GHIN0011458

I have these exact ones.

Everyone had to start somewhere - and for me at least, I remember going on GolfNow and finding the cheapest round I could find. I would play crappy courses just to play. But more importantly I would practice a lot.. a ton. I would work on one small, specific thing. I used to have a HUGE slice. I am hitting 6 irons what I used to hit my 3 hybrid.. that is all over 7 years. Just practice more than you play until you can keep your ball in play.

no worries. I actually don't see myself as a good golfer because I never win anything. I am more concerned with my Anti-Handicap. which is like 4.7 or around there. To me that number is more important because I want to be as consistent as possible. I think 5 strokes difference from my handicap to my Anti is too many.. OT though.

Has played in- not won.. I don't even know if he has made a cut actually. PGA championships/Senior PGA's and US Opens. I am just saying he can make it there with that game. And yeah I mean one round I will make 5 and the next day I might not make any.. so if I average 2-3 a round I don't see it as a lot. Guys who are winning these events are averaging around 5. My game is birdie the easy holes/bogey the hard ones and par the rest.. + handicap doesn't mean I go out and shoot under par everyday.

Good luck with this 200 vs 250 argument here on the site. If the course is wide open and the rough isn't penalizing then the longer ball of course is the shot. I typically play very thick rough and I hit a lot of fairways. I RARELY make birdie from the rough(but I don't make many to start with). What everyone should do is hit the shot that puts them in the best place mentally. The shot that you can commit to, the shot that is going to leave you with the best chance at getting a GIR. The mental part of this game and playing smart is by far more important than hitting aggressive long balls all day. It was amazing I went back to playing smart but boring golf and how much better I have been scoring. I feel better hitting a shot I know I can hit and playing within my game. Anyone who goes out just for the fun of it I encourage to hit driver every time. That is the most fun club to hit and if you only get in 3-4 rounds a year you might as well. Don't worry about score if you don't play much because it takes practice to get good. I just played against a guy with I think 9 Major Championships under his belt who plays the exact same way- CONSERVATIVE. He rarely shoots over par, he wins most of the PGA Association tourney's and he is playing as conservative as possible. The #1 goal is GIR. Then you can plug along the golf course and make a putt here or a putt there and shoot under par or around even. Anyways- putting has gotten better/scores have gotten better and it is all mental. Numbers can be packed into a chart all day long but there are some intangibles that come into play with scoring in golf. And that is why a lot of the lower handicappers on this site are harder to convince of the distance is king argument. Every hole is different, every shot is different, and yet we try to generalize the game.

I took some time off from practice the last month and half- up to about two weeks ago- Wife lost a baby. I had already committed to some tourney's so I followed through on them. Haven't been on here in awhile. But I will follow thru on these updates. I started practicing two weeks ago and picked up the pieces rather quickly here are my results over the last few tourneys: http://odlegolf.com/Indian%20Springs%202015%20Detailed.pdf http://www.forestparkgc.com/files/2014/11/2015-Publinx-scores-Am.pdf (quit right after this) http://ghintpp.com/maga/TPPOnlineScoring/ResultsStroke.aspx?id=207 (I actually withdrew but they didn't get the information so it shows me for a NS- would have rather spent the day with the family so I decided not to tee it up- wasn't enjoying golf at this point) http://odlegolf.com/Governors%20Run%202015%20Final.pdf http://ghintpp.com/maga/TPPOnlineScoring/ResultsStroke.aspx?id=228 (started practicing after this event again) http://odlegolf.com/z.pdf (just this past weekend after the break; was able to start hitting the ball pretty well. Only made 3 bogies all weekend and I made zero birdies on the second day) One of the two big tourney's I am playing in is coming up July 10-12. Hoping to make the cut but it is a great event no matter what. I played the smartest golf I have played with a ton of discipline this past weekend so I am hoping that is a turning point for me this season. Hasn't been the best results but has been a tough summer for the wife. Anyways that is all for now. Putting really well- knock on wood. Haven't had a 3 putt in 3 rounds which isn't crazy but it is good for me. last tourney was 6900 par 72 and I hit 28 GIR so I am happy with that for now. Putting isn't costing me too many strokes and I am not going after back pin locations because that is what was killing me in these other tourneys. I actually wasn't hitting the ball well, just made some really poor decisions and made some big numbers. The only bad round was the 81 at the Normandie but other than that I just didn't score well. 75.8 Scoring Average - Playing some harder courses this year too so not too bad with 3 rounds in the 80's and taking some time off I guess.

"the expert golfer has maximum time to make minimal compensations. The poorer player has minimal time to make maximum compensations . " Now I'm really confused..

Okay- sorry about that. I will take your word for it. I will get there though, to the point of beating him. Thanks for the motivation today :).

I know but I am still amazed you have a guy who plays once a week, has never practiced, and he plays to a +2. Why haven't you tried to get him to take the game a bit more serious and see where he falls? I mean he could at least be ringing up amateur events left and right. I get that time doesn't mean success. But it takes time to put in the information and unlock the natural skill to be successful.. right?

That's fine if he can beat me. lol. I obviously still suck at the game but am trying my best to reach my potential. I am guessing he shoots one or two under every time he tees it up in a recreational round. It is very impressive that he plays off a +2 after four years and never practices, I have to give the guy credit. Obviously he has no competitive drive or he would do something with the talent he has.

