DaveP043

A lot of grips will benefit from a good wipe with a wet rag, or even with a mild soapy water and a rag. Oil from your hands can build up and make them a little slick before their time.

There's no question that luck has some effect. But luck works in both directions, sometimes a good shot gets a bad bounce. Sometimes you get a gust of wind at just the wrong time. Sometimes your ball on the green will stop your brother's ball from going into the hole. On a particular day, luck might save you a few strokes, like it did for your brother, or it might cost you a few. On balance, I believe it all evens out.

Yet those same players show up as authors of articles and books of swing instruction. And sometimes people seemingly question the value of certain instruction, based on the relative lack of playing achievements by the instructor. Put simply, ability to play at the top level doesn't require detailed knowledge about the golf swing, and ability to be a really good instructor doesn't require the ability to play at the highest level. Some great players have superior knowledge, and many instructors are really good players.

I don't believe that first bit is true. Based on this study, with data collected by TheGrint, 2016 REPORT: Overall Golfer Performance By Handicap YOU (vs) OTHER GOLFERS How do you compare to other golfers in the US? even 25 handicappers average less than 39 putts. For a 25 handicapper to get to the point where he breaks 80 regularly, we're talking about close to 20 strokes of improvement. The fewest putts a player is likely to average is 30 to 32, so he can gain maybe 7 or 8 per round by putting better. To get into the 70s with regularity, he has to improve everything he does, with most of his improvement coming before he gets to the green.

You'd have to look at the definition of abnormal course condition. An embedded ball doesn't qualify on its own, but a ball embedded in temporary water could.

To follow up, this link takes you to a searchable database of all courses with USGA ratings National Course Rating Database

Another way to say this, once you have completed taking relief within the rules, you're basically starting over. You make your decisions based only on the current position of the ball, not on the (completely legal) drop that brought you to that position.

That was my initial thought as well. The problem with making swing changes is that it can be difficult to align oneself to achieve the desired result with the new shot pattern. A slicer aims left so that his slice ends up in the fairway. If he straightens his ball flight, he'll tend to hit shots to the left of the fairway for a while, because aligning his feet toward the fairway will just feel wrong. So for the OP, first work on making your changes. Then, figure out where you have to align yourself so the ball finishes where you want it to.

A flip side of this, slow-motion photography has shown that some of the greatest players' descriptions of their own swing contradicts what they actually did in that swing. The could DO it, but they didn't really know what they were doing. Complete knowledge of the swing itself isn't critical to being able to make good swings. And I believe (sorry, I can't come up with examples off the top of my head) there are some instances where increasing knowledge of the technical details of a swing has proved counterproductive to a player's performance. A player needs a set of fundamentals and swing feels that work for him. Even so, this is a completely different question from the other thread.

If I could play in the Masters, I would. Larry earned the privilege. Winning the Masters has to be one of the highlights of his career, and he gets to relive it every spring, good for him

I love this post, it says exactly what I would say. If everyone actually communicates with each other, its really simple. Any required movement of the pin can take place without any delay at all. I've played a dozen rounds or more, some with my regular playing partners, some with strangers, and its worked out fine every time. We can have a legitimate issue with the rule change, whether it was the right thing to do, whether it will change scoring, whether it will change putting strategy, but there's absolutely no reason that it should cause slower play. I think it CAN speed up play, but I wouldn't necessarily expect a whole lot of improvement.

As long as the ball is in bounds, and not in a penalty area, she would get relief, an "animal hole" is an "abnormal course condition". For details review Rule 16. You should also look at the Interpretations for Rule 16, since the location of the ball (under a bunker, near OB lines, etc) can have some impact on where you take your relief. http://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/rules/rules-2019/rules-of-golf/rules-and-interpretations.html#!ruletype=fr&section=rule&rulenum=16

I'm another Snell player, I like the MTB Black. As @saevel25 said, its close enough to the ProV1 that I can't tell a difference, except when its time to pay. If I can spend $20 LESS per dozen, and get virtually identical performance, that's what I'm going to do.

"Perfect number" is in the hole, I'm a convert to the closer is better school. But having said that, I feel pretty good with a "comfortably full" swing with my shortest wedge, and that goes about 80 to 85 yards.

I understand what you're saying, but the very best players may be blind to design features that impact lesser mortals. If you can hit it past all the fairway bunkers, who cares how they're angled, and how their placement might impact a 12 handicapper?. Those design features are still important, in the overall evaluation and appreciation of course design. I can see that reasoning in the original post's suggestion that a 7 handicap might be better positioned, skill-wise, to really appreciate course design than a top touring pro. I on't believe there's a specific "best" skill level for appreciating golf course design. I do believe that playing something like bogey golf is kind of a minimum requirement, but I can't persuade myself that playing better than that makes someone a better judge of design.