Audaxi

If you have trouble consistently hitting a small fade, have you tried a draw? If you just swing naturally at the ball, which way does the ball want to curve when you don't try to curve it at all, and just let it happen?

So are you from a galaxy far, far away, and long time ago? I never knew the sith had personal golf facilities. I guess George Lucas must have skipped over that part in movies.

I would go with the Project X 5.5 probably. You seem that you definitely shouldn't get a regular (~5 rating) shaft, but the KBS Stiff (a 6.1 rating) is probably too stiff. The Project X is a nice medium. I recently did their shaft fitting as well, and found through personal testing that with my tempo of 5 and SS of 88ish with a 6 (you're swinging a 7, which will actually be slightly slower). The KBS fits me perfect, with the 5.5 a tad bit soft and spinny for me, which makes me think it would be a good starting place when you test out clubs. But either way, go out and test the different shafts if you can before buying to see which gives you the tightest dispersion.

I agree that listening to music before, or occasionally during, a round will help more than a metronome. I would recommend that you find a song or group that feels like you want your swing to feel, and then think of that song during your swing. I personally like the songs Hotel California and Desperado to be stuck in my head to slow my swing down.

You could also just try to set goals for specific areas of your game. Currently, GIR is a weakness of mine and that's what I am working to improve. What dropped me from a 14 to my current handicap was living for the short game to try to make up for hitting fewer greens (being less consistent then), but now I need to make more birdies to lower my handicap further. Just focus on one area of your game that is hard for you and try to improve it, rather than looking at your score as a whole.

I had the problem with my shots all ballooning when I used the S300. Couldn't hit a punch shot to save my life, and spin was off the charts. Maybe you should try a stiffer/different shaft?

I tried to switch from a draw to a fade. I ended up toeing the ball a lot to achieve this, and it got to the point where I was shanking it off the toe. Just relax and hit your fade. Contrary to popular belief, pros will hit the same shape of shot, the one they're comfortable with, most of the time when it can be used effectively to get the ball where it needs to go. Just groove a single shot shape that works for you, which appears to be a fade by looking at your post. No shame in fades, and not much of a loss of distance (Bubba Watson prefers a fade).

I play it similar to a bunker shot myself. One of the courses I play at has a grass "bunker" in front of a green with 4" grass, so I've played this kind of shot many of times.

I recently had a few endeavors in the world of fitting shafts. The first involved irons. I was out and about looking at new sets of irons to possibly replace my current eye 2's, and found monstrous differences in consistency between shafts. The DG S300 had terrible consistency, and I lost an average of 10 yards from my current set. However, the KBS Tour Stiff and Project X 5.5/6.0 worked great for me, tightening my dispersion to a ~20 yard circle (including mishits) with a 6 iron. Without mishits, this was further narrowed to between 10 and 15 yards. My second experience came with my 3-wood. It previously had a stock Ping TFC regular shaft in it. I knew this was too soft, as I am between a stiff and a regular Pro Launch Red, and Ping stock shafts are generally play 1 softer than they specify. I avoided my 3 wood at all costs, taking baby swings if I needed to hit it, and just using my 18* hybrid instead most of the time. Now that I have had it reshafted, I can finally hit it with confidence without duck-hooking it into the weeds or feeling like I'm about to slice it to hit a straight shot. This just goes to show that you need to AT LEAST get fitted for the correct stiffness, and you should definitely go out and try out different shafts to see what works best for you and your swing to get the most out of your game.

This is good advice. It's essentially double softstepping your clubs, which gives about the same result as hardstepping a softer flex. Just keep in mind that this may make your irons a tad bit long.

For a 7 iron, hard stepping it would mean taking an 8 iron staft and putting it into your 7 iron, as an example. Take the club you want to hardstep, add 1, then buy that numbered shaft for it to get the desired results.

