ITgolfHack

[QUOTE=ITgolfHack;187033] This is relevant because the pinching concept REQUIRES a significant downward force on the golf ball. Any impact, regardless of the angle, that strikes below the equator will not put any kind of significant downward force on the golf ball (i.e. drive it into the ground). Could someone who knows a bit about physics please post a force diagram of the golf ball at the moment of impact and show me how the ground could possibly aid in imparting backspin on the ball? I really want to see how someone who understands physics could go along with this pinching concept. If you agree that the initial contact point of the club on the golf ball is below or at the equator, then your theory is already sunk as any downward deformation of the golf ball strike the club face and not the ground. Given an angled face, if the ball deforms enough, guess what will be below the golf ball at the moment of impact, the lower face of the club head. As to the concept of the ground imparting the spin, this couldn’t be easier to disprove. 1.The golf ball is on the ground, this is a fact, it can not be argued. 2.The club is going to be moving forward toward the target at the same time it is moving down at the ball, this can not be argued. 3.The golf ball is going to be moving forward toward the target; this can also not be argued. 4.even if the ball is somehow also being driven into the ground, it will still have a much larger horizontal component to it’s velocity 5.The ball is going to be moving forward, the ground is going to be stationary, again, can’t be argued. 6.if you are standing behind a golfer and he makes his swing and the ball begins moving forward, the ground, if it was in contact with the golf ball more then an instant after impact, the friction of the ground against the forward motion of the ball, would impart a counter clockwise rotation on the ball (forward spin) If you know anything at all about physics, you will also have to agree that this can not be argued. If anyone wants to debate numbers 1 – 6 we can get into the math tomorrow when I have time. If you agree with points 1 – 6 you have to agree that the only thing that could impart backspin on the ball is the club face and that the less contact with the ground, the more backspin the club will be able to impart.

Generally in Pool or Billiards, if you are striking down on the ball trying to impart backspin, it's because you are in a funky position and are forced to do it. FWIW, in cue sports, english is left/right side spin, backspin is draw, and top spin is referred to as follow. Draw is applied by dropping the cue below the equator of the cue ball and striking the cue ball with as level a stroke as possible. Again, it's an example of what you feel isn't what is really happening and many beginning pool players believe that the way they get backspin is by elevating the butt of the cue. The same thing is happening with the iron and ball. This is very easy to prove to yourself. 1. Draw side view of a golf ball sitting on the ground. 2. draw a straight light line at about a 60 to 70 degree angle to the ground right behind the ball, this is the club head. 3. now draw a vertical shaft from the angled club head. Notice that no matter where you draw the club (assuming you keep the same angle between the shaft and head), the only way the club head could make first contact with the ball above the equator is if the very bottom of the club hit the ball first, which would clearly result in a topped ball, or if the shaft of the club was nearly parallel to the ground, a near physical impossibility if you have anything that looks like a golf swing.

Sorry to get back to this so late, I had a busy weekend. I should have made it clearer, it's not that I get tired and can't move around, it's just my arms and core muscles start to feel like lead and don't want to get it done any more. I start hitting some really bad fat shots, my slice comes back, and keeping the tension out of my swing becomes much harder for some reason. A big part of it may have to do with the fact that I’m terrible and end up hitting a lot more shots in a round then a better golfer would. Overall, I'm in pretty good shape and could easily walk or jog several miles without collapsing. I think I'm past the problem or almost passed it. I played last Monday, 9 holes subbing on my dad's league. I played 18 holes twilight on Friday and practiced with my net for 4 hours on Saturday. Finally, I played 18 holes Sunday morning on a very tough course (at least for me) and another 16 holes that same afternoon on a much easier course while shooting the best score of my life for the first 9 holes on the easier course. It was only during the last few holes as the sun was going down that I started to feel that familiar leaden feeling in my arms, I hit some fat shots, and just like magic my slice reappeared. By the time the outing comes around, 72 holes over 4 days should be a breeze. EDIT: Definatly going to take the eating suggestions to heart, I'll need every edge I can get over some of these guys!

I pick up at double par and so do the people I play with. The league that I sometimes sub on limits the highest score on any hole to double par, so that's why I started doing it that way. Funny story: My sister and her husband went out to play golf. He plays once in awhile, she hardly ever plays. They were on a long par 5 and she was hitting 12+ and wasn't on the green yet. As they are driving the cart up to his ball, he tells her "next time we get to your ball, just pick it up". He gets out to hit his ball and she jumps into the drivers seat, drives back to the car, gets in and drives home stranding him there. That little tantrum was quite an improvement for her, when she was younger, she probably would have run him down with the cart first .

