Zesty

Sorry I missed this earlier. I've been doing it for six years now and I don't think I will ever stop.

Aimpoint Express.

I have been doing this for a couple of years and I have figured out a system that works for me pretty well. On my home course (Stimp 10) it's -10% for each percentage of slope downhill and +15% for each percentage of slope uphill. I combine this with how far I take my club back. I think there is a distance course for Aimpoint and I haven't taken it yet to see how it differs from what I have been doing. If anyone has any questions I can elaborate.

Yes. Ball forward. Shoulder tilt and I use an upward angle of attack. At 150 yards I would normally hit my 7 iron off the ground. With the driver set up, I would use a five iron and an easy swing to get the same 150 yards. It feels like I'm just pitching it out there like an underhanded softball toss if that makes any sense. The upward angle makes the ball go almost as high as my seven normally goes so it still doesn't roll out very much even with the lower spin. I do hit these shots straighter and with better ball control than my full irons.

I do both. One time I tried teeing my ball up higher than normal and used my driver stance to sweep up into the ball at medium energy with my driver mechanics. I found that I could hit it straighter than my normal iron shot and there was less risk of hitting it fat. The "driver" shot has less spin than the full iron so I choose which style to use depending on what I want the ball to do at the green.

I use both a laser rangefinder and a gps watch strapped to the laser's case. When I get to my drive I often have to wait for the group ahead of me to put the flag back in before I can shoot the distance with the laser. I like to at least know the distance to the center of the green right away (watch) so I can be mostly ready to hit when they clear the green. Reminding me of the distance to the center as well as the distance to the stick also helps me avoid the temptation to go at certain flags (anything over 125). However, when I have missed a green off to the left or right the rangefinder is a must.

I usually go by holes. Hitting a fairway, green and a 2 putt is "Great". Fairway, nGIR and up and down is good. Missed fairway, GIR or nGir and an up and down is "Good". Even a fairway, nGIR where I get close enough to have a look at Par is "Good" on long PAR 4s. At the end of the round, all of these holes go into the category of what went right in my planning and execution. The Bogeys and worse get evaluated hole by hole to see if I can figure out any pattern as to why those holes didn't go according to plan so I know what I need to work on. (Usually longer approach shots like everybody else. Occasionally shot zone starts creeping back to the flag instead of the center of greens and away from trouble. Etc.)

I have practiced my Aimpoint quite a bit over the last couple of years. Even if I am unusual in making more straight eight footers than 3% sidehill 5 footers, isn't there some point for everyone that says you would make more straight putts than heavy breaking putts from the same distance? I see Golfingdad feels that a lesser slope can be harder to discern and I have seen the video where erring on the high side of a breaking putt leaves the misreads quite close if the speed is the same. So I'm going to have to go run some more tests out on the practice green and see if I am way off here. I believe my personal results are influenced by my speed control. When I get my read on a sidehill 5 footer and I hit the putt over and over in practice (so I can confirm that the read and bead are good). If I am just a little bit firm it goes over the hole or if I'm a touch light it goes under the hole. This is when I repeat from the same spot on the same line. On the other hand, when I hit a putt that is straight enough for any break to be within the edge of the cup, it seems that a putt struck online can just get to the hole or be strong enough to go a foot or more by and still go in. Since I trust Aimpoint and feel like I'm pretty good at hitting my line, each inround putt for me is mostly an exercise in distance. So I have been working to have more putts, if possible, that had that larger margin of error in the distance category.

There was an article earlier this year on the Aimpoint website about "Finding Ones". It showed a chart where the zones at 9 and 3 o'clock to the hole were in red(oriented so the slope runs down to 6 o'clock). Above the hole was yellow and green below. What I took from the article is that on a typical hole with a two or three slope, the pie section below the hole out to about 30 degrees either way would be Aimpoint "Ones". These putts tend to require aiming at the edge of the cup or just outside it. Downhill breaking putts sometimes need to have an extra finger added so the pie above the hole with the "one" reads is smaller. I have learned that personally I make more 8 foot uphill "ones" than I do 5 foot sidehill "threes" on the same hole. That article changed slightly my goal of proximity to the hole on pitches asbeing the most important. When I have a pitch under thirty yards, I now adjust my shotzone to circle the big green area with aimpoint "ones" below the hole.

A person I was playing with said that a well designed course will often put the fairway bunkers and doglegs, etc. in strategic positions based on where your drive should land. This means that to really play the course you want to be at the tees where you are put to a risk/reward test - like trying to bomb it and carry or challenge the trouble versus playing shorter and having a longer approach shot. In this way you are getting to play the course as designed versus the shorter hitter who always plays back and never reaches any of the trouble.

I bought a swing speed radar and I found out that I could get 105 in the backyard and about 100 on the course when actually playing. My brother and I did a similar speed program three times a week for eight weeks and we both picked up about 10 mph. I can now get 115 in the backyard and 110 on the course. It feels like I am swinging the same speed on the course but my numbers all went up along with 20 extra yards on good drives. Very happy with the results.

I like to use a straight arm pitch that uses the bounce. 100 yds would be a half swing with a Pitching Wedge.

I feel like distance should make more of a difference. The difference in rating at my home course between the blues and the whites is 71.5 to 70.1. Yet I shoot way better scores when all of my approach shots are 30 yards or so closer to the green on each hole when I play the whites.

"The proof is in the putting" should be AimPoint's next ad campaign.

I'm sure it would be against the rules like the elevation options on a rangefinder, but, I was thinking that it would be a great for practice if I had a belt that worked as a level and sent the readout to my golfwatch. Wherever I was standing a quick glance at my wrist would give the degree of slope. Has anyone seen a practice aid like this?