gibbous

Okay, never mind then. I guess I didn't look closely enough for other threads on this... That's what I thought. Maybe it doesn't matter, but I've even seen this used in one of Tiger's instructional articles and it seems very misleading to me.

I've seen this phrase tossed around plenty of times from plenty of sources when referring to an iron shot struck with a descending clubhead. But is it really possible to compress the ball against the ground when you're hitting it with an object that is pointing away from the ground (like any lofted golf club)? And would a shot that was actually hit into the ground really come off with as consistent a trajectory as solidly struck iron shots do? I have a real problem believing this is physically possible. It's true that the downward movement of the clubhead would impart a downward force on the back of the ball. But since the loft of the face of the club that is actually striking the ball is going to force the ball away from the ground in a big way, it seems to me that the other smaller downward force could only increase backspin or slightly offset the upward force imparted by the loft of the club. Someone set me straight if I'm wrong, but I think this is a logical fallacy that just makes it easier for people to imagine making the right type of swing.

I don't have one and it'll probably be a long time before I own anything like it, but the coolest thing I've seen for it so far was the app that simulates a carpenters bubble level. That's just too cool...

My favorite movie of all time, and so many good quotes to choose from. A few of my favorites I haven't seen listed yet: Carl: "Don't mind this. This is doctor's orders." Lou: "You, pick up that blood." Al: "Move over Swanson, I'm driving!" Ty: "I don't play golf for money... against people." (I use this one every chance I get) Spalding: "Are you gonna eat your fat?" Mr. Havenkamp: "That's a peach, hon!" (Also very useful on the course) Smails: "Spalding, get your foot off the boat!"

There's a piece that might help explain how this all came about here , apparently the pirates are not the only ones that have been taking advantage of the current state of lawlessness in Somalia. Though I almost can't believe the whole nuclear/industrial waste dumping allegations. Almost. If all this stuff is true I think it makes it at least understandable how people could be driven to the point they're at currently.

I look at it more like being a teller confronted by violent group of bank robbers. I am much more willing to risk my life to protect my home and family from an intruder than I am to risk it protecting a ship/bank and a bunch of insurance company money. The majority of these situations do not end in bloodshed at all, so I would feel no need to force the issue. And honestly if ten heavily armed Somali pirates broke into my house I don't know how much of a fight I'd put up even if I was armed. If they were there to harm people I would only be able to stop a few of them before they killed me, and if they were just there to rob or kidnap me cooperating from the outset would be my best bet to survive. I can see how people would disagree on this but it makes sense to me to play the odds and not give them that extra reason to try to hurt me. Especially since a ship does actually have a decent chance of preventing them from ever getting on board without firing a shot. That's the problem, the average merchant vessel is not designed to regularly handle any sort of helo operations. Maybe I overestimate the severity of danger, but there are enough things that can go wrong with all the variables of the ship, weather, and sea that repeatedly doing something like this would almost have to end in disaster once in a while. Not only that but the ocean is just very big, and the the logistics and cost involved with constantly moving people on and off even a fraction of the thousands of ships that pass by Somalia alone would be mind boggling. Seriously, who would pay for that? I think the friendly Naval forces of the world are doing a pretty decent job responding wherever they can. If you're an American ship that puts out a distress call and someone like the Indian Navy hears it, they'll come help you if they can. But like I said before, the ocean is huge and it's impossible to be everywhere at once. I don't know where you read that, but they were quite wrong. It happens all over the world, but the coasts of Africa and SE Asia are the hotbeds. The Malacca Strait near Indonesia and Malasia used to be the worst part of the world until the Gulf of Aden took over their spot. Basically anywhere there is rampant poverty and a little opportunity, there will be piracy. The page below has some pretty good information on it. If you read through the incidents in the live report it's pretty simple to see how widespread the problem is, and how many of the attacks were thwarted without the use of deadly arms. http://www.icc-ccs.org/index.php?opt...map&Itemid;=219 Again, I know there's plenty of room for disagreement on this issue and appreciate the discussion here. It's a tough nut to crack for sure.