I spent about $40 each week on greens fees, with them being at $10 per 18 (on a fairly nice course too ) and I don't spend money on the range, seeing's how I have a long 32 acres of grassy pasture to use as my own range with a psudo-green created by a small bowl of dirt from irrigation erosion. The pasture goes long enough that I can practice with up to a 6 iron, but after that I stop due to the fact that it's only about 20 yards wide, and I can get a little inconsistent when grooving a swing.

I don't watch the slo-mo bits on TV, I use youtube for that. I mostly use TV golf to try and get a better idea of what works and what doesn't, as well as watching their course management.

Funny how this guy now has a Callaway Diablo Driver with stock shaft, after stating that he doesn't want you to look at brand or anything but performance and saying to get fit for everything custom. I personally think consistency is key for a driver, but you also need to get one that you have confidence in, and it should fit you and your swing. I'm not saying go spend $200 or something on a full day, try everything, fitting session, but you should at least know whether you need your club to be long or short, upright or flat. Keep in mind, though, that most drivers come at 45', while the tour average for driver length is around 42-43'.

I would recommend trying out the Tour-S Rustique Ping wedges. I have them and love the feel, it's made of a softer metal than usual. They also get nice spin, so long as you keep them clean. Whenever I let my grooves get dirty I'll have the problem of my ball staying in its mark on soft greens, which IMO affects the way your ball starts rolling even after you repair it.

It makes sense when you think about it from the standpoint of momentum. A heavier object, traveling at the same speed as a lighter object, will have more energy to impart upon the ball at impact. E=MC^2. There's mass in the equation for energy, so this would make sense. however, you also need to factor in the extra energy needed to swing it, as well as possible variances in smash factor between the two drivers, along with consistency issues because it's harder to guide it to hit on the center of the face and provide maximum distance.

I was wondering if there was anyone else who watches the slow-mo videos of the swings of pros to try and understand things from a lesson or figure out flaws in your own swing? I know recently I watched a video of Rory Mcilroy and realized that my swing plane was so flat coming back because I had too much wrist in the takeaway. I saw that he turns it back, then his wrists are in position to bring the club right up and over his should on plane. It's helped me, so I assume I've gotten the right idea from it, but does anyone else learn from videos?

The only thing I noticed was that it seems you start your downswing more with your arms, which might cause a fade. Not sure if my observation is correct, but it might help to try and start with the hips more.

Because any golfer not on the pro circuit will likely have mishits, and he was working off the definition of longer as being an average, not a best result. Either way though, a cavity back will probably go further than a blade when properly fit.

Very well done, bravo. I hadn't the time to do this myself, nor do I think I would've been able to turn his post into a wall of reasoning as massive as yours.

The KBS Shafts are sorted by stiffness, making them all exactly the same stiffness, but different weights. You need to specify a length because if this sorting method were used, it would be pointless as soon as you trimmed it (your shorter clubs would be stiffer than your longer ones). The reason other shafts are trimmed is because they are sorted by weight instead of stiffness, causing a variance in the flex of the shaft, but a consistent weight + or - what was changed when you trimmed it. Project X is similar to KBS in that they are also sorted by stiffness instead of weight. If my memory is correct, the only current shaft that is widely used a sorted by weight is the Dynamic Gold ones, or any other True Temper shaft.

In addition you need to take into account the fact that most blades are forged from a softer steel. This is going to absorb some of the energy from impact and take an extra yard or two away from you. Not much, but a hard, cast face that has a trampoline effect will go further than a solid, softer face that doesn't spring through impact. Keep in mind though, the COR can only be so high on clubs and golf balls, or we'd all be hitting 300 yard drives.

Sounds like the answer is supposed to be "b" to me. All I want to know is if the hole really is 90 feet higher, because I play mountain golf fairly often and can only think of one hole like that, but it's 90 feet over the entire hole. Would be interesting to see a picture of that kind of hole.

I also have some persimmon woods that don't have an insert. However, it's probably because they were just cheap, seeing as how they can't be older than 40-50 years old.

Excellent, I had been wondering if anyone had launch monitor access to test this with the same club as a comparison.