billchao

I'm oddly pretty good at these despite being complete garbage out of standard bunker lies. I've always played them with the face slightly closed to expose less bounce, but that amount of closure seems excessive.

I’m not an expert at physics, but I think a ball that’s not round by a very tiny amount is not going to amount to much difference. It’s going to spin off the clubface and almost immediately spin on the axis that it’s not round by. It won’t affect the ball flight by as much as a clump of mud on the ball would.

I think, and I’m making a big assumption here, that the production moving to a new facility in China from their original plant in Taiwan had a significant impact on the end product. They’re going through growing pains all over again. I feel the same way. There’s not enough transparency in the whole process. They’re presenting it as an unbiased scientific testing procedure when it’s anything but.

I don't read MGS's ball lab stuff, so I kind of skimmed through some other articles to get an idea of how they do things. I kind of find it odd that the results for the Prime 3.0 are reported slightly differently than they typically do with other balls. For example, this is the summary graphic for a ball they don't recommend from last year: And this is the relevant information on the graphic for the Prime 3.0: I don't know why it's different, I don't know what those letter grades mean, and I don't know how they arrived at the 13/100 score versus the 53/100 score for the Spalding ball. If you go through the article, you can determine that 6 Prime 3.0s were found to be not round. Out of 36, I believe, based on their testing methodology? So a significant difference from the Spalding. The Spalding article makes absolutely zero mention of compression variability as a parameter for evaluation, but it does on the Titleist AVX article, which is more recent. This is their concluding infographic for that: It's still different. They go on to mention how many balls in each category are considered bad in the Prime 3.0 article but don't mention the percentage of bad balls overall. Presumably, some of the six balls that failed the compression variability test are the same as the ones that failed the weight and roundness tests. 20 balls failed the weight test, though. Unless someone calibrated the scale incorrectly, that's a significant portion of the sample. Also, apparently they found that one ball wasn't even a Prime 3.0 but was stamped as such? That's pretty bad. I'm with @iacas on this one. I can't dismiss their findings entirely. It seems (if their testing is to be believed) that there were some significant QC problems with the production of these golf balls. But then I have to wonder, is the inconsistency really going to make that much of a difference in real world conditions with my golf game? I bet my swing produces more significant differences to the ball's performance than the manufacturing does. One final note, there are so many ads and pop ups on their website. I hate it.

I’ve never had a HIO, nor have I ever witnessed one in person. The closest was seeing @iacas jar it from 220 only for the ball to bounce out of the bottom of the hole and off the green. I used to play regularly with a guy who told me his HIO came from a worm burner that didn’t get more than 10’ in the air.

I'm back on my contemporary music kick. A couple of my current jams:

I have literally never heard that until now 😃

I like corn, but this is the first I’ve heard of using it to stuff shells.

Clockwise, from the left: Basil eggplant (does not work with Italian basil, will need to grow Thai basil next year), stir fried zucchini, tomato and scrambled eggs, and okra with oyster sauce. Almost everything came from my garden. This is way too much food for one person, but I’ll have whatever is left tomorrow with fried rice. Also, I can’t think of the last time I made a full Chinese dinner. Yea, there’s no meat. I didn’t feel like defrosting any. Left to my own devices, I generally don’t cook meat.

I played pretty well today (net -4) and really well two weeks ago (net -7) with a mediocre round (net +5) in between. I hit some really good shots in the bad round and some bad shots in the good rounds. There's no way to hit every shot well and how you want it. That's a pipe dream. As far as mentally staying in the game, you need to just learn to do it. Keep grinding. Stay in the moment, don't let poor shots derail you. I've scored well in rounds where I really wasn't feeling the swing. Those rounds don't feel great at the time because I felt kind of lost on the course, but if your goal is to score well, you need to keep at it. Learn to manage your expectations. You're making the occasional par, but you're making double bogey or worse far more often. You're more likely to double bogey than you are to par a hole. Accept that par is not a standard that you should be playing to at your current ability and if you happen to make it, then it's a bonus. Work to eliminate those high numbers.

I think you're missing the point. There are lots of different topics on this website that you're not participating in. It doesn't feel like you're part of the community and you're just here looking here looking for advice on your swing. People are more willing to offer help to others they know. Nobody is saying you have to comment on other people's swing threads. There are lots of long time members here who almost never do.

