picrig

I'm just beginning my S&T; journey. I could go on about why I've decided to make the change, but that's for another day. I've been to the range a couple of times to work on things. Overall, I'm pleased. Saturday was a good session, I thought. What I liked the most was that I was hitting the ball flush 90%+ of the time and only hit a couple of fat shots (something I had struggled with lately). In general, my ball flight was a slight push (maybe 10 yard push with a 6I) with a baby draw. I assume that this generally would indicate that I"m still not hitting far enough back on the circle to create the draw I need and/or my clubface is a little too open at impact? My woods/driver are completely different. I've had no luck with them. Instead of the straight push or push/baby draw, I'm hitting a straight to slight push with a huge slice. This seems to tell me that I'm hitting the ball on the front half of the circle and not getting my hips far enough forward. With the driver, how do you work on really pushing your hips forward? How much wider is your stance w/a driver than with irons? What are some good sensations that y'all have for pushing the hips forward, but keeping the head centered on the downswing?

I've been in an awful slump that's lasted a couple of months. I had lowered my HC from about 21 to 15 since last summer, and then early this spring got the shanks. Still haven't recovered. Can't hit my drive over 200 anymore unless I've got some wind to help me out. Irons have come back some. Doesn't help that I just moved and haven't gotten out much lately. I have a lesson w/a pro in the area on Friday...hopefully that'll help things.

I think this is a little uncalled for. I don't think the OP is "pilfering chips and putts." As far as I know, getting in some short game practice is typically free of charge at most public courses. The OP didn't say he was heading out to the course in the evenings to "sneak in a few holes for free." Way to encourage golfers who are trying to do their part in the upkeep of their local course. It's something most golfers today should strive to do a little more.

Well, they also have tees at 6200, 6700, and 7300, so it's not as if there aren't options out there for the rest of us. But seriously, I couldn't realistically play that course as a par 72 from the tips. More like a par 82 for me

Definitely wanting to try out the short courses. There's the one at Oxmoor and Hampton Cove has a full 18 hole short course. I'm expecting my iron game to improve a lot. We'll see.

I'm moving to Huntsville, AL in about a month and plan on getting an annual resident's pass to the robert trent jones trail (unlimited greens fees at 9 of 11 sites, 4 of which are w/in an hour of Huntsville). I've yet to squeeze in a round at the Huntsville site (Hampton Cove), although I'm going to try to get in a round when I'm up there looking at houses. Has anyone played at Hampton Cover or any of the other northern trail sites (Silver Lakes, The Shoals, Oxmoor Valley)? How are they?

http://www.rtjgolf.com/rossbridge/scorecard/ Each 9 is over 4000 yards from the tips. There is another course on the RTJ trail (The Shoals) that is over 8000 yards. Don't think I'll ever be playing from the tips at either place. When the shortest par 4 on the course is 454 yards, you know it's for big hitters only.

I just started working at the course where I take lessons (private club in town) and during some down time, the pro and I went out to the range and put my swing on video really quickly. I had developed a bad case of the shanks over the previous couple of days. It's amazing how bad your swing looks on video when you see it. We only reviewed it quickly since I was on the clock and will go over it a little more tomorrow when I have a lesson (I'd post it here, but it's still just on his computer), but here are the main things we saw. My backswing and position at the top look pretty good (in fact, my instructor even said Hogan-esque...haha). I'm a tad below plane on the backswing, but nothing unreasonable with a slightly open clubface. Here's where the problems begin. On the downswing, my lower body gets out in front of my arms (unlike good players where the arms are almost constantly in front of their chest) and my arms end up trapped a little behind my body, I end up pushing my hands out (causing the shank) and having to flip A LOT to get the club to the ball. Then, through impact and the follow through, my left shoulder works up instead of around my body. I know it's a lot w/o video and I'll try to get video up tomorrow after work, but does anyone have and drills to work on for those particular problems?

