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I just read it as well. golf definitely has been in decline for some time. I do think just like anything in life there is ebb and flow. Golf is going to come back.

I want to win a Callaway Big Bertha Driver! Rafael CABRERA-BELLO -8 Stephen GALLACHER -7 Mikko ILONEN -6

Took me a good one full months without swinging at all. I couldn't even putt!! Light swing in 2nd month. Full swing but distance diminished. After almost 8-9 mo, I still feel it time to time but now I just reduce swing and take some rest. Ice and rest are two best medicine. Time to work on putting and gradually chipping.

I saw this article some time back and really opened my eyes. I mean I never even heard of Steve Marino and the way it was described just blew my mind away. The last part where he missed U.S. Open cut by shooting 17 over for two days... That is something. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/01/AR2007070101221_2.html?sid=ST2009071701245 It's all matter of perspective. From 25 hcp like me, scratch is light years away. For scratch, a tour pro is light years away. For an average tour pro, Tiger Woods or Adam Scott is light years away. Just another similarity of golf and life

This is a good suggestion. I'm really tempted to do this.

Outlier is not even talking about 0.01%. He is talking about Bill Gates', Michael Jordan's, Tiger Woods' of the world in their own field. Also, Gladwell took a lot of the stories from researches all over the places. He is a good story aggregator and teller so it's good read but the concept isn't new nor a de-facto rule. Him saying it doesn't apply sports further confirms there is no such 10K "rule" What he did is look at a few exceptional human beings and found a common ground which happened to be they worked on something for long time. Is this something new? We all know even from this forum that it takes long time to even become a decent golfer. And again it doesn't even apply sports. LOL

Maybe get some lesson and allocate some consistent practice time? Two things I see. 1. You are getting blisters. This tells me you are indeed swinging, grabbing way too hard. 2. You have no depth concept of distance. This tells me you need more practice with irons. It's not just contact, swinging loose. It's combinations of all contributes. Take at least 1 hour practice 4-5 times per week for about a couple months. Don't go out to course during that time because your old instincts will take over.

Apparently Dan did not read the fine print. Gladwell's own quote, "There is a lot of confusion about the 10,000 rule that I talk about in Outliers. It doesn't apply to sports." source: http://www.businessinsider.com/malcolm-gladwell-explains-the-10000-hour-rule-2014-6 I take Dan's effort as nothing more than his own publicity building. Good for him if he can build his publicity but bad if he actually believes he can become an "expert" or "pro" in golf. Also let's not lower the standard of expert. Scratch is definitely not an expert in golf as Gladwell's examples focus on really really exceptional larger-than life human beings. Expert in golf in Gladwell's example would be Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus, not a scratch golfer. This is one bad case of gross oversimplification of success IMO. It's like almost saying pure ball striking will make one to become a tour pro. Yes, it is a prerequisite but the entirety of becoming one.

This doesn't add up. If you are hitting 150 with 7i on fairway, you will not be able to carry 150 with 7i in sizable rough. I believe survey mentioned tough but not US Open tough rough. My hard 7i is 160 - 167ish but from rough I sometimes can't even carry 150. I believe one should be able to hit the same club in both scenarios and have similar result. 140 vs. 170 and 150 vs. 180, not 140 vs. 180

I'm surprised the result is lopsided to the other way. I thought people are more accomplished here so people would go for the longer but predictable condition. I voted for longer distance with flat fairway since either way my shot would be a toss up but given my past experiences I ended up having better result for having a ball in fairway than rough. I had harder time judging distance from the rough

I actually like this one a lot due to my tendency to overextend and go crazy. It's a good mental set-point for me that a club in my hand will carry certain distances even I don't go all crazy with swings.

This. I have seen some of my friends do this to the extreme and it looks so awkward. Thank heaven they don't have fast swing speed; otherwise their head would've been totally twisted. One of friends usually comment something like "I didn't keep my head down" so the ball went so and so. Doesn't sound all the convincing to me given how inconsistent his swing was.

Thanks for the old thread. I read it and enjoyed thoroughly. It somewhat reminds me of the journey I took since last year. I'm still not good but I have a desire to improve. Only thing missing for me is actual playing I agree with a lot of what you said in old thread and this thread. What I believe is high hc'ers should always pick the safest club, aka straight, within reasonable distance rather than most comfortable or farthest club. Most comfortable or farthest is really false information for most high hc'ers because I know for a fact high hc'ers are never comfortable with any club regardless of length or shape. What I mean is even though high hc'ers think they are good at this or that, but usually their swings are never consistent enough to translate such feeling into actual shot. The same for farthest. Even though high hc'ers think they can reach farthest with certain club, that doesn't necessarily translate into actual distance after taken into all directions, topping, fat divot, etc. This is similar to what you were saying about smooth distance. I also agree 100% that high hc'ers should stop trying to cheat in his mind. No more mulligans, double par ESC, movable lies, blatant omission of strokes, etc. These rules are bad for someone who wants to improve. Before strategy, before swing path, before all the techniques, one should try to stick with the basic rule as much as possible to know where exactly problems happen. I play with mostly high hc'ers so I know all those rules fuzzy up their scorecards. I really don't care they want to improve or not but I also don't take their score as real.

Golf is one sport that looks so easy before you get into but once you get in, it is one of the hardest ones. First, I'm not sure your personal circumstances but most adults have other obligations than gunning for scratch in golf. Second, even if you can breathe, eat, and live with golf, it is probably darn near impossible in short amount time unless you were trained early days in your life. I feel that there are so many subtleties in golf that simply can't be crammed. Try out and in 5-6 month, if you can get to hc 5-7, I think you may have legit chance to get there? If not, take it slow and enjoy.

One time I paired up with this couple who were generally very nice. In the first hole, however, we chatted and I told him it was my first time playing this course. Maybe it set him off. Maybe he wanted to show off to his wife or something. He started talking about how to hit where for each hole and how green looks like and how to hit what shots, etc. You get the picture. Problem is he doesn't need any of the information. He doesn't know how to chip, putt, hit decent approach, or driver. Basically just about hack every single shot. Half way through i got tired and irritated and eventually affected my game. It wasn't too bad like op mentioned but still didn't feel good after a nice afternoon golf outing.