TXjammer

1) who's greens are in the best shape? 2) do I have a coupon for that place? LOL 3) am I playing good enough for a challenging course, or am I just out for some "honing" time And I am definitely in agreement with Billy33...I hate golf courses that "eat" golf balls...it's almost like they were designed to do so. One course here local has several par 4 and 5 fairways which even if you hit the fairway on the high side will still take your ball out-of-bounds onto private property and behind fences....I really hate that. I'd like to see how a pro would play these just one time.

uuuuhhhhh.....wow 5 A ball moved by ,lost or destroyed by enemy action..... I'm picturing walking up to my ball and some sniper picking it off the fairway with an 8mm Mauser....I think I would just go home at that point and change my pants. : (

I've always noticed, watching these vids from the way past, the position of their body at the height of the backswing (kind of looks like a baseball swing) is much more loose than the players of today who are seemingly more "stack and tilt". Of course, I think it would be hard to argue which has more power since great players with both forms have continually raised the yardage numbers.

I just want to be sure....does everyone realize that Tiger and Phil hit their 3 woods 265? Just checking.

My 3 wood off the tee is my 225yd guaranteed club....with a little help from the wind - 240....help from wind and downhill fairway - 255 (provided I nail it straight LOL) I have an TaylorMade R5 draw..and I'm not sure of the loft.

All the above + the time with my son and dad. Very valuable.

My buddy says "Sometimes you just got to get in "dumb jock mode"...don't think, just walk up and hit it!"

"Nice "elephant ass shot ....HIGH AND STINKY!!!!" -when they pop their driver up high My dad, when I was younger and couldn't get out of the sand used to stand by the bunker and yell "STRIKE 1! ....STRIKE 2!!!.... every time I didn't pitch out.....i would get sooooo mad, but would be laughing so hard.....uuuuughhh.

McDowell ALL THE WAY BABY!!!!

BI...O....Med....? Apple? Hmmm. I'll be watching you! LOL

About 207 yds is the longest I've run into in my area. I hear there are longer out there, though. I just now found me a club I can land exactly 205...that was a challenge for me.

It's the demeaning tone we were referring to. I'm not a softy, but lets try to stick to the subject here, which was don't let the pro illusion discourage you in your game. Ya know, before the thread went hay wire?

Now THIS is EXACTLY what I'm talking about! OR when giving a lesson or making a lesson video, the first thing out of their mouth is "One thing I see a lot of amateurs do is...." That really grates on my nerves. As if pros are beyond having swing flaws. I don't think so.

I thought the point to be discussed in this thread was: "If you can't apply yourself to this game as fully as the ones making a living at it, how can you be discouraged when you don't play to their level?" Never was the point to say who could or could not be a pro. This got way out of hand. All I wanted to accomplish with my rant was to encourage the discouraged....you know who you are. I tried to do so by saying, you most likely not going to be able (with a real job and family life) to accomplish your top potential, and it's stupid to make the excuses for the gap b/w you and them by saying they are super-human and have special equipment. I went on to say, the industry supports those myths to keep the pros in an iconic limelight and to sell equipment.

THANK YOU! This was never meant to be an argument about talent. This is about not getting discouraged with your golf game because of the image the media creates and hear-say creates about the pros. Take for example Dustin Johnson at the 2010 US Open. The snap hook he hit OB from the tee on 12? I think? was just that....a snap hook. Watch the video of Tiger shanking into the ajoining fairway yelling FORE! Watch the vid of Sergio hitting a photographer 30yds left of the green @ 180yds. THEN!...the next time your on the course and hit a bad shot, remember even the pros have bad ones....then remember that you get to play 1, 2, 4, whatever, times a month. It's a mental flush that brings you back to realilty and loosens the tension so you can play better on the next shot! I play with several different guys that have a "perfect" round visualized when they hit the course.....first bad shot....they're done! You can see it on their face, hear it in their voice...so the next shot is worse, the next worse...and so on. This is what happens when you take in too much exageration of what pros can do, watch too much edited golf on TV, and then head out to the course expecting to do what you've seen and heard on TV.

