MS256

I don't use any swing thoughts when I'm playing (especially if I'm playing well). My pre-shot thoughts are: 1. Where's my target? 2. Which way do I want to curve the ball (if any)? 3. What trajectory do I need? I pretty much go by a philosophy that I heard in another sport. "Trust your swing on the field. Practice your swing off the field".

There was a guy that was almost blind that used to walk his rounds where I play early in the morning before anyone got there. He always used the yellow balls so he could see them better. Anytime I found a yellow ball I would leave it at the clubhouse so he could get it back. One foggy day as I was playing my round I noticed that about every 200 yards there were several yellow balls in the fairway and I gathered them up. About halfway through my round I saw him up ahead in another fairway and it appeared he was looking for a ball (which I could see) so I went over to show him where it was and give him his balls back. I told him he had 160 yards to the pin. He hit a shot that landed right beside the pin and I said great shot. He said "Thanks...Now if I can find it". I told him to just go to the pin and look down and he wouldn't have any trouble.

I like that: "Small steps in the right direction depending on the goal". My son had a high school baseball coach that joked "We like to get a 400 hitter and see if we can coach them down to 350". Fortunately he was joking but with some coaches it's all too true in golf and baseball.

Neither my son or I keep track of a handicap but both of us have "flawed swings" and both of us play pretty decent golf with those swings (usually). I usually shoot between 76 and 82 on a 72 course rated course. He shoots from par to a few over on those courses. He's a long straight hitter that hits a lot of fairways and I am only moderately long and miss entirely too many fairways but I have a knack for getting out of trouble and up and down for pars. He hits a lot of greens and I miss a lot of greens. Both of us are better than average putters. At the end of the day there are a lot of ways to get the ball in the hole in par or less. A great swing would be nice but I doubt if I will ever have anything other than a modified baseball swing. My son is still working on his "flawed swing".

There's a pretty big difference between hawking balls when playing with a group on a crowded course and hawking balls in the middle of your fourth round of the day when you haven't seen another human on the course all day.

Something weird happens when I hit off of a lie board. When I hit off of a lie board with my irons the tape and lie board show every iron is perfectly in the center (which would indicate the lies are right), but on grass the divots are always slightly toe down (which would indicate I need a more upright lie). Another discrepancy: My normal ball flight is a draw and most misses are left (which is the opposite of what too flat a lie should produce). My favorite surface on the course to hit off of is baked out hard pan clay (or very short grass on hard ground). Off of a hard surface I can hit consistently good shots time after time. The softer the ground, and the more the ball is suspended above the ground on the fairway grass, the more inconsistent I am.

This discussion has been going on at least since Ted Ray was hitting the ball over 300 yards with a Haskell and hickory shafted clubs. ‘The Haskell, or lively rubber ball, proved to be the most radical and revolutionary innovation the game has known. It was directly responsible for the prodigious growth of the game, which with the old Gutty was restricted in interest mainly to persons who were willing to study and work with it until they were at least decently proficient. The fascination of the new ballistics was by no means restricted to players of golf. The manufacturers, after catching their breath, started out on an orgy of experimental production. They put practically everything inside the rubber strands from soft soap to some sort of acid that ruined the eyes of inquisitive children who cut into the missiles or bit them open. They made the balls smaller and smaller and wound the strands tighter and tighter, and Ted Ray and Abe Mitchell hit them farther and farther until finally the legislative powers took hold of the situation to prevent the standardized golf courses from being scrapped and made over on the Great Plains of the middle west or the Desert of Sahara; and for other purposes as the conventional legislative bills recite.’ The Bobby Jones’ Story, from the writings of O.B. Keeler by Grantland Rice

My "record" for a day is in the hundreds. A couple of days when the ponds dried up there were golf balls laying all over the dry pond. I always put as many in my bag as I could pack in there. At the club I joined there was very little play and often I would be the only one on the course and after a few rounds by myself I would get bored and walk all of the ditches and woods looking for balls. I never bought a golf ball in the 9 years I've been playing golf until a month ago when I finally ran out. I would have had a lifetime supply but my son was learning to play on a course where any missed fairway pretty much meant a lost ball and every time we went to visit he would ask me to bring him another 100 Pro V1s, and we visited often. I told him one time that he was either going to have to start hitting the ball straight or looking for his lost balls. The course I play now frowns on ball hawking and I no longer do it. The only ones I pick up now are the ones that just happen to be where I am looking for my own ball.

Cutting back the distance for faster club head speeds doesn't ONLY effect Pros. Plenty of amateurs (even some that are fairly bad golfers) can bomb the golf ball. I know a few that presently compete fairly well in our local games only because of the long ball. I also know people (one in particular) that is usually 40 yards behind the bombers but can beat them with accuracy, iron play and chipping. I'm in between the two and can't compete with the bombers for distance (but can come fairly close) and can't compete with the ball strikers (but can come fairly close) but I can putt better than either group. All of us learn what we bring to the table and develop what gives us a chance to win the game. If any of us could do all three we wouldn't be playing in a local game.

I love power, distance, strength, speed, and skill. When I watch a professional athlete I want to see them do things I could never do in a million years. That said, if the standard for power was 250 yards and that was as far as anybody could hit a golf ball I would quickly get used to appreciating that new standard of power.

You are right about the "athlete" part for sure. Do any of the older guys (like me) really think that any of the players of old could match today's athletes for distance? (Not a chance). Example: Dustin Johnson: 6'4", 190 lbs. 8% body fat, 38" Vertical leap, 10' Broad jump. Those physical stats don't mean you can hit a golf ball, and they certainly don't mean you can win on Tour, but with all other swing skills equal, and equal fast twitch ability, it's no contest for distance.

