verse214

It also depends on what you mean by "fitted" -- I don't consider a fitting to be if you goto any old Golf Galaxy or Golfsmith and they just have you hit off a lie board and then take your measurements. When I started playing last year, the guy who i bought my Miz's from told me just to get off the rack since I was a noob, so I did. about 8 months into golf I ended up getting them bent 1* up at the suggestion of my pro who I was taking lessons with and I did. After having played for almost a year now, i'm going to head into Novogolf this weekend where they have a Trackman and get a real, thorough fitting. I believe that a "real fitting" is composed of hitting a bunch of different manufacturer's clubs with different head and shaft combinations with a pro watching you. After you determine which head, shaft combo works best, then they you should have to hit off the lie board, etc. - i've heard that the lie board will not always tell the truth too. Think about it - if the ball is going right every time but you're hitting the lie board as if you should be 0* (flat) - chances are you do need to get them bent upright but it may take a pro's eyes to see that both the clubs and your swing need fixing. I'm going to get my first real fitting this weeked and I'll let you know how it goes... I don't think anyone should really get "fit" at a big retailer or a place that only takes your measurements and has you hit off a lie board unless they're a beginner... your swing is going to change and your club needs will change as well. Regardless - everyone should try and go get a real fitting unless you're just starting golf... This is from personal experience over the past year.

welcome to the MP club - i'm swapping my 52's out after my fitting next week for the new MP 58's that just came out...

Oh please - so Obama is the first "American" President? I love how race gets so twisted in America - one minute someone is African or Asian "hyphenated" American, and other times they are American without the hyphenation.

Why don't you hit a 3 or 4 iron?? If you're hitting your 5 iron 200 plus yards you shouldn't have any issues hitting a 3 or 4 iron.

For a 34 handicap like the OP I do not think it is too vague of a question at all - for someone with your low handicap it may be. With a handicap as high as a 34 I would not hit anything stronger than an 8 (or even a 9) out of ANY rough - high grass or "standard" rough - plus I would be swinging with a full swing. You're going to need that loft to dig the ball out and until you become more skilled, I do not see any point in using a lower lofted club to get out.

If you truly feel this way then you should just buy cast irons. Honestly this argument can go on forever and the bottom line is that it all comes down to preference. I prefer forged irons and I believe they do feel better, however there has been evidence that my thinking that they feel better is totally psychological. (I still think they feel better than cast irons.)

wait for the adams idea pro black hybrid to come out in September - sexiest club ever...

THANK YOU! This is exactly what I needed -- I agree with all of you and see NO SENSE whatsoever in taking undulations into consideration. The guy who was arguing about measuring the literal ground distance with hills,etc. always talks so much cr*p about golf and expects me to believe it just because he's twice my age and older than a dinosaur.

OK - Let me rephrase. Let's say you have a tee box on top of a hill. The hill slopes downwards x yards and then inclines back up x yards with the hole at the top after the incline. Let's also say that when you look at the hole from the tee box the straight line distance is y yards: directly from tee to hole, totally disregarding the incline/decline Is the distance to the hole x+x or is it y? In other words do yardages take undulations into account? If you have a hole with a ton of undulations will it increase the yardage as opposed to a flat fairway? I originally tried to liken it to laying down a huge tape measure. My colleague is saying that yardages take the literal yard distance it takes to walk the hole so the more hillly the fairway, the "longer" the hole. I disagree with this... Do you guys know which one it is?

So my colleague and I were having a discussion about the calculation of yardages in golf and whether altitude plays a role in its calculation. For example - when playing a downhill par 3, is the yardage the straight line using a laser range finder from tee box to middle of the green? Or is it the yardage that you walk (downhill) to the middle of the green like if you placed a huge tape measure down on the ground? Thanks!

To add to this.. when I was in Vegas playing at the Wynn course my caddy gave me the best piece of putting advice ever... this was a few months ago and it turned my putting around ( I still suck though, haven't been playing for too long) When you are putting on greens with a Stimpmeter of 10, for every inch that you take on your back stroke and follow through, the ball will travel 3 feet. So if you want to make a 6 foot putt, you take your putter 2 inches back and 2 inches follow through. Of course you adjust here or there for slope, etc. So essentially you take the length of your putt, divide by 3 and that's how many inches your back stroke and follow through should be. Lower the stimp, the more inches you add.... It works!

I'd think that the single digit handicappers you play with definitely should know how to work the ball if they really do have that low of a handicap... Also, working the ball isn't any harder than hitting the ball straight-- all you're doing is just changing parts of your set up

Does anyone know the range for tournament entry fees? Also, in response to the Butch Harmon School fees... around where i'm from it's $60 just to get a 30 minute lesson... golf is just expensive I guess.. I'm just trying to get a feel of whether 100k a year is actually a good estimate or if it's more like $1MM a year... big difference but i've heard both. i'm sure that someone who knows would be able to narrow it down from that range for me...

Honestly though, isn't that where you'd expect to spend a quarter of your money? do you know how many tourneys pros try to play in per year? and around how much the entry fees cost for the smaller tours?

