A.J.

As long as they are relatively new, of a good brand and I don't think they've been sitting at the bottom of a pond for months, I have no problem with used balls.

This could have to do with ball placement in your stance. I could also have to do with excessive knee bend, bending from the waist instead of hips i.e. being hunched over the ball. If you don't feel like your wrists are getting through, perhaps you are taking the club back and through on too flat a plain (the "stuck wrist" position). For starters, move the ball little by little forward in your stance. For a drill, try taking a broom and taking practice swings to get a "swoosh" or a sweep feel through the hitting area. That should help you train your release some. Is this an issue mainly with short irons?

For me the results of the study mentioned probably hold. You can tell whether its true for you by varying your tee hight. I tee the ball about half way above the clubface. I think it does add some yardage. For example, I hit some new drivers at a golf store on an indoor range (with a launch monitor). The stupid rubber tee was only tall enough to get about 1/4" of the ball above the top of the massive clubface. My carry distance average between 260-266 instead of 275-280 which is more like normal for me. So there's some anecdotal proof.

Tiger can shape a driver about as well as Phil. Phil knows this. Hence, Phil makes the intelligent equipment decision and Tiger runs his mouth and watches fill win another major...

Phil. This tourney is going to be sweet!

Who loves them? I do. I just bought an original Orlimar Trimetal. I KILL this thing off the tees. I love the way it feels with the great feedback, true ball flight (good on mis-hits) and distance to spare. I have to admit, I've never seen the allure of bigger and bigger club heads. To me it gets a little ridiculous. I know the pros use them, and I've hit just about anything you can name, but for me, the early generation of "oversize" drivers is the preference. I used to have the original Taylormade Burner Bubble (early oversize). I could get a lot of distance out of that club and on certain days I couldn't miss it. Last year before I left my hometown to pursue a professional degree I handed it down to my brother. He always wanted it and now he occupies the #1 spot on a highschool varsity golf team with it. I gotta wonder about the ultimate net result to the game of all the technology advancements. As I commented elsewhere, scores on the PGA tour have remained flat over time. Big drivers have certainly never helped me. I also have in my possession my Dad's Lynx Blackcat titanium driver (circa about 1998-1999). I smoke that club to although its a little more eratic. When I get into it though, its longer than any driver I've ever hit. Who knows maybe its all pschological and that's the reason I hit smaller drivers better. Nonetheless, I would bet money that since the USGA has capped conforming driver size at 460cc you will see a resurgance of smaller oversize heads. Companies will no doubt make all kinds of fantastic claims made by manufacturers as to how their technology is really "new" and why smaller is really better. I don't buy any of it. Smaller is better, much better, for me .

Indeed. On a similar note, I'll share a little annecdote about how dangerous giving out swing advice can actually be. A friend of the family, a very very good golfer with a solid understanding of his swing was a constant victim of the "one-size fits all" mentality. The result was tragic for my father's game as he would aggressively give innaplicable advice (to a guy who was hitting the ball well too). You see, he had developed a convicted attitude that Hogan really did have all the keys to the game. If you've read The Five Fundamenals you know Hogan suffered a bit from the holy grail syndrom when it came to swing fundamentals. He studied Hogan's swing maticulously. Makes sense right--he figured, "hey, Hogan's built just like me, that the swing I should be making." You see he was all of 5'6" 140. On the other hand, my father is 6'4" 220! He also didn't realize, apparently, that other pros with small builds could have been studied e.g. Tom Watson (one plane v. two plane swings). The moral of the story is you have to be careful when giving out advice no matter how well you understand the golf swing. Should Chi Chi Rodgriguez or Lee Travino or Jim Furyk listen to you if numbly try to correct their apparently horrendous swing habits based on your concept of the correct swing? No. They'd probably just ignore you and continue smoking you from tee to green.

(insert farm animal sound here) Hi all. I'm a very busy Oregon Duck looking to put more time into his game this summer. I've been playing since about age 4 and I've always had a natural, home-taught swing with draw tendancies. Golf comes easy to me (the golf swing, I should say) except that I've never been engaged in perfecting it or my whole game long enough to become consistent. For example, it would be a pretty great feat for me right now to par more than 3 holes in a row or score in the low 80's. I hope to change that as I get set to enter the my professional carreer as a club pro--kidding.

