Grinde6

Most ranges use limited flight balls...whether they be 75%, 85% or 90% flight would depend on the range and how much room they have I would imagine. As the pro shop, they would most likely know. I don't tend to go to the range to find out distances, but rather ball flight and that stuff. If I want to dial in distance, I usually pick a hole when its not busy out at the course, go to the side of the fairway so I don't chew up the middle of it, and hit 10 balls from 140, 150, 160, etc to find out how far I am hitting each club on average.

Golf is hard...Just when we think we have it nailed down to play at a respectable level...BOOM, something else starts giving us trouble. When I push one to the right, its usually because I am lazy and I didn't follow through. I don't know where that has come from, but about 2-3 swings a round I get lazy and only make a half-3/4 follow through and my little draw I like to play is now on the right side. When I go to the range, I almost over follow through just to try to stop doing this. That might be something to look at on your shots that are going to the right. Most of it is just the space between the ears, when you don't have confidence in where your ball is going to go off the tee, I doubt you are putting a good swing on the ball.

Great post @iacas!!! I think we forget how hard golf really is, and then like you said, we make it harder by having unrealistic expectations about how close our shots should be to the pin. I am one of these people that gets upset if I cannot put a 56* wedge from 110 to within 10 feet...its unrealistic expectations, and seeing this has helped me understand that. This is exactly what I needed to see, thank you for the great write up!

This will happen, happens for me too as I play indoor simulator leagues during the winter. When we play on mats, we cant really tell if we are hitting the ground after the ball. Sometimes we are probably hitting way behind the ball, but cannot tell because we are using mats. I would go to the range (where you hit off real grass) and putt the ball down, then put a tee on each side of the back of the ball about and iron width plus a 1/2"-1" on each side. Then you can tell whether you are hitting behind the ball or if your divot is coming after contact where it should be. I have to do this for the first few range sessions to get my ball striking back to where it should be. Damned mats and indoor facilities .

Our league does 4 divisions of 10 teams and each team has 3 guys. We do match play top 2 scores for each hole, scramble, shamble, shipwreck, Chicago, etc...every week is a new game until the playoffs, then it is individual match play top 2 scores. We have had some issues with our top division (my team is in this division) having people sandbagging their handicaps or just not posting any scores. We do it where the top 2 teams from each division go up, and the bottom 2 go down each year so there is a couple new teams in each division. There are some weeks I am giving up 6-7 strokes which is incredibly stupid. We are changing the system for our top division this year on a trial basis. We still carry handicaps, and when we play match play they will pair top handicaps, middle, and lowest against each other, but this year there are no strokes given...it is straight up play. They sent out and email and took votes and it was almost unanimous to do it this way. Will be interesting to see how it goes.

I wouldn't worry about what the green mat residue on the bottom of your club means. If you want to know that, go get some cheap foot spray powder and spray it on your clubface before hitting your shots with that club...that will tell you where you are hitting it which is much better than trying to decipher what is going on from mat residue on the bottom of the club.

I lifted and trained this off-season like I never have before. Started working on golf specific muscles/movements, lots of core, legs, back, twisting, etc, to see if it would help me with distance/swing speed. I put on about 10-15lbs of muscle with my routine. I was also stretching alot which I hadn't really ever done before. I gained about 3 mph of clubhead speed since the end of last year. I would say it is more attributable to the stretches I have been doing than it is to the lifting, or equal at best. I think that if a person did yoga and became more flexible without lifting weights, that person would see a small gain in ss and distance IMO.

If he would have played and then WD a few holes in, then it would have counted as a event played, yes, but since he didn't start, it is like he skipped the event. Rory is a little under 4 points behind him, his world ranking will not be in jeopardy unless Rory/Day start winning and DJ has to sit out for a substantial amount of time. The World Golf Ranking is a two year "rolling" period...confusing, but it will take quite a bit for him to lose his #1 ranking.

Is time an issue? I would do a playoff hole...if time is an issue I would take them back to the 150 yard mark and all players on both teams get to hit, closest to the pin wins. If there isn't any time for that either, then going by handicap hole is the best way to do it IMO.

