Moppy

Lookingfortruth is right about one thing, I have never felt less welcome in an English speaking country than I did while visiting Scotland, and I have visited a few in my work life. My American accent was like a "kick me" sign, I think. Still it was a beautiful country, despite the people I met there. I have gotten along quite well with Scottish people while working in the UK, though, but I am thinking it was because that was work.

"For some reason on the course, I am always just happy"

Thanks, dbuck, that was interesting and helpful.

'' Are you picking new targets for every new shot at the range? " Good tip, thanks.

I have been doing just the opposite lately. Big banana slices on the range, and nice straight drives on the course. I think it is because I just let myself hit on the course, as long as there is a lot of room to the right, I just swing and it doesn't go right. If there is trouble right, like woods, I find it every time though, it seems. The range, I think maybe I think too much about those yardage markers. I know the solution is in my head, but I honestly can't tell the difference between a slice swing and a pure one until the ball is in the air. Another thing is that while playing best ball, if I see there is already a good drive out there, I hit it well, because I just let myself swing. I am going for a lesson this weekend and am hoping for some relief from the towering banana slices on the range, and to be able to play those holes where the woods are tight on the right without resorting to a three iron.

"If I'm coming back, I'm gonna hit and be LONG gone before you and your group could even get off the tee....." Uh, this is after you spent five minutes looking for the ball, then?

When I get that old man swing, I hope I have the good sense to play from the red tees.

How about a couple slowpokes ahead of you combined with a blind tee shot? I waited until the one I could see finally ambled off toward the green and waited a little more, then hit a really nice drive. Climb up over the hill and there is the other slow poke, right in my estimated landing zone. He saunters off without hinting where my ball might have landed and I never find the ball, even though it should have been in the fairway. I like to think the guy might mention it if he saw it land, unless he was mad for me hitting into him. I was working on a personal best, and well, it just "ground my gears."

I like the "Almost Golf" balls, they are kind of a compressed foam, and seem to behave the same as a regular ball, except on a smaller scale. The thing about them though is that they will still go pretty far, a lot farther than a whiffle type or soft foam ball, but they won't break anything.

I am thinking that I will leave it as is for now after reading the responses and thinking about it. When I was playing last weekend I managed a couple really nice drives(by my standards) including one nice draw, as opposed to my usual fade or slice(after a lot of time on the range). I have been focusing on getting around quicker to close the club face, as I usually leave it a little open, and have been making progress. I guess that if I adjust the club for draw, my results might improve dramatically, but my swing would stop improving, if that makes sense. I think I will wait until I stop seeing progress.

I live near a very uncrowded course where getting a tee time is never a problem as long as I stay away from first thing in the morning, or league events, but if I book a tee time on-line, there are significant savings, so I do it. Basically, they pay me to book on-line. Not sure what the economics of that are for the course, maybe it is a way to allow regulars who know about it to play cheaper? This is a summer resort area and many of the players come from Canada and are on vacation. I guess they just show up and pay full price.

No, but I am the father of her children, I am pretty sure, anyway...

or, as a beginner, am I better off waiting until I am consistent before getting it adjusted?

My wife gave me a Titleist 913D2 driver as a gift for Father's day. I would never have bought it for myself, and since I can only hit it 200 to 210 yard carry, I am sure that it looks like more equipment than I should be allowed to have or deserve, based on my skills, I only took up golf this spring in my late 50s, but it hits 10 yards longer easily, than my previous Top Flite driver, it is much lighter, and I have been practicing with it, which has upped my distance and accuracy, as well. I really don't miss the $400 dollars or so that it cost, and I certainly don't scrounge for balls or tees because of it, but if I see a perfectly good tee on the ground, I will use it. When I played with my brother, who has been playing for 20 years, or so, he really liked hitting it and is buying one for himself, so the opportunity to share it was nice too. I guess my point is, why do you care? My reasons for having it are good, I think. I haven't had it fitted yet, on the theory that once I can hit 95% of my balls consistently accurately with distance, it might be worth the effort. My brother hit every drive where he needed a driver on 18 holes straight and long, but I don't expect to acheive that in my lifetime, since he started in his late thirties. Still don't see the reason why I should be using a heavier driver head, slowing my already not overpowering swing speed even more, because I certainly don't get all of the driver's potential.

I like a colored ball because my home course is usually well speckled with seagull feathers, and has a few blind tee shots, both of which make finding your ball a little bit more of a challenge. Plus, if somebody takes a mulligan, we make him hit a pink ball for the rest of the hole.

I am a rank beginner but I was having the same problem, either hitting it straight or way more often hitting it long to the right. I went to the range with a friend who has been playing golf all his life and he said I had a hitch in my swing right when I hit the ball. I concentrated on follow through and my drive has improved significantly. There are a lot more people who know way more about golf than I do, but that was my experience with a similar problem, anyway.

