msd3075

I think what you said about "over-excited" is the main reason someone would have a problem after a long drive. I'm more of a morning golfer and always played worse in the afternoon/evening after I left the office (much like sitting in a car for a long time). I never understood why. Then I realized that during afternoon rounds I was more "jumpy" in the way I walked up the ball, the way I lined up shots, and the way I basically did everything on the course. Once I saw that, I realized I was doing the exact same thing during my swing; I was gripping the club way too tight, taking the club back way too quickly, transitioning to my downswing very abruptly, and "whipping" at the ball instead of making an even-tempo strike on the ball. Once I fixed all this, I was able to play very well.

Two things... - Regrip all your clubs at once. It helps when all your clubs feel the same in your hand and you arne't having to adjust depnding on what club you are hitting. - The type of grip you get is a completely personal choice, but make sure you are getting the proper size grip. Most people just get a standard size with maybe one wrap of tape, but changing grip size can make just as big an impact on your shots as having the lie/loft of your clubs changed.

The course I play at here in Arkansas goes by course handicap. If I remember correctly, the Championship Flight is 5 and under. The course I play in Houston has a qualifying tournament that is flighted by course handicap. I've never played in it, but I know at a 4.0 index I'd probably be in the 4th flight at best if not in the 5th flight. Scratch players arer usually in the 2nd or 3rd flight. The top finishers regardless of flight then play in the "real" Club Championship a few weeks later.

Instead of saying what makes a bad course deisgn, here's a list of what to me makes a good course design: 1) Options - I dislike courses that force you to play only one shot, whether it be a 90* dogleg par 4 that forces an iron shot off the tee to hit to the corner or a par 3 that makes you hit one spot on the green. There should always be a "safe area" that you can hit to along with a choice to hit low-percentage shot to give you an advantage. 2) Good shots are rewarded - Yo ushouldn't have to hit a perfect shot to be in a good position. To me, a good course design rewards good (not just perfect) shots and penalizes bad shots. You shouldn't have a bad lie if you hit a drive up the middle of the fairway, and you shouldn't have a horrible lie off the back of the green when your ball was played only a few feet off of the perfect landing spot on the green (think Steve Elkington on 17 during the final round of the PGA). In the end, your score should reflect how well you played, not how lucky you were. 3) Smart placement of hazards - This point has two parts; that hazards shouldn't just be put on the course to make it beautiful and need to be in the part of the course normally played, but hazards shouldn't force you to make a perfect swing on a low-percentage shot everytime. They hsould be there to penalize your mishits but not make the course so difficult that it verges on gimmicky. 4) Caters to everyone's strengths/weaknesses - I'm long off the tee (290+ yards), and to me the length of so many newer courses is getting out of hand. I can understand a few holes that are long, but having a ton of near-500 yard par 4 holes doesn't really bring anything to the course. A good course design has the long holes but also has the shorter, tighter holes that give the shorter, more accurate golfer a chance to survive. My home course back in Houston is a great example. People complain that it's long, but only a handful of holes are actually longer than what I'd consider the norm for most courses. It has two 450+ yard par 4's, but it also has two very tight 350ish par 4's.

The Custom Shop will only either restore your putter with its original finish or the Pro Platinum finish. Also, the PP finish cannot be applied to stainless steel putters. Since the CS can't use the Black Pearl finish that your TeI3 originally had, you only options are to go with the Charcoal Mist finish or the PP finish. All this is outlined on the Scotty Cameron website .

I'm not sure exactly who at Titleist/Scotty Cameron responded to that, but I'm am absolutely 100% sure that the Scotty Cameron Custom Shop can NOT restore a TeI3 with it's original finish. I had the Custom Shop restore my TeI3 Newport, and I can guarantee you that they can't do so. There are a ton of discussions on this topic over at TCC (The Cameron Collector), and the Custom Shop's own website says so as well.

