mdl

I had to get my left labrum reconstructed after my second major dislocation a few years back. Recovery for me was 5 months until I could swing. I played at 6 months though infrequently. Maybe 8-9 months didn't feel dicey. Then I had winter and the next season... Wow. I hadn't known how much worse my mechanics were than they could be because I was subconsciously tightening my front should to protect it. Even before the second dislocation it was loose and sloppy. Who knew tightening up and good golf mechanics didn't go great together 😀 I don't know what surgery you're getting, but maybe a potential bright spot for you?

Depends on the distance. I actually have a swingcaddie "monitor" (quotes because it just gives distance and swing speed) that I've started using on the range this past season before rounds to get my partial shot distances for the day. But generally, I have a ~3/4 swing that I've started using with SW, Gap, PW, and 9i. These are my go to shots now. I hit my "3/4" GW 85-90 yards most days, with ~12 yard gaps between the clubs most days .I' really fell in love with that swing this past season and have had a few rounds where I hit three of those inside 5 feet! Down to about 60 yards I'll take off a bit from that 3/4 SW shot. 60 yards and in I'm hitting feel pitch shots with LW of GW.

I don't know if it's the torque balance or whatever else. But I got fitted for an Edel 4.0 a few years back and gained a bit under two strokes on the green! So, at minimum, get fit 😁

This is one of the handiest rules of thumb to remember. If relief is free, it's one club length. If it's with penalty, it's two club lengths (or on the line away from the flag when that's allowed). On the OB question, suppose your ball is on the cart path and your reasonable swing setup is right handed and you "have" to take relief (says it's a mini cobblestone path and the ball is sitting down and you're guaranteed to blade it and not really know where it's going, and probably damage your club). Your NPR is left of the path, as it almost always is for a righty. But while the ball can be in bounds, your feet will be across the OB line between the hole and the houses lining the fairway. Is that still an NPR? Are you allowed to take a right handed swing with your feet OB? What if the OB is a cliff or other landscape feature that means you can't stand there? Does a point on the left hand side of the path still count as NPR?

I agree that if a lefty swing was reasonable, then that part of the situation is fine. As in, if the ball were pretty close to the bush so that a right handed swing was blocked but far enough away that he had a clear strike at the ball left handed, then I think that's a fair thing to do. But then, as Erik said, assuming that the cart path in question is wide enough to accommodate driving a standard golf cart on it, then NPR is certainly on the desert side of the path. Anyone know what the penalty is for taking an illegal drop in this way (not at the NPR)? One question I have, @iacas said the NPR was probably in the bush. Do you not have to be able to take a reasonable shot from a spot for it to count as a relief point? Assuming the NPR is in the bush, would he be allowed to determine NPR given the lefty swing but then actually drop the ball behind and towards the cart path from the NPR to give himself a right handed shot that wasn't blocked by the bush? Here he would be determining NPR given the proposed lefty shot, but then taking the actual drop in a place where he wouldn't get full relief for the lefty shot. Is that legal. To be more extreme, what if the OB line were 18 inches into the desert from this cart path. If you take relief for a lefty swing, is the NPR OB, since your feet fit in bounds on the desert side of the cart path? Or does OB not count as a relief point so there you'd get to drop on the grass side of the path. Assuming that's true, is it then legal to do what the OP's friend did, which is drop in the grass to get relief from a lefty swing, then set up for a righty swing and take relief again into the fairway?

Yeah this is exactly. Lots of par 5s in men's club type tourney rounds where I'm carrying the fairway bunker(s) on many par 5s that most of the field, even many those that I get strokes on, can't.

Yeah this is good to remember. Handicap is ranking where a high handicap player is most likely to shoot a worse score than a scratch golfer. Though you'd think a super narrow shorter hole would be relatively high handicap (as in close to #1 or #2 because a scratch golfer can hit 4i-SW and have a good look at birdie frequently whereas a high handicap is gonna be in jail or OB a ton? I guess it being short disqualifies it? I have long noticed that as a long hitting mid-handicapper I get an advantage playing in tournaments against players where I get 3-4 strokes because those are usually the par 5s that I can reach or nearly reach in 2.