No, I'm not trying to convince anybody that a firehose and an RPG are an even fight. I wouldn't insult anyones intelligence like that. My point was just that a firehose has historically been an excellent tool for preventing would-be pirates from physically getting on board your vessel without escalating the situation by attempting to kill them. For the people on the ship that is the best possible outcome. Speaking as someone who has been all over the world on cargo vessels I can say that I would accept the inherent risk of taking a ship through a dangerous place as part of the job I chose to take. If that means there's an astronomically slim chance that I'd be taken hostage and killed in a worst case scenario, so be it. I probably take worse chances than that driving on the freeways in LA. What I would not accept would be a shipping company expecting me to endanger myself to a much greater degree by arming me and automatically turning the rare confrontation into a full on gun fight. And there is nothing simple about transferring people on or off a vessel at sea. If we were to try what you suggest I would wager that more lives would be lost in the process than pirates would be responsible for normally. There are plenty of things that happen every day all over the world that are contrary to what the US and every other civilized country believes in, but just throwing a bunch of localized money and firepower at a global problem usually isn't a solution on its own. So while I wholly support taking action against piracy, it just has to be realistic action with realistic expectations for results. Nobody on earth has the power to completely stop piracy, never have and never will.

And even if there is no hostile intent, the countries that do not allow private gun ownership are very interested in keeping as many uncontrolled guns as possible outside their borders. If every ship that came in was allowed to be as heavily armed as they wanted, it would be a lot more difficult to make sure they left with everything they arrived with. Even if the ship isn't there to make trouble, you know they came to make money. I think a non-lethal solution would be the best one as it might deter the pirates without putting the crew at additional risk. And denounce the "water cannon" as one may, but I'd like to see a boarder try to climb over the rail of a ship with the stream from a 2 1/2" fire hose hitting them in the chest.

Not many other countries care about what our Constitution says. As far as I know a ship can have whatever they want to pay for in international waters, but if you want your vessel to enter a foreign port you comply with their rules.

Yup, grappling hooks. Sometimes the only indication that a vessel crew has that pirates are even there is when the hooks start hitting the deck on the stern.

The unfortunate truth is that piracy has been a problem for as long as we've been plying the seas, and nothing that will come as a result of this incident will change that. Shipping companies operate on a budget just like any other, and that includes any additional costs that would come from extra people on board the vessel for security, or additional training for the ones that are already there. They can try to offset these extra costs by raising their rates, but then they risk losing the contract to carry the cargo altogether. If one company will not send their ship somewhere dangerous without extra provisions from the people who are actually paying to ship the cargo, another company probably will. It sucks to see safety concerns marginalized by a budget, but it's a line that always has to be drawn somewhere in every hazardous service or product that exists.

Yeah, sometimes ignorance is bliss. From what I've seen it's easy for a wood to be off by 2 degrees in either direction, but usually a driver has more loft on it than they tell you.

The 9016 is as live a head as I've ever hit. The ball pretty much leaves the clubface screaming if you hit it on the sweet spot, and it's forgiving enough to still produce a manageable ball flight when you don't hit it well. If I make the same swing with every driver I own this one will easily go the furthest, but that could be true for any other club that produced the right ballflight. So it's as long as anything out there, but the key is really that the loft and shaft combination just suit me well. I also find the traditional design very confidence inspiring at address, it's a lot more simple and understated than many other clubs it compares to. I've also heard good things about the Speedline heads but really know nothing about them, this is the first Adams I've played.

I also have problems with a high, ballooning ball flight with the driver. Getting the right one was basically a crap shoot. Nothing available off the shelf would give me the ballflight I was looking for, even my old 7.0 G2 w/ the Aldila NV. Of course the loft of that club actually measured at 9.0 degrees, big equipment manufacturers seem to like lying to you to bolster your ego. For a while my favorite driver was an old Titleist 975J 6.5, but it was too unforgiving. I tried a Cobra sz454 in 6.0 and liked the way it flew when I hit it well, but really disliked the way the club looks and just never got comfortable with it. I went for a custom fitting and walked out with a 7.0 SMT Encore with an SK Fiber mid-launch shaft, but that came off too high as well. I was thinking about re-shafting that, but then I stumbled across an Adams XTD 9016D 6.5 with the NVS and decided to give it a try. Even with the mid-launch shaft, this club turned out to be perfect for me. It's a low launch, low spin monster. I've never been more confident with any other driver, and am happy that my search is over for a while.

I used to play a few rounds with coworkers at a local executive course, though most of the people weren't really golfers. During one round into a ~100 yd hole my boss thins a wedge that bounces a couple times and comes down straight into the cup for an ace. The next time we played, on the same tee a different guy shanked his tee shot 90 degrees to the right, directly at the green on the previous hole. It hits the pin on the fly and drops directly into the wrong cup. The first was the only ace I've seen, and the second was the only time I've even heard of someone holing out on the wrong green let alone seen it happen. That they both happened from the same tee, to me is pretty weird.

