dkolo

Interesting insight. Thank you!

If you google something along the lines of "Golf Digest" and "ball spin chart," I know they do an annual graph of how much spin different models of balls get off of wedges in their testing, and they break it down into tiers by price. That'd be a great jumping off point. I'm sure other sources do similar lists / comparisons. I'm on my phone, or I'd link to it myself.

Each of the big retailers has their budget store brand. I play Callaways and Titleists because I make solid contact now, but my brother loses about 10 balls a round and he gets his Top Flites very cheaply from Dicks, which were also the ball I first bought when I started. The Top Flite XL Distance and their slightly better cousin the Inferno are way less than $1 a ball and go super far. They're complete rocks and I'd never play them because I'm some combination of ball snob and paranoid about spin into greens, but they definitely help with distance for beginners and are cheap to lose. Top Flite also makes the better Gamer balls that are much more playable for people who grow out of the XL distance / Inferno models. Sports Authority has their Tommy Armour and Ram brands for practically free as well. I'm not 100% sure which brand belongs to Golfsmith, but I think it's Lynx and Snake Eyes.

My brother bought a Gigagolf Verve 17 driver from them. I've played around with it, and I despise the club. It looks nice, but the thing feels like it wants to snap out of my hands if I hit it the slightest bit off the toe. I can't speak to the quality of the club it was cloning, but on its own, this driver is a heap of junk. I wish he'd talked to me before buying; he paid about $100 for it two years ago. I'd have told him to get a year old model or something really good used for the same price. Maybe their other clubs are fine, but based on this item, I would never want anything from them.

My brother has a Tommy Armour box set (the Diamond Scot). Playing around with them at the range, I'd say that the irons are fine. The woods are fairly lousy, and the hybrids feel like I'm hitting rocks (bad thing). Putter is meh. For the $225 or so he spent on his set, it's a fine set to break into golf with. I bought a Tommy Armour gap and lob wedge over Black Friday two years ago, though, and I love them a great deal. Grips wore down fast, but otherwise they're the clubs I use the most for practice and the finishes have lasted well as have the grooves. I happened to use the rewards points from Sports Authority from my brother's purchase (he didn't have an account, so I gave mine at checkout), plus the $10 they gave for coming at midnight, and the sale was 2 wedges for $50, so I paid $6 total for two wedges I've been very happy with.

I just got back from the driving range and had a challenge of hitting sand wedge with my friend, so I know my 56° wedge consistently goes 105 yards with about 10 yards of draw. I couldn't tell you what my driver speed is because I've never had it measured, and I only hit 3 wood off of the tee anyway, haha.

I absolutely adore the optimism implied with the write-your-own-number area. "Jesus, there's going to be so many people playing these babies, standard numbers won't be nearly enough!"

I use the ruler function on Google Earth to figure out the yardages to the range markers so I know how accurate they are. I hit the same two or three ranges and stick to the same stall most of the time, so it's not as extreme as it may sound. Laser rangefinders, if you have them, would also work well. The best way, though, would be to get on a good launch monitor and use that to figure out each club's distances. And precision isn't important in an absolute sense, since you'll probably rarely be hitting that exact yardage during a round anyway because you'll try to hit one harder, softer, higher lower, maybe move the ball. It's just a good starting off point for when you're playing on the course, really.

Absolutely, I know, haha. I've spend so much effort curing my shanks that I just haven't had time to work on my woods. I just count where I see it first bounce. The range I tend to frequent is sort of the opposite, in that it's extremely flat and open for the first 180-200 yards, but it dips down after about 200 yards straight ahead so it's hard to see where the longer hits land in the 200-250 range before flattening out as it heads to 300. So I have a very good idea about my iron distances, but the woods would be a best guess. These numbers for the driver definitely fit in with what I've experienced on the course when I happen to land by a yardage marker and do some math. I've had too many bad slices, so I've focused on just doing what I can to keep it in play, which definitely doesn't help distance. I'm looking forward to working on the driver and woods soon, and hopefully be able to put much nicer numbers up as a result, haha.

D 10.5°: 225 3w 15°: 215 5w 19°: 205 4h 24°: 200 5i / 6i: 188 6i: 175 7i: 163 8i: 150 9i: 138 PW: 125 52°: 115 56°: 100 60°: 80 Notes: These are numbers I've worked out from the driving range or par 3s, I don't really have any way to knowing exact yardages on the course, but my range has markers every 50 yards, and I've used Google Earth to measure out which stall on the range the numbers are most accurate from (I'm obsessive, I know, haha). Of the woods, the only number I can vouch for is my 3w. 225 for the driver is a best guess for when I'm not fighting my slice, which is why I mostly use the 3w off the tee. The 5w I really only use for second shots on par 5s from the deck because I struggle with getting the 3w in the air from the deck, so it's more of a "let's just have it go far in that direction" club for me. I'm planning on getting a lesson just for driver in a few weeks, because I feel like I have a lot more potential there based on my progress with the irons. I've spent the past few months working almost exclusively on my irons to get them working after the worst case of the shanks, so I'm proud to say that the numbers for the irons are accurate. I saw a very big spike in my distances with them in the past 3 weeks as a few things clicked. Easily about 15 yards more with each iron than last year, especially the longer ones, which I could never get up in the air consistently before. The 5i / 6i number is based off of the fact that I have a 5i that came with my Costco Callaway X-24 set, but I also got a 6i from Taylormade with their Speedblade giveaway earlier this year. Since that 6i has a stronger loft by about a quarter of a degree than my current 5i and the same length, they go about the same distance, and I've put that 6i in the bag because it's a little easier to hit, and, heck, I just love the way it looks and sounds, replacing the 5i in terms of gapping.

