RandallT

They said it is 3% higher success, which surprises me. I have tried it before, and my contact was poor- which is likely a putting stroke issue. They lost me when they next inferred that for 33 putts, that means one stroke per round (33 x 0.03). Not true. A significant number of those 33 are gimme putts. I’d like to know more about the study. What was skill level of golfers? How much practice with eyes up method did the players need? Were people typically similar or did some people far favor one over the other?

I’m no instructor but I think the key will be to work on one priority at a time. Erik has given you that one thing. Practice it in slow motion. Take video of those slow motion swings. Speed up til you have it right at full speed. Then continue that until you don’t think about it much. Then incorporate the next thing. The shanks should take care of themselves when you change the picture. Take a look at this: The other things I might add to the mix at any point are static like grip and posture (if those are problems, or if you need a refresher- and I’m not saying you do). Those things can be found here: Basically the shanks will fix themselves as you change the picture. That takes time and deliberate effort, not just a day on the range hitting balls at full speed with new thoughts.

Welcome @afmilboy02! Happy thanksgiving. I tweaked some of your post to make it fit our guidelines for member swings. The one thing we need you to do now is embed the videos- not attach them. In the “How To” dropdown, you’ll see an option for embedding videos. Under the “Info” dropdown there is an option for Instructional Content. Great stuff there as well as tips for how to have a good swing thread, including video tips. Good luck!!!

I agree that I didn't find the study so compelling that I now think fast greens are one of the biggest factors in the pace of play initiative. http://www.usga.org/course-care/forethegolfer/2017/the-architectural-speed-limit-for-putting-greens.html USGA even assumes the relationship in this article above. But I like the term "architectural speed limit." I think that for the study to be done effectively, they'd have to define a little better what that architectural speed limit is and ensure that no hole exceeded that limit. Did they put holes in locations where the green wasn't really designed to accommodate that much speed, given its topology? For example, maybe on those "25 second" holes, that is what was going on. They could've made some sort of statement about correlation (or non-correlation) between the increased pace of play of 25 seconds and the percent slope of the ground near the hole. But they didn't. And if they goofed up just a few holes on just one of the seven courses they analyzed, it could have a big impact on the study results. From that USGA article above, I'm led to think that the main issue in setting green speeds is not so much the pace of play, but ensuring that there are not too many unusable hole locations on the green. Give facility managers the full range of options of pin placements for the green topology. I'm actually more interested in how they define that architectural speed limit- what is considered too fast for a given slope of a green, such that playability/enjoyment is reasonable for most of us?

This whole concept seems nuanced, as I think about it. The chart says zero about the relative importance of short game vs. long game. It is strictly something like (and correct me if I'm wrong): "For those that get up and down well relative to the field, their play from off the green accounts for more of that advantage than the play on the green." Ok, fine. But that's all you can conclude from this. Presumably, a "perfect player" who hit every green would not gain any strokes in short game-- but that's just fine, because he's putting for birdie and not trying to scramble and "gain strokes" that way. A guy who gains strokes scrambling is still generally losing strokes to the guy who puts the approach on the green, correct? A bit off topic from this thread, so I don't want to derail the point in the OP, but isn't it generally accepted that the largest area for separating yourself on tour is in approach play (i.e., approach to the green > driving)? Or is that not what you were saying here in that quote, @p1n9183 ? I was searching for something that had different percentages, but this graphic below is generally what I was trying to get at ( https://www.golfdigest.com/story/is-putting-on-the-pga-tour-overrated-this-incredible-chart-seems-to-suggest-so). In this chart, they seem nearly tied, so perhaps driving = approach play is even reasonable. I just seem to recall seeing data showing more clearly that approach > driving. And those are each greater than short game and putting.

Welcome @Kirma! Great when long time readers become posters. You’ve probably seen this set of links but it’s always a good reference point to start a swing thread from:

Welcome!! Hey 90-105 is bogey to double-bogey golf, not too “terrible”. But lots of stuff around here can help you move forward. Jump right in.

