chingali

Yep, that's the common consensus.

You should try playing under the Aussie/British system, many times I have had an even par round and gone out by 0.1

Practice how you play. When playing you don't drop 4 balls and putt to the hole do you? Here's a nice little putting drill to try, I use it often. Use three balls and then putt to three different holes on the practice green, pick one about 15 feet away, another one 25 feet away and then another one 35+ feet away. Hole out each ball and keep track of your score, they are all par two's. In the beginning set yourself a goal of getting to say 5 under par before you can leave. As your putting improves increase how many under you have to get to before you can leave or do something else. Doing this means you are accountable for every single putt, just like out on the course. Another good putting practice drill is to putt against a friend. Keep track of your scores and putt out, again everything is a par two. Winner of a hole picks the hole to putt to until someone wins a hole. I often do this and we usually pick a time to play until. Usually about half an hour so, we'll agree to putt until 6pm and the loser buys the beer. The idea is to have a little something on the outcome, just like when playing. Both of the above also work great for practicing your short game. When on your own throw 10 balls around the green at random making sure to lob a few in a bunker then try to get them all down including putting out in as few strokes as possible, keep a record if you like so you can have something to try and beat. If you are with a friend play the old "winner picks where we play from" using one ball each and have a time limit and keep track of your scores, again put something on the outcome. The idea of all of the above is to try to put yourself under a bit of pressure when practicing. The more you are under a bit of pressure, the better you become at dealing with it. Think of those guys who dive off cliffs, first time they tried it I bet they were just about filling their pants out of fear, after a few hundred dives they will begin to look for something higher or more difficult to dive off. The key is they become used to the situation so it no longer holds them in a grip of terror. Similar to putting really.

I've been fortunate to have been to a lot of golf tournaments and seen a lot of players over the years. I'll list a few of my favourites. Greg Norman, Jack Nicklaus, Seve Ballesteros and Tom Watson playing in a Skins tournament at The Australian Golf Club in Sydney back in the mid 80's. It was played over a couple of days, 9 holes each day. From memory Norman won most of the cash, this would have to be me all time favourite tournament memory by a long long way. Tom Watson at Royal Melbourne in the late 80's, he won there in '84 but it was a few years later I saw him play there, I think he finished in the top 10 or thereabouts Lee Trevino playing in the wind and hitting magic little punch shots all day long at The Lakes in Sydney, I think it was about 1989 or thereabouts. He was an absolute magician, I think he finished in the top 5. Bernhard Langer playing at Concord in Sydney, probably about 1986 or so. I remember it was during that fantastic run of tournament wins for Norman and it was at about that time. Bernhard Langer was the purest ball striker I think I've seen. Greg Norman about 20+ times, you have no idea how good he was unless you saw it up close. Quite a few times I watched him during pro-ams before tournaments and he was always very talkative and friendly - a very nice man. Come tournament time the game face came out and he was super focused, but otherwise he's a real down to earth type of character. My favourite memory of Norman was watching him practice late one day at Concord Golf Club across the road at the temporary practice facility they always set up near the hospital. He was hitting I think a 3 or 4 iron that was landing as softly as a 9 iron and his caddy was out there shagging balls. He'd hit one and his caddy would take a step to the right to get it, he'd hit another and his caddy would take a step backwards, hit another and a couple of steps to the left. He did that for about half an hour and his caddy barely had to move. I went and watched him play a couple of years ago at Royal Sydney and he is still a great striker of the ball however his short game isn't as mercurial as it once was. Sadly Australian golf isn't what it once was, we don't seem to attract the big names like we used to however I still try to get out to see a tournament round or two each year whenever they are in Sydney. If someone like Mr Woods were to ever leave the safety of his homeland and come down under I'd travel wherever I had to. My best advice is to get out and watch these guys whenever you get the chance. Years from now you may regret it if you don't.

I prefer to do it myself because I can do it whenever I need to or just feel like doing it. Whenever I regrip my clubs I always buy about 20 or so grips so that if the grips on the clubs I practice with a lot (wedges/short irons) become worn I can match them exactly or if I buy something new that has an odd grip. Mind you, I used to be one of the guys in a very busy repair shop that did them for people anyway and have probably done upwards of 10000 regrips in my time! A lot of the guys I play with bring their clubs over to my place to have them regripped and I never charge them for the labour, most of them are there when I do it and I show them how it's done and they do it themselves after that. About the only difficult bit for most people is lining up grips that have reminder ribs or hand placement markings on them. If you have this type of grip and are replacing them with the same, secure an iron in the vice with the club head in a square position and take a photo with a digital camera along the shaft from the butt end (before cutting the old grip off!) and print it out as a reference when putting your new grips on. Another nice thing about doing your own grips is if you use grips with a reminder on them and you like your hands in a weak, neutral or strong position you can easily set your grips up exactly the way you prefer. Regripping clubs is very easy to do, once you have done a couple you'll wonder why you haven't tried it before.

