winter is going to be much different than last winter though. First of all, I highly doubt that "we" (as in the public in general) will be fortunate enough to have virtually no accumulating snow all winter like last winter. That allowed me to play just about every weekend. Even a normal winter will mean that there may be spans of two weeks or more where I cannot hit balls or play a round outside. Aside from that though, last year I was completely obsessed and concentrating on getting better. I really didn't get any better during last winter though. I did not realize it at the time but improving scoring and stats should not be expected during the winter where I live and play. The winter is to get better in ways that will reveal themselves through numbers in the spring at the earliest. Thus I will have a whole different mindset this winter and will be much more stable and not change equipment so much or over analyze things too much. From time to time I read what I wrote a year or more ago and it makes me laugh; some of the questions I asked and some of the things I thought back then. I tried and tried but no matter how much I tried different equipment or tried this or that, there was no magic thing that would transform the me of last winter to where I am now. I wish I was more calm and utilized my practice time last winter better than I had. Clearly the only thing that would allow me to improve to my current level were things that one could not buy or use; time and practice. It just took time and lots of practice and rounds for me to be able to make the contact that I am making now consistently. I still have a long way to go too as this is closer to the beginning than the end as far as where I'd like to be with my ball striking. When I get to a level that I am happy with, I will then probably look for a coach/teacher but only after my coordination has gotten to the point where I want. As many times that I have been to the range and hit balls, there are certain shots that are hard to impossible to practice and can only be done during a round. It's those shots that I need to improve still. Things have gotten much better but the consistency is just not there. I went to Golf Tec last year for my $200 golf video and they sold hard on lessons. I could not figure out how they could help me though as their studios and practice areas had flat lies. I am pretty happy with how I hit a ball from a flat lie though. Even if they or someone else coached me on uneven lies I looked at it as something that I need to improve my hand/eye coordination to a certain level first. If my coordination is not good enough to put the club on the back of the ball every time, that's not going to change coach or no coach until I improve that through practice - the coach could not hit for me. So depending on how things go I may start the process to look for someone that I think can improve the areas of my game that I cannot improve upon myself. It's been about ~175 rounds of golf since I started. Maybe a little less, but in that neighborhood. If I use 3.5 hours as an average, I've played about 620 hours of golf (time in an actual round). It's been 17 months and 4 days since I started so I'm guessing that if I practiced 30 hours per month, not including rounds, then I've practiced golf for an additional 510 hours (give or take a bit). So figure that total time in I have done about 1150 hours. There is that really general rule of thumb out there that says it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in a given field. I'm not sure if t hat rule is accurate or even if I believe it or not but if it was true then I would be only 10% there. I'm not sure what any of this means other than for those out there that ask questions such as "how much time or how many rounds until I can do this or do that", the answer is even those out there like myself, who apparently have some natural ability at golf within them, A LOT, as in hundreds or thousands of hours. I wonder if I got a good deal or not? I was in single digits a few months ago so some of the hours need to subtracted for when I actually first accomplished my goal, but I think it's fair to say that it took almost 14 months and roughly 900-1000 hours to go from never played golf to single digit handicap. One thing I am certain of is that while it only took one golf season to go from 15.5 to 8.4 handicap, it's almost certainly going to take longer IF/when I cut the next 7 strokes off my hc.....

Also, in response to the question of if I have had any rounds with under 30 putts? Yes, I have had a few rounds of 29 putts which included counting all of my putts the way I usually do. Thus the true number of putts in those rounds would have been ~26 putts. I'd say on average at least 2 putts per round are added to my total putts where I putted from just off the green. I use my putter whenever I can do so as like many others out there, it's better to do that and am likely to get closer than trying to pull off a difficult chip/flop/etc.