I think its fun to watch. Its fun to watch the players with their kids/families having fun and its memories that the kids will never forget. Its all for fun and to spend time with the family before the real grind begins the next day.

I wish the courses would open around here so I could see if I have this schizophrenia stuff you talk about. I have heard the ranges will be opening this weekend, with the courses to follow in the next week or so. One of my last rounds last year was like that though. I was playing a practice round for a 3 day tournament with my boss and 3 others. Was playing a tough country club course. The practice round I was +1 thru 16 holes. Had been hitting the driver beautifully all day until I got to the 17th hole. Pulled it a bit further left than I wanted to and it hit a hill and rolled into the hazard, finished with a double. 18 same thing, hit a little bit more of a draw than I wanted and it bounced down the hill and into the hazard...another double. Finished with a 77 which wasn't terrible considering the two doubles. Tournament started and I fired a 84-87...Not sure where those rounds came from, but I hadn't shot in the 80s in over a year. I'm kind of amazed you didn't notice the difference in lofts of the two clubs..

That looks to me like it would be very noticeable in the sound at impact, and also the flight of the ball I would think would be different. I am right along with everyone else. If the ball doesn't look dinged up I usually play it until it is lost. Like @Golfingdad I feel a sense of accomplishment if I need to take a ball out of play that I have been using for quite some time. I think my longest before I took a ball out of play was 10 rounds or something like that. There was nothing wrong with the ball, but I just figured 10 rounds was a good number to move on to the next one.

I would say keep it as is. Like you said, you are a lower double digit handicap (I presume since you said you were shooting in the low 80s last year at best) hitting low single digit handicap driving yardage...nothing wrong with that at all. Use the time to work on those shorter irons you have into the greens to tighten up the shot zone and you may just be single digit soon! Good Luck!

I agree with Dave, I wouldn't want to play a par 3 course exclusively. They are fun to go and hit wedges and short irons on, but if that is all you play, you will see a dramatic decline in your long game. Is there anything closer? Even a 9 hole regular course would be better than the 18 hole par 3 course IMO.

My 2017 golf goals are as follows: 1. Get my Birdie (or better) to Bogey (or worse) stat to around 1.3 or higher. 2. Get my Fairways Hit up north of 50% and keep it there. 3. Get my GIR % to north of 65% and tighten my distance to the pin on greens hit from 25 feet to inside 20 feet. 4. Get my Chip and Down stat to over 55%. 5. Keep my Sand and Down stat around 50%, but I would like it to be closer to 55%-60%. 6. Better my Putts Per Hole stat from 1.69 to sub 1.6, and my Putts Per GIR from 1.85 down to sub 1.7. - For all of the above I will do more deliberate practice. I will practice chipping and putting much more than I already do (up from 2 hours per week to around 3). I will work on my long game and short game more deliberately on the range (work more on working the ball both directions and being comfortable with either way too). I need to practice these things as much as I play, which is usually around 4-5 times per week. I would like to put in between 5-8 hours per week working on the range and practice greens. I believe if I can achieve the goals above which are more of my stat goals, I can achieve the following: 1. Shoot in the very low 70s consistently with more of the 60s scattered in. 2. Drop the last stroke and a half off my handicap. 3. Play in more tournaments and get comfortable in them, placing in the top half of the tournament. 4. Start playing well in tournaments...no more high 70s and 80s. These are my goals for this year, I hope to be able to come back at the end of the year and check most if not all of them off. My game at the end of last year was trending in the right direction, my swing feels great and I have put in a lot of work in the gym this off season to help get me to where I want to be with my game.

I agree with what everyone else is saying. I would not have finished with this guy. Dropping clubs is one thing, but Rory-throwing clubs is another. I get pissed off when people don't fix their ball marks on the green much less some ass hat being upset his putt didn't go in so he takes some sod off one...that would set me off. I have been known to curse at a shot or a bad break, but I don't do it in a way it makes the others in my group feel awkward. I give myself about 7-10 rounds at the beginning of the season to get back into form, as the first round out for me is to break off the inch of rust I have accumulated over the long and cold North Dakota winters..

