b101

I know we've said it a bunch of times, but what a fun leaderboard this is

Of all time, certainly, but I'm not sure I'd put his iron play clearly top in the world as things stand. His approach play from inside 150 though, I definitely would. Not that I have any statistical proof - just what I remember seeing!

Genuinely don't think there's anyone better in the world at those dead handed wedge swings

Wow, just seen Patrick Cantlay's round... Eesh. It's out there - what a day this could be!

Phil -2 through 3 as well - what score do we reckon will lead tonight? My bet is on -12.

So I had my Edel putter fitting a couple of days ago and still trying to process some of it. I've been using a SeeMore that I was fit for about seven years ago when I had a really poor strong (I liked the concept of the red dot) and whilst I have some good days, I felt I was always aiming left and cutting across the ball. Anyway, after the amazing experience with the Edel wedge fitting and using the same fitter (any UK people, Matt Rice at Purley Downs in Surrey is incredible), who I really trust, I booked this one as a sort of Christmas/birthday/for myself gift. Interestingly, as soon as we went into the putting lab, I started rolling eight footers absentmindedly and holed five straight. Before even goign to the aiming process though, he got me putting on a T line which tracked the roll of the ball - it was skipping for about three bounces before rolling left and slightly curving right. The whole way through, he would explain what we were doing and why; this was because there was too much loft on my putter. Then, as with Erik's opening post, it started with the aim work and, as suspected, I was high left, about an inch outside the cup. We settled on head shape pretty quickly - my brain hates lines, so it was the mallet, which moved the aim slightly inwards. The blade was hideous, aim-wise and pushed it even further left. He then played with a couple of hosels and got it a little closer (I can't recall if this was when the skidding stopped, as we went back to the T line at some point). Then came to the second part of the fitting, which was totally different and more of a lesson. We started on something called Wright Balance (@iacas - don't know whether you're familiar with it?), which was basically a way of determining my stance and setup, all of which changed my path and stability massively. My right hip has always swayed when putting and I've never known why or how to change it, but it was now rock-solid and the putter was coming back much more 'on-plane/inside' than before. We then moved back to the sightlines and after a huge amount of tinkering, ended up with three on top and two below, which had me dead centre or just left of centre every time of five attempts, with the others all way outside. This took a while - we definitely went through about 10-15 combinations! Finally, we went out and putted to the string to get the weights sorted - this didn't take too long and he was great at just getting me to clear my head and make the stroke I felt would get the ball there. A bit of tweaking to the weight position in the handle also helped with the path issues some more and all was good 🙂. Finished up just putting some eight footers and gaining trust in the aim as well as building a pre-putt routine that didn't rely on tricking my aim. Subconsciously, I had built my pre-putt routine around ignoring the hole and putting over a starting point about a foot in front of the ball. We now worked on one that helped me take a perfect, consistent stance and build that stance around the putter head rather than the other way around. Felt much more comfortable rolling the ball and whilst I missed a load of those eight footers left, it's because my mind has learnt not to trust the aim of the putter and either push everything, or default aim further left. Anyway, long post, but it was amazing. Lasted about 2hrs15mins and worth every penny of what I'll pay for the putter when you consider what that would have cost for that lesson as well! Will post a picture when it arrives in c. 3 weeks, but it'll be a black mallet with yellow printing, which complements the green and blue printing on the 60* and 56* wedges. Cannot wait...

I know the feeling. I pick him every year, watch almost every shot and just need to stop... Would love to see him get the green jacket, but it always leads to me getting frustrated each year.

Edit: Rory has just made a birdie from Sergio territory on the 13th though. His race feels run, but who knows if he can eagle 15 and then go stupid low tomorrow. Don't see it happening this year though.

Classic case with him where he's trying to force things and second guessing a lot. Long game has been awful by his standards - it's not been the putting this time around - he made a huge putt on four as well. So many mistakes over this year's tournament for him.

Aaaand Bryson drops a shot 😎

Looks like a 7 for Koepka on two. Ouch...