First things first, the finish on the TeI3 model is known as Black Pearl and is a very shiny/glossy black finish. The finish was used only on the TeI3 model and was applied by a third party, a company know as Black Oxide Services (BOS). The Scotty Cameron Custom Shop will NOT refinish a putter in Black Pearl; the only choices for a TeI3 are either Charcoal Mist or Pro Platinum. If you choose Pro Platinum, they insert will be coverd with the PP finish as well. You can always send a TeI3 to BOS on your own and have them restore it (for a lot cheaper than the Custom Shop), but if you do the you won't get all the options the Custom Shop offers. As for "Tour" SC putters, the vast majority of them were never nor will they ever be used by a pro on tour. Most "Tour" putters are purchased through Titleist distributors by collectors as a true custom putter. Second-hand Tour putters can be had for as "cheap" as $500-600 and can go up for $5,000 and over.

The best thing about Scotty Cameron putters is that they hold their value very well. One of the best things you can do is to go check out www.cameroncollector.com and look through the classified section to see what putters are going for used. You'd be surprised how much people are willing to pay for them.

The finish on the California line seems to be hit or miss. SOme people have absolutely no problem with it, and others have said the finish can show wear signs after only a handful of rounds. The honey-dipped finish really isn't a true finish like others where an actual material is applied to the putter; it's the result of a "chemical reaction" when the stainless steel is dipped in some type of solution (can't remember specifics of what it actually is). I know this is a bit off topic, but there is an unlisted option at the SC Custom Shop where they will remove the honey-dipped finish fairly easily. As for the grip, there are ways to "pull" a grip without destroying it. The pulled grips I've seen usually end up having a pin-sized hole in them somewhere, but it's usually pretty easy to hide it. If the grip is destoyed though, you can buy the California-series grips on scottycameorn.com in the Studio Store.

The OTR (off the rack) center-shafted club is just a rumor right now. A lot of people think it'll be an IBRM (Inspired By Rory McIlroy) model seeing as he putts with a center-shafted Fastback most of the time and seems like the most likely person to get an IB__ model out of the current Titleist staffers.

To let you the truth, the Monterey won't be similar to either the Newport 2.5 or the Laguna 1.5 seeing as both of those putters have "flow necks" whereas the Monterey has a plumber's neck. It all has to do with the amount of toe hang a putter has. Toe hang is the angle that the putter head "hangs" as when you balance the shaft on your finger. Face-balanced putters don't hang at all; they face stays parallel to the ground. Putters with a plumber's neck (Monterey) tend to hang at a 45* angle), and putters with a flow neck (anything with x.5 in it) tend to hang more around 60-65*. The more you open and close the putter face during the stroke, the more toe hang you need. You really don't know what type of toe hang works for you until you try out different putters, and from what it sounds like you fit more into the flow neck putters. This isn't to say a Monterey is a bad choice for you, but just so you know there are big differences between it and the Newport/Laguna you are looking at.

You open your stance up but keep the clubhead "pointed" at the target. As for what I do, my clubface is always square to the target unless I'm hitting a flop shot from a lie in the rough and the ball is sitting up on top of the grass. I do open up my stance so the club isn't directly "square", but I don't open it up like what's being described in this thread. I like to keep my short game shots simple instead of always changing everything for different lies/carries/slopes/etc.

The numbers are important, but only to a certain extent. As long as you are within the "window" of specs that fit your swing-type, that's all you can ask for.

Some words of advice about getting fit for a driver: - Swing the same way you swing your driver on the course. Go through your same pre-shot routine, and don't try to hit the longest drive of you life. - Wear your typical golf attire (shirt, shoes, shorts/pants, etc.), and go through the same warmup routine you'd go through on the course if at all possible (maybe go to the range for a little bit before you go to the golf shop). - Bring your old driver with you so you can do a baseline comparison with the driver shafts they are fitting you to. The numbers on the launch monitor are usually never the same as real-world distances, so you'll want to have something to compare them to. - If you are uncomfortable with what your club fitter is doing or telling you, don't be shy to let him/her know. At the end of the day, you are the one buying the club so you have to have your own confidence in it. - Don't get too bogged down in the numbers and instead hit what feels right.

