SCC4380

I answered 6i. I get good gapping with my 6i and 7w. My 4i and 5i are in the garage.

I haven't heard anything about it. Is it worth a look?

I was in physical therapy for my shoulders a few months ago. Talking with the the folks there I found that they have found Astym to be very effective for golfers elbow. (You can read about it here: http://www.astym.com/Patients). I have golfers elbow and my forearms are so tight that my massage therapist couldn't get them to loosen up at all. The PT did a few Astym sessions and it made a big difference with my golfers elbow and the tightness in my forearms. I would try Astym (or perhaps one of the other soft tissue mobilization techniques) before surgery. You could get two treatments a week and be done with a normal course of treatment in 6 weeks or so. The best part is that you don't have to stop playing golf or anything else during the treatment period.

I installed Pure midsize wraps at the beginning of the season. I love them. They are very easy to install, very durable, and very tacky after wiping them down with a wet towel. They are soft but firm, not squishy. I can't comment on how they would be for someone with arthritis or nerve damage.

Good luck with physical therapy. It is great news that you can keep playing. Best.

I didn't wear a watch when golfing for years, but I love my Garmin S1. I don't even notice that that it is on my wrist and it is very convenient to glace at it when I am selecting a club. I have found it to be very accurate, but have noticed that it is sometimes different by a yard or two relative to other GPS units. That difference appears to be a function of how each company maps the greens and determines where the middle is. I am not good enough to worry about a one or two yard difference in where the middle of the green is. I play a course that was redesigned a couple of years ago and the yardages were way off because tee boxes and greens were moved. I contacted Garmin and we exchanged some emails and satellite photos and they have updated it.

Here is some data and some recommendations. http://www.three45golf.org/

You may need a Dr's referral to do it, but go to a good physical therapist. I have been to a physical therapist for my shoulders and it made a big difference. Make sure they give you stretching, and exercises. Also see if they will do soft tissue mobilization (something like ASTYM). Treat shoulder surgery as a last resort.

For the last few years I have carried 3-wood, 5-wood, and 7-wood. This season I took out the 3-wood. I just didn't use it enough or hit it reliably enough. I am very happy with 5-wood and 7-wood, but will be looking to go 4-wood and 7-wood when I replace them.

I recommend the Top Flite Gamer. It is a great ball for the price. It goes on sale pretty regularly at the price of 2 dozen for $35 or $30 (depending on the sale).

Congratulations! I am really excited to get my copy and read it. Steven

Here is the recommendation from the Tee It Forward initiative. Driver Distance Recommended 18-Hole Yardages 275 6,700-6,900 250 6,200-6,400 225 5,800-6,000 200 5,200-5,400 175 4,400-4,600 150 3,500-3,700 125 2,800-3,000 100 2,100-2,300

In Golf Digest Judy Rankin wrote: "If you can't hit a 7-iron into some par 4s, you're playing the wrong tees." ( http://www.golfdigest.com/magazine/myshot_gd0409 ) I seem to recall her being even more direct during a tour event broadcast where she said that half of your par 4 second shots should be 7 iron or less or you are playing the wrong tees. Barney Adams (age 72) plays with friends who choose tees that require them to hit driver, hybrid on most par 4s. Here is the basic idea from his analysis: "Adams came up with a system he calls Tour Length. He calculated that for a pro to hit the same clubs on approaches as an amateur averaging 230-yard drives on a 6,700-yard course, the pro's course would have to measure at least 8,100 yards. Conversely, for the 230-yard driver to hit the same clubs into greens as the pro would on a 7,300-yard layout, the amateur would have to play at no more than 6,200 yards. By Adams' calculation, this means the amateur who drives the ball 200 yards (closer to what the average golfer achieves) should be playing courses measuring about 6,000 yards. Many women, routinely forced to play tees in the 5,600-yard range despite hitting drives of about 140 yards, should be playing from approximately 4,600 yards." ( http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-courses/2011-05/golf-barney-adams-forward-tees ) I hope this helps. Steven

I don't have the book in front of me, but I seem to remember that Golfmetrics was software he developed with his graduate students before ShotLink and he asked the people at his home club to enter their rounds. He says that it was cumbersome to use. The idea behid the app is to make what he knows now about strokes gained widely available to anyone who wants to use it to analyze their their own game.