Best is Freddy Couples, hands down. Effortless power defined. Worst is Jeev Milkha Singh from the European Tour. It gets results, but I don't need to look any further than my local driving range to find a prettier motion.

Sure, but I'm a LOT better on the range than I am on the course. No reason not to try to narrow the gap a little bit if I know I'm capable of playing better. Thanks again to everyone for the suggestions. I guess I've always been resistant to incorporate strict routine and discipline into things I do for fun (and that includes practice) but I'm beginning to think that might be the best way to solve my problem.

Thanks so much for the input so far, good stuff. Totally true, it seems to be that effort to swing at a certain speed and control the strike that kills me. Last time I played I did something similar to what you suggest except I took one more club and let it go long. I'll try it short a bit when there's not much trouble to get into. I guess I should have been a bit more clear about this part. I practice a few times a week and try to keep that as separate as possible from play. When I warm up I only hit enough balls to get loose and see how the ball is flying, as suggested. I can't help but go through a few swing thoughts when warming up, but they're the big ones that I'm trying to make automatic. My ballflight when warming up is usually pretty consistent with my practice sessions, it only gets weird when I play. You may have hit closer to the root of the problem than you think. I've never been able to stick to one specific pre-shot routine throughout a round, and if I could it seems like it could be the thing to tie this all together. I didn't really think of it that way before, but it seems pretty obvious now. Maybe I just haven't tried hard enough to find a comfortable routine I can stick with.

I'm sure this is completely psychological and not at all unique to me, but as soon as I leave the range and get out on the course, my ballflight changes from a gentle fade to a pronounced draw/hook, and formerly decent ballstriking becomes much more erratic. When I'm on the range my focus is aligning myself to the target then making a complete, balanced swing and accepting the result as they come. I try to take this same approach to the course, but somewhere in between the bottom of my bucket and the first tee I seem to forget all about the balance and tempo that gets results on the range. I go back to my old habit of trying to consciously square the face to the target, basically flipping my hands to try to steer the ball toward the target. At impact, I'm suddenly all hands and arms which is exactly the opposite of how my swing works best. I'm more a feel player so I try to capture and repeat what I feel on the range, it just rarely seems to work. I understand why flipping my hands at the ball will produce the poor ballstriking and the right to left flight, I'd just love to hear if there are any armchair sports psychologists out there with ideas on how to help overcome this as it's been bothering me for years.

It might also be worth noting that this was not originally Trump's golf course. It was called Ocean Trails before he bought it and the waterfall very well could have been there before hand. The giant golden emblem however is all him... I've played the course a couple times and I didn't find the waterfall to be that far out of place, though I'll admit it's not exactly natural looking. For the average golfer, that course is so hard it's not even fun.

My previous 3 wood was a Cleveland Comp that is marked as a 15, but actually measured a 12. I then went to a Wishon 949MC which is marked as a 14 but is actually 15. Strangely enough, I found the Cleveland to be easy to hit off the fairway, but wasn't happy with how I hit it off the tee. The Wishon is a little tougher to hit off the fairway, but performs beautifully off the tee which is really what I bought it for. I may only have one or two shots where I'd hit 3W from the fairway over a round, but I'll hit it off the tee at least 4 or 5 times so for me it was a good move. Very little distance was lost with the loft increase as well. During my last round two swings with it had me pin high on a 540 yard par 5, it's probably the best club (for me) I've ever hit.

Perpendicular or parallel? I've seen instructors recommend that you lay the club on the ground along the target line face up with the grip pointing toward the target, then step lightly on the club head so the face becomes parallel to the ground, and the angle that the shaft rises to will approximate the launch angle of the ball. Are we talking about the same thing?

I had a set of irons re-shafted by a custom fitter, and he ended up putting S300's in my 3-7 and X100's in my 8-PW. The interesting thing is that all of these clubs came out right around a 6.0 stiffness once they were put together. Of course I can't see a set from the factory being put together in such a careful way, but it goes to show that the stiffness of the shaft in its virgin state isn't the end-all factor in how the club ends up playing. As I understand it how the shaft is cut and the relative weight of the clubhead that is put on it are equally important factors. The only way (as far as I know) to really know for sure if your clubs are mismatched would be to check the frequency of each and compare them.

Turned 30 a couple months ago, been playing golf for about 15 years.