A few words of warning though... Once you start purchasing additional putters, you won't be able to stop. I currently have 8 putters (5 SC's, 2 Odysseys, and 1 Ping); I had 10 a few weeks ago before I sold two of them. It's an "addiction" that won't stop once you start. That being said, if you are looking into a Scotty Cameron, you might want to go check out the forums at The Cameron Collector to get some info on different models and to check out the classified to get a good deal on an older GIP (grip in plastic) model or a barely used newer model. In my opinion, a lot of the older models are better than the new Studio Select or California models you can buy new, but that is just my opinion since I like the feel of carbon steel over the current stainless steel that SC uses. As for switching putters in and out of your bag regularly, there isn't a right or wrong answer. Some people keep the same putter for decades, and some people (like me) swap them in and out between rounds. It just depends on what works for you.

I was doing the same thing with my old 3 wood (Titleist 906F2), and I think I figured out the two main causes: 1) I wasn't extending my arms on my backswing which caused me to be out of position at the top of my swing and made me come way over the top on my downswing. If I extended my arms on my backswing, the hook would turn into a decent draw. 2) The shaft was too weak for my swing (Stiff-flex UST Proforce V2). I have a 120+ mph driver clubhead speed which makes it a nobrainer to have X-stiff shafts in my woods, and once I switched over to an X-stiff shaft I could swing aggressively without worry about the ball hooking.

I voted "I don't know" mainly because I relaly don't know. Warming up on the putting green does make a bit of a difference since I can get a feel for how fast/slow the greens are rolling, but outside of that I've never noticed or at least kept track of anythign to see if it makes a difference. That being said, I always warm up before every round. My main purpose though is so that I don't oull a muscle out on the course.

The deep milling on Scotty Cameron Tour putters is because some players like the soft feel it gives, not for inducing top spin. Scotty Cameron himself does not like deep milling and only does it for tour players who demand it for the feel.

Here's an example... My irons are +0.5" and 2º flat. If I were to buy a sent of irons off eBay that were 2º flat but were standard length, all I would need to do is swap out the shafts for some that are +0.5" and wouldn't need to bend the lie angle at all. If I kept them as they came off eBay, they'd play too flat and would need to be bent upright to fit my swing.

The actual lie angle of the club won't change; the only way to change it is by bending it. If you were to swap out a +1.0" shaft for a standard length shaft, the lie angle will stay exactly the same for the club itself. What I was talking about in my post was how you'd have to adjust the lie angle to get back to the "3º upright" with a different length. To answer your question, no, the physical lie angle of the club will not change if you change length.

I just hit the damn ball......

If you want to see what lie angle corrensponds to what length, just look up the stock specs of your irons and see what lie angle goes with each length. For example, here is a link to the specs of my Mizuno irons. If you look at the specs, the lie angle changes 1° degrees for every 1.0" difference in length. Using this, if you were to take 2.5" off of your irons, your lie angle would need to be changed 2.5°. Seeing as you are cutting down your irons, you'd want the lie to be adjusted more upright. This would mean you'd need them bent to 5-6° upright from standard.

Yes. Exactly.

I haven't read through the thread to see if ithis has been addressed so sorry if I'm repeating anything. To me, having "No 3's in you bag" all depends on if you have neough clubhead speed to get the ball up off the ground. It has nothign to do with handicap or scoring ability and everythnig to do with your strength and power. I've always had a 3 iron and will never be without it, but I also carried it back when I was a 12-15 handicap because I had no trouble getting the ball up in the air consistently. Hell, there are scratch golfers that would be better suited to hybrids in place of thier 4 and 5 iron, and there are 20 handicappers that can hit their 3 iron just as well as their 7 iron. At the end of the day, it all has to do with how the clubs fit your game and only your game.

At least according to a guy I talk to once, Champion Bermuda was developed at my home course in Houston (Champions GC) with the purpose of being able to survive the extremely hot/humid Houston summers. If there is one strain of grass that'll be ok, it'll be Champion (at least according to that guy).