I wish Westbury were less of a schlep. The practice stall membership deal is such a fantastic bargain considering how much I spend for range buckets all year. If I lived within 15 miles, I would be at the PGA SS daily.

I agree, the East Northport store is really hit or miss. They're nice when it's quiet, but trying to get a question answered when there's more than a few people in the store is nearly impossible. They're great with the community, though. They brought all the Commack golf team kids in to have a putting competition and eventually gave them a bunch of swag like tees and bag accessories, so they're all right in my book. The Dick's down the road is massive but the sales folks are fairly standoffish in the golf department.

I hit the Apex at Golfsmith a few weeks ago. I'd never hit a forged iron before, and I agree that it feels amazing. It may be purely that that's how forged irons feel, but having hit the X2 Hots and the Apex in the same session, even though the 6 iron of the X2 went about 8 yards further for me, I would have gone for the Apex set any day. A dream to hit. Congrats on the purchase; I'm very jealous!

For what it's worth, my brother's driver from his inexpensive Tommy Armour box set has a near-identical indentation on it from a range ball he hit (or mishit, as it were). Those thin driver heads aren't so tough if they get hit at the wrong angle.

Obviously, the bib would have to be Augusta Green. You know, to be classy.

I would definitely counsel in favor of getting golf spikes. I used to play in sneakers, and there were two main issues I found. First, my sneakers were great, comfortable, breathable running shoes, which meant they weren't waterproof. That was fine in the summer, but playing 18 in January in NY with a light mist all day left me with bad stuff happening to my feet in the subsequent days. So waterproof shoes are definitely advised if any water is possible in your playing future. The second point I'd make is that golf spikes have allowed me to do things I just couldn't in sneakers. I specifically remember one shot while playing on a vacation in New Hampshire. The green was elevated at least 30 yards above the fairway, and very steeply so. Having landed on the 45° uphill leading to the green, playing from that lie would have been 100% impossible without having something that could dig into the turf and give me solid footing. Does it happen often? No, but it's great to have the confidence that your footing will be sure if you do wind up needing it. And one additional point that's somewhat neither here nor there, but comes to mind with this question, is that I've found that people in golf tend to, mostly unfairly, judge you and treat you according to your dress around here. I try to dress up somewhat even when I go to the driving range or practice area now because I find that other folks tend to be more respectful of you if you look like a golfer. Simple courtesy things like not muscling in on your area on the practice green, etc. Your mileage will vary, but that's been my experience. Having golf spikes is part of cultivating that image, I'd say. I just bring it up as something to consider is all. If you do decide to get golf spikes, like with so much else in the golf equipment world, going with last year's models is a fantastic way to save money while still getting awesome gear. I bought the Adidas Tour 360s when the Adizeros were the big shoe Taylormade / Adidas was hawking for $80ish off of Amazon. Good luck!

Right today I'm using some old Callaway Warbird Plus balls because my game's a mess after the winter and the ball isn't the problem. When I'm playing my best, I'll use the NXT Tour. If conditions are lousy or I'm rounding back into shape, I'll go with the DT Solos. However, I've gotten into the habit of switching to ProV1s on any par-3 that I can use a 6-iron or less to hit the green with because I'm confident I won't lose that ball, and I love the control I have with it. Whether I do or don't actually have more control with them is debatable, but I like the mindset it gives me of expecting myself to perform better.

After this long northeast winter, I'm working on everything. I'm blessed with a finished basement in a ranch house, so all winter long, I've been chipping and putting on the floor there, and I feel really great about my short game now. The rest of my game is a disaster. All winter long, I've been watching videos and working on turning my fade / slice swing into a draw, but since the driving ranges were covered in feet of snow, I was working on my swing without being able to hit any live balls, and I've screwed up my swing really good. I've developed an insane case of the shanks that I've been working to fix over the past month. It's awful, though: I'll go through an entire bucket without being able to hit any full shot off of anywhere but the hosel. I've started to videotape myself (the 120 fps of the iPhone 5S is wonderful), and I took a lesson, and as a result, I've been working on getting my backswing steeper and releasing the golf club. I've worked out the former after a lot of practice, but I'm still working on getting the feel for the latter. Maybe it's the way that my instructor explained it, but releasing the golf club (or more accurately, getting my wrists to "turn over") is what I'm struggling with the most. I finally had a decent day on the range yesterday (and by decent, I'm talking about at least making reasonable contact on about a third of my shots). It's been really, really demoralizing having my swing go completely to hell the past month or two. I picked the game up in mid-2012 and even broke 90 last summer, but right now I don't think I could get around the golf course the way it's going. I have another lesson coming up in a few days, so I'm hoping to come out of it with a swing that's at least functional.

I made an account to respond because I know how frustrating it's been to find info about course openings on LI recently. My friend played Sunken Meadow this weekend, so at least the Red course was open, with some temporary greens being used. I went to the nearby Crab Meadow on Saturday to practice chipping and it was definitely open for 18, walking-only. Gull Haven in Islip is open as well. Dix Hills Park and Northport at the VA were both supposed to open today when I called both late last week. The range and practice area at Dix Hills were both open over the weekend, but I don't know about whether they opened the course when the weather got gorgeous on Saturday. I wouldn't be surprised if Northport decides to hold off opening on account of the upcoming snowstorm. Hope you found somewhere to play!