chasm

I see your point. However, I do think there is value is looking at the stats for the group, because it gives one a perspective on what has worked for most people and that may be counter-intuitive. In the present context, it may seem obvious that if one suffers from inaccuracy then it makes sense to dial back on distance, on the assumption that shorter will mean greater accuracy. But in practice, most people seem to do better by focussing on distance. As has been pointed out, better ball-striking will mean both greater distance and greater accuracy. Does the fact that this works for most people mean it will work for you? Of course not. But it's useful information nonetheless, simply because it is more likely that you are unexceptional than that you are exceptional.

The assumption that shorter = more accurate is part of the problem here. My longest shots with any given club are my most accurate, too - if I mishit it, I lose distance as well as going off-line. Does that mean I'm as accurate with my driver as with my pitching wedge? No. But it does mean that as I improve, my distance and accuracy improve in tandem, I don't trade off one for the other.

No, you're mistaken about this. If your worst shots are with the driver, the solution is not to abandon the driver, it is to learn how to hit it. If you are taking four shots to reach the green on a par four, you will virtually never make par and your most frequent score will be double bogey. Even if your short game was flawless you'd be making bogey. Meanwhile, the guy who can hit his driver properly is taking a six or seven iron to the green and giving himself a decent chance of a par. Obviously, hitting the ball a mile doesn't help if you have no idea where it will end up. And if you can hit a 5W reasonably well but are struggling with e driver, then certainly take that club off the tee while you are sorting yourself out. But can you really hit the 5W well? If so, it's hard to see why it would take you four shots to reach the green.

Hmm. I'd like to see the stats on that, I wonder if they really exist? But even if it's true, I'm not sure about your conclusion. Being tall may be a disadvantage, but it doesn't necessarily follow that crouching over the ball would help. There might be all sorts of unintended consequences in terms of resticted motion or whatever that offset any supposed advantage of being closer to the ball. Woods was a pretty good putter. He's not short. Faldo was useful, too. He's 6'3". I'd say that height matters a lot less than attention to the fundamentals, and practice.

Looks like it might be time for me to vacate this thread. Down to 14.7, which doesn't meet the criteria. A breakdown of my scores since the spring might be interesting. Average of all rounds, 20.3 strokes over par. Average of the last 20 rounds, 18.6 over par. Last 10 rounds, 16.8 over par. Last five rounds, 15 over par. Pretty steady progress, which I hope to continue. More detailed analysis shows that my driving has improved very little in that time - I've been hitting the ball reasonably well off the tee for months. But GIR, scrambling, sand saves and number of putts per round have all improved a little. Easily the most important change has been in how I practice - going through a consistent routine, hitting fewer balls, working on specifics rather than just hitting balls. Important not to fall victim to hubris, I'm well aware that I could regress and find myself back here. But so far, so good.

Get my handicap to single figures.

I simply couldn't play with those guys, it would ruin my game. If I had a bunch of friends like that, I'd see them socially off the golf course but tell them I couldn't stand to play golf with them.

The journalist hasn't bothered to do his research. I've played Craigielaw, their logo isn't a "bunny" it's a hare - a bigger, skinnier animal than a rabbit. And it's entirely appropriate to the club, because if you play there in the early morning or late afternoon you'll see lots of them playing around on the fairways. Nothing "odd" about it.

I can absolutely guarantee you that the 18 year-old Rory McIlroy had put in a lot more than 4300 hours of practice by the time he turned pro. According to wikipedia he could hit the ball 40 yards when he was two years old. He was the world champion in the 9-10 year-old age group. He played golf almost constantly from infancy. Having said that, your point about natural ability is quite right. Talent and practice are a mutually reinforcing pair. The talented get massive encouragement because when they practice, they see improve, so they practice more. I haven't followed the Dan thing very closely, but it strikes me that he may not have a great deal of natural ability. The gulf between where he is now and where he'd need to be as a tour pro seems to be pretty wide.

Suddenly, as the season ends, I'm starting to score. Another good round this week and I'm down from 15.9 to 14.7. (CONGU system, we don't have to wait for averages to be calculated). Unlikely that I'll see more progress this year, we'll shortly be playing on winter greens. But when I came back to the game in January I was shooting in the mid-nineties, got my new handicap in April and was off 18, now off 15 and shooting in the mid-eighties. Given that I'm no spring chicken any more, I'll call that acceptable progress and see if I can get close to single figures in 2015.