Year round for me here in Australia.

Unfortunately I'm in the "statistically players don't improve their handicap over three years" boat. My AGU handicap over the past year has fluctuated between a low of 1.7 and a high of 3.1 so I'm quite happy. The 1.7 was during a period when I was not working very much and was playing 5 times a week and practicing a few hours a day, the 3.1 was at the end of a three month period where I was very busy and working 12 hours a day 6 days a week for a couple of months and only playing on Saturday mornings. I have moved in to a new house in the past couple of weeks and now live about a solid 9 iron from a pretty decent course with a decent practice area, I'm joining as a member within the next few weeks so I'll be back to playing and practicing quite a bit so I expect to be back down to less than 2 by christmas. Keep in mind that my handicap is an Australian one, very similar to the British system for those more familiar with it so I am not doing too badly Looking at my stats program which calculates my handicap using the American system I've been off scratch or very very close to it for the entire past 12 months.

It depends on work commitments for me. I generally play 100+ rounds a year (nearly always 18 holes) but sometimes I'll play only a few times a month and sometimes I'll play 5 days a week. When I look back through my stats software, I find that in the weeks I play more than three times my scores are noticeably better after the second round, and my worst scores come during the months I am busy with work and don't play much. GIR's seem to be about the same regardless, it's the putting and up and down stats that drive the better scoring. Not surprising really.

I usually have a 2 iron in the bag and occasionally a 1 iron. I also have a couple of hybrids that are in the bag from time to time. For me it depends on the course and the conditions as to what I carry.

2* will be fine, no problem at all. Something to keep in mind though when bending wedges (or irons for that matter as well) to add loft is that adding loft will also increase bounce, the opposite happens if you bend them to be stronger. If you go weaker in the loft you'll need a clubfitter to do some sole grinding to maintain the same bounce (try it as it is first), and remember that removing metal from the sole will decrease clubhead weight so you'll also need a load of lead tape to get it back to what it was.

LOL yep! I forgot to mention the time I played in a tournament down in Tasmania. It was cold, colder than it had any right to be during a golf tournament and they had 44 gallon drums sitting on bricks on a few tees and were burning wood in them so you could warm your hands a bit. It was so cold that on one hole during the first round my playing partner told me to look at a bird in a tree because he reckoned it had frozen solid. We sort of looked at it for a bit and decided that nah it was likely just having a rest and was sitting still to conserve energy. Next day the bloody thing was still sitting in the same place, hadn't moved. I swear the poor little bugger was frozen!

I've been using a Ping Moon-Lite for longer than I care to remember, my current one is only a few months old and replaced one that was getting old and ugly from too much use. The thing weighs less than 2lb's, throw in a couple of gloves, a towel, a handful of tees, a rulebook and 4 or 5 balls plus your clubs and it's still exceptionally light. The thing I like most about it though is the single carry strap that stands up so you don't need to bend to pick it up. I've never been comfortable with carrying a golf bag over my right shoulder and all of the bags with dual straps/harnesses seem to be set up this way. The only thing against the Moon-Lite is it has no legs but you can usually find something to lean it up against or just chuck it on the ground. It doesn't have full length dividers either but if the sticks ever get tangled up all you need to do is grab the top with a hand either side and lightly bounce the bottom of it a couple of times and they untangle themselves. I do have another stand bag (an Ogio) that I use if it's raining and need the stand to keep everything up off the ground and dry plus extra room for wet weather gear etc. It's a much much nicer bag, but it weighs a lot more and I hate the dual straps. The thing you need to be asking yourself is, how much stuff MUST you carry. If the answer is not much then a simple small bag is the go, otherwise get a cart bag and fill it up!

Black nail polish. Don't fuss over it too much though, it's just a piece of metal you use to whack things.