This might help: You’ve made the big step of starting a swing thread, so this is worth a read. It’s tough to go methodically and we all have our moments where we just need to pound away balls at full speed. But I can attest to this thread as being helpful. As I see it though, this thread is yours to do as you see fit! Just wanted to point out some ideas maybe you haven’t seen before. See ya around!

Sounds like a good start for the changes. Remember to take your time and solidify the new things. Go slow and use video to check yourself during a practice session. Practice in slow motion in a mirror. That kinda stuff pays off and gets it all feeling more natural when you go to the range. Good luck!

Three cheers for industrial plants that emit noxious odors!

@Jack Watson, speaking just for me, and keeping in mind I've been working with an instructor on steady improvement of all my bad habits I formed over the years when I built my own "natural" swing (which was garbage). I've done what I consider to be a good job of listening to what my instructor tells me, working on the pieces he recommends- and investigating parts to make sure I buy into the "why", mainly for my own understand, not because I distrust the advice, I'll say this: The movement of the hands from the top has been absolutely critical for me to get the club coming through more consistently and with more speed. In that diagram above you said you liked, my red line used to go down more vertically, causing the club to tip up. I don't know how to express it, but I can just feel it all coming together now (not fully yet), but by training myself to do my hand path more like you see in that picture in red, I can now feel the club coming around me more like a whip. I feel things come together nicely at impact. The benefits I FEEL are tremendous. I feel like I can attack the ball with more confidence, more speed, more consistency- all that. This is NOT an exercise in getting angles to look pretty, or something like you're implying. Again, for me, the approach you are advocating and living with the steepness that you see in Post #1, would've likely been a terrible approach. So if a reader is on the fence about it, and has an instructor that has recommended that they address their steepness, I'd say go for it. We are all different, but in my case, I'd lived with the steepness for decades. Good riddance- and any implication that for me that it wasn't a useful thing to do, well, I couldn't disagree more. The video that @billchao has posted is 100% on target for me. I now understand why I was "fighting" the club at impact with compensations because of what I was doing naturally from the top. I can't say enough about that video for me- obviously YMMV, as you seem to think it's a fad. That's fine, but I wholeheartedly disagree. You can change your swing that fast???? Just think of the approach and try 3 things?? Wow, I'm slow then. This has taken me a LOOOOOONG time, with tons of slow motion practice. Trial and error of many of the feels in this thread and from my instructor. Epiphanies that vanish, etc. Over time, things solidify, but your paragraph there just makes me think that some of us just naturally get this piece, while others of us naturally feel like we need to do the opposite, so we need to work harder to get it right.

It’s not every day you see a comparison between shanks and malaria. A tip of the hat for that one!

But this logic doesn’t negate the question. I know many fine people for whom sports has played near zero impact. But the question is not if sports are the only way for children to learn life lessons.

No driving range white noise? Or maybe New Yorkers "colorfully vocalize" too much about their wayward shots that it is no longer a soothing background?

Enjoyed the update, @ckeller52! Thanks for posting.

Pretty cool to just see the focus on the club. I don't know who that is, but geez- I see my last lesson from my instructor acted out by that club.

I think you've covered everything, but I'll be interested to see if there are any tips from others. My guess is that you'll find different answers and different attitudes at every single course, and it's incumbent on you or your wife to simply ask politely- respecting their business (as you seem to). Sometimes you'll win, sometimes you'll lose. And I doubt there's any secret tip that'll improve your odds. My only advice is to encourage your wife to give it a chance. Pick the time that suits your life, not suits the better odds of being alone. In my experience at local muni's in the northern VA area, I only rarely get paired with people that are annoying- and even then not so bad that it ruins my round or my day. Usually the experience is much better with other people. I've gotten to the point where I far prefer being paired with others than being alone. And I'm a big-time introvert.