Still struggling to get much proper practice done at the moment - little one is now 7 months old, so things are calming down a little, but I feel I'm doing well if I can get out once a fortnight, which is making progress hard. So, I took video for the first time in months today. No surprises that the same old things are what I need to work on: club across the line at the top of the backswing, limiting left knee flex in backswing and then leading with the hips to start the downswing, which helps clear them and get the clubpath more in to out. Contact was excellent with the irons and whilst I've ended up pushing them, I'm pleased with that as the pattern I'd like to see more of is a push-draw, which is what I've always hit when playing my best. I'm hoping I can commit more time to regular practice over the summer and get back to a more comfortable feel. I can get the ball around, but GIR isn't happening and I know my driving is way off where I want it to be.

Finally had a day where I wasn't hitting into early morning sun and it wasn't too cold to grab footage. The usual things with getting back into the groove, working on the load into my right leg in the backswing and shallowing in the downswing by thinking of the hands' exit points. It does get better quickly, thank goodness, even if I'm not hitting all the positions. Then again, I have been working on these pieces for a long time now... Back to working on the swing tomorrow. I'm slowly finding the time to work on it again and looking forward to the grind to get back where I want to be. @iacas - I wonder whether there's something I'm missing with the last two swings. I really struggle to keep my hybrid from flailing right and it looks to my eye like I just can't shallow it on the downswing, whilst I seem to manage it better with my 3 wood. I know the swing is far from perfect, but is there anything obvious that leaps out? It's a custom fit club from a top fitter (Precision Golf) with a fairly bespoke shaft - can't remember it offhand, but I'm not sure it would have this much effect? Many thanks for any help you can provide.

Took some video just at the range the other day - I'm now working on getting my hips a bit more open through impact to allow me to create a bit more space in transition (I think that's the terminology - I know what I mean in any case!). Finding it hard to commit to this with the driver as I have to feel like I'm sending it out way high right, which I'm just not comfortable with. Today, I played 9, spent a ton of time pitching to get my feel back and did a bit more range work. There's definitely more to come, but hopefully I can start getting rid of the rust that's come with six-eight weeks off. The nine holes was pretty good and, to be honest, as expected. Didn't hit many greens, but scrambling was good and my putting was good enough to give me chances. Annoyed about the bogey on 4 as I just pulled the 5 iron hit back to the fairway, meaning it went long left and found a red-staked bush. It's the sort of mental error I don't normally make and will clean up with practice. Great birdie on the next to bounce back, before another sloppy dropped shot due to a thinned wedge approach. Had a near-impossible up and down on the 8th and almost made it, then another poor wedge controlled shot on 9. http://www.gamegolf.com/player/benpage101/round/2432894 After that 9, I went back to the range a bit more for some Mevo work. Based on this, my partial wedges look as follows: LW: 1/2 feel = 43 yards 3/4 feel = 51 yards Full = 62 yards SW: 1/2 feel = 50 yards 3/4 feel = 67 yards Full = 76 yards Didn't have enough balls left to play around with my other wedges, but will try to do that later in the week. The shots themselves are fairly consistent, but my recollection of what swing hits what yardage is hazy at best. https://myflightscope.com/app/mevo/1866854/

Unreal - great work @mvmac! That 13-16 stretch was awesome. Nice cut to the handicap? Mine was less impressive, but happy with +3 in one of my first rounds for a while (bar a couple of foursomes games last week). Still trying to work the driver out and I'm pulling my irons a little bit, but happy that the short game is getting better: http://www.gamegolf.com/player/benpage101/round/2432894

Long time, not a lot of golf. We had our first child at the start of September, which has definitely limited the amount of golf! I've managed to have three rounds since early August, all of which were competitive and have done surprisingly well, considering! One was a staff tournament at a local course which isn't massively long and suits my eye quite nicely. Ended up shooting a net -3 to win and was just really pleased with the way I played off the tee and also how I minimised the impact of the really poor shots (there were a few of seriously rusty swings)... https://www.gamegolf.com/player/benpage101/round/2394110 Then, last week, I had two rounds at a links track - Rye - which is very, very tough. Again, off no practice, I played ok - I'm tending to pull my irons slightly and don't really have a feel that I can go to. The fact that we were playing foursomes both days didn't help my rhythm either. Drove pretty well when I didn't go at it, but it did prove that my short game is way off. I didn't really hole anything and my partial wedge distances (or memory of) were not even close to where they were a couple of months ago. I'm going to try to make time to get to the range more in the next few months and will be hoping to video my swing for the first time in ages this morning. Not massively looking forward to what I'm likely to see...