Interesting though isn't it that despite all of that, and I agree with your premise, scores have not changed.

I agree generally that it is too early in Tiger's carreer to tell. The mark of a great champion in golf is longevity and consitency. Tiger has many years to go and it may well be proved over the next decade or two even that Tiger is the greatest, but only time will tell. I do know that Tiger has had his eye on Jack with determination ever since he was an adolescent. He had posters on his walls of Nicklaus' records and and studied books and articles about him. That ingrained determination could carry him a long way toward those records...

Hi Folks, Came up with an idea I thought I'd share. Now, this is nothing new of course but you can do this easily at home, save some money and get a great golf workout. Make a weighted club of an old 6 iron or a driver. Go down to Walmart or your local fishing tackle store and buy two or three 3/16" solid core lead wire coils (for river fishing mostly). Simply wrap the wire tightly around the hozzle and up the shaft of the club to create a (depending on preference) tremendously heavy and useful swing trainer. I know you can buy commercial weighted clubs but they are kind of light and they have a formed grip which is useless to me as a grip trainor and might defeat some of the purpose of strengthening the hands and wrists. Do several slow back swings. Concentrate on a long and slow takeaway and a full turn. Dont let the heavy club get away from you: force yourself to maintain form. You will achieve greater and greater shoulder turn as it loosens and stengthens all the key swing muscles. I also suggest forgetting form and just working on your turn with this. Daly advocats in his book Grip it and Rip it doing just that to lengthen the swing and increase the shoulder turn. You now have a very versitile swing trainor. You should also do a dozen or so (or more depending on your goals) SLOW full swings with great form and follow through. After your workout, pick up a regular club. You will be amazed at how light it feels in your hands and how easy it is to deliver a powerful swing! I hope this inspires somebody out there and helps a few games. -AJ

That was as great write up. I'll have to try those out. Thanks for the link.

I still wonder. If pause him right at the top you can see a steeper angle in the left arm than the shoulder angle. Here is a video of me for comparison. Now, to be certain, I'm not comparing my swing to Ernie's but I do have a pronounced 2-plane swing and I'm a bit too steep right now but not that far off Ernie. (I know, my left arm broke down at the top a bit) Note: my video is poor quality because it was taken on my phone and Ernie's is a little difficult to stop right when he gets to parallel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfiP3-CAN1M http://www.golfswing.com/proswings/els.htm

Eh, this debate is a little silly. Look at the miriad of other one-planers who don't strike it like Hogan. Nobody but Hogan hits the ball with the kind of consitency of contact Hogan did. Jack Nicklaus commented when asked if Tiger (a two-planer with one-plane identity issues ) was the best ball striker he had ever seen "no, no question its Hogan." That's saying not even Tiger, the best golfer of this generation and a man who is perhaps on his way to being the most prolific winner of all time, is not as good a ball striker as Hogan. Am I to believe Watson, Davis Love III, Hale Irwin, Phil Mickleson, Payne Stewart, David Toms, Lee Janzen etc... are led to "inconsistencies" and more prone to the adverse effect of "pressure" because of the particular swing plane category they fall into? I think we're a little caught up in the minute if we're going that far.

For me its just a matter of how steep a takeaway and backswing you make and how you descend on the ball. The two-plane naturally suits me better. When I'm really striking the ball well, especially with my short irons, I feel almost like drove the ball into the ground. The sensation is of driving a stake through the back portion of the ball into the ground almost. Bascially, at the top, the two-plane swing will have the hands high and will reveal the back shoulder (right if you're right handed). The shoulders are on one-plane, the arms are on another. I also don't buy the "if you're stonger in the chest and arms...the one-plane swing will suit you." I read that as well and thought, "huh, that's kind of an insult." Well, if its true, I guess I'm weak like Tiger...(he's gone back toward his original two-plane swing).

I've noticed people mentioning Ernie as a one-plane swinger. I don't know about that. Look how steep he is in this video. He's far from being as flat and on-the-shoulder-plane as Hogan at the top. Compare to the Hogan video. You can clearly see Ernie's right shoulder peeking out if you pause the video. I think the more accurate description would be Hogan one-plane, Watson two-plane. http://www.golfswing.com/proswings/els.htm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfT88...0hogan%20swing