As a career as in a touring professional? Odds are no, although I won't say never. Some other sort of career in the golf profession (sales rep, club pro, course general manager, etc), by all means. I've dropped my handicap about 9 strokes over the last year and am keeping that downward trend going and am shooting to pass my PAT in a couple years and try to make it as a club pro or teaching pro. To make it as a touring pro you would have to have sponsors/funding that would allow you to make golf your profession right now. Practice every day, all day, get the best instruction, and you could get yourself to scratch potentially. I'd recommend picking up a copy of Paper Tiger by Tom Coyne just to give you an idea of what you're up against. He went on a 16 month quest, spent in excess of $100k, went from a 14 to a +1, and still could barely break 80 in qualifying schools because of the mental part of the game. I think we as amateurs underestimate just how hard it is to play in a real tournament environment where your livelihood is on the line. Not to be discouraging, though! If you set your mind to it and work at it, I say go for it. If I had started playing seriously at 19 instead of 23, I might be thinking the same things as you. Instead, I've relegated myself to trying to make it as a club pro and maybe playing some mini-tour events down the road for fun. Good luck!

Glebert, glad I could explain it. I used the "one wedge" chipping system for a while until my pro taught me the rule of 12. My chipping has been much more consistent since.

For true chip shots (shots where there is no forced carry over a bunker, water, etc, and where you can have more roll than carry), I like to use the Rule of 12 . Basically it says that for any given club in your bag, (say a 9I in this example), you can determine the carry/roll ratio by subtracting the club number from 12 (12-9=3). So in the case of the 9I, it will carry 1/3 of the way and roll 2/3. A 5I would be 12-5=7, so it would carry 1/7 and roll 6/7. When chipping, I simply count off the number of steps to the edge of the green and the number of total steps to the hole. Say it's 5 to the edge of the green and 20 steps to the hold. I know I need to carry it 5/20 or 1/4 of the way to get it on the green, and then let it roll, so I would use an 8I. Of course you can adjust for slope or the speed of the green that day. It sounds complicated, but it simplifies chipping and makes it ridiculously easy. For pitching, a lot of my play at this point is dictated first by the lie. After I evaluate what I can do from any particular lie, then I look at my shot options. While using one wedge is great, it limits versatility in the long run.

Just thought I'd look for more opinions on this because, hey, as golfers, we want as many thoughts going through our head as possible. I just got back from a lesson w/my pro. We've been working together for a couple months and have made good progress on my swing to the point where if you saw me on video, you'd at least say, "Yeah, pretty good swing." Problems still to be ironed out, but making progress. Here's my recent (and extended) problem. Inconsistent face contact. Occasionally, my pro will watch my swing and ignore ball flight and ask me where the ball went. He can say, "everything looks the same," but the ball flight on one swing (if I'm hitting a 7I like at today's lesson), will be a a nice, 155 yard baby draw, then the next swing will be an almost shank, with the ball shooting off low and to the right. We're putting the swing on video Tuesday to try to see if there's something at impact or something that I'm doing w/my hands that can't be seen at regular speed, but does anybody have any ideas why I might be getting such inconsistent face contact even though the overall mechanics of my swing are consistent from swing to swing?

26 putts two times. Admittedly, I only hit 4 and 2 GIR in those rounds. I have several other rounds at 27 or 28, but haven't been able to get to 25 yet. I'd gladly trade some putts for some more GIR, though.

A 195 yard 3H into a 20 mph headwind. Nice little 3-4 yard draw to 10 feet. I proceeded to burn the edge with my birdie putt, but man the shot onto the green felt good.

I'll be playing Panther Lake and Crooked Cat at Orange County National in June. Not top of the line, but a whole lot better than what I'm playing right now!

Yep, very impressive. Thanks for posting the link...I didn't think to do that.

I know that Orange County National outside of Orlando has a 42 acre circular driving range with over 600 stations. That would have to be up there (I'm pretty sure it is at least the largest in North America).

I would contend that the X-Factor is important. However, I don't believe that X-Factor is really measured on the backswing, but should instead be measured on the downswing. In other words, the amount that your hips turn related to your shoulders isn't particularly important. You should turn your hips however much you need to in order to make a full shoulder turn (it so happens that Tour players are extremely flexible and often don't need a lot of hip turn to do this). What is important is the separation between your hips and shoulders on the downswing. Leading the swing with the hips and lower body is what creates this separation and what will create the centripetal force necessary to accelerate the golf club through impact.