Congrats, you are now conscious of how incompetent you are at golf. You are already in the yellow zone, working your way up the pyramid. The rest of what I have to say applies to me, but from what I've read here on this site, applies to many others. I've enjoyed working up the pyramid piece by piece, using the principles in this thread: I use video, and don't even hit that many balls. Like @Marty2019 wrote above, you don't need a tripod- just a clip of some sort to host your phone. Each practice session is focused on something very specific, and for me, it is always based on what an instructor has said is my top priority. I know I'm pretty useless at analyzing the mechanics involved to know what things impact other things, so I'd prefer to have an expert do that. For other tools here on the site, you can use the daily practice challenge here: You can also create a journal and solicit free feeback with a member swing thread: https://thesandtrap.com/forums/forum/13-member-swings/ Those tools are mainly for documenting your journey and keeping you focused. The key is to do a little bit every day, even if it's a drill at home in a mirror for just a few minutes. For me, when I play, I just play. The hope is that all of the work I've done (listed above) has drifted over into the "unconscious competence" part of the pyramid. I'll generally feel on the course which areas are working and not working, so that helps rededicate myself to focusing on what my instructor is telling me. But I don't try to work on my swing on the course. I've had a lost season this year- that's my caveat, as arthritis in my neck is keeping me from making a full swing. But I can say that the last couple years I've made significant improvement in my swing, and I'm hopeful I'll be able to reap rewards when I start to play again. It wasn't until I started the methodology above that I really made a dent in the bad habits in my swing. YMMV

The videos in this topic are right on this topic of steepness: This video in the tweet (the 3rd listed in that thread) is longer than the others, whereas the first two seem to promote a purchase, so I'll leave them off. As for me, I've made strides this year, but injury has slowed the progress. I think as I come out of the winter, I'll have an improved transition that promotes more shallowing. We shall see. This thread has been pretty helpful for me to review from time to time. Different feels to try and solidify it all- come at the same problem from different angles. Plus the incredible detail of that Como/MacKenzie video to hammer home why this is so key. Good luck to anyone else working on this.

And gives ammunition to wedge whisperers everywhere to say "See, good drives aren't that important! Just look at the players who hit the most good drives!" Seriously, they ought to just dispose of stats that don't really work out to give us meaningful insights. But then again, it is somewhat insightful to see that hitting the fairway and/or giving yourself a good enough shot to get up near the green in regulation is NOT going to separate you from the field at the PGA level. This could be used as an argument AGAINST those that say that ya just gotta put it in play on the PGA Tour. Nope, you gotta gain strokes Tee-Green.

30 birdies. But I'd consider the bogey-free tournament if you threw in a nicely cooked cheeseburger.

https://www.pgatour.com/stats/stat.02438.2017.html. Below is a screenshot of 2017 leaders. Not exactly the "who's who" of 2017. These guys had over 85% of their drives classified as "good." The worst on tour had somewhere shy of 80%. When you compare that list to money leaders and to Strokes Gained/Tee to Green, you see very little similarity. See spoiler below for 2017. Why does this "Good Drive" statistic do so poorly in predicting overall success? Why doesn't it correlate much with Strokes Gained- Tee to Green? Those two lists in the spoiler above have pretty good correlation. Here's the definition of a "Good Drive," per the PGA: My thoughts: The definition allows for the short hitters to be hitting "good" drives, even if they are further back in the fairway. Those players are still getting up and around the green with their approaches (which is all that the stat measures)- and likely ending up with longer putts. So there's a lot of "leeway" in what is good, and perhaps too much leeway to discriminate between the best drives and the worst drives. There really isn't too much separation from the best to the worst in this stat, rendering it somewhat meaningless. They're all very consistent, as we'd expect at that level. The best have 85% good drives and the worst have 75% good drives. And those are the extremes! The vast majority of players differ by only 5% in their number of good drives. For 5%, that's less than a shot difference in the number of good drives per round, and plenty of room to make that up that difference in the quality of each drive (i.e., length primarily). Anyway, just felt like posing a question or two about it. Feel free to chime in, if you have thoughts. The more I think about it, isn't this statistic going to very similar to Near GIR (nGIR)? Basically how often are you on or near the green. I tried to find a PGA statistic on near GIR, but only found a lot of GIR percents by range.

Happy Birthday, @WUTiger ! Now go save the Tee Tower!

Netflix original mini-series to do it justice as no 90-minute version could handle the golf scenes that I need to be there! In any case, it had better improve on this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0153080/

Hey, I just thought you'd get a kick out of this thread: An old thread, but got bumped a couple weeks ago, and folks have been answering. Looking at the results, you did VERY well for a first round.