The one thing I wanted to break down here, is the block some golfers get behind. When they set their goals too high and can't reach them, they turn to the industry experts and professionals for help. Instead of the industry telling them the truth which is ...your equipment is fine, but might need a tweak here and there fitting-wise.... and the fact is you need to practice, practice, practice..... instead, they tell them you need this instructional DVD, this new driver, this V-Harness, this golf ball, this putter, this putter trainer, these irons, this Tour Striker, and on and on and on. And I'm NOT knocking these products...but the truth is it's about selling products. And to drive the sale home, they use tour pros as unreachable icons to put stars in you eyes. This wouldn't work if they didn't make the pros seem "larger than life", and the entire industry works together to create that image. I wanted to lessen discouragement here...and somehow this turned into an argument about who can be a pro and who can't.

No doubt Deryck. And it's true I have aspirations that are out of my reach....maybe. BUT, I'm just one of those kind of people who has to have something to strive for or I get severely BORED with life. Like you, I have tasted closeness to the "big show", but in music. Being a prof. musician since I was 15, I have shared stage with some big acts and names and could never claim my own spot on the world stage.....there's just "that thing" I didn't have....whatever that is. Just being able to hit the notes and play the riffs wasn't enough. Likewise I know a few golfers and have read about tons more out on the mini tours that can actually outplay some of the tour pros...but opportunity hasn't presented itself. Anyway, we're way off subject now, but who cares.

Yea...I didn't word that very well did I? I didn't literally mean "THE ONLY DIFFERENCE"...sorry.

There's that word - "fathom" I don't have to fathom or imagine. I've walked along-side pros at the tournaments, I've worked at a resort golf course where pros would come through and play from time to time and brought them buckets of balls on the range and stayed to watch them. I've stood 12' in front of Phil Mickelson while he ripped a ball out of the rough with a 5iron, and watched Bo Van Pelt, Jim Furyk, Steve Stricker, and many others hit a Par 3 green at 200yds using the same club I use to hit 160yds. I've watched John Daly tee off on hole #1 at the Colonial Country Club for the Plaza Invitational 2010. I'm not evaluating what I see or don't see in the pros from ignorance. Besides, it's just my opinion...ya know, they vary.

A rant is what it is....random thoughts thrown out there to spark conversation and debate between people with common interests...in this case, golf. All thoughts expressed in my rant were derived mainly from the reading of posts in this forum. NO. Read carefully and you will see I was saying we shouldn't be dissappointed when we don't play to the level of the pros when we can't apply the time to the game that they can. There's no doubt that talent, physique, and opportunity come into play to make a great golfer, but I would love to see how many players on this forum, if given the opportunity to play everyday for a year could become scratch golfers.

The following is a brief rant by TXjammer. Pros are not super-human. Amateurs are not failures. The golf clubs pros play with are NOT "special". Your golf clubs are NOT "sub-standard". Pros DO hit bad shots, have bad days/scores, and not EVERY one of their drives goes farther than 250yds. Amateurs CAN hit further than 300yds in the right conditions on a good day. What is the REAL difference b/w an amateur and a pro? A real job. If you have a real job, you have to work at it. Therefore you can't play as much golf as someone who's real job is to play golf. Therefore you cannot develope your game playing once/twice a week as well as someone who hits 1,000 golf balls/day, and should not expect to. Realizing this will greatly decrease a lot of the stresses and dissappointments discussed by the amateur golf community, and hopefully break down the myths that have become a mystical cloud surrounding the professional golf community. Am I a little envious of said pros? Yes. Rant over.

Special shits.....score cards for beverage rationing....this thread is out of control!!!! I have always thought there was a conspiracy underlying the sport of golf that has a sole purpose of intimidation. As if the "powers that be" in golf don't really want you to play...or it's like a dare, taunting you making you think you can't, but you should try anyway. Country clubs are hard to get into. Professional golf is extremely hard to get into. The whole sport is based on money, and lots of it. So I count the concept of par as just being part of the intimidation conspiracy of golf. Go ahead...ban me from the forum now. LOL

Ryan is cool.

I'm playing Nike clubs...but voted Titleist...hmmm. Maybe those AP1s I hit that day left a heavy impression on me after all. And I love my Titleist driver. And my Titleist golf balls. And my Titleist bag. LOL

Which is exactly why I like the many lower profile tournaments...without them it seems like the top 125 list never changes. I absolutely LOVE to see some underdog that's been doing his homework and practicing hard come up and bump a Tier 1 player from the ranks, forcing him to scratch his way back instead of riding that gravy train. It's like when we were kids.....remember "king of the mountain"?