Well, I was the slow player on Sunday. Actually we weren't slow, my fourball took under four hours to finish the round, but the twoball behind us were exceptional players - they're on the local University team - who hit the ball a mile and don't miss much. There was no point in letting them play through because there was a queue of other groups in front of us. So, we weren't "slow", but I'll bet it seemed that way to the two young guys who were waiting on nearly every shot. Everything is relative; and I'm betting they're used to it.

I guess I'm fortunate in that there's a culture of fastish play at my club, and most people quickly become aware of what is regarded as acceptable. The guidance on pace of play is that a fourball should take no longer than 3 hours 50 minutes. Having said that, there are still players who are conspicuously slower than most and no, in general they don't know they are slow. In fact, some of them are among those who complain about slow play. Mostly their problem is not that they spend an unreasonable amount of time over a shot, it is that they amble rather than walk, aren't ready to play when it's their turn, and generally do everything in slow motion.

This, again. Played again today, concentrated on my set-up with particular reference to proper alignment. Result, 44% GIR and a gross 81 on a par 70 course. Scores are, finally, starting to reflect how well I think I'm hitting the ball. Must have something to do with pointing the club at where I want the ball to go...

Driving improved, short game improving, scores not coming down as fast as I would like because I'm still hitting too few GIR. Ergo, it is my iron play that is the priority. I'm coming to the conclusion that some of it is down to lack of concentration. I'm not sufficiently meticulous in making sure I go through the same routine and set up correctly every single time, and as a result I am sometimes not properly aligned to the target. Yesterday I took my time and paid special attention to this, and shot 84, one of my better rounds this year. Doh.

Spain and Portugal are the most popular, and you can get decent deals at that time of year. However, a few guys from my club have recently returned from a week in Belek, Turkey. They say it is the best experience they have had on any golfing trip, in terms of the standard of hotels, courses, and value for money. And, of course, the weather is sublime.

15.9 from 16.2. Creeping down oh so slowly. When coming back to the game in January I was shooting in the mid- to high nineties, so I suppose this is progress.

Depends what you mean by "uses" it. I use it every time I play, in the sense of using my handicap to calculate my score, decide who's won, all that. But here in the UK, only rounds played in competition are usually posted for the purpose of adjusting one's handicap. So I probably post a score every three or four weeks.

The ninth at my home course is pretty scary. Par three, 202 yards across a ravine, all carry. Miss the green to the left and you hit a big lime tree, could end up anywhere. Miss to the right and you're down a steep bank and chipping up from about 15 feet below the green. And the green slopes from left to right and is scarily fast - if you're above the hole you'd better hit it, because you'll have trouble getting your putt to stop. If I make par, I'm very happy.

Who in this thread has suggested that talent is unimportant? But carry on, by all means...

Sure, these people exist. But they are rare even at 6'5", and 6'5" is scarcely an outlier. Our friend here is 6'11", which is exotically rare. And once one's levers are as long as that, the effect of any minor flaw in the swing will be magnified. Even if he's as well coordinated as the average 5'10" guy, him being (say) 5% out in his swing path is going to give rise to a bigger miss than the little guy making a similar percentage error.

There's more to scoring than just hitting it long. My contention is that having very long limbs will make it more likely that inaccuracies creep in to what will be a very wide swing arc. In most sports one will find that the more compact guys are better co-ordinated. There are sports (basketball) where the advantages of freakish height outweighs the disadvantages of less precision, but they are few.

If I'm playing with someone, whether or not I know them, I am playing against them. If I didn't want to keep score I'd be playing on my own. And yes, I'm going to call out a total stranger if they're cheating. If you're not playing golf, you may as well be hacking the ball around a football field.

Clearly cultures differ, but where I play what you're saying here would be regarded as nonsense. Whether playing in competition or not, we play by the rules. Anyone teeing up outside the markers would be told so in no uncertain terms. And that's if we're being kind. We might let you tee off and only then tell you that you're subject to a penalty. I'm quite serious. It has nothing to do with being a "rules Nazi", it is merely ensuring that there's a common standard. And don't you Americans have to put in every card in order to maintain your handicaps? In which case, cheating is cheating, isn't it?

Presumably you mean fescue? But if so, that makes the assertion that people can't distinguish between rough and fairway even less comprehensible.

You're a very very tall guy. Makes my 6'3" seem positively stunted. My guess is that there comes a point at which being tall is actually a disadvantage, because the sheer size of the swing arc is so wide as to make it more likley that inaccuracies will creep in.