Covert

Thank you to all. I joined ASGA and will pursue the other sites mentioned.

I recently lost my wife to illness. She accompanied me golfing, and we loved traveling to interesting course destinations. I would still like to travel to such courses, but not alone. Does anyone know a legitimate match-up website to meet potential opposite sex golfing companions? I know some golf match-up/dating sites are robots and scams.

I received my AimPoint Green Reading Fundamentals DVD snailmail. I think it is great to quantify slope perception. I’m looking forward to additionally taking a class. Wanted to reiterate how I think I got a pendulum stroke down on my indoor putting mat. I look at the line which points toward the target on the back of my Ping putter head and stroke the head back and forth. The white line on the black head then becomes a blur that is easy to see when it is not going in a straight line. To get it perfectly straight, as I use a straight stroke and not an arc, I have to roll my wrists and hands ever so slightly in a clockwise direction on the forward stroke, otherwise the head face would turn left of square and the ball would pull left of the target. After a while the amount of rotation becomes automatic and putts are virtually assured most of the time, even at 10 feet. I'll take this technique into my slope reading practice in order to eliminate, as best as possible, the variable of just a bad stroke. I am so hoping this will work and I can putt well this winter and beyond.

If you want a serious challenge for indoor putting, get a metal 3' yard stick. Try putting the length of the yard stick. I don't get this!!??. I am easily making repeated 11-foot putts. What is it about your three-foot example that makes it challenging? Unless you are suggesting putting on top of the yard stick. Now, if someone were to come into my house and offer me $1 million against me signing over my house on the result of me making a three-foot putt, that would be a challenge. Thanks, No Mulligans, I will try that. I also emailed the company and asked them to snail me the DVD. Thanks, No Mulligans. I also asked the company to snail mail me the DVD.

I agree, there is a lot of directly conflicting advice. I will try to find a good teaching pro in Florida and try this and then that at his or her suggestion, until I find an optimal swing and optimal equipment. My intense wrist snapping technique is already proving to be out of control, even though I gained a lot of distance. I just need to keep working on it and never accept the "You should be happy just hitting straight, even if short." mantra. Yes, thanks, I have found 11.5 to be optimal. My Nike heads are adjustable, so I can try various lofts.

Thanks everybody for your confidence building regarding Aimpoint. I sent $39.95 for the online lesson, but am having trouble accessing the video. Their website is refusing to recognize my email address or password I set up. But I will almost assuredly take the course in Florida this winter. I've finally turned the corner on making nearly all my straight putts indoors at 11 feet, and the cup is slightly smaller in diameter than regulation. I putt at least one ball almost every time I pass by the mat, in a main walkway. The other thing one can easily practice is chipping, and I plan to put as much effort into repeatability in that as in my putting, and maybe I can finally improve. I mentioned in another post that I started playing golf seriously less than three years ago. I essentially goofed around a little on courses as a young man with other people's clubs. So I have a lot to learn, but over the last year, I didn't improve nearly as much as I thought I should have. I know, that's golf. Frustrating at times. But hugely rewarding overall.

I don't get this!!??. I am easily making repeated 11-foot putts. What is it about your three-foot example that makes it challenging? Unless you are suggesting putting on top of the yard stick. Now, if someone were to come into my house and offer me $1 million against me signing over my house on the result of me making a three-foot putt, that would be a challenge.

Thanks for the information and reminder to look before I type.

The Florida green reading school I am checking out is called Aimpoint Golf. There are several associated instructors in Florida. Trump National Doral has one. If anyone reading this has any experience with the value of these lessons, I would be appreciative. This morning using the blur stroke technique I mentioned, I sank nine eleven foot putts in succession. I think I could have sunk more, but I think I subconsciously wanted to quit, and missed the tenth. It would be fantastic if I could learn how to read greens a lot better.