I've just started playing regularly again this year and the last time I played at least once per week was about 4 years ago. Right now I'm finding that I'm getting pretty worn out halfway through the back 9. Early September, I'm set up to play an 18 hole outing followed by 3 days in a row playing 18. I'm worried that I'll be useless the last day or even last 2 days after playing 2 18 hole rounds in a row. Anyone got any tips for building endurance between now and then other then trying to play every day?

I've heard of using swing triggers to let your body know it's time to start the backswing, but does anyone use some kind of trigger just before the downswing? I find that if I'm doing things correctly, feeling no tension in my arms, keeping my left arm straight and getting a full shoulder turn, there is an instant at the top of my backswing where the club feels completely weightless. It's at that moment that I start to rotate my hips around and start bringing the club down. When I'm able to do that, I can hit a great looking straight shot that feels completely effortless. Rules question: is it legal to stop in the middle of a swing if you sense something is wrong? For instance, I'm at the top of my backswing but I don't feel my club go weightless, can I stop and set up again?

You were probably all tensed up and didn’t even realize it; I did the exact same thing last night subbing on a league where I didn't know most of the people I was playing with. It didn’t help that the guy I was paired up with was a 3 handicap and I’m happy to shoot high 40’s to low 50’s. The First 3 holes were a total disaster. As soon as I recognized how tense I was, I was able to completely relax and started hitting some good shots.

hemlock, I think you just overdid it too soon, but if your really concerned about it, you should probably see a doctor. This is also my first season back after not playing hardly any golf over the last 5 years or so. I really over did it the Sunday following my first round this season and could hardly walk for almost a week. I had some major stabbing pain in my right foot after swinging my driver for almost 3 hours straight. "Your body just has to get used to swinging a club again" is the advice that one kind person gave me on this forum. You can try to play through it, but go easy. Hold off on the marathon training sessions and 36 hole days until you work your way up to it. Last month it seemed like everyday after playing or practice something new hurt or ached, but now I can easily play 18 then practice for 5+ hours the next day and still be ready to play or practice the following day. Not to mention, overall I feel better then I have in years. Good luck, hope it feels better soon.

It's starting to sound like this little unit will be my choice next year. Again, thanks for taking the time to keep us updated.

If you consider the VAST amount of golf information available on the internet, lessons are probably not required to play at a high level, but they will likely reduce the amount of time it takes to get there. You also have to know how to filter out the good info from the bad. If you know what a good swing is supposed to look like, you can accomplish a lot with a decent video camera and a dry erase marker.

Last evening, after working almost 10 hours, some friends invited me to go play twilight at a nice long course, longer then I'm used to at least. I started off pretty good and I was hitting the ball well on the front 9. I was also hitting a lot of 4I and 5I shots since I'm not comfortable with fairway woods yet. On the back 9 I just couldn't get through the ball all the way and I was hitting the ground behind the ball a LOT, like every 3rd or 4th fairway/rough shot. I didn't feel all that tired, but maybe my muscles were just getting worn out from the busy day and the extra long iron shots on the front 9. Sound reasonable? Do you tend to chunk (is that the right word for it?) more balls when your worn out then you do when your fresh?

It depends on what kind of person you are. Some people take instruction very well and are able to make the kinds of changes that a pro will ask of them. They train, then they practice, then they play. If you’re taking a lesson and you’re waiting for the instructor to show you the magic bullet that will suddenly fix your game, you’re not likely to get much out of it. These kinds to people take the training and then they immediately go out on the course and try to implement everything the pro taught them. After 4 or 5 disastrous holes they get discouraged and they slowly start letting their old habits slip back in, usually without even noticing it.

My father has a skycaddy and a lot of courses that are close to us just aren't available for it. I know you can map your own, but that seems like a little too much work for a device you paid $400+ for. One device might be better then another in a thousand ways, but if you can't get your favorite course on it, it's going to spend most of it's time sitting at home.

That's just weak. Work sucked this morning. From my morning drive till 2:00 pm everything went wrong and I just wanted to bail. I've got enough personal time that I could have easily taken off and gone golfing without anyone giving me a hard time. The only problem with that is people were counting on me to get certain things done before monday and they didn't deserve to have their schedules screwed up just because I had a rotten first half of my day. I take pride in the job that I do, you would think a professional golfer would do the same.

I would hope this guy gets some serious jail time, but I wouldn't count on it.

I would say it's good if it gets people out playing, but bad if they are playing this way and think their scores mean anything. I played with a guy the other day who told me he had finally broken 100 and was very excited to see if he could do it again. I haven't broken 100 yet, but I could have probably broken 90 given this guys rules. I couldn't even count how many times he just picked his ball up and tossed it back on the fairway when it was in deep rough or behind or under a tree.

Thanks for the review. I plan on getting something like this next year and it's always good to hear from people who are actually using it.

