RandallT

I was in Tucson last week where they get like 12" of rain per year. I think it rained about every day for maybe a third of that total! Oh yeah, we got snow too on Friday, and the residents I spoke too who had been there a decade hadn't seen anything like it before. Maybe a dusting once or twice before. Here's a shot of a saguaro cactus near the facility I was visiting. The flakes were HUGE, even if you can't really tell. By afternoon, it was pretty much all melted except for the mountain peaks surrounding the city.

Well, this teaches me not to dispute the wisdom of @DaveP043 and @GolfLug! I found it surprising that someone can’t learn a better stroke independent of a fitting (that was much of my reasoning: “learn the stroke first”), but I can definitely see how a fitting would enhance learning a better stroke. Good topic and when I get playing again, probably something to look at. Learning Aimpoint on your trip down here to VA was definitely helpful, I’ll say that.

Im gonna buck the trend of my friends Dave and V above. Overrated. I think to improve putting, you can: learn good form, learn to read putts with courses like Aimpoint, and practice effectively. The icing on the cake would be to then find the right club that matches your eye and your stroke, but the other things should be done first- hence I’ll assign the overrated tag to it. We don’t have unlimited time and money. For those trying to get every stroke gained possible out of their game- yes, absolutely. Putter fitting is probably smart part of the process to squeeze every gain possible out of your skills and agree that a good fitting is likely educational too. With that stipulated, many of us bogey golfers who still can’t get near the green often enough in regulation, and muddle by with losing 4-5 strokes putting without much investment in learning or practicing to putt, can likely look elsewhere for more stroke improvement initially.

Long-time lurker on the thread, but my thoughts have been: Law of supply and demand. There were probably tons of guys who would've carried a PGA pro bag for a similar amount. The caddie hasn't made any case that he meaningfully contributed to the win by teaching Kuchar how the greens break, or maybe how certain shots play longer than they look due to prevailing winds, or whatever. What value did the guy bring that a bunch of others couldn't have? A traveling caddie is 100% different. They invest themselves in the player's game, they commit to travel, and they likely do a ton more for their player due to the relationship than a local caddie. A standard (and higher) percentage of earnings is appropriate. I don't really care if Kuchar made $1,000,000,000,000 or $100,000. It boils down to me to be: how many other guys could've and would've done the same task for the week? Probably tons. It's fair to pay people according to the value they bring- regardless of the purse that was won. Kuchar can be charitable with his money in other ways to show what kind of a person he is. He likely has charitable causes that he contributes to. But don't measure how caring or uncaring he is based on this business relationship that is essentially driven by supply and demand.

Wealth of info, @Patch . Cool story about meeting Jack!!

Haven’t seen such negativity since the Dan Plan thread!! Never mind that the well-placed negativity was the obviously correct position, but still! C’mon folks, I’m feeling this! im thinking he won’t take long to get back to his original playing level, so the “10stroke in a month” framing is a making this feel tougher than it might be. Its basically can he hold it together and not blow up? A guy who has been away from the game needs to do about what he used to average - on away courses, one of which might be tough, while presumably getting blitzed at night with buddies. Hey, I don’t know the guy, but with cash riding on it, ya never know. I’m gonna enjoy his glory when he takes your money like candy from a baby! 😆

Again welcome. You might enjoy threads like this one: There’s another for breaking 90, in case you’re at that level. All sorts of golfers here and folks willing to share their experiences and lessons learned along the way. For what it’s worth on this topic: I think most are telling you to consider losing the 70-degree club in your garage for the season, but hey, it’s your choice, man. Maybe you’ll get lucky and find some crazy tip that works for you, but overall, the site here is mostly about sound fundamentals. I’m picking up in the responses so far that use of that club around the green isn’t something high handicappers should be messing with. But let us know how it goes.

Welcome! i didn’t know there was such a thing as a 70 degree wedge! Id say a proper answer would include addressing what your goal was with that club. How are your other wedges confugured, and what do you feel is missing from your arsenal.

Welcome! You’ve found a good site with many like-minded souls. Lots of us hobbling around with injuries too! Just wanted to say a quick welcome and see you around.

https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/rules/rules-2019/rules-of-golf/rule-17.html That quote is from the link, near the bottom of the page- just under the graphics shown. I’m pretty sure this applies, but an expert can certainly correct me if I’m wrong. Looks to me he is allowed to drop in the penalty area. If he doesn’t like the drop, or just wants to abandon playing from the penalty area, he also can take relief outside the penalty area, with additional penalty.