Been a while since I had one of 'those' rounds, but had a couple of contrasting experiences over the last week. At Godstone GC - a local, cheap course - it took 2h15 to play nine holes as a two-ball (well, sort of. I gave up at 1h45 on the 7th green). It's a 9 hole course which seems to operate an approach of trying to maximise green fees by getting as many on the course as possible. There were always two groups per hole, often four balls and often looking for a ball, whilst waiting for others to hit before even considering their own shot. Then you'd hit the nightmare issue of those coming off the 9th green expecting to head onto the 10th tee and hitting a queue, further adding to the problems. Then we had Rye, playing foursomes. Picked up when the hole was over, behind other groups and pace of play was incredible - 2h30 for 18 holes. You'd have pairs walking ahead anticipating where the next shot would finish whilst the other pair teed off and even had one pair teeing off on the par 3 second, whilst the other pair played their tee shot on the 3rd at the same time, before heading back to the second green to putt out. Apologies if any of the following comes across as snobby, but I think, in the UK, a lot of the issue stems from courses and players simply being unaware of the issue or unwilling to tackle it. At cheaper courses, golfers are uneducated about how to speed up play (we saw three players stand at the side of a fairway bunker to watch one guy hack out, before then going three separate directions to their own tee shots) and those running the courses don't care enough to deal with it. At more expensive/prestigious courses, players tend to know what to do to minimise wait times, courses realise that it's an issue and genuinely try to deal with it. There are exceptions (I've played a 5hr30 round at Woburn due to the course being backed up with four balls playing off tees that weren't suited to their ability), but it seems to hold up based on what I've played.

I have to say, when I first saw the thread, I rolled my eyes at the tagline 'Can Tiger win...?'. Hard to deny how consistently excellent he has been recently and it's so good for the game to have him back. On a side note, I'm also really happy to see Adam Scott back up there.

I know what you mean, but I think you are better with it. The only thing I can really think of is that, amateurs so often miss short due to expecting the 8 iron to fly the 156 yards it does on the perfect strike rather than the 145 it flies on average - perhaps you were judging one club more and therefore benefited from that? Oh, and even with having front, middle and back, I still always aim middle 🙂

Lots of good in here, but I will partly disagree with the comment that "Practice should very rarely if ever be a time when you are making full effort swings." I try to split between mechanical parts of the session, which takes 3/4 of it, where I'm working on my main piece, then have the last 1/4 where I'm just trying to hit target. Ultimately, I don't want to turn up to my next round only having an exaggerated move in my mind that I've only practised at 40% for the last 10 range sessions.

Agree with others. There are very few golfers I dislike more than Bryson, but this just isn't a thing.

Literally everything @lastings said. I'm a teacher so have months where I get lots of practice in and months where I get basically nothing. When the full swing is in a good place, I score well. Also, that doesn't mean every ball goes where I want it to go, it means that I know what my miss is and can hit a consistent shot pattern (i.e. high left to right). If I'm not on the green in two, I want to be close by so the worst I'm making is bogey.

Ditto. Have been for a while now at pretty much every course bar Augusta. Well this sounds rubbish.

After about two years since we moved house and I didn't play for about 3 months, I've finally managed to get my high draw back consistently with my irons. It's taken a lot of work on a lot of different pieces and it's so nice to finally see the ball moving right to left and I'm looking forward to eliminating one side of the course again. Lots of work to do still, but today was the real 'eureka' day where everything has finally come back together. The good news is that whilst I was sort of saving a draw with my hands before, there's not so much of that now and it's actually coming through proper depth on the backswing. Just a really nice feeling of achievement and this is why I love this damn game.

My chipping is rubbish and still find I keep coming back to this as my best fix - I find my hands do get overactive through the shot though if I'm trying to fly it more than, say, five yards. For the very short carries though, this is just perfect and so much better than the 'old school' technique. Great information @mvmac and never gets old!