Whether there is a fray to get ahead of or not depends on the club. The money game where I was a member started at 12:30 and the round was almost always over by 3:00 and 3:30 at the latest. Each player had their own cart so that let a foursome play almost as fast as a single. On most days they were the only players on the course and if there happened to be someone ahead of them they would just run them down and play through, or the people ahead would circle around and get behind them.

The course where I (usually) play is a short course but they intentionally keep the fairway grass a little longer than many courses, and all of the courses holding a PGA tournament. There are several 260 to 280 yard par fours but nobody gets more than about 20 yards of bounce and roll (and less than that if it's not dry). It actually takes a legitimately long carry to reach the greens. They also did a decent design job with the available land and made the short holes uphill to the greens or the landing area. One side benefit to that little course is that all of the kids that grew up playing on that course, and trying to carry those greens all the time, are all now pretty big hitters.

My wife started playing with our son and I five years ago when it became apparent to her that if she ever wanted to see us she better start playing. She is not a long enough hitter to reach most greens in regulation (from the front tees) but she does make quite a few pars and really does have a very good short game. My son and I both play from the tips (mostly his idea) and it's no problem for her to play with us and hit from the front. If we are waiting to a group in front to get out of the way sometimes we let her go ahead and hit her tee shot while we are waiting. My son bought her a set of ladies clubs that are all hybrid design from the sand wedge to the 3 iron, and they work very well for her skill level. The most surprising thing to me was how well she plays bunker shots with that hybrid sand wedge (it's almost like she just can't mess it up). She is also a very good putter and has been from the first day she played. At first I thought it was beginner's luck but five years later she's still rolling them in. We were once in a 9 hole man/woman scramble tournament and on the 9th hole the man in the other group said "You don't ever putt, do you?" I laughed and told him I haven't had to putt. She did miss the putt on that hole and I had to make it, but she had made 8 in a row so I couldn't complain. ;-) On crowded golf courses with people behind us she just doesn't hit a tee shot and starts from where our tee shots end up on the holes that are much too long for her.

This article mentions the rule that had to be put in place for when the golf ball broke apart. http://library.thinkquest.org/10556/english/high/history/hist05.htm

It could have been somewhere else that I read that. It's been a while since I read that book and since there was a lot of history in the book and some discussion on early golf balls I figured that was where it was. It is a great book. I would have read it more than once but someone borrowed it and never gave it back...

I have read that before (somewhere). I can't remember where but it was probably in "The Greatest Game Ever Played" which has a lot of golf history in the book.

Finances are a major concern for me (and the main cog in how well I play at any given time). I was a club member for 4 years on a family plan that only cost $140 a month. My wife plays occasionally but my son and I are (or were) fanatics. We both played almost every single day and on any day I didn't work we played from daylight to dark. Sometimes we even got a few holes in after dark using the lights on my golf cart. That much golf would have cost a small fortune even at a "cheap" public course. The family membership was well worth it and both my son and I advanced our games much faster than the average weekend players. When my son moved away I had to re-evaluate and decided to just be satisfied to be that weekend golfer at public courses. The cost is probably slightly higher than I was paying at the club but the benefit is that we often go to Chattanooga where my son lives to play. We wouldn't be able to do that if we were still paying the club membership. Getting to play golf with my son as much as possible is more important than the state of my game or getting to play more often.

Depends on the course, how heavy your bag is, how long you are out there (you probably burn 50 calories per hour doing nothing), and whether you are zigzagging around helping playing partners find their golf ball. ;-) On some courses the walk between tee boxes can be as long or longer than the holes and walking up the side of a ridge is different from a flat stroll. Just being on your feet for an extra 4 hours or so is better than sitting on the couch. When I don't play I always walk 6 to 8 miles every day and a light work out with weights every other day and my weight stays from 189 lbs to 191 lbs. I played 63 holes over the weekend in a cart (cart path only) and lost 2 lbs. If my calorie intake was normal (and I think it was above nomal) I burn more calories playing 2 rounds of golf in a cart (cart path only) than walking 6 to 8 miles at home.

Sorry. Double post.

I don't talk very much during any round that I really care about but it doesn't bother me if someone else does, as long as they have enough etiquette to shut up while I'm trying to hit. Most of my rounds are just social rounds with friends and family (and for a few bucks in the Saturday choose up game). In those games I would rather be friendly than to play my best and if I lose focus a time or two it doesn't make much difference to me. About the only thing that irritates me is a guy trying to keep score and finishing every hole completely out when it's taking 8 or 10 strokes per hole (or worse), and bogging the whole course down. That guy should throw away the score card, pick the ball up, take it up to where a good shot should have been, play from there, and have some fun (and spend a lot more time on the range than trying to keep score on the course).

Welcome. RTR

IMO. Make sure the shaft profile of whatever driver you choose fits your swing. With the wrong shaft too many of those 300 yard drives can end up 100 yards in the woods. P.S. You can't go by how a shaft is labeled. Different shafts (even from the same company) labeled as "Stiff" or "Regular" won't be identical so buying off of the rack is a crap shoot, even if you have hit the same name driver with the same shaft label. A good club fitter can check the overall shaft profile to make sure it's what you need.

Good luck with your game. I play around Chattanooga quite a bit at Moccasin Bend, Brown Acres, Brainerd, and Trenton Ga. I like the course at Trenton (if I can manage to get through the 3rd through the 5th holes in the neighborhood of par). Ha ha!

I really can't see how the spine could be always aligned on an adjustable driver (like my R9) unless you set it and left it there. My driver shaft seems to perform the best when it is set on "Neutral" even though I would actually prefer it to be set on "Right". Of course the answer would probably be to remove the shaft and re-set the spine so it would be the same on "Right" as it currently is on "Neutral" (and never try to adjust it again).