You have to put in time to develop mechanics. You can't possibly develop perfect mechanics within a short period of time and be good to go. It isn't like I don't practice with a purpose. I wouldn't say my full swing is a limitation at all. 5 rounds averaging 11.6 GIR is better than most of the golfers shooting the scores I am shooting. My issue is long clubs (220 and out) have little to no spin and are lower flights. Other than that, I would put lag putting next. Here is how I look at this. The guys who can beat me but don't practice- they went through a stage where they practiced their ass off. Every guy I talk to who I play in tourneys with, 90 percent of them practice their ass off as well. There are some older pros, who don't practice as much. One of them only hits 50 yard shots but he still turns in good scores. They put in their time when they were younger. I have only been playing for almost 7 years now, one of those I was basically out for financial reasons. I make small changes one by one. But personally, I put in time for consistency and repetition so that my swing does hold up for a few days.

I feel like time is the issue- if you don't mind me asking how many hours do you single digit guys work on your game per week? I would start a separate thread but there is already a thread for everything on here so I wont. I play 7 months out of the year basically and practice around 12 hours per week plus play tourneys. That is a lot of time IMO- 2 hours every night then play on the weekends. Once you get to a certain level, you have to put in more time.

I am committed to golf until I have a year where my scoring average is less than the year before. Then I will take the game more recreational. However, I do hope that I improve to the point where I can focus more time on golf. I do see a ton of improvement still just going out to play, which is good. Every year I take the game as it is brand new and I try different things until things feel right, and so far, knock on wood, I haven't reached a plateau yet. I, of course, have gone through periods of hitting horrible shots on the range in order to make new swing changes so my ability suffers at the beginning of the year. On a side note- people call Tiger crazy for changing his swing, but I call him a genius. He knows that if you aren't changing, you aren't getting better. He hit his plateau with a swing, so he changed it. That is why I think he did the 3-4 swing changes now.

I have the Normandie Amateur this upcoming weekend. Excited to play in it, it is my 3rd one. It is a bigger tournament for me, I wouldn't say it is necessarily a Major, but it is more meaningful than most 2 day. It is my first shot at POY points for the St. Louis Golf Association. It has all of the better players in the area signed up. The course isn't that great, but it is the oldest public course on this side of the Mississippi or something like that- Babe Ruth played there. I also feel like I am ready to start performing. My game is where I want it to be from tee to green (knock on wood). Last year I ended up in one of the last groups but then I did what is below. Just going to try and play my best and want to pick up some Metro Cup Points to play in the match play event with the top 16 players in St. Louis next year. Here is last year- I am going to try and not freak out on the 2nd round. Greens roll about 12 and last year the greens keepers were laughing when standing behind the 9th green watching people putt. If you are behind the hole, you will be chipping on you next shot on about 9 holes out there. http://ghintpp.com/maga/TPPOnlineScoring/StrokeCard.aspx?id=171&pid;=11761

Something is off- either I explained wrong, or you interpreted wrong. So I ended up hitting 58/90 GIR, or 64%. I ended up hitting 158 putts total. I ONLY made around 12 putts outside of 5 feet, but inside of 5 feet, I made around 96 percent. I was talking about the 78 putts that were lagged towards the hole, tapped in, 1 footers, 2 footers, 3, 4 5 footers. That happened 78 times. I missed 3 of those. The rest were outside of 5 feet, and put up close to the hole. My scrambling was actually horrible. Different rough three tourneys in a row, different greens(firmness), etc. I also factor in every MG in my scrambling, so not sure if that is correct. Meaning- if I hit behind a tree and I need to pitch out and I am still 150 out, if I don't get that up and down then I count it as not scrambling. My Scrambling percentage was only 41% using that method. Getting up and down around the green itself, more like 65 percent.

I would love to find some money games in Vegas and go out.. I would much rather lose my money playing golf then lose it on the tables out there.

I hate handicapping myself. I would rather play it at scratch, and then flight.

I love playing assistant pro's or guys that are in their apprenticeship because only about 50 percent of them actually break 80 and about 10 percent of them shoot low 70's.. and they all think they are pretty good players.

Where did you get that stat? http://www.pgatour.com/stats/stat.403.html http://www.pgatour.com/stats/stat.403.2014.html I have just played 90 competitive holes in an 8 day stretch and missed one three footer and two at 4-5 feet and multiple 8 footers that I feel like I should have made(irrelevant), made I think 12 putts outside of 5 feet so 3/78 missed = 96.1%

The sad thing is I don't remember the last round I had that I didn't have a 3 putt.. :(. Even my bogey free tourney round had a 3 putt for par on a par 5. Oh yeah- the multi quote thing.. please combine.

The hardest part, which I may be using as an excuse to justify in my mind, is playing different speed greens every round. It is so hard to get a feel. A lot of my tourneys are an hour or two away so I don't get to go out there one night during the week and practice on them. I went from playing 11.5- 12's to playing 9-10's on Saturday to playing in the last group Sunday where they were measured at the slowest at a 7. I prefer putting on fast greens by a bunch. I feel like it is much harder to make a short putt on slower greens.

I three-put very often. By very often I mean usually twice per round to three times per round. Since I know that GIR if king of stats, I try to hit the green first. This may leave me between 20-40 feet away sometimes, but I am on the green. My glaring weakness is my lag putting. Sometimes it is up to 10 feet short or long. The hardest ones for me, as for anyone I would assume, would be the ones going up to a different tier on a green. I also leave myself with around 15 feet regularly with a wedge in my hand and give myself about 5-6 shots at birdie from this range per round. I am typically only making one of those on a good day, or 16-20 percent which is basically half of the top player on the PGA Tour. I would like to make at least two of those per round bringing that up to 32-35 percent. I have 3 putted eight times in the last 58 GIR as well. So almost 14 percent of the time I three put. One in 7 GIR I am three putting...

http://www.pgatour.com/stats/stat.403.html Exactly: My goal is to at least be in the top 50 percent of the tour with these stats. 5 footers you can just tap your ball on line and it usually goes in. Get to a 20 footer and I actually have to dial in my speed and get the line perfect.. not good at that.

There has to be a secret to shooting under par at least 75 percent of your rounds... anyone?