I don't think there's necessarily a "usefulness," per se. Just more of an interest/curiosity. I mean, you can look at my home course and know that the par 3s are probably going to be tough since they average over 190 yards. The par 5s (most likely) will be easy since they average just over 500. Useful? No, but it might be interesting just for comparison sake. Also, I don't know if rating/slope always reflect difficulty well. I thought the private club I played last week (6425, par 72, 71.0/126) was a lot easier than my home course (6419, par 71, 70.5/114). Part of it might be that living in TX, it's usually pretty windy, and the private course is extremely forested while my home course is pretty open and you can definitely feel the wind.

It would be interesting to see. For comparison, the private club I played at the other day measured as follows (from the men's tees) Total Length: 6425 (par 72) Par 3's: 170.3 Par 4's: 369.8 Par 5's: 511.5 The Par 3's and 4's were definitely no problem. Hit 3W most days, and in fact hit 5I/8I on an extreme downhill par 4. I feel like this course was much shorter than my home course, even though they measure basically the same. I think it will be good to keep playing from the tips. I should have the distance (avg. about 235 off the tee), plus, it'll make going back to the "men's tees" with my buddies seem like a breeze. In addition, I'm moving to Orlando in August and Orange County National will be my home course...it ranges from 6300 up to 7350 (although it'll be a while before I'm ready for the Q-school tees ). Anybody else want to share the average breakdown of their home course?

I guess it's not so much that I see anything particularly unusual about 400 yard par 4s (I have no problems reaching them unless I'm into a strong headwind), it just feels at least like the par 4s are long comparatively speaking. Maybe I just want to complain about it b/c I shot an awful back 9 today (41/47)

I just started playing my home course from the tips regularly after I had no problems playing another local course at 6400 yards. There aren't any forced carries at my course, so I figured it wouldn't be a huge transition. I didn't realize, though, that my course (from the tips at least) has some weird hole yardages. It seems like they made the par 5's extremely short (barely any longer than from the middle tees), but severely lengthened the par 3's and some long par 4's. Here are the yardages: Par 3's: 169/190/178/204/212 (Average = 190.6) Par 4's: 417/415/401/341/382/351/410/358/388 (Average = 384.8) Par 5's: 484/506/525/488 (Average = 500.8) Are these normal breakdowns of yardages? I feel like the par 5's should be a little longer (even from the the 1st and 4th par 5s are reachable b/c they're downhill). The par 3's seem really long to me, and so do the par 4's. Even using the USGA's definition, a "scratch golfer" (250 yard drive), would have over 150 yards to go on over half of the par 4s. As another note, the course rating is only 70.5/114 from the tips, so it's not as if it's a really hard course. Just curious what other people thought.

I think what Zeph said is true. On the other hand, I think far too many amateurs hit the driver way too much. Obviously pros have an advantage over us since they can hit a 3W close to 300 yards when necessary, but they don't use the driver nearly as much as I do. Tiger used it once in his British Open win a few years back (in 4 rounds!). I don't know numbers, but he didn't pull driver out too often in his two matches at WGC either. I think you need to be comfortable using your driver, but we also need to be smarter about when to use it. For example, I recently started playing my home course from the tips instead of the middle tees (still not long--6430) and #10 is a 355 yard par 4. Pretty tight, w/scattered large trees and a huge downslope off the right side of the fairway. There's a little room on the left, but if you go more than about 10 yards left, you're in some brush and 3 ft. grass. Until recently, I would've teed off with my driver and tried to put it in wedge distance. Of course, I ended up in bad lies a lot. I've started teeing off w/my 3W instead, and although I end up ~140 most of the time (except for today w/a stupid 20 mph headwind), being in the fairway is nice.

I'd recommend the Shawn Clement DVD's ( www.shawnclementgolf.com ). Great videos at a great price. Several hours covering philosophy of the swing, effective drills, and a course management/playing lesson.

It is pretty expensive. $5600/semester. I figure for the golf (OCN ranges from $50-$130/round depending on the time of year), free lessons, free range balls, I'll basically save all of my golf money that I spend throughout the year (easily has to top $1500/yr between greens fees, lessons, and range balls and I don't play a course nearly as nice as OCN's or Disney's). I can cough up the extra money for the experience, the opportunity to learn, and the opportunity to break into the industry. If anybody does decide to go, let me know! I'll probably be moving to Orlando sometime in July.