Thank you. I count my putts by a different way than putts are counted usually. Any stroke where I use the putter, I count as a putt. As a result, I end up usually with at least 2 or 3, sometimes more, putts per round where I putted from just off the green. Those would not be considered putts if on any of the golf tour's statistics. Thus my true putts per round using the same formula that most people use has my average being right around 32 putts per round. The reason that I chose to do this differently is because I wanted to know how well I am striking the ball and if I counted putts by only the strokes used with my putter actually on the green, then those other strokes that I used my putter for could potentially skew my ball striking numbers and give me different data. For me I just cannot justify putting from just off the green, like on the fringe, and although it was a putt that I used my putter for, it does not count as a putt. I believe that you are correct in that I need to work on my short game. I avoided this because I wanted to improve my ball striking first and foremost because I knew that I would get more bang for the buck so-to-speak by improving that first. I don't believe though that my lack of birdies is because of my short game though. If I were able to scramble and get up and down at a higher percentage (which I would like and would help my game in general), that would not be for birdies but would be to save par more often than not. Don't get me wrong, I want that to happen and will work on the short game, but I do not think that it has anything to do with my perceived or actual lack of birdies for my handicap. After giving this much thought, I think that I have over-acheived to a point where it's going to take some time for things to catch up. Here is what I mean: I came into the 2013 season at a 15.5 handicap and only been playing golf for several months. I wanted to get better and the best thing that I could improve and the area that needed the highest priority was my ball striking as I was averaging about 3 or so GIR per round while a 15.5 handicap. Thus I worked very hard all 2013 season on ball striking and the improvements were tremendous. I went from averaging 3+ GIR per round to now over the last 20 rounds getting 8 GIR per round. While this has improved and it is a good thing that I am hitting more GIR, I am willing to be that my proximity to the hole could be much better but I was just worried about getting on the green, not paying attention to the fact that all GIR are not equal. So while I am hitting lots of GIR, my proximity to the hole is further away due to the short period of time that I went from 15.5 hc to the low 8's in just a few months. Thus while I am not making as many birdies as I believe I should, my pars per round have sky rocketed which is a direct result of me getting on the green in regulation, even though they are not good chances for birdies. My par or better percentage has gone from around 30% per round to more than 45% round now over the last 20 rounds. Thus I have basically doubled my par or better percentage since the start of the 2013 season and while this is good, it has me taking less risks because I just want to get on the GIR instead of trying to be specifically more accurate and being aggressive when it's a green light to go at a pin.

It was nice to be able to play golf this past weekend without pooring rain. The weekend before this past weekend was terrible as I was just able to play one round on Sat and only 9 holes on Sunday because it was raining so hard. Miserable conditions. So this past weekend was better but you could tell that time is running out. It's really getting cold. Sunday was even colder than Saturday and the temp at my 7:39am tee time at my club was just 42 degrees on Sunday, down from 47 on Saturday. It warmed up a bit during the round but never made it to 60 either day while we were playing. I kept telling myself to enjoy this as much as possible as I know that in several weeks I would give anything to play in temps in the mid 40's. I came into this past weekend with my hc being 8.4 officially. After playing one round Saturday and one round Sunday morning, both at my club, my hc is trending the same at 8.4L. Both days I played okay, not great and not terrible either. I shot an 81 on both days. Saturday I had a few more GIR than on Sunday (10 to 7) and FIR were the same both days (9). I drove the ball very well both days and I putted okay too. I had 34 putts both days and 47 strokes other than putts for both days too. Unfortunately I did not get a birdie all weekend and it has now been more than 2 weeks since my last birdie. I did have 9 pars both days and 9 bogeys both days and have done a much better job of increasing the number of holes I par per round lately, but for some reason I am not making birdies. I know that they come and go but I have for a while suspected that I am making less birdies than the average golfer of similar skill level. It's not that my putting is bad, it's always been average if not better. My golfing buddies actually pointed this out several weeks ago, they thought that I should be making more birdies than I am considering my handicap of low to mid 8. For most of the season I was averaging about 1 birdie every other round. I thought that this was low but it has dried up even more recently as in the last 20 rounds I have just 5 birdies. This seems very low considering my scores and other statistics. Over those same last 20 rounds I am averaging 8.4 GIR and ~9 FIR. I am also averaging 34 putts per round over the last 20 rounds. I guess the necessary data to really figure this out lies in additional statistics like my proximity to the hole and stuff like that. Unfortunately I do not track that and don't really have the capacity to either.

