ZaPPPa

I have posted three 44's, but cannot seem to combine it with a second

Sound waves travel in all directions unless blocked. Though, you'll hear them in a lower frequency that someone standing in front of you due to the doppler effect. With that said. I generally don't hear the hiss with my driver because of the ringing of the impact, but I hear it clearly when I hit a good 5W and sometimes with an iron.

8", but I can crank it to 10" if I try really hard. Though I have a tendency to pull and yank it left. I think I'm coming over the top and don't get the head connecting properly. I'm just glad I never sliced it....

~95-100 and I outdrive pretty much everyone I play with... How odd judging from the polls on these forums...

Mid-year update: - Break 100 consistently Check - Break 90 at least once Getting close (92) - Bring handicap below 23 Check (20.5) - Reduce blow-up holes to one per round or less (blow-up = par+4) Check (last round no triple+ !) I'd like to change/add: - Fairways hit > 45% - GIR > 30% - Handicap below 21 by end of the year

Shot another 93 this morning. Just can't seem to get below 90 no matter how hard I practice. Nothing stood out as being bad today.. Driving, chipping and putting was all distinctly mediocre. Good news is that I managed to get up&down; a couple of times and I didn't have a single blow-up hole. Even my worst hole I managed to squeeze out a double. 5 Par, 5 Bogey, 8 Doubles 6/14 Fairways hit 4/18 GIR 36 putts (meh) 1 penalty Still having trouble with hitting shots fat, very fat at times. Driver has straightened fairly well, but I should reshaft my 3W so I can use that on tight fairways.

You mean on the golfer's ego or the actual difference in results? Sorry, couldn't help myself

When I first started playing my first real chance at par or even birdie got thwarted when my 120y shot, going straight at the pin, hit a sprinkler head at the edge of the green and bounced over the green, over the bunker behind the green into the deep rough. Thus a sure 5 (was a Par5) turned into a 9 as I struggled to get over the bunker. This game is brutal.

Join the club. I'm Tiger Woods on the range and look like an idiot on the course. I agree with the suggestions above. Turn the range into a course and be honest with yourself. Would that ball you just 'pured' down the range really have made the fairway or did you quietly pull that ball a little too far to the left and would that have been disastrous on Hole #5 on your regular course? That PW shot you just hit straight at the marker, was that not two yards short and would it not have plugged itself in that greenside bunker on Hole #7? I switched to just hitting balls to hitting specific targets and I switch clubs and targets constantly. My range has three little hills at ~140-150y that I try to hit. Take an 8I and hit the front, take a 7I and hit the flag, take a 6I and hit it over. Then I play the mental course game. Imagine your regular course and start playing it. Hit a driver. If it's good I get to hit whatever I would hit on the course from the fairway from that distance. If it's pushed or something I penalize myself with a low iron and I need to hit within 10y of my regular target to be able to save the hole. My goal is to hit 'virtual par' over 18 holes. All this has helped my game tremendously. Last week, for the first time, I felt confident on the course the ball would go where I wanted it to go. I could hit a green from 160y out, which I had never been able to do before. Also, range balls have notoriously low spin compared to a course ball. A draw on the range will be amplified to a hook on the course. I used to play a nice fade on the range with Top-Flite's, but give me an NXT tour and it would sail into the woods on the course. Good luck

165y approach shot on long Par4. Hit a perfect 7I, landed at 165 and stopped dead at 170y a little left of target. Doesn't seem like anything special, but this was my first GIR from 150+ yards out.

Ha!.. I guess I am. When I got my new irons I put the 4I in my bag, not realizing that was #15. I never use my 3W (wrong flex) or my 3H or 4I anyway. I should probably take out the 3H because it has the exact same distance as my 5W.

The craziest shot I've seen was on the driving range. Two guys, a lefty and righty are facing eachother. The righty somehow shanks the ball badly straight into the board between the two stalls, the ball hits the top of the board, shoots straight up and is hit by the lefty's driver in the follow through of his swing. The ball careens into the lefty's head leaving a nasty gash and a trip by ambulance to the local hospital. He went down like a ton of bricks.. His legs just gave out when that ball hit him.

For me the Par 3's determine what tees I play off of, not the total course length. I don't like 200y par3's with 180y of water to carry. The game just gets too expensive that way. Today I played a 6300y course which was fun, but left me with a lot of 8I-GW to the green. My regular course is 6600y from the blues, which feels a bit long, so i'd say 6450y should be about right.

A'ight.. I am finally dialed in with my new Irons: Driver 9.5* - 240-260 3W - 230 5W - 210-220 3H - 210 4H - 200 4I - 190 5I - 180 6I - 170 7I - 160 8I - 150 9I - 140 PW - 130 52 - ~110 56 - ~90 No wind, 80 F, sea level

The benefit of using a good stats tool is that you start to notice the lesser known stats and they can give you some interesting information. For example my GIR FWY hit is 50.0%, while my GIR is only 27.8%. That by itself does not mean a whole lot, but if you take the FHit scoring average of +0.83 and the Not Fhit scoring average of +1.75, this means that I almost lose a full shot when I don't drive well. I drive about 240-250 yards and I am comfortable with 8I up to the green. On a 370y hole I really shouldn't be hitting my driver if there's trouble left or right.. A solid 3W/5W gets me in 8I range and leaves me with a fairly easy shot into the green.