To the front edge over the bunker, or a draw up the right side of the big bunker with a lot of run out? Or do you normally carry the ball about 290?

I like to use bunkers, hills, that sort of thing to figure out my carry distance. If I use a bunker, I know where the ball first landed and I can laser it. I have in the past, on a slow day at the course, had my buddy stand off to the side about where we thought my carry distance is and once my ball landed he would drive to that spot so I could laser that distance, and hit enough balls to get a fairly accurate carry distance...then of course I had to do the same for him, only issue is he is not as accurate with his driver....lol

I didn't say in my post that I would "lay up short of the bunkers". I simply said I would lay up with a 5i-6i which should not make the bunkers, but in the case it rolls out I wouldn't mind it rolling out into the very beginning between the two bunkers to about 120 out which is a great distance for me.

We only remember our good shots...the ones that went over 300 yards...the 250 yard drive that missed the fairway right, or the 230 yarder that went into the trees we don't remember...those don't count towards our averages...

"Carry" was the key-word...

That's a HUGE carry to carry the middle bunker. My play would be to lay up with a 5i-6i and maybe try to squeeze any roll out into the middle of the bunkers. That would be anywhere from a GW-9i depending on the roll out. That to me is the smartest play anyone could make, because people say they can play 60 yard bunker shots until they are faced with them...the reality is that they are pretty difficult. If I am feeling good and my drives have been going good and I'm playing well, I might be stupid and take a driver and aim at the right side of the fairway with a little draw...but the 40-60 yard savings to me isn't worth hitting the bunker. I am perfectly fine with a 9i at worst into this green.

Good for sure. I don't want my game to rely on lucky bounces to shoot low scores, I would rather be good and hit fairways and greens. As others have stated, lucky bounces tend to even themselves out with unlucky ones.

It is my understanding from reading on this forum, that not very many 20+ handicappers hit the ball over 250. I guess I was going from my own yardages that I usually am leaving myself with, and of them all the 170-150 range ranks right up there. So after writing down all my approach shot yardages for a month straight, I came to the conclusion that 150-170 were the shots I needed to work on since those were the ones I would most likely hit. About 7-8 such instances on my home course per round. Then I looked at what was the next most frequent yardage. 110-130 was about 4 holes, so I worked on those distances. That's what I am getting at. If you are saying that 20+ handicappers leave themselves with 130-150 yards to the hole, then if I wanted to lower my scores, I would be working on those distances. 3.1 makes sense, the approach shot, and 2 putts, maybe they hit the bunker for some reason, blast out and 2 putt which gives them a bogey. Maybe its the confidence I have in that shot since I have practiced it repeatedly, but put me in that 150-170 range and I'm liking my chances to shoot a low score. Lets change that number to the numbers you are stating 20 handicappers mostly have for approach shots which is 130-150 yards. If you are taking 4 strokes from that yardage, to lower your scores (which the OP is wanting to do) I would suggest working on those yardages and becoming confident with them...that is how you are going to lower your scores... Driving accuracy is a great step to take to improve scores and I think its something that 20+ handicappers struggle with, but in regards to the OP, it didn't seem like he is getting in trouble off the tee if he is hitting 50% GIR as he states. Course Management is also a very good point and I believe a few strokes can be saved here. Minimizing 3 putts goes back to my point about working on the approach shots that you make the most. If it is the 130-150 range, work on getting these close enough to where you aren't 3 putting. The OP stated he is usually putting from a long ways away...if he tightened up his approach shots, I believe he would in turn minimize his 3 putts...unless he is a terrible putter which might be the case, I don't know.

Maybe it is because I am on my phone, but with that link you provided I don't see a % for the players for GIR from that distance. If you want to lower your handicap as a 21 handicap and you aren't getting these balls on the green from that distance, would you not say that is something you should definitely take time to work on to lower your scores and your handicap???? If you say that a 20 handicapper will get 1 shot on the green from 150-170 per 2-3 rounds of golf I think you found out what you need to work on...getting a nGIR from this distance, a chip shot and a 2 putt and "being happy with your bogey" is probably what is holding you back from lowering your handicap...