The advice that I was referring to was simple little things, not a wholesale swing change. For example, when in the rough he has a hard time getting out because he tries to help the ball up instead of focusing on hitting down on it and letting the loft of the club do the rest of the work. Last year at this time we were very close in abilities and handicaps. As I have improved throughout the year and as he has regressed, this has probably not helped things either. If this was it though and it was only a difference in ability/handicaps, that would not be an issue though. The biggest issue that I had was that his actions were affecting my play and a talk was going to have to happen soon about his behavior first and foremost. Giving advice/help to his game is secondary and likely would not matter much since he never ever hits balls during the week. The only practice is hitting only a dozen or so balls before a round, that's it. That's another reason that any advice would be very limited to things that can be done right then and there. We've tried before to give advice but it seems to make things worse due to the anger. The whole reason I started this was because that would have been a difficult discussion that I would have had to have which is basically saying: "because your game sucks so much and because you cannot control your emotions, it is affecting my game and if this continues we cannot play anymore". It sounds terrible, pompous, arrogant, and selfish too. Now that he's leaving I will likely not have to have that talk but that's not necessarily good either. The best result would be for him to stay but for his game to improve so his behavior/emotions improve and no longer has an impact on others. Anything less than that is not the best possible result and thus I cannot help but feel bad about this. I'm also deep down probably worried that I am coming off as a jerk which I do not want. I should not care but in today's age, it subconciously affects just about everyone. So the underlying issue is in theory controllable as if behavior/attitude improves on his part, there is no issue. I know that this is a lot to ask though as I can see just how frustrated my friend is and understand that a change will not happen unless there is an improvement in his game....

Most, not everyone will hopefully be able to identify with this.....most regular golfing groups of buddies have "that" guy. Maybe you have been that guy at one point or another. I know I was for a while. That guy or that friend is the one in the group that you know could play so much better if they would just do this one or these few things. You've tried talking to him/her and letting them know that they would be so much better if they just changed this, or that. It's difficult because unless you are actually a golf instructor, you don't want to sound like that to your friend. Besides, what gives you the right to tell someone what they should or shouldn't do in their swing. But after seeing the same swing thousands of times now and witnessing the same results, you know that you are right, that if xxxx would just try this one simple thing that it would make such a big difference. It can be a fine line on what to say or what not to say. This person is your friend and you don't like seeing them in a slump and not playing the quality of golf that they are capable of. At the same time though, the slump is deep and this has been festering for a while. You can sense the anger coming from your friend and decide not to say anything. At first it was just a few bad holes which turned into a few bad rounds. At this point the excuses are coming out all the time. You laugh under your breath at them because you know the truth. Those bad rounds compound and all of a sudden, the slump that your friend is in is slowly starting to have an impact on your game. You find that you are being impacted because it is taking so long for your friend to find his ball in the woods, hole after hole. You think about saying something, afterall, you know that if they just did a few things different then everyone would be happy as your friend would be playing better and it would not have an impact on your game. Things get worse and after a while the tantrums become too frequent. You find that your own game is becoming more and more impacted. Do you say something finally? It's not that easy though, maybe your wives are best friends or your kids are friends. If you say something and it does not go as well as it should, there could be serious collateral damage. Is that worth it? You start to think that it's yourself that is being selfish and you don't say anything. The whole time it gets worse and worse. I could go on from here but I think everyone sees the point or knows someone like this to varying degrees. It's a shame but I am kind of going through the same thing with a friend in my group. I was for the longest time putting off and dreading saying something to my friend and was going to last week. Before I could say anything though, my friend who has been in this terrible slump for so long made it easy by leaving the club. I don't want him to leave but it may be for the best for now anyway. It's hard to tell someone that does not hit any balls during the week that they cannot expect to improve much from just playing 2 rounds on the weekend and hitting balls before a round for 5 minutes. I feel bad in a way, because compounding the issue of his slump is the fact that I hit balls 2 to 3 times a week and have been fortunate to improve a lot just this year alone. Nothing has been said but I wonder if my progress makes my friend feel worse that he is regressing? I hope that's not the case but I cannot help but wonder. I'm not sure what else I can do. I've tried to be helpful but no matter who says something or provides a tip, nothing ever changes. I guess I'm fortunate though because I have no kids and no wife. I could not imagine what it would be like if that was a factor, or even if there were work relationships involved. Then it made me think....I went through my own on the course issues last winter and into the early spring where I felt I was not improving. Was I that guy? Were my friends ever embarassed by my behavior on the course?