I've always been comfortable hitting a 3 wood off the deck but then I hit the quite solidly and fairly high anyway. Some things you could try to get a bit more confidence, Practice with your 3 wood off a slightly uphill lie (grass) When practicing give yourself a perfect lie (grass) Choke down on the club an inch, standard length for a 3 wood used to be about 42" now they are all 43" plus As for the club itself, Get something with at least 15* loft Try something with a tip flexible shaft - you don't want to be using something with a high kickpoint (like a Diamana Whiteboard!) in a 3 wood unless you have a reason for doing so. Something like a UST Proforce V2 High Launch is very easy to use. Maybe try a little bit softer flex shaft - if you normally play Stiff try something in Regular Go to a clubfitter and get fitted

Having spent a lot of time in the Aussie bush let me tell you that falling trees are very very common. Next time you get the chance to take a walk in the bush (or woods for you Americans ) take a look at all of the fallen trees and huge branches lying around, they had to get to the ground somehow! I'm in the RFS down here (Rural Fire Service) and when we are out fighting fires in the bush the most likely thing to kill you besides a heart attack is getting hit by a falling tree or branch, during a fire they fall a lot so we are always careful to look up all of the time and point out dangerous looking trees to eachother. Anyway, back on topic. I have seen a lot of weird things whilst playing golf for getting on 30 years. I saw a grass fire rip through a paddock alongside a fairway and about 100 snakes came out in front of it and headed across the fairway we were on. The friend I was playing with was from Japan and petrified of snakes so it was quite funny to watch - and listen to. I was caddying for a friend in the Australian PGA many years ago and during an early morning practice round we saw a now very well known Swedish golfer in a dam (lake) on one of the holes stark naked washing his hair. He had his towel and toiletries etc all neatly lined up on the bank. I've unfortunately seen a few people drop dead of heart attacks. We called up a group behind us on a par 3 once and the third person to tee off knocked it in the hole, the fourth person dumped his in the water, reloaded and knocked the next one in the hole for a par. I saw a carload of nuns crash through a fence and end up in a bunker. I saw a police chase - they were chasing a motorbike and the bike looked to be clearly winning. And a whole lot more, these were probably the weirdest.

Subconscious or not try hitting it in the middle of the one on the right, buggered if I know how I used to do it! The thing on the left belongs to my son, it's 460cc, second from the left is my current driver a Mizuno MP001 at 390cc, third from the left is a graphite headed Yonex ADX 300 I used for a few years about 10 years ago and the tiny thing on the right is a Dunlop persimmon I used in the mid eighties for a year or so. I've got loads more of them packed away in boxes, we moved house on the weekend.

It sounds as if your coach is on the right track. Choose a method, practice with it a LOT and stick with it and you'll be fine. The method you choose is up to you but I'd be sticking with something basic, forget the claw, reverse handed etc and just practice something simple.

Personally I like the rusty look or anything dark when it comes to wedges and it's not about aesthetics for me. I like the dark dull look because it cuts down on glare when you have the sun at the wrong angle. With chrome or other finishes I find that sometimes they are almost too bright to look at with the sun beating down. It's only ever a problem with wedges for me due to the increased loft of a 60* wedge over say a 6 iron.

Well done mate. Now you've gotten down to 2 it's time to get it down to 1!

Ahhhh the good old days! I don't mind a bit of sledging. One of my favourites is asking a mate after he has just nailed a drive "you catch that one solid mate?" - it sort of implies that it didn't go very far. I catch a lot of the sledging that's going on in my group of friends because I play very conservatively, I'm often asked why I'm wearing pants today and not a skirt or being told to "stop being a big girl and have a go" etc. It doesn't bother me, I'm the lowest marker in my group of friends by about 4 shots and I give plenty of stick back.

Forgot to add, dignity and sportsmanship from an Englishman with a picture of Sergio "Golly In The Cup" Garcia as an avatar!

Dignity, sportsmanship and cricket all used in two consecutive sentences by an Englishman? Come on, who are you kidding?

Do you still enjoy playing? If you do then you have no problems. Stick with the lessons and the practice, make sure you are practicing what you are being taught and not slipping back to what feels comfortable and you will improve. Give it another year and if you haven't improved and/or you aren't enjoying it then find something else. Seriously, I worked as a teaching pro for a few years a long time ago and I had no hesitation in telling a few people where they could find their local tennis/fishing/swimming/etc club.

A lot of wedges (and irons) when brand new have a slight sandblasting applied to the face during manufacturing that is very "grippy" and this wears off pretty quickly. I don't know about the Z TP wedges but most of the TM wedges I have seen in the past do have sandblasting applied during manufacture.

And here I was practicing to try and achieve the same goal!