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?

I discovered once that if I start with a square clubface at address with a relaxed grip but then I really grip hard with my lead hand my clubface rotates open a little bit. I now work hard to make sure that my starting grip pressure matches my grip pressure at impact so I'm not opening the face a bit without even realizing it.

I had a frustrating Saturday and I was wondering if anyone else has got an idea of how to manage a situation like this. I joined with three other singles for a round and one of them did not want to play ready golf but by the correct order of play. We all shrugged and went along, of course. So when we got to the green, everyone had to mark their ball and wait while whoever was out hurried to go through his routine. I normally play with a group that all use Aimpoint Express. We normally all mark our balls and then straddle our lines to make our reads. The guys that like to go quickly then step up and putt first. On Saturday, though, the guy who was out would have to set up to his ball quickly while we would all stand aside. When it was my turn I tried to go through my normal routine but it felt too long with these non-aimpointers trying to figure out why I looked like I was walking all over my own line. (Of course, I make sure to only straddle it.) Plus they all putted everything out, in order, so there were always ball marks all around the hole preventing me from getting a read anywhere near the hole. Needless to say it was frustrating. I did discover that finding even one slope between my ball and I still got me a pretty accurate read but the entire experience put me way off my putting game mentally. Sorry for the long post. Does anyone have any ideas for how to deal with this situation when it happens? Thanks.

If I am less than 130 and there is no trouble short and right of the pin placement, per my shot pattern, I'll go for the pin. Everything else is for the center of the green, away from the trouble. On a good day I can get 1/3 of these ideal situations close enough to make a birdie.

I had read that you use your pitch shot almost every chance you can. When I do the pitch shot I usually try and fly it most of the way to the hole. That's why when you wrote above to get the ball on the ground it seemed the opposite of what I have been trying to do. My question above was at what distance do you tend to move from the pitch to the short full swing motion. It is about 35-40 yds for me and I was curious as to your thoughts.

Is this like an iacas AMA? So, if you are in the fringe do you favor a bump and run or your pitch from the pitching video? Also, the pitch from the video seems to have a very quiet lower body on the backswing. At what wedge distance would you start adding in a more traditional hip turn on the backswing? Do you prefer a player to ground or hover the Driver before the takeaway?

I play irons more often because of my shot zones. On the courses I play there are a lot of shorter par fours with dog legs. I used to hit driver no matter what and try to shortcut over the trees onto impossibly small landing areas because that was the glory shot. Now I look to see where my shot zone is for each club that has the least trouble and that has led me to not hit Driver every time like I used to.

I will take the shot in the fairway anytime. When I get off the fairway it means I have a lie with grass in the way. I probably have to hit under a tree to go at the green and now a trap is in my way. If I do get it out low it goes in the trap or if i clear the trap I can't hold the green. I used to hit my driver every hole and then wedge it out of trouble to try and get on and I was a bogey golfer. Reading LSW actually has caused me to play irons off the tee way more often.

I have never understood the putts per round stat because I make more putts when I hit greens in regulation than when I am scrambling up and down for par. I only keep track of how many three putts I have and even then if it was a really long first putt with multiple breaks I cut myself some slack. I simply try to review my read, bead and speed metrics after each hole (credit: Iacas). I try to do this right when anything odd happens so I can focus a touch more on the offending aspect of my putting during the next couple of holes. If after the round I was say, pulling them or leaving them short, then that's what I'll work on. I use this to judge myself rather than counting the total number of putts to somehow feel as though that total number is what made it a good or a bad day of putting.

The two things that vastly improved my golfing came from reading this website: Aimpoint Express and the Iacas pitch. I was a bogey golfer who was generally near the green in regulation on every hole. I used to pitch on and 2 putt for bogeys. Aimpoint expanded my makable putt range from 3 feet to 6 feet. At the same time the Iacas pitch started getting me within 6 feet on my pitches. When these two things started to overlap I started getting up and down for par regularly. I now seem to do this about half the time which would be 9 pars and 9 bogeys even when I don't hit any greens in regulation! When I am hitting greens, I shoot the kind of rounds that get that low handicap. Thanks, Iacas and Sandtrap.com

Has anyone else had a problem with sticky grass? When the grass is wet in the morning or really dry in the afternoon, my club seems to glide under the ball effortlessly. But when it is hot and humid or who knows why my club seems to grab the turf and stick under the ball. When the grass seems this way to me I use a chipping stroke but I would much rather use the pitch. Any thoughts?