just keep playing....it will come as long as you continue to improve. If anyone knows about this it's me as I made it my goal in 2013 to get to single digits. I started the season in March with a 15.5 handicap. I am now at 8.3L. At first it was slow improvement which was frustrating. I felt like I was a lot better than my handicap and that it was not fair that I could shoot low scores but my hc would not drop as much as I felt it should: after all, a handicap is partly what you are capable of shooting. If that's the case and I had shot a sub 10 index, then why was my handicap not close to below 10? This made me very angry for a while. Patience was/is a virtue that I struggle with and everyone that told me it would come in time was right. blowup holes are blowup holes. The only way to not have them is not to blow up. Sounds stupid but it makes sense.....just keep playing and improving and things will take care of themselves. I would have saved myself hours/days of worry/contemplation had I listened to others that were right instead of trying to think my way out of various issues like stopping blow up holes. There was no magical advice that anyone on here gave me that changed anything right away. The only thing that worked was improving my game to a point where the errors I used to make stopped happening. Best of luck to you.

I'm hoping that this was not the last weekend of the year with really nice and warm temps, but it's possible that it may have been. I played Sat/Sun both at my course and teed off before 730am both days but it was still warm/humid with temps eventually getting to 90 both days. Saturday was an okay day, nothing exceptional but I could see here and there where I continue to improve. I had 9 pars and 9 bogeys to shoot 9 over 81. I avoided the big number and I was not as sharp as I could but played okay golf. Still getting used to the new irons a bit so occassionally there was an error in picking the wrong club. Other than that it went pretty average. Sunday was probably tied for the best if not the best ball striking day I ever had. I broke 80 for the 4th time by shooting a 79. I did not putt well as I had 36 putts. Ball striking was as good as it has ever been and I hit 11 GIR. I have also noticed that I have been driving the ball very well lately too and this was evidence on Sunday as I hit 10 FIR. I had 8 bogeys but made a birdie and 9 pars for a 7 over 79. I had 3 other birdie putts literally lip out so I was very close yesterday to it being the best golf I have ever played. As I mentioned in a prior post, I know that I have a 76 or 77 in me and I am hoping that I can display it before the end of the golf season. There is just a little more than a month left in the Maryland golf season so it would be nice to set a new personal best. If it does not happen, I'm not going to complain. I am getting used to the new irons and seeing my ball striking continue to improve. While seeing that though I am noticing the deficiencies that I need to fix in my short game. It's not that my short game is getting worse, it's not. It's just that I am noticing it more because I am improving and looking for other areas of my game that I can improve upon. After the weekend my handicap is 8.3L down from 8.4 officially. The time has come for me to really start thinking about going to the next set of tees. My Uncle thought that I should have moved up a month or more ago but I did not want to bite off too much, too fast. The current tees that I play from at my club (white tees), is a 70.6 rating and 127 slope. It's just under 6300 yards. The next tees are the blue tees but they have an option for a blue/white blend. The blues by themselves are almost 6900 and the blended is somewhere in between. I may try to move up before the end of the season but the issue is that nobody that I play with plays those tees. Everyone plays the whites. I do not want to be a distraction by playing a different set as I've read that you should try to play what everyone else is playing. I also think that I should be making more birdies than I am. I am averaging 1 birdie every two rounds. I think it should be closer to almost 1 per round considering my handicap?

