RandallT

I'm no swing expert, but I am an athlete who enjoys watching form and fluidity of motion in all sports. I have to say that your swing does not evoke a Tiger feel to me, and I get a kick out of you being so insistent that you do. Your posture looks off from Tiger's at the start to me. At no point do I say, "Wow, that swing looks like Tiger." In my opinion taking still photos at various points is not effective. He is more athletic and dynamic. You are more slouched and lethargic like Jason Duffner. You are kidding yourself if you think because various snapshots line up that people will think your swing will look like Tiger's. The motion and fluidity and body movements look quite different to my eye. But whatever, broski (hate that word too).

Mine are without marks too, so I am obviously so good I know how to equally distribute the stress across the entire face to improve overall wear and read on them.

To rid myself of the dreaded OTT, I practiced the Jim Furyk move. Exaggerated it. Then consciously worked on short swings where my hips slung the clubs around. Let arms and club whip around while relaxing them. That feel helped me start the process of a total rebuild. With lessons, it can be done but you have to rid yourself of the OTT. I'm no expert in the swing but those are my humble thoughts after having gone through similar battle in the past year.

I just checked my "GolfPlan" app for averages of 17.4 HCP: FIR- 40% (33% left, 27% right) GIR- 22% Scrambling- 9% pars when miss GIR Sand Saves- 13% Putts- 1.97 Putts/GIR- 2.17 For my 12 HCP: FIR- 41% GIR- 31% Scrambling-14% Sand Saves- 21% Putts-1.90 Putts/GIR-2.09 Interesting that fairways is about the same to improve HCP by 5. Just 1% improvement.

I am a newbie here, but I LOVE how the seasoned posters here call out BS. The recent thread with the guy from Canada was a perfect example. The key is humility. Guys shouldn't come on here guns ablaze, talking about how great they are, and then expect a welcome mat- especially when their claims are iffy. Your post was great, and you are probably a much better golfer than that guy. Good luck on your journey, man. I hope you beat out Dan McLaughlin (see threads on "Dan Plan").

Here is one data point, for what it's worth. I'm a 12 handicap. My FIR is 47% for the past 20 rounds, but I like your idea of "quality" tee shots. I wish I tracked those, but I'd guess that is around 60/65%. My average drive is 233, and I include all my driver shots in that, although not the occasional shots that go 50 yards. Anything over 200, I'll count whatever the GolfShot app tells me is the distance when I get to my ball. Sometimes only 200. Highest I've ever hit is 289 yesterday (downhill with wind), but my typical shot when well struck is 240. I use GolfShot app, along with its cool companion called GolfPlan. They do a great job comparing your stats to others at your handicap. They tell me that at my handicap, I am hitting quite a bit more fairways than average. They do not comment on length, unfortunately. My 33% GIR is about average. My putting and ups/downs is what is below average compared to other 12 handicappers, according to them anyway.

Possible, I suppose. I've been playing a year and a half fairly regularly, about 35 rounds at local muni's since May 2012 in the Northern VA area. Not once have I seen a guy who hits 300 yard drives consistently. Of the guys I see over 270 regularly and who are in the fairway (or not far from it), they are all single digits handicappers. I've yet to see a guy who crushes straight drives and blows it on the short game. That's just my humble observation from seeing maybe 75-100 people in my random groups I join. I see all types (retirees, mid-life, young guns), but not a one matched that profile. Again, possible, but I haven't seen yet myself.

I had an instructor who would not make a video without a ball there. He called the ball the great "enemy," because it so dramatically effected how people swing. He said my practice swings were drastically different than my real swing, and he was exactly right. Plus, he wanted to see ball position at address, and how impact looked. None of that is possible in a practice swing because the impact zone can be anywhere I imagine it to be.

When I was a bogey golf average (+18 average), my handicap happened to be around 15, I think. I have read that your handicap typically ends up being a score that we will beat only about once in five rounds. So it stands to reason that a bogey golfer probably has some bell curve going on with the score distribution, and the top 1/5 of scores might be +15, +14, +13, whatever. All depends on how consistent the player is.

Monkey badge? I don't need a stinkin' monkey badge, do I? How do I get one? Will this stupid post earn me one? I want one.

My understanding from reading both threads was that this thread was originally strictly about his TrackMan numbers, and specifically what Dan might be doing wrong in his swing to have the numbers he does. That topic (and TrackMan analysis in general) interests me and is relevant to me at the moment, as I just had a TrackMan session (my first) last Friday. I was curious if we had similar problems in our swing. We don't. I have different challenges than he does: my clubhead path is to the right, my face is closed to the path, and with less clubhead speed. I definitely need to work on my swing speed and take some of the hook out (my miss recently). The other thread was more of a free-for-all about The Dan Plan.

Skeptic here, actually. I started playing again last May (2012), and somebody told me to check how my progress stacked up against his. I started tracking my handicap this May (2013) and am down to 12 or so after about 15 rounds this year. I've spent maybe 5-10 hours/week for what 60-70 weeks.... perhaps 500 hours total? So I looked up the Dan Plan and while comparing myslef with Dan, I googled other people's opinions on the Dan Plan and stumbled on this great forum. Just joined a few minutes ago. I am definitely on the skeptic side of the whole thing, and enjoyed the other longer thread about the Dan Plan here on The Sand Box. Hilarious stuff. This thread was more strictly about his numbers, which interests me more. I just had my first club fitting/TrackMan session last Friday, so it's all fascinating to me. I won't bore you with my numbers, but I'm not quite where Dan is yet... but heck, I've only spent 1/10th the time. I didn't waste my time putting first either, though. Hahah. I never understood that decision of his.

I use GolfNet myself (but have admittedly never tried GHIN). I shopped around in May this year, and found that the GolfNet service was exactly what I needed. Hole-by-hole stat tracking and analysis, plus a USGA-approved handicap. The price was significantly less than the price for handicaps at local clubs (via GHIN), plus GolfNet gave me the great stats and analysis tools. I asked a couple local clubs about tools for analyzing my rounds that I would get with their handicap, and they didn't seem very knowledgeable. Otherwise, if you just want a handicap, there's probably zero difference. The calculation is pretty simple. It's the features that I saw from GolfNet for analyzing your game that stood out for me- well, that and price was about half.

Looks like Dan is figuring out a little more how to swing. As he writes today, his swing is now about 50/50 where he can really connect by using his body and not mainly his arms and hands. I can't wait to see his next TrackMan update to see if his numbers improve significantly. Heck, I'd take a handicap update too. He is nearing the halfway point of 5000 hours left, and it's obvious to me he's not going to get anywhere near close to his goal. But he still seems confident that he can jack up his club speed 10% (from 265yd carry to 290yd carry, he says). He plays with a +handicap regularly, so he knows that there are lots of people who already at that skill level. I wonder how he thinks he will distinguish himself from the many, many thousands of scratch golfers out there who can already pound it that far. Anyway, here's the latest, in case you're interested. Finally an upbeat note after some poor outings, but he doesn't mention any specific scores or good rounds. http://thedanplan.com/finally-a-sign-of-the-positive-nature/