It's not the loft of the clubs but the loft of the clubs when you swing them... you're most likely casting the club so that you deloft it.. usually people who cast lose distance at around the 5 or 6 iron (I know bc I used to cast my irons) and that's why the ball stops gaining distance as you hit longer irons... work on maintaining the angle in your hands and "hitting down" and the distances will come with that... good luck!

OK- let me rephrase this bc it seems like everyone is trying to be as PC about it as possible. For example (referencing above quote) you can't pay to be taller, so I'll disregard that. But you can learn how to shoot 50% from outside the 3 point circle by practicing. And practicing for basketball if virtually free, just goto any park... but golf is not free. Also, the question wasn't how much you have to pay a year to become a PGA pro but how much would you have to spend a year on your way to becoming a PGA pro. I don't care if you guys think it's possible or not with money.. just want to know how much money it would take to make it possible. It's definitely not as vague of a figure as everyone is making it out to be.. i just wanted to know if anyone had a good idea on pricing as I, myself, do not. Like, how many tourneys does a pro play a year? And how much are entry fees? How much is a swing coach for a year? These are all figures that can be calculated... does anyone know how much it would cost? I'll even provide a rubric for calculating the figure: 1x Swing Coach (Pro teacher not PGA Tour pro teacher) 30-40x Tournament entry fees per year (if this number is too high, too low, please correct me) Travel for those tournaments (within the States) Hotel for those tournaments and living expenses (this is probably all dependent upon the # of tourneys you enter per year) Range balls, practice greens fees Anything else anyone can think of that i'm missing? So what's the total? I'm sure that someone on here has to be familiar with this. I've heard 100k.. is that about right?

I'm a bit of an economist myself considering I work in finance, however my original question has nothing to do with economic costs, but accounting costs - so what are all of your estimates excluding opportunity costs, etc. And also, if you technically look at it in terms of economic costs, Tiger still probably chose the path of greatest economic profit since the opportunity cost of him having taken up another profession and forgoing the $1 Billion is definitely higher than what he has forgone by taking up golfing... Thanks

OK - I've heard that Sean O Hair spent about $2mm trying (and succeeding) to do it Others claim it only costs $100k a year... My question isn't if it is possible or not -anything is possible as long as you believe- so if you're reading this and planning on responding with negativity, please don't even bother. My question is how much does it cost to go pro - including hiring a teacher, a trainer, entry fees, food, travel, etc. How much money do you end up spending a year in order to live comfortably pursuing the ultimate goal of getting a PGA tour card... Also, at what level do you stop using your own funds and are well known enough to have sponsors and to actually be making a good living off of it? Nationwide? or do you need to get your card in order to be comfortable?

I think your swing is pretty good... one thing I noticed is how you tend to cross the line on the top (your club head points to the right of the target) and this may be something you could work on fixing

I was actually about to write something about this.. I got the most recent Golf Digest and i am no long concerned with swinging flat after seeing Zach Johnson's frame by frame in their swing section. The plane he takes his driver back on is the exact same plane that i swing on so i feel MUCH better now (call me crazy, but i'm sure a lot of you are the same way about your swings). I definitely take the club too far inside sometimes on my backswing though but i'm going to keep working on that. They even had an article about swinging too steep and too flat and what to do to strive towards a neutral swing. Thank you all for your input!

Definitely.. i've posted this before and will post it again; it has drastically helped me improve my swing and consistency within 3-4 months or practicing about 3-4 times a week at the range in 2 hour sessions and I've been playing since Sept '08 If you get a rectangular impact bag or a shoebox (fill it with bricks so it won't fly away) and line it up parallel to the target line on the other side of the ball. make sure you keep the impact bag within 2 ball widths from the ball itself. square up and hit the ball. if you come over the top you'll hit the bag or box (hopefully not the bricks =). It forces you to hit the ball from the inside. Before I did this drill I was always focusing on hitting the ball, but now i can just swing and hit the ball without even looking at it. It may be different for you, but my main problem was not keeping my right elbow close to my body. Good luck! you may feel silly at first if people look at you at the range but I didn't care because it got me that much better...

That's really great to hear especially from a 7 handicap.... how long does it take you to adjust to swing changes whenever you put your self through them?

I don't believe the plane discussion to be as simple as upright v. flat. Plus people have a million different definitions about what one-plane really is so it's not something i concern myself with. I'm starting to see that I shouldn't concern myself with upright v. flat too much either.... Are any of you flat swingers? As in flat to the point where your right elbow stays close to your side?

This statement is not true Ebay owns Paypal. They're always going to side with the seller because the seller is who they make their money off of. They could care less if the buyer gets screwed bc as long as people keep posting items on ebay to sell, they keep making money

after working on my swing drill to get myself to hit the ball from the inside, my plane turned flat to the point where my right elbow and tricep stay close to my right side (with some separation at the top). I definitely draw the ball a lot more now and will hook when hitting poorly. You know how "they" tell you to make sure both of your elbows are pointing directly at the ground at the top of your swing? well my elbows are pointing towards the ground but when you see this "tip" along with a photo, you usually see a golfer at the top of his backswing with his forearms forming the legs of an isosceles triangle with the base of the triangle (if there were one) parallel with the ground... my swing is not upright enough to make this triangle.. why doesn't anyone swing as flat as Ben Hogan anymore? Even shorter guys don't seem to swing that flat..