No kidding about the difference between the course and the range. I started golf this year at 56, and have started to see steady improvement on the range, but it has yet to show up on the course. On the range my distance and accuracy of drives has been steadily improving. Drives on the range that this spring would have made me happy now feel like mishits and I now carry this little hill out there that I used to be happy just to roll one onto, but last weekend on the course it was topped ball after topped ball. I got one good drive in in nine holes , obviously I was trying too hard even though I was telling myself less is more and easy does it before every swing. I need to tame my inner gorilla. I think I will stick to the range and par three until I get my fairway woods hitting consistently well at the range then I will work on the mental aspect, which can only be fixed at the course, I think. Don't worry about the comedians in this thread. They think they are feeling funny, but it is possible to shank a joke too.

I try to be a mechanical player because I notice that when I am hitting them well after making an adjustment, for example, to aiming, or say the angle of my swing, if the adjustment works, the ball flies better even though the adjustment feels wrong at first. Once I have made the adjustment, then it "feels" right after some practice and positive re-enforcement from the ball flight.

I got my first par on a short par three when a group let me play through. I hit the green on the first shot, and missed the birdie by a foot. I was disappointed when I looked up after tapping it in and nobody was looking. Oh well. I was happy anyway until I hit it onto the second hole green from the third hole tee box by swinging right under the ball. Glory can be fleeting.

When you use "AimPoint" is this a technique that can be learned through YouTube, for example? I see that there are aimpoint instructors and one can sign up for lessons, but do you have to?

Is taking a practice swing or two really that bad? I was playing last weekend and had been playing really good, for me, three bogeys in a row, then a par, when we were joined by two other golfers who were noticeably better than us. I started rushing every shot and not taking practice swings to not slow up the game, even though we were behind a pair of real duffers that looked more like they were playing slow motion field hockey. Two of them played slower than five of us. After that it was a blizzard of snowmen, sevens, and sixes. If I don't take at least a practice swing to make sure I am in the neighborhood of striking the ball correctly, I am likely to top the ball. I think the big thing that seems to slow up play are the searches for balls. My feeling is that they are cheap, and I will give the area I saw it go the once over, then I will drop a ball in bounds, and just continue on. I have played with some people that treat lost balls like lost children.

Is there a difference? I have been hitting tee shots to the right, but hitting them pretty long (for me) and straight. I managed to fix this today by dumb luck, it turned out that it was in the address. I wasn't lining up my feet properly to the ball, or hanging my arms right. I got a new Titleist adjustable driver for Father's Day, and went to the driving range to try to dial it in and decided to hit it unadjusted for a while, even though I was itching to add draw. Sure enough it was right, right, right. I was hitting off of the grass. Then I noticed one of the mats was marked with a center cross and a circle through the tee and tried different addresses of the ball. Once I got myself to line up with my left foot pointing directly at the ball, and my arms hanging straight down with the club resting at the impact position, and a proper strong grip, it was straight and long for the last ten balls, I knew it was going straight before I hit it, which is something new to me. Now the Titleist hits a good twenty yards or more longer than the Top Flight XL. Hit after hit were longer than my best shot with the XL. I still might play with the loft, but not for a while. - new to golf

Chris Evert used to say that when she was at the top of her game in tennis, her brother, who was an unranked amateur, would regularly beat her. That being said, I am taking lessons from a woman who played on the LPGA tour, and she can really drive the ball when she wants to and I have nothing but respect for her. Her tip on how to reduce my slice had me committing to the swing with *more* gusto, not less, and it worked, btw. She just will never have the frame and musculature to compete with excellent men players. So what? Ladies golf is still fun to watch. Another fact I thought was interesting was that there is much more correlation between being a long hitter and a low score in women's golf than men's. This makes me think that the comparatively few long hitters are the real athletes and they are the gals you should be putting your male scratch golfer up against.

My only point about counting every stroke is that you can see your progress. I am just learning the game and usually play with another guy who has been playing longer and he talks about how his score seems to be stuck but he takes mulligans, "foot wedges" etc, so how does he really know whether he is improving or not? He may be hitting fewer mulligans as his drive straightens out, but wouldn't know he was getting better.

Personally, I count every stroke, including penalties when I hit the tee shot out of bounds and re-hit it. Otherwise, I would never know whether I was improving or not. Why anybody wants to fool themselves is beyond me. Then again, I just took up the sport a couple of months ago at 56 and am not trying to fool anybody into thinking I am good. My goal is a credible social game with decent pace. Keeping track of bad shots helps me to know what to work on to achieve that. Mostly, consistency is what will bring that, I think, since even a rank beginner like me can hit a few decent shots and pretend that is my "true" game. Scoring every stroke and penalty will give me a measure of consistency.