I ended up playing twice last weekend. Both rounds were at my country club, Sat and Sun morning. Since I play very early (7:15am tee times), it has been getting colder! I had to use a pullover to start both rounds but fortunately the weather got nicer as the sun came up and both days were great weather wise. Have to enjoy it now because I know that soon the days of having frost delays will be back and rock hard greens will be the norm :( I did not end up scoring that well either day but I played okay. After all, it was just the second and third times that I had played a round with the new irons in the bag. I shot an 82 on Saturday and an 81 on Sunday. The course is in great shape the greens are very fast. My club is known for having excellent greens that are very fast. They were aerated several weeks ago and are now fully healed and consistent. When I first joined the club I struggled so much on the greens and thought that they were too fast. After a while I realized why the pro's and good golfers like fast greens, because they are pure and consistent and after getting used to the greens, I have learned to prefer fast and true greens versus slow and bumpy. Once again on Saturday and Sunday I continued my trend of playing the first 6 holes brilliantly. I am not sure why but believe it's because I am just starting the round and have much more focus. On Saturday and Sunday I went out for the front nine in 40 both days (4 over par). Saturday I came back in 42 for a 10 over par 82. I had 8 GIR and 7 FIR and 35 putts. Sunday I came back in 41 for a 9 over par 81. I hit 9 GIR and 8 FIR and putted better, with just 33 putts for the round. My handicap actually went up though. I came into the weekend with an official 8.2 handicap and after the weekend I was up to 8.4. The revision happened on Sunday. Although my handicap went up I am not upset. It's a minor uptick. I played pretty well both days and also have to consider that I am playing with new irons. On either day had I gotten a bounce here and a putt dropped there, I very easily could have been below 80. In fact on Sunday I came to the par 5 18th hole at 76. I had a tough 8 foot downhill putt for birdie that could have given me an 80 for the day, but I missed it and tapped in for par and an 81. So all summer I have been working on improving my ball striking. As I have mentioned in prior posts, I clearly have improved my ball striking as among other indicators, my GIR has been increasing quite a bit throughout the summer. Another stat that I noticed which has been increasing quite a bit lately and is partly due to my improvement in ball striking is my par or better percentage. Over the last 20 rounds I've hit 43.6% GIR (7.8 GIR), and my par or better percentage has improved to 46.4%! Almost 50% of the holes I am getting par or better. I still think that I am not getting as many birdies as I should as I have just 8 birdies over my last 20 rounds, but I am impressed that I am getting par or better almost 50% of the time. Year to date my par or better percentage is at just 33% which tells me that I have increased this stat by quite a bit. The new irons are great. I'm still getting used to them so on occasion I will select the wrong club but that will get better in time. I have still been going to the range 2 or 3 times during the week and I am very pleased that I finally found my set of irons. Getting fit for them was the right move. I'm hoping that I can make a breakout soon where everything comes together and I have a career best round. It would be a nice way to cap off an incredible golf season. I estimate that I am capable of shooting a 75 or 76 at my club. I have already shot 3 79's this year and I am still improving......

I got the Puttist several months ago, it's not a true putting green but I use it quite a bit and I am pretty satisfied with my putting numbers. The great thing about it is that you can hit up to 45 foot putts on it without having 45 feet of space/putting green!

