mdl

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 😆

Love the buddhist monk reference!

Can't +1 this enough. If you're starting new, you won't "get" all of this right away or anything. But this is the best intro course in how to swing the golf club out there. Def that's freely available! Of course if you get going and feel like you're going to really keep playing, finding a good coach and taking regular lessons is your best investment. I wouldn't worry about clubs much. Maybe a static fitting calculator online to see if you should be playing longer or shorter than standard clubs (e.g. here). But then just find used irons and wedges with that length and a used driver, 5w, and putter.

Oh fair enough. I misread. Still, point remains. Even at 1/125 the chances of the 16 (becoming a 10) never winning is low.

@klineka (cc: @iacas) just to be pedantic. Ignoring Erik's response and whether the number is right. Take 1/125 as the true chance the 16 capper randomly beats the 3 capper over a round. With no shift in their scoring (handicap) over the years, even if they only play 10 rounds together a year, over 30 years that's 300 rounds. (124/125)^300 = ~9%. As in, even with your disputed numbers and not that many rounds per year, there's a 91% chance the 16 capper wins at some point. If they play 20 rounds a year together there's only a 0.8% chance the 16 capper never wins. Say the 16 capper improves a bit at the chance he randomly wins goes to 1/75. Then we're down into the 0.03% to 1.7% chance range he never wins.

Ha whoops. Shows me for not reading through 😆 New car looks beautiful and the performance adjustment capabilities sound super fun!!

Since you're looking at the Ioniq 5N, may I throw the Kia EV6 GT in the ring. The N line and GT share a platform. i think the EV6 has slightly less HP and a slightly longer range. But seems similar and worth checking out both. I ended up not being able to justify the EV6 and got the 2023 Niro EV early last year. But I really love that car and have a friend with the EV6 that I lust after whenever I see him. And that he loves. Given your range of price points I'd consider both! One word of caution, my 2023 Niro EV has an absolutely obnoxiously loud reverse beep. It sounds like I'm reversing an 18-wheeler, not a hatchback that regulations say shouldn't be totally silent. Since they share a platform it's probably worth being sure to check that reverse sound in test drive for either brand! The electric is SO fun to drive. I'm all in on the constant torque curve.

I don't mind the logo either. Cooler than Nike's TW logo 🤷‍♂️

Obviously a disappointing season for me scoring-wise. 7.9 was close to my best ever handicap, and I was for sure playing my best ever golf. My lowest ever was 7.7 years ago before I had a kid when I could play more and also was playing easy wide open courses in LA where I could spray and pray and usually have an open look for approach and get good differentials just because I'm long and the course rating/slopes were not super low because of distance. Last year I had a good bunch of rounds in the 70s and was having a blast. But I felt like I was hitting a plateau so I embarked on a new round of lessons and swing changes at the beginning of the season this year. I feel like a step forward into playing in the 6-7 range is in sight if not guaranteed. But this season I was never able to put it together. I had lots of rounds with 6-8 hole stretches in the -1 to +1 range paired with a few triples and bogey stretches. Lots of cards with one nine at 38-41 and the other at 45-50. Lots of mechanical thoughts creeping in and the like. Playing lots of golf swing instead of golf. Overall glad I took the hit this season though. Kicking off new season with 5 rounds at Bandon in a few weeks and really excited for it!

I agree both the kids and the parents in youth sports can be really toxic. In some ways the toxicity has just changed, but honestly I'd say if anything it's better than when I was a kid, at least in the limited sample I see (I'm not like going to youth games in lots of sports and different ages all over the country 😆). A lot of this article strikes me as the legacy of class condescension with some racial elements that is strong in golf. For historical reasons golf ended up as the rich WASP elite sport in the US for a ~century. I myself don't relish trash talk or machismo in sports, either as a spectator or when I played (baseball through college). So I appreciate some of the legacy of decorum (while finding some it of backwards and stuffy). But historical accident doesn't make repressed, passive aggressive WASP culture the "correct" one for golf. Before featheries made balls only affordable for elites it was the Scottish backwoods shepherd's sport after all!

What Boogie said. Though I will say your swing looks solid – like it doesn't need a total rebuild – and I bet you'll be able to get some insights here with properly filmed swings. I would say you should fill out the questions at the top where you just have xxxx. There will be a better discussion and you'll get better advice.

Hahaha. Please tell me it's real that Poulter plays to like a 6 handicap now 😆

Bummer. I would've liked to see him play.

Yeah I was trying not to comment on whether he needs to side bend or not given he's getting active lessons. What I was responding to was it sounded like Bo was maybe going rogue and proposing his own hypotheses around what he needed to work on. I was just calling out something I've learned over the years. Like, don't look at Will Zalatoris's swing and think you should copy that as a middle aged or senior golfer

Theoretically these are separate. As in, you can be uncentered with side bend and centered with no side bend. But of course everything affects everything else in the golf swing! One thing I'll note is that none of us are pro golfers, and many of us aren't young anymore. So all of our thinking about mechanics has to be adapted to what our bodies are capable of in terms of strength and flexibility. Not commenting on your swing, but just a heads up that it's totally possible you could look at your DTL position at, say, impact (P7) or after (P7-P8) and compare to your favorite pros and see you have less side bend. That may or may not be an indication that you need more side bend!

Generally I just try to drink enough that my pee isn't super dark 🤷‍♂️