This. Whatever your longest iron is where you won't be in the trees a high percentage of the time. If that's shorter than 7i (as in, you'll have to hit a longer iron for your approach bringing trees back into play with high probability), I agree you're better off getting closer. But again play the percentages. If your 3w or 5w dispersion is solidly narrower than your driver, hit those. But some people hit driver straighter, so whatever gives you the highest probability of not being in the trees.

I took a big step back last season in terms of scoring. I felt I'd plateaued and committed to another round of lessons and working on meaningful swing changes. Went from a 7.9 to an 11. Back down in the 10s. Just starting to see some of the feel of improvement show up in scores. In fact a few rounds ago I had my best round, both score wise and ball striking and putting, in a while! Shot 79 with a mental breakdown finishing bogey-bogey-bogey on a tough three hole stretch where I go scared of the water blowing up my 70s round and yanked three drivers in a row after pumping it long down the middle all day and then hit two of three approaches scared-yanked away from water as well. Feeling like I can put some 70s rounds together this season!

Of course there's not a simple or knowable answer here. But the whole Caitlin Clark phenomenon is a nice example IMO. Suddenly there was wall to wall media coverage and national attention and... the women's tournament got similar ratings to the men's and much higher ratings than the men in the final four. With every indication that there will be some portion of the uptick that remains going forward. And there's the whole element that Sue Bird brought up. That basketball needed a pretty enough white superstar guard. One who looks like the "cute little white girls" that describes most of the soccer USWNT that's been able to achieve much higher popularity than any version of women's basketball, which is dominated by black players and none of any race who could be described as little... I do think women's sports are in a good place to start taking off more though. It's really only in the coming 5-10 years that the majority of girls will start to come of age with post Title IX grandmothers (as in their grandmothers were allowed to be serious athletes). I don't follow men's or women's basketball much, but in golf for sure the women's tour has gotten much deeper over the past 20 years and only looks to keep going in that direction. I've heard the same about women's basketball. And the patriarchal attitudes that socialized girls out of sports and everyone out of women's sports fandom aren't gone but have def diminished.

This isn't some kind of natural fact. It's a lot more complicated than this implies.

I'm with @Ty_Webb at about 40 yards. I've got distances down for 4 positions for 4 wedges: waist, low-rib, chest, and shoulder (those are the feels for how far back I'm going, not totally accurate actual take back distances) for lob, sand, gap, and pitch. My "waist" high full pitch shot goes 38-40 yards. From there in I'm going totally by eye and feel for my 60˚ or my gap wedge, depending on whether I want a high shot or a low runner. I find I hit better all the way out to 75 yards or so by kinda pretending I'm going by feel though. Like, I use my distances to get an idea of about how far back my backswing should go. But then in my mind I'm acting like I am from short range, where it's just see my landing spot, hit it to my landing spot.

I was laid off two months ago. Good severance, a 90 day layoff announcement regulation the company wanted to avoid so technically I'm still on the payroll for a few weeks, and a bunch of banked PTO, so I'm in a great spot and working on a startup idea I've been batting around with my brother for a while. That means I've got time to get to the gym! I'm at like 60-75 minutes 5x a week of strength training, and either a run or a bunch of time playing soccer or tennis with my daughter on the weekends. Stronger than I've been in forever. Up ~5 pounds of (noticeable!) muscle!

What @DeadMan said. From the satellite it looks like there's tall grass to the right, long of the fairway post-dog-leg. But left it just looks like regular rough all the way to the neighboring tee boxes. If that's true I'm aiming left edge of the green and bombs away every time, hoping for a 30-70 yard up and down opportunity.

Your own kid telling you you need a chipper. Ouch 😆