lordhamster

i got a good deal by buying a G10 Demo club off a local golf course. Paid $169... before a $50 trade in knocked the price down even lower.

Language "ain't" static.

I mark my balls with a huge red sharpie X on both sides. Essentially 1/4 of the surface of my ball is covered in red ink. Yet somehow morons are constantly picking up my ball. They must be thinking they hit the ball so hard they whacked a new mark onto it.

Yes and no. In theory having limited protection of new ideas is a good idea. Ideally such protection would last long enough for you to bring the items to market and to make some profit. However, in general when a new product is brought to market, the company who first produces the item generally has a tremendous advantage simply because they ARE first to market. For example: There are many iphone knockoffs but none are even close to working anything like the iPhone. It will be some time before someone will be able to successfully make a counterfeit iphone. Same goes for Golf Clubs. Those of us who buy the latest and greatest will look for the originals from those companies we trust. I don't have so much trouble with knockoffs. What I find harmful is counterfeits trying to pass themselves as the original. That hurts the brand identity. Very often however intellectual property / patent laws hurt competition more than they help it. When drug companies get 17+ year patents on a drug simply by making some minor change to the formulation... this helps nobody. IMO patents should be severely limited to 3-5 years. If you haven't brought an item to market by then, it simply ain't gonna happen.

The funniest part of all of this is that Chinese golf nuts will spend huge sums to get original golf equipment there. My wife was in Hainan island where she watched an LPGA event. Some locals offered to buy her clubs from her for more than she bought them here in the US. In fact a number of people said that the wealthy chinese country club members love buying the latest and greatest which is available only from overseas. Also, despite the fact that you can buy fantastic knockoffs of goods like handbags in China, go to any high end brand name seller in Paris and you'll find the store packed with Chinese tourists spending top dollar for the originals.

I think I may have you beat. Last year I was playing a muni course around here. My foursome is approaching the 18th hole. We all take our approach shots and 3/4 of us are on the green. As we are walking to the green, a greenskeeper walks to the green and moves the hole!! Yes folks... he plugged the old hole and installed a new one. We were all so shocked at the guy's disregard for us we just laughed.

I love my 8 iron. When I was first starting out, my teacher put a training grip on my 8 iron to try to teach me the proper grip. As a result I just got into the habit of practicing with the 8 iron first and most often. Since the training grip has come off, the 8 is still my go-to club. If I need to hit a layup shot 90% of the time I grab for the 8. As a result, my favorite yardage from the pin is 130. From that yardage I get to grab my trusty 8 iron, which I will put pin high almost without fail. (although I seem to love missing the green to the right if there is a bunker that way).

The other day, the wife and I went to our local Muni course' putting green to get in some much needed practice. On the green already are a father and young (8?) son putting towards one of the 7 holes. My wife and I walked to the opposite side of the large putting green and began to put towards two separate holes off in the corner of the green furthest from the father/son. We noticed that the Father/Son team were moving around the green trying out different holes. Suddenly, balls start rolling between my wife's feet and the hole she is shooting to. She was practicing 4 foot putts, so they really were passing right through her line. First one, then two then three. We gave the father a puzzled look, and he responded by saying something about practicing all the holes because of the slope of the green or something. We were quite annoyed because the putting green is huge, with 6 open holes. Why do they have to start shooting at one that is clearly "occupied?"

The other day I was hitting all of my approach shots significantly short. I'm convinced it was because all the fairways were so wet that I was just taking much more of a divot than usual... thus absorbing some of my swing energy.

I like playing in slight drizzle. Because it is enough to clear the course, but not enough to make me miserable during a round.

I got to meet Natalie Gulbis at an event in Las Vegas last december. That was cool. I was never really a fan of her show or anything, but she really seems to be a very friendly person. It was one of those deals where she teed off with every group at a par3 hole. Of course while she was watching me tee off I shank it 6 feet off to the right. :)

I figure you provided her with the baby, so she owes you one. :) heheh Seriously though, as someone who golfs all the time with my wife, I consider any golf stuff I buy her a major investment. Because the more I can keep her into it, the more I get to play. She just got her handicap. 12.1 (not sure about the .1) off the men's tees. Shes been rubbing it in my face all week.