Now that passage needed highlighting for its imagery. Ain’t nobody gonna be voting Bermuda now! 😛

Any of you northerners own an electric car? AAA: Cold weather can cut electric car range over 40 percent Cold temperatures can sap electric car batteries, temporarily reducing their range by more than 40 percent when...

Calling @GolfLug.

Interesting that from what I can see in 2 pages of posts, only the OP mentioned Sergio as a villain in this thread:

I’ll try to make this a pile-on. Happy birthday @14ledo81!

Relish (not the condiment for a hot dog)

I think you write well, and that could fool some people, but your message is fundamentally flawed. The idea that we just all dig it out of the dirt on our own is a common idea. It’s appealing too. Hard work, focus, learn from mistakes- you’ll get there! You don’t seem to address the idea that you’d improve more reliably and likely quicker if there were a smart instructor who could check up with you and give you that one priority thing that would help you. If you understood that one priority, worked smartly on it- until it was good enough, and then moved on to the next priority, that’d be pretty good right? The chances that each of us can just practice and find a good swing on our own via trial and error just seems preposterous- no matter how well you’ve worded it. It’s just as likely that people will just ingrain bad habits.

To all, let's not get into this further in the Tiger Catch-All thread. Moving on, and back on track, please.

@Gilberg has been around a while for those un-initiated in his ways of posting. Welcome back, friend!

I'm a little late to the discussion, but a while back I went through a ton of threads and tagged some with "wannabe" if the discussion went something like: "hey guys I'm a [fill in current handicap] and I want to [fill in ambitious golf goal]. What do you think?" Here are the threads that I tagged: https://thesandtrap.com/search/?&tags=wannabe&sortby=relevancy 33 thread results found, and quite a rabbit hole of reading for those who want to stroll down memory lane.

This is a good thread on the new rule changes that are upcoming. If you are just starting to learn the rules of golf now, it might be best to start here so that you’re not learning stuff that is going away. Congrats on the legit birdie!

Hi @vpittman. Welcome to TST. I'm not an instructor but thought I'd focus you on a couple things that are fairly common that I see with players who struggle to break past bogey golf. First, a good link: At that link, I'd suggest you look for things that cover two things and see if you can see if they apply to you: Steady head. The first video on Key #1/Steady Head shows Erik's head going back and up, which is what I see your head doing. I think you can likely use some of the advice from that video. Centered hip turn. To assist with a steady head, I think the links that you'll find at the thread above regarding a centered pivot or centered hip turn could be useful to you. Again, I'm not an instructor, and I do not know if this is your most important piece to look at, but they are certainly fundamentals that I see many players at your skill level being told that they should start there. It likely won't hurt. See you around.

Welcome, Jeanne. We salute you, and thanks for chiming in!

Welcome! Probably would take a bit more than a "lesbian accent" comment to be banned around here. If I had to summarize what I've seen so far, the folks banned are ones that don't let a certain issue go. They'll come back to it over and over, even long after it's obvious the discussion isn't going anywhere. https://thesandtrap.com/a/faq Some good info there. As I recall, somewhere around here it says that our standard boils down to just "don't be a jerk." One little comment probably wouldn't do it, particularly if in jest and maybe a bit "off color." We had one guy who denigrated like 3 different ethnic groups in one flame post, we hid it because it was not in jest, it reflected poorly on our site discussions. And even from there, it even took a bunch of "freedom of expression" arguments to cut that guy off for good. He just wouldn't let it go that he couldn't express his opinion that one ethnic group was a bunch of [insert your bad trait here]. Anyway, welcome! Good to see you jumping right in.

For what it’s worth, I cracked up that I’d come across as sanctimonious. I can sorta kinda see it, and I was definitely long-winded. My intent was to matter-of-factly encourage actual discussion of improvement from a new poster, not linking out to a product. Let’s hear about the original weakness. The cure. The results. We have lots of lurkers too who might see that and get a sense of a better topic, when they decide to wade in. There was no attitude I was trying to impart- just a friendly steering toward what, in the future, might be a better-received topic.