I wrote these names into my notebook, too. Thanks! My first priority is for my back to get over its issue. Then this winter in Florida, I will work with my two extended shaft drivers to see if I can get them under control. If I have worked through these two prerequisites, when I return to New York in the spring, I will work with a local golf center to put together a couple of clubs with light weight shafts and long-drive heads. Planning yesterday for some new courses in Florida, I checked out the TPC Blue Monster in Miami. Some of the par four holes are over 500 yards. My wife told me to forget it, and I think I probably should. But the course looks beautiful on the website.

Thanks, Index, I put your phone number in my directory, and I will try to get out that way sometime in my trip back and forth south in the winters. We're on no schedule. We have a weekend lake house in the Adirondack Mountains, and the courses among the High Peaks are spectacular. You don't even need a tee time to get on them. Would you ever have a reason to be that far up north? If so, I will post my cell number, too. OSU class of 68. I spent seven years in undergraduate school because I couldn't decide on a major.

Thanks, but that goes without saying, Stefan; I’m talking about practice and recreational play. I notice that most recreational golfers don’t observe all the rules, especially with regards to improving their lies, and dropping balls. I actually observe more rules and etiquette than most golfers I see. I even take my hat off to enter golf shops. Do you always? Regards teaching my kids not to cheat, I purposely didn’t have any, out of respect for greenery and the environment in general. There are enough people on the planet already. And I might not have been able to afford playing at wonderful courses like Pebble Beach and Streamsong if I had had kids.

Thanks, Index, for the additional tip. I hit Wilson Ultra 500 distance golf balls off the tees, which carry maybe 10 yards further than softer balls. Then I drop a Pro V1, or equivalent, for my approach shot, which allows for spin. Of course that’s cheating, but I’m not playing in tournaments. I play from the gold geezer tees, too, unless I’m playing with younger sticks, then I play from the white tees with them, and try my best to keep up. It sounds like we’re on a similar wavelength in our approach to the game. Too bad we’re not in proximity to swap notes on the links. Are you in Alabama, like your avatar suggests? If so, you must frequent the RTJ Trail. I hope to get there some day.

About the only advantage of being old is retirement and snowbirding. Not to make you jealous, but we rent an oceanfront condo for the winters just north of Palm Beach, which opens out the front door onto a golf course. It might be 65 or 70 degrees at 7:00 in the morning in February, and I can walk out and get nine holes in before my wife gets put together. Obviously I want to keep playing decently as long as I can. I wrote your name down in my notebook. I will likely take the course and let you know how it goes and what I learn. It's of course important if you can to make a few practice putts on a course's practice green before going out. Speed so differs with so many factors. But reading the slopes is the hardest part for me, and I assume for most golfers. So many optical illusions caused by surrounding landscape.

Thanks, Index. An important tip I get from your helpful data is that I need to work with a pro to try different variations (including non-conforming heads) until I find the best one for my swing. I have an additional gnatty issue caused by an over-aggressive twist thing I tried at the gym, which pulled something in my lower back two months ago that I can’t shake. Now I’m spasmed and stiff and can’t work with weights to strengthen my back, like I was doing. I’m putting off seeing a chiropractor fearing that he could potentially make it worse. I can still play, now; I just can’t swing as hard.

Thanks, Russ, I wrote the URL in my notebook and might try one of their clubs. I'm going to have to set up a slush fund that my wife doesn't see if I am to keep buying drivers. She doesn't see the humor in it and insists I should accept my senior limitations and just be glad I can play at all.

I likewise use the indoor mat to develop a consistent pendulum back and through stroke. My new Ping Ketch Cadence mallet putter has a line on the back of its head whereby by stroking it back and forth I can gage by the blur if it is traveling on a straight line. At three or five feet I am virtually assured of making putts. When I back to eleven (12 is too close to the edge of the mat), I am on the cusp of consistency, as I occasionally get in the zone with three putts in succession, but then lose concentration and miss a couple before righting my mind. While my wood floor heaves a bit with temperature and humidity changes, sometimes creating a break, it is of course much flatter than a typical green. Reading greens is my biggest challenge, which is very possibly the same with everyone. I plan to attend a green-reading class in Palm Beach this winter, although I suspect such classes might be more hype than help.