Bringing out the stop watch was just obnoxious. I get irritated with slow play as much as the next guy, BUT ONLY WHEN IT'S IN FRONT OF ME!!! I like this idea; I have a friend that just took up the game. I figure the best way to get him going, once he can make decent contact most of the time at the range, is to play a few courses with the 2 of us playing best ball. That should let him play without much pressure and still get a good feel of how to play on a real course. Right now, I don't think he would come to a real course and play even if I tried to drag him.

My grandfather used to say, "9 out of 10 people are *******s, but we have a disproportionate number of *******s in our family." I'm afraid that I react to *******ry with stronger *******ry. I would have gotten drunk and just did the "holy F#%# S%#^" hero worship thing after every one of his shots. I would have said things like "I guess we know who’s shot we are using this time", "dude, you rock", and of course "who is this guy?" Every time he suggested we use his shot, I would have said "oh hell yea, who else can hit them like this?" and so forth. By the 5th or 6th hole, he would have hated me. By the turn or shortly after, he would be complaining about me to the others. By the 7th or 8th, he probably would have exploded verbally or swung on me. Either way, it would have been a fun day for me at least. Congrats on taking second, but yea, some things are not worth it.

I'm just getting back into playing on a regular basis this season. Before I stopped playing I would have said, using your list. 1) Not hitting anybody during a round (I can honestly say that I've never even come close) 2) Work the ball either direction (I did get somewhat good at this many years ago) 3) Hitting fairways with my driver (It never went far, but I was accurate) 4) Fairway woods (I topped and shanked as many as I hit well) 5) Eating during the round (sometimes there were crumbs, other times....) 6) Mid irons from 150 yards (simply horrible, topped or shanked balls outnumbered good shots) 7) Chipping around the green and getting up and down (OMGLMAO) 8) Wedges from 100 yards (if I was in perfect range, I looked like a pro, if not, hole score = hole score + 3. Did I mention that I was only likely to be in perfect range 2 or 3 times in 18?) Today however I'm a bit more serious about the game and I have access to many resources that didn't exist when I quite the game. Today I would say, again using most of your scale. 1) Not hitting anybody during a round (again, still haven’t gotten close) 2) Mid irons from 150 yards (my father, friends, and cousin are amazed at how well I'm hitting my irons, but I'm still more then a club back from them as far as distance is concerned) 3) Wedges from 100 yards (Switched to a very slow backswing, doing well here) 4) Hitting fairways with my driver (better then 50/50 right now if you ignore the truly bad drives off the toe/heel/topped/complete pop up) 5) Chipping around the green (not bad, not great) 6) Work the ball either direction (this used to be easy for me, giving me some grief since coming back) 7) Eating during the round (this is iffy, had a mustard disaster on hole 10 a few weeks ago) 8) Fairway woods (NA, I'm afraid to try and hit fairway woods right now) 9) Putting (Wow, just wow, most people would be truly surprised at how bad I'm doing at putting. 40 putts for 18 would probably allow me to break 100 easily)

srjorions post was fantastic. I'm lucky enough to play pool at a fairly high level and I know what your going through. It's a matter of being good enough to know how bad you really are and yea, the hero worship from those who don't really understand the game does get old really quick. It's the gaping in wonder when you screw up bad enough for them to know it that really gets to me. If you wanted to be kind of a sarcastic ass, you could tell them that if you were as good as they think you are, you would be on TV .

loved it, thanks for the laugh man. Some great visuals there.

I would fall into the #4 ranking on your list. I don't mind getting paired up with better players, but I find that a lot of the ones who, like me, are beginners who are serious about getting better also get mad too easily. If some of those guys spent as much time trying to figure out why they sliced one into the woods as they do complaining and throwing a fit about it, they would improve a lot faster.

I'm giving it some thought, especially after the round I played this morning , but it would mean buying a travel bag/case of some kind and checking another bag on the flight. I'm not sure if I want to deal with it all, what time does it get dark in Albuquerque this time of year?

Agreed sleepy, a couple weeks ago I missed driving into an almost tornado in Waterford by about 5 minutes. I had to turn around and take a different route twice because trees were blocking the roads. Thanks for the responses guys and rain doesn't bother me all that much. I'm usually the guy who refuses to put on any rain gear or even use an umbrella. If I'm going to get wet, I might as well get completely soaked and enjoy it. Unfortunately, they are calling for lightning also. I made it to the range and hit a medium bucket and really took my time on each shot. I got to experiment with a lot of different swing information I've absorbed from different sources over the last couple weeks. I'm starting to find that I can make solid contact with almost any kind of swing as long as I manage to keep my front heal on the ground. I even managed to hit a few deliberate draws and fades. All in all, I'd say the day didn't turn out to be as much of a waste as I had expected.