billchao

This is my take on it, as well. You don’t top the ball because you didn’t think hard enough, but screwing up the following shot because you’re angry about the last one and didn’t give it enough effort can certainly be partially attributed to lack of mental fortitude. Honestly I think most people like to say that golf is mostly mental because they want to tell themselves they’re better than they actually are.

To be fair, that’s not a standard I would go by. Most people I know hit their shots too low.

Birdied #13 yesterday which is new and #8 today which is not.

I just shot 38/50 today. Man I’m good at this game.

Nope. 50/39 is the best that I can recall from recent memory. Though I’m an 18.3 so I feel like that counts for bonus points 😃

I have no comments on your swing, but my wrists hurt just from looking at your mat setup @GolfLug 😜

Just to add to this, bulge and roll is a factor, too. A shallower face will have more effective loft at the sole than a taller one. It’s just easier to hit off the deck in general.

That is absolutely insane. I’ve never played a 6 hour round before. Once I played a round that took 3:00 for the front nine and I walked off. I was kind of salty about that at the time because the guy in the shop said if I wait 10 minutes to check in, I’d get twilight rates, but what he failed to mention were the three other groups lined up ahead of me doing the exact same thing. Totally not worth the $20 I saved. I played a course once that was kind of the opposite. Despite being built in the 90’s, the contours on the greens were ridiculous and they had to keep the greens fairly long to compensate. It was an awful experience.

I've written and deleted a response to this topic a couple of times now and I still feel like I can't come up with anything coherent. I'm more disciplined than the average golfer. I'm also motivated to be disciplined. Does that make any sense? Because it kind of does in my head. I suppose if I was the kind of person who expected instant gratification I would have stopped trying to get better years ago. I'm also the kind of person that is always trying to improve at the things I'm interested in. Even if it's say, cooking egg fried rice, which I've done countless times, I'm always trying to see what I did well, where I could do better, etc. Golf works the same way for me. It's an activity I am interested in and part of my expression of interest is the pursuit of improvement. I can't just go out and play two rounds on the weekend and then not do anything golf related until the following week. It's just not how I'm wired.

Swing check time. It's been either rainy or windy lately and I haven't actually been hitting balls in a while but I've been practicing in other ways. Weather is nice today and I had the time so I set up my net to film some swings. Current swing: I said I'd make some changes to focus on contact and I made good on that. I eliminated some excess lateral movement off the ball away from and towards the target and as a result I actually had to move my ball position back from the way too far forward position I've become accustomed to playing for years. Changes were primarily standing a bit more upright and my right hip feels like it turns more up than around. I'm actually pretty happy with those because I'm hitting the ball much better lately, but since the camera is out, I know I can do better, right? I added the slightest bit of laying off just to help keep the club from going across the line. Emphasis on slight so I don't overdo it. Downswing change is an interesting one. I feel like I'm swinging slower, like I'm just bringing the club down to the ball in a controlled and slow manner. Kind of like how when I do a practice swing feel I bring the club back to the ball and stop, only I keep going and hit the ball. Same rhythm, same pace. Feels slow but it's clearly not seeing as how I've completely wrapped the club around my head in the follow through and I'm hitting the ball farther on the course. I don't really know how to describe it, to be perfectly honest, other than it's smoother? It's a feel I used a long time ago with the driver when I was really struggling and I brought it back the other day because I was also struggling, which resulted in some of the most ridiculously long and straight driver shots I've ever hit. So I figured why not see what it actually looks like on video? Contact was stupid good, like everything was center of the face. I should probably stick with that feel for a bit, maybe forever. I'm sure there's an actual reason for why feeling like I'm swinging slower with less effort actually results in better contact and longer, more accurate shots, like I'm sequencing better or something. I don't actually care these days, to be honest. I don't need to know or understand why. I just need to know it works, which it seems to.

Birdied #17 at Quail Brook today, drained a 20 footer from the fringe. Lipped out a birdie putt on 18 though.

Not that you need to hear it from me, but take it slow. I’m sure you’ll be back out on the course in no time. I actually found that the silver lining when being injured is that I was able to prioritize working on the setup stuff without being distracted by making actual swings. I spent two weeks last month doing nothing but focusing on that because I really do anything else and I think it’s starting to pay dividends.

I would be happy to hang out with you guys but as of now @DaveP043 and I are planning to stay in Cranberry Township. There’s a bit of travel between the two places, but maybe we can work something out.

Birdied #8 at Quail Brook. Almost aced it. Tap-in.

Birdied #12 at Green Knoll in an absolute dumpster fire round of golf.

Birdied the short par 4 #16 at Quail Brook today. Drove it into the greenside bunker and got up and down. This is another hole I didn't birdie all year last year.

I have not been playing well so far this year. Had some back tightness issues that have been bothering me for a couple of weeks which didn't help things. Today didn't start much different. Shot 50 on the front, could barely hit the ball in the air. Kept trying to make adjustments to get something to work and wanted to quit. Something must have worked though because I ended up shooting 39 on the back with 6 GIR. Stupid game.

I’m not seeing anything that’s controversial here. It’s a fairly basic video.

Never heard of it. Care to share some videos?

This is how I understand it should be done, just treat those holes as not played.

I blame Bryan Rust. Thanks for putting the work in, John. I’ll look into hotels and stuff soon. I’ll probably be driving in Friday.

And a trick hole that rejects balls from flying into them 😜

I like Justin Rose and I wouldn’t mind seeing him win another major, I just didn’t want him to win this one 😃

Yea it doesn’t suck. I didn’t score well but most of it came down to short game and putting. I had 3 holes I can directly blame bad long game shots on. I’m just trying to hedge my bets. If I don’t make it as a professional golfer, I could be a fitness model as a backup plan.

It's been a while since I practiced. Injuries compounded last year and I could play but I didn't want to make anything worse with repetitive stress so I shut down practicing basically in early summer. Just kind of getting back into things now and I'm not surprised to see I've regressed a bit. Hitting the ball well enough to get 8 GIR yesterday but the misses can be really bad - tops and toe shanks. Just settled right back into the constant problem areas in my swing, mainly the wrists/club position at A4 and not recentering properly. Going to focus on getting solid contact consistently back before anything else.