I was wondering if there is data on Average number of strokes (the second chart) for a Scratch golfer, 80-golfer, or 90 golfer. I like for the putting that I will be able to compare myself (out to 60 feet) to a scratch golfer and a 90 golfer. Wish I could do that for the other strokes. On the website for the book (everyshotcounts.com), Mark Broadie says that he has all of that data, but the page limits for the book mean't that he couldn't include it. It sounds like he is looking at putting it online. He also indicates that he is working on an app that will allow you to enter your round and automatically get the strokes gained for your shots. The only reason Broadie can give those averages for tour pros is because of the tracking data they have on every shot (ShotLINK). So they know about every shot on every hole at every tour event from, say, 50 yards, from the fairway. So you can get a true average over all the possible hole layouts and conditions. Obviously no one has that kind of data on a group of hundreds of amateur 90 players! The data he has from his Golfmetrics program pales in comparison to ShotLink, but he does have over 100,000 shots from more than 200 golfers with a wide range of abilities. It is not hundreds of amature 90 players, but I am sure he will have that data shortly after people start using his app. Steven

How well you hit it out of the box depends on your swing. Some people will hit it well because they have a shallow angle of attack and forward shaft lean at impact. Anyone who doesn't have forward shaft lean or who is hitting behind the ball or trying to hit up on the ball will struggle with it for a long time. If you have a shallow angle of attack it is possible to touch the grass just behind the ball with the sole of the club and still get good contact, but that doesn't work if you have a steep angle of attack or hit well behind the ball.

1. So far, I have found Mark Broadie's Every Shot Counts to be interesting, but not very actionable. 2. I hope that the writing is coming along well on Lowest Score Wins , because I am looking forward to seeing what it has to offer. 3. If you want to track basic stats, Lucius Riccio published an article in Golf Digest in 2006 that I found pretty helpful ("What it takes to break 80: a statistical road map for giving yourself a putt for 79"). GIRs are the single most important of the traditional statistics. According to "Riccio's Rule" your score = 95 - 2 * GIR. As a heuristic, he wrote, "' Three greens break 90, eight greens break 80, and 13 greens break 70.' That prediction is fairly accurate for any single round, and within one stroke about 90 percent of the time when you take the average of four or more rounds." (The caveat is that blowup holes throw all statistical models off--if you card a 12 for any hole they all fail.) Also, because there is more than one way to reach 79, he provided the following table showing how many putts you could take based on your number of GIRs and still card a 79. GIRs 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Putts 26 28 29 30 32 33 34 36 37 38 (His updated and more accurate model, "Riccio's Revised Rule" is that your score = 58 - 4/3 * GIRs + putts.) 4. If you want to know how different aspects of your game compares to people of a specific handicap, you could use http://shotbyshot.com/ . Broadie is in the news these days, but Peter Sanders has used the mathematical equivalent of "strokes gained" for putting and long game before it had that name. He is the statistical consultant for Zack Johnson and other tour players. After you enter a few rounds it will tell you where your deficiencies are. Sorry for the long post.

I just finished the chapter on tee to green strategy, and must admit that I was hoping for more information that would be useful than what it gave me. I am looking forward to Lowest Score Wins. How is the writing coming?

I just signed up and am happy to be a beta tester, but I don't have a smart phone. Even if I did, I am not sure I would have it on when I play golf. Are you going to produce a pdf scorecard that I can print out to record the relevant data as I play but enter it into the app when I get home? I know that shotbyshot.com and others offer this. How will the stats I get from ultimategolfstats.com differ from what I get at shotbyshot.com? Thanks.

I second (or third) the idea of finding a TaylorMade V Steel. Great fairway woods and I had a good experience with ebay.

Last year I wore Asics Matchplay 33. They were very comfortable and fit just like my running shoes for $80. This year's model is the Asics Matchplay 2 and is the same price. I ordered a pair that should get to me this week.

I bought a TaylorMade V Steel 7 wood for $35 on ebay a couple of years ago when I started golfing again. For the price and what it does for me I couldn't be happier. I hit it 215 with a smooth swing but can add more yards if I swing harder. I am not against hybrids, but I have never had one. They seem to have been invented when I was absent from the game.

I am new to The Sand Trap, but really enjoyed reading this. Good luck writing your book. I hope that you will post some more about it when you have a chance.

I am a big fan of Shawn Clement. I bought the DVD series at the end of last year and also watch his videos on YouTube. I will acknowledge that some of his terminology for ball flight isn't up to speed with Trackman standards, but what he teaches about tempo, swing, and focus have been very helpful to me. A while back I sent him video of my swing for feedback. I thought that he was very responsive and helpful with the changes that I needed to make. The only difficulty I encountered while I was making swing changes was that I lost my forward shaft lean at impact for a while, but some practice with the Tour Striker solved that. I have been hitting balls indoors all winter and can't wait to get out on the course to see how low my scores can go. As far as distance and biomechanics go, I am hitting the ball further and with less effort than I did last year. The combination of changes to my swing and swinging easier with more distance has put less strain on my shoulder and back, which I am very happy about. I read from a student of his that Shawn hits the ball a long way and in one of his videos I seem to recall him saying that he can carry the ball 290 with his driver while doing some of the drills. I also seem to recall him saying in one of his videos that he carries his 4 wood 265.