My favorite shows are always the "Ultimate matches" and the "playing with the pros"

Is it me, or does the guy at 42 seconds just hit a worm-burner off to the right?

Everyone always says you need to hit down on the ball, but I've always almost scooped the balls up. After a lesson about 2 weeks ago I've started introducing the proper wrist hinge to my swing. As a result, I've been able to take some speed off my swing and get even nicer ball flight. Also, I can literally feel myself hitting the ball first. Today I hit a bucket of 100 yard shots with my pitching wedge and then had to scrape tons of golf ball residue out from my grooves. Is it normal to be ripping the covering off range balls?

Good idea.

I put a huge red X on both sides of the ball. Yet somehow I've still had people hit my ball. My mark is so large and so annoying that you'd have to be a complete fool to think your ball is mine. Yet at least once a month someone wanders over from the other fairway to where my ball is, and I see them whack it towards their hole.

I think hitting far is overrated. I'd rather only drive 190 but be in the center of the fairway every time.

I'm a beginner with both types of units. Currently I prefer the Laser. I'd say with 90% certainty that if I can't laser the flag from a short walking distance of where I'm hitting, there is a very slim chance I'd be able to hit to it. If I want yardages to specific hazards I can get them. Also, I can use the laser on the driving range to see how far the flags actually are. In my area some courses are marked correctly, others are as much as 30 yards off. Either type of unit will do you a world of good IMO. Example, if your GPS tells you you are 130 yards out and you hit your 8 iron and consistently overshoot the green, then you know maybe you should hit a 9 for this distance.

Well, one thing is for sure: I'm going to have to try that same driver at a real driving range. If I could carry 243 with a nice easy tempo swing I'd be in heaven.

Amen. The fact that there are knockoff clubs on the market does not in any way mean that chinese quality is sub-standard. The two issues are completely separate. Just because I can buy a counterfeit movie on the streets of new york does not mean that I'll get a less than quality dvd at the local best buy. As for American quality, I gotta say it ain't all its cracked up to be. I've owned two american cars in my life and two foreign cars. The American cars were unreliable pieces of garbage with rattles, shakes and defective parts.

Selective Availability was turned off by the military after a presidential order from Bill Clinton. That decision made civilian GPS go from 100M accuracy to 3-5M. This change also gave rise to the spot of Geocaching. The WAAS Wide area augmentation system makes the accuracy come even closer all the way down to around 3M. survey grade units even take advantage of ground based augmentation and can achieve sub 3-meter accuracy. The biggest problem a golf GPS will face is that the Aerial photography grids are sometimes off their reference points by a little bit. Add in the inaccuracy of the person digitizing points off that map, plus the +/- 3-5 meters of the GPS itself. Then add in the changing pin positions and you've got yourself some issues. Now mind you, for the majority of golfers, the error in their club distances is greater than the error of the GPS reading. That is certainly the case for me. As such, GPS is good enough for most.

I didn't say I want them to film the walking. I'm just saying don't jump around so much. Of course I want them to edit out the miles of walking and 6000 practice swings. At the very least I'd love them to maybe cover one hole for example and then see how 4 different players handle it. Rather than jumping around to 18 different holes where it takes 15 min before I see if the player I'm trying to follow made the putt or not.

Are they juicing the simulators at the golf stores to make you want to buy drivers? Normally I hit my drives with a slice... its been a major problem for me. Lately I'm straightening out and will generally carry 210-220 then drop dead. Occasionally if I hit a downward sloping fairway I've hit as far as 240, but never past that. Yesterday I'm in the simulator at Golf Galaxy hitting hybrid clubs, when I spot a Cobra somethingorother 9.5 with a regular shaft in a draw configuration. Since I've been wanting to try a 9.5 I decided to give it a whack. Well, I made a good contact and hit the ball right down the center. (In real life I'm sure it would do my normal trick of going 150 out then turning right). The simulator says "277 yard drive with 243yard carry." Um... I'd love to think I could hit it that far, but somehow I think the simulators are not that accurate. PS. The moment I hit that shot and saw the result I looked at my wife. She promptly said: "you aren't getting it."

Dear "That Golfer," When I'm on a completely empty driving range, please don't insist on going into the one stall directly beside me when there are 50 other open stalls. Dear "That Golfer," Please keep your toddlers on a leash when at the practice green. Its a practice green, not a playground.