Pretty good haul for Scottie this year: a green jacket, a gold medal, and an orange jumpsuit.

Birdied #4 at the home course. Hit it to 12’ and made the putt. Halfway done.

Like a box of chocolates.

I can't hit driver off the deck, but I'm certainly capable of hitting any shot 😜

I’ll play in the rain, but thunder and lightning? That’s a no from me, dawg. I don’t think the courses around here will even let you out if there’s lightning in the area. I know one course has the Thor Guard lightning detection system. It went off once when I was playing and they came out picked us all up in carts from wherever we were.

Yea I hear that a lot. The macro stuff in my swing is pretty good, and has been for a while. The micro stuff is what causes me significant problems. I’m the exact opposite of someone who scores well despite having an ugly swing. That, and I have pretty good swing speed, so my misses are just bigger than most. Bigger misses and more often isn’t a recipe for good golf. And I can’t hole putts from three to ten feet. Or get out of bunkers. The list goes on.

High draw. Oh yea I haven’t updated it in a while. Let’s see… I fixed it, you happy now? 😜

I agree with this. Technology has improved and the body of knowledge about golf has increased. That’s a benefit to both instructors and their students, especially the weekend golfers who don’t have the time required to “dig it out of the dirt.” Two things: What is this obsession with numbers you’re talking about, and how does it hinder the golfers who see you? I believe you’re not seeing an accurate picture of golf instruction as a whole due to your methodology. I’ll elaborate on the latter point. You teach without data analysis, as you put it. You get students who have not had success with another instructor that teaches a different way, so you’ve pinned the cause to be the difference in your methodology. But that completely discounts the myriad of other reasons why a student may not have improved from instruction, and you’re not seeing any students that have success with instructors that are “too technical.” These people come to you specifically because they failed to improve after working with someone else. In other words, your observations, which I’m not dismissing at all, are flawed because the population you’re observing is not an accurate reflection of the whole. It’s a bit like a guy working in a tire shop saying tires are bad because they spend all day replacing tires. In that same vein, you’re going to find yourself on the opposite side of the majority opinion on this topic here. Most of us are here because we seek that technical information so our opinions on these types of topics are fairly similar. Many of us have failed to improve from seeing instructors with opposing philosophies. Again, not an accurate representation of the golfing population as a whole.

Ok, so short answer is no, you don’t take lessons. You are, in fact, a golf instructor. Might have been helpful to lead with that in the first place, seeing as how my primary focus was trying to figure out what your experience is with the topic and more importantly, if they were relevant. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, as they say. Technology is a tool and I believe in using the right tools for the right job. In this context being golf instruction, it means knowing which students you need to give that information to and which students you don’t. Some people like myself don’t respond well to “just do this.” We need to know why. We need to understand why, and not being able to provide that that to us means you won’t be able to do your job as effectively. And others don’t. It’s your job to understand what tools you need to use. All the other stuff about how golf instruction is too technical and fills people’s heads with too much information is just an oversimplified generalization. I have an interest in the golf swing, so I learn about it. It doesn’t mean I use everything I watch on YouTube and try to apply it to my swing. If anything, understanding the swing more allows me to filter out what can help me and what can’t.

You literally joined and posted your thoughts. Then other members asked you questions and to elaborate on some of your points and you have responded to none of those things, following up with a post insinuating that you're some kind of pariah. And we're the ones that don't want discussion?

That is quite the selection for a three club challenge. Can't say I'd pick the same, and having to hit driver off the deck would be my primary reason not to pick the club.

I should add this putt to my list, for a number of reasons: This is my nemesis hole. I've been playing from the blue tees instead of the back so I've been hitting driver off the tee, but it's a tough shot. I was in the fescue twice. My friend (8 handicap) who I was in a friendly match against was getting his hopes up that the wheels were coming off my round after I made a triple bogey 6 on the 7th. He parred the hole, but I made net birdie to crush his dreams. It was a difficult putt. It broke almost 4' left to right. I said something to the effect of, "I'm supposed to hit the putt just as the gorilla puts his hands over his mouth, right?" before I hit it. I went on to win our match... 8&7.

230 is plenty long enough to get to single digits. Just need to manage your misses and avoid big numbers. There's nothing unique about the strategy there to score well.

Nice miss.