mdl

~500 yard par 5, frustrated on tee after going +3 on 8 and 9 to card a 41 on the front. Over swing and push my drive into the trees right. Sitting ~220 from the hole. Have a tiny tiny window between some branches, go for the hero shot in anger. Hit it perfectly, land it 4-5 feet short, hit the uphill putt for an eagle. Not my best played hole tee to green, but most memorable for me because it kicked off my back nine 33 en route to my best ever score of 74.

#1 all day, no question. If the green is hard enough that I can't stop a 7i within 5 yards, it's probably rolling off the side of the green in #2 case. And my depth dispersion is much tighter than my lateral dispersion for mid and short irons.

His being a bomber back in the day certainly helped. But as many people already know, his real dominance came from the fact that he was so much better than everyone else with the long and mid irons, without glaring weaknesses elsewhere. So it makes sense to me that his being long but not a bomber at this point in his career doesn't hobble him or anything.

Huh. I guess I've never actually tested it. Sort of an assumption backed up by a few times drives have ballooned on me into a headwind when I didn't try to hit it low. How hard would the wind have to be for you to try to hit it low?

That's a fair point. I wouldn't devote a ton of time to it. But it might turn out that you don't spray it any more or less just making those setup adjustments, which makes for an easy win on the course.

Agree with the first, strongly disagree with the second. In a headwind with a driver, my go to move is to tee it down and play it a touch back in my stance compared to normal. I don't make any conscious swing changes. I get low penetrating drives with just this, no spinny ballooners that start low then balloon and hit the wind wall. Of course everyone's swing is different and mileage may vary for others. But it's definitely worth experimenting with cause it works really well for some people.

Definitely an LSW fan. In terms of being able to know what you most need to work on, you could consider GameGolf/ArcCOS. If you spend the time to adjust your putts on each hole and make sure you enter in penalty strokes and the like, you can get a solidly accurate ranking of your strokes gained in the various sub categories of the game. So it'll tell you you're a ~6 HCP who drives like the average 4, has an around the green short game like the average 8, etc. So that can give you a good idea of how to adjust your dedication of practice time. I haven't done it myself because of life and I don't have time to practice, I just play 100% of the available golf time in my life right now. But my bachelor brother got it and it's really helped him understand his own game.

40 BirdieBalls and a mat so I didn't damage the grass at the park were my driving range forever! They're GREAT. I had their "tee" for a while. Its' fine, but any time you would've nicked the tee, they thing flies 1/3 as far as the ball and you gotta run after it. I ended up just using one birdie ball to prop up another. The amount of tilt works fine with driver loft, especially if you tilt the "tee" birdieball a bit away from the target. You still sometimes hit the "tee" ball a ways, but then at least you don't have to chase it down after every shot. I found they give nearly perfect feedback in terms of shape and trajectory when it's calm and once you've gotten used to them. You have to learn what info you get means when it's windy, and you pretty much have to hit directly into or with the wind or else it's impossible to really know how you hit the ball. And they're not that useful hitting any direction if the wind is howling.

This is the best thing ever posted on this site I think I might actually try this, at least to see the reaction of my golf buddies Can't decide between "Boom!" and "Pow!".

That seems unsporting! Just birdie it and win already!

I don't disbelieve you fast guys, but I'd like to see it. I literally don't understand what a couple older guys playing 18 holes in 2 hours with "no rushing" looks like!

I don't understand this at all. I've had limited time where I'm trying to play as many holes as I can really quickly. Even with a cart, constantly conscious of trying to rush, literally near sprinting from the cart to the green, and skipping putting entirely on ~1/2 the holes, I never played 9 holes any faster than 50 some minutes. Granted, I still did at least an abbreviated pre shot routine, but man. Even without one beyond assessing club and shot choice, 18 holes in 2 hours sounds not at all fun as a stock personal pace!

Hardest I've played was Plantation at Kapalua. I played the combo tees, shot a 91, and felt like I played GREAT!

Birdie balls!

This isn't an unreasonable thing to do if it's a way for golf to be fun for you right now! I agree it's not super fun to play rounds where you're spraying the ball on every tee, losing a lot, and basically never having an open look on your approach shot. Of course I also agree that this isn't a great long term solution unless you forever just want to give up on playing full length courses and just play from the forward tees forever. For that you'll have to figure out the driver...