This subjective question might be goofy. But I am curious as to what good golfers might think about it. I purchased a 12-foot Odyssey indoor putting mat. I practice mostly with eleven-foot putts. About how many “sunk” (it’s a simulated cup) putts in a row would be considered good putting? I don’t usually sink more than three before missing by an inch or half-inch. The exercise shows me how psychological good shots are. When I make a putt I can feel that it is good in the stroke, and vice-versa. But I can’t usually will the right feel.

I have to admit that straying too far afield is probably not a good idea for me at my age. I extended my older Covert II driver three inches to try before looking for a higher COR head, and I couldn’t control it. The Nike Vapor Fly driver that I just bought, with a senior flex shaft extended an extra inch, seems to work about as well as anything will for me. I am going to have to accept that I won’t be wedging onto most par four holes with my second shot. I do appreciate the comments here offering advice.

Yes, that's what it told me my drives were traveling: 150 to 170 yards. A little disconcerting. It's funny when something's quantified officially, you have trouble not believing it.

Thanks Saeve and Orange. I've checked the outdoor range distances with my Bushnell and can see where my drives are landing. I'm just not going to bother with my driver indoors anymore, but it did concern me that maybe I had some psychological issue with hitting the ball in the sports bar. The facility is great for wedge practice, though, as it's nice and warm and seems to be accurately representing those shots. Incidentally, the first time I set foot in the bar, it had the exact same picture as my avatar up with a $100 bill prize for whomever came closest to the pin that evening. I had earlier in the year wedged onto the iconic green, but I overshot the bar simulator. :(

I recently bought a new driver. I took it to a driving range thrice and consistently reached a certain yardage. Then I tried it in an indoor golf center with simulated greens on a screen. My drives averaged about 70 yards shorter than on the outdoor range, while my irons displayed the same distances. I hit my wedges almost as far as some of my drives, which were hit flush. Has anybody experienced this? And if so, what might be the explanation for the huge discrepancy?

Thanks, Shanks. For a while I thought I’d dropped an egg on a community of groupthink with a single mouthpiece. I loved the irony of woodzie’s vernacularism, “alot,” and you with your name morpheme, “alot,” kind of coming to my rescue. I certainly don’t want to do anything criminal, or unethical; I wouldn’t use non-compliant equipment in any kind of formal play. I am just playing around with physics, for the fun of it, and a touch of old-man ego. I’m perfectly happy on a range or banging long drives on a course in the early morning with nobody to see but God. I’ll try a 48” shaft. I’m not concerned with losing control; it’s just another variable to experiment with. I did find with my slightly extended shaft and modified swing that I could control right and left drift by how much I rotated my hips and how far I extended my right elbow out. I was hitting pretty straight when I adjusted those two variables correctly, and believe I can with an even longer club. But if it turns out that I can’t stay in the fairway most of the time, I will forget about the extra distance and go back to my current club, with at least the one-inch advantage.

With help from forum members on my Long distance driver for compromised senior thread, I purchased a new driver extended one inch with a senior flex shaft. And from also changing my swing to include much more cocked wrists at the top of the uptake, and more depth from greater right elbow extension outward on the uptake, and applying a whipping motion at contact, the result was phenomenal. I went from hitting 210 to 250 plus on a range, re-challenged in three trips there to assure against a possible one-time fluke. So, that’s not enough. Now I would like to purchase a good non-compliant head and have it fitted with a 48” extended senior flex shaft, 3” longer than standard. Does anyone know which non-compliant head(s) is/are best? Also, is it possible that they aren’t that much better than my new Nike Vapor Fly head, so all I would need is a longer shaft put on it to charge further toward that quixotic 300-yard drive? I've seen Calloway ERC, Cobra SS430, 900+Cor Super Speed by TPF, Juggernaut 515, and Hicor clubs advertised on the Web, but know nothing about any of them.