Shot 94 (50/44) on a 70.0/117 par 72. Started with three bad drives, but slowly got into the groove. On the back nine I managed to put a string together of bogey, par, par, bogey, par, par. I have finally dialed in my distances with my new clubs which helps a lot. Turns out I am hitting them 10 yards longer than my previous ones. GIR: 5/18 FH: 6/14 Putts: 37 (crap) U/D: 0/6 (ugh!) 5 Par, 8 Bogey, 2 Double, 3 Triple+ I know one thing and that's that I will be chipping and putting this weekend.. My short game killed what could have been a

Wacking a ball 300 yards is hard, but hardly impossible. I'm sure there's plenty of people who could punch as hard as Tyson, but would still get killed in the ring with him, because punching hard is only part of the total skillset needed to compete. Now, averaging 300+ yards is a whole different story. The word average implies some amount of consistency, which requires a whole other level of skill. This is where claims quickly fall apart. Whenever I hear someone claim they average 300 yards "but I have a wicked slice" I know they're full of crap. A slice takes a tremendous amount of distance off the shot and implies that if the ball would have been hit straight, it would have carried 350 yards. Unless your fairways hit percentage is above 50%, you are not averaging 300 yards carry, period.

Ok.. I can't believe I'm doing this, but just so people can verify the distances: Open Google Earth Look up Arrowhead golf course in Naples, FL. Find Hole #1. It's right below the Pro shop building on the west side of the course. Click the ruler tool and set a start point in the middle of the tee box second from the top (north) (which I assume is the blues) Draw a line from there equal to the back of the left fairway bunker. You should be equal to the little tree on the right rough. Your line should measure ~295 yards. In the video the first ball landed behind that tree for about 275 yards Further in the video you can see the bunker and see that two balls landed past the bunker for 300+ yards. Ergo, he did it and his results are valid and I'm an idiot for doing this. Obviously, with no knowledge of wind, fairway hardness and slope it still doesn't mean a whole lot, but judging from his swing I am not surprised he rolls it past 300 yards on occasion. Congrats.

If you slice that badly, no equipment is going to help you. It would be a waste buying an expensive driver while you are going through swing changes. I think most people are better off buying a cheapo driver to start with and switch to a fitted one once they have the basic swing mechanics down. Don't worry about distance for now. If you make a dramatic swing change you're bound to hit a whole bunch of balls all over the place (shank, top, fat,slice, hook) while you adjust. Hang in there and if you're doing the right thing, it will straighten out eventually and distance will come naturally once you start making solid contact.

I'll be sure to write a little note about it . Though the guy wasn't a dick about it. He was quite friendly and he was probably just trying to impress me or he had a bit too much to drink. I don't care that much anymore about distance. I used to care a lot when I just started and I was very short, but recently I realized that I am distinctly average for my build, so I am focussing more on accuracy. I have also noticed almost nobody mentions the wind when they report distance. With my high ball flight the wind is a huge factor. In the Bay Area where it is always windy, it is the difference between a 140y 6I and a 215y 6I. Two weeks ago I played in 20mph winds and barely carried the water on a 160y Par3 for 140y. Two holes later I teed off on a Par4 with the same club and it plugged in a bunker at 214y. It averages at 177, which is pretty close to what I hit on the range on one of those rare calm days. Obviously, for internet reasons, I now average 200+ yards with my 6I.. I did decide not to play on windy days any more. It is killing my score and killing my handicap. Hitting a 6 200+ yards makes for great bar talk, but when you expect it to land well in front of a bunker and it overflies the target by 30+ yards, it kind of takes the fun out of the game. And short/long isn't nearly as bad as balls being blown away by a cross-wind to land 50y left of where I was aiming. I recently switched from TM RAC OS reg to Mizuno MX-200 stiff and my ball flight went from a fade to a high draw. So much so that I am currently clueless as to where I need to aim and where the ball will land in windy conditions. Screw distance... it's accuracy I need. I'll trade you 20 yards long for 20 yards straight right now...

Was talking to a guy yesterday at a wedding. Turned out he was a golfer. Talked about various things and suddenly he started talking distance. So far he was a pretty decent guy, but then it got interesting. He talked about hitting a 5I 220y, which is far, but not entirely impossible. I've hit my 5I 200y twice (normal distance being 180 or so). Then he calmly explained how you should always tee off with a 3W on the first tee and that he can easily do this because he hits his 3W 320y... (I almost spilled my drink at this point). Then he goes on about hitting his driver 360y on average, but that's with roll and carry, so no big deal. I had a hard time keeping a straight face, but think I managed to do a reasonable job. Anyway, he wanted to play together, so I am looking forward to seeing what a 360y drive looks like. I am willing to bet he won't be more than 50y in front of me and I hit 230-250 on average.

You may want to wait for your new swing mechanics to stabilize before you buy a new shaft or driver, but it does sound like you should at least try one. I was in the same boat a while ago with only a slightly higher SS (98-106) and the stiff shaft driver worked wonders for me. When I was about to fork over some cash I went to the nearest Golfsmith on a quiet afternoon, went on their launch monitor and tried out various drivers and shafts to make sure I did not waste my money on a shaft while my swing was the real problem. You should do the same. I ended up buying mine on the internet, because the price was so much better. Since it was such a quiet day, the sales people didn't care much that I used the monitor for a full hour.

How about "The Harmon Project" for season 2 and "The Leadbetter project" for season 3?

I have never been on the driving range right before a round, mostly because we tee off right after work at 4 PM and want to be able to finish the round before dark. It takes me about 4-6 holes to warm up, so I'm quite sure some range time would help me warm up properly and keep my first drive from slicing OOB.. as it nearly always does.

He said 105 earlier. I personally love the shaft I selected for my Tour Burner. It's a Fujikura E360 Stiff. You'd want to look into low-mid launching shafts with torque depending on how quick your swing is. I suggest walking into a Golfsmith, for example, and trying out all kinds of different shafts.