I pulled these numbers for a friend that wanted them so I figured that I would share them here since I already have them.....a friend was asking me about my improvement over the last few months. He is also a member of the same country club. I track all of my stats and in addition keep a spread sheet that tracks individual hole by hole play at the country club. From June 13 through present I have played 32 rounds at my country club. I was able to decrease my score from then to now on every hole (even though I have a couple of holes that give me problems). In that time, from 6/13 to present, I went from 12.7 trending hc to 8.3 trending hc. 1st hole: decreased avg score .23, 18 pars since 6/13 (in 32 rounds), 1 birdies since 6/13 2nd hole: decreased avg score by .18, 12 pars, 3 birdies 3rd hole: decreased by .10, 15 pars, 2 birdies 4th hole: decreased by .13, 16 pars, 1 birdie 5th hole: decreased by .17, 6 pars, 0 birdies 6th hole: decreased by .12, 14 pars, 0 birdies 7th hole: decreased by .12, 9 pars, 1 birdie 8th hole: decreased by .07, 11 pars, 0 birdies 9th hole: decreased by .04, 11 pars, 0 birdies 10th hole: decreased by .15, 8 par, 0 birdies 11th hole: decreased by .08, 15 pars, 0 birdies 12th hole: decreased by .14, 15 pars, 2 birdies 13th hole: decreased by .09, 20 pars, 1 birdie 14th hole: decreased by .05, 10 pars, 2 birdies 15th hole: decreased by .10, 4 pars, 0 birdies 16th hole: decreased by .13, 14 pars, 1 birdie 17th hole: decreased by .11, 9 pars, 0 birdies 18th hole: decreased by .08, 12 pars, 0 birdies Overall since 6/13, in 32 rounds of golf, I have been able to decrease 2.09 strokes. I've played 90 rounds in my life at my country club so I'm sure that some of the decrease is from me knowing the course better and having a "home course advantage", but most of it is from an improvement in ballstriking. For the last 20 rounds at my club I am averaging 42.2% of GIR or 7.6 per round. It all comes down to being able to make par more often....over those last 20 rounds at my club I am getting par or better 45% of the time. That's almost half! I have not worked much at all on putting or short game YET, at some point I know that I will need to. My putting stats and scrambling/up & down numbers are just a little better than they were before so the difference is clearly the ballstriking which was/and is my main area that I wanted to improve.

Since I was not happy with the shafts in the Bridgestone J40 cavity back irons and the R11 irons that I have needed stronger shafts, I decided to go and get fitted. The first time I have ever been fitted for irons. Went to GG. I traded in the Bridgestones but am keeping the R11's as a backup iron set. After being fitted and trying various irons, I settled on the Rocketbladez. It was a close call between the Regular and Stiff but I went with the stiff. With the weather getting colder I am a bit worried that stiff may be too much but I still have the R11's with regular flex as a backup set. I was only able to play once this past weekend as I could not play on Saturday. I played Sunday and had the new set of irons in the bag. The distance gains that I am getting on the 4 through 7 irons is incredible. Granted the lofts are just barely stronger than the R11's, but that speed slot or whatever is incredible. I did not get the irons because of distance though, I wanted a better shot shape with shafts that better fit my swing speed, that was my first concern. The distance gains are just gravy. I missed a few approach shots in the round on Sunday as I am still getting used to the irons but overall they performed well. I hit 8 GIR. I had 10 FIR. I did not putt well and ended up shooting 10 over 82 (went out in 42 and came back in 40). A few shots made my jaw drop......the 15th hole which is statiscally the toughest on the course for me is a long, uneven par 4 that plays longer than the listed 415. I have only been on or around this green in regulation just a few times. After a nice drive I still had 200+ out (you hit your drive into a hill so the distance off the tee looks worse than it is). I smoked a 4 iron that went off the back of the green. I must have hit this 4 iron from an uneven lie 220 yards. I could not believe that I actually went over this green. So there were a few shots like that which showed me what is possible now that I have a set of irons that I was fitted for and not something that I ordered online before hitting them. The result after the weekend was that my handicap is trending to 8.3L, up from the official 8.2. I am not concerned though because I think that I am getting close to a point where my handicap matches my game. For the longest time my hc continued to drop and drop because it had to catch up to my improvement. I do not think that I am done improving, I just think that the improvements in my hc will be a bit here and a bit there instead of dropping a whole stroke or more in just a few weeks. This is the prime time though, it's now fall and I have to take advantage of these next few weeks as the season has less than two months in it (in Maryland hc season ends on November 15). My course is in excellent condition and I'd like to make one last push to cap off an incredible season where I started with a 15.5 handicap and have almost cut that in half in just one summer.