Bryan Kasper

Snow! it was march and it got to 50 normally, then we get 18 inches of snow...come on. looks like ill have to get inside for some practice for a while! i will survive i guess.

that is precisely who my main culprit was with my allegations haha. By far the best basketball player in the league, but i have also never seen someone travel so much. Definitely pisses me off. Coulndt have said it better myself. i also love that aspect

I wish this was the only difference in amateur/ college and pro basketball. Unfortunately basketball is where they are lax on some of the simple calls in basketball( carries, travels, travels( i had to say it twice because it happens so often). I would vote no every time as i think when you start making rule changes for "special" people then the game loses something in my opinion. i cant think of what is lost, but it is a sense of oneness almost. although what if the pros were forced to play with wooden head drivers woods etc. that would be pretty cool actually. similar to baseball. interesting topic, but i think the oneness of the game wins out for me

The fall of most retail businesses. Due to the fall of greedy manufacturers. People cant afford to buy their stuff (albeit slightly better...i think) every year. Once they start to realize that, with lower prices, they will reach a broader audience and keep golf alive , there will be a resurgence. i never understood the growth fallacy in sports like this. Companies want to grow there business by increasing prices, and beating competition, and putting out newer stuff all the time however the increasing prices( of clubs, balls, rounds etc) has led to a decrease in the ability for people to pay for the novelty that is golf. they put out too much equipment that doesnt match the need. there are only a handful of people who are interested in new stuff every year...nearsighted fools are all i see. if companies didn't make such haphazard attempts at better clubs, and actually took a couple of years after developing a previous product to put thought and effort into a new product. people would be more inclined to buy the newer clubs. consumers are getting much smarter now, and companies are falling behind thinking that marketing will save them. marketing only works with the unintelligent folk. I sure hope some of those companies with robust club fitting and personalized experience stay afloat as i am looking to get a full fitting sometime soon.

well my swing is more based on my body as an opposing force because that is where i am most consistent right now. yeah most of those pros do not rely on that as much in their swings which is why they can get some much distance no matter what. but that is my swing style. im sure as i progress i will move away from that style and then my weight wont matter as much. or i could be completely wrong in how i picture my golf swing. i have no idea, maybe it wasnt the weight and it was other factors that led to my decrease in distance. i will be interested to find that out in the next couple months as i head back out to practice more things.

i can say that since losing alittle bit of weight i have experienced some of the same issues. I only lost about 20 pounds down to 180, but i feel that i dont get as much distance as i used to, obviously because i dont have as much of an opposing force on the golf club, that will lead me to try to do too much. lately however, i have been playing within my new game and have been finding the stroke fairly well. i would say that was the biggest change, was realizing my new distance. im not sure that balance was a huge issue, granted throughout the whole thing i was doing yoga, and different stretches to keep balance and that sort of thing. more overcompensation for loss of distance. good luck with your new game.

Yeah i think you make a good point. it might be easy to dial it back if you have a solid full swing, but i don't think a half swing is the same as a chipping swing ya know. and i think you're absolutely right, there is a little bit of a turn in the half swing as well. that is what i alluded to earlier i think. it was just the amount to focus on a full turn vs. 3/4 turn/ vs. half turn. That is so true as well. I could stand to limit some difficult second shots, and potential drops from a hazard. I actually didn't think about this that much. The other thought i have on this is the feedback from the distribution of practice, is that whether i am in position at the top of the full swing or not, my mind is able to get the club face back to the ball to at least compensate for being out of position and get the ball out in play, meaning that the practice itself( not the outcome of perfect practice) is not always as beneficial although it can have more benefits in its mastery! Where as the half swing, if you are not in position at the top of a half swing, it is very very difficult to compensate and get back to the ball, while not as much improvement, the improvement is easier to come by i would think. The swing really does have to be very precise to even be able to make solid contact. So that is the dilemma I see in placing more emphasis on one or the other. Ill revise my thinking and say that they are both more so equally important. for every full swing, there needs to be a 3/4 swing as well as a half swing so that you can still make sure to keep good position throughout the entire swing. But that we also match up the benefits of different types of practice with their ease of mastery and what that is dependent on. I think i will see where that philosophy leads. start to practice them equally as much and see how the improvement goes. It is always great to hear this feedback to help me revise my thoughts on the golf swing. appreciate it @DaveP043

Hmmm, thats interesting, granted these discussions always go to some kind of black and white issue where it shouldnt. Both swing position/ path and full turn are important and neither should be neglected but i don't know which one is more important, I think i only make full swings on maybe 20% of my shots,actually probably the same for half to 3/4... I guess in my head the turn is simple compared to the position and path. i see the full swing as only a simple turn away from a 3/4 swing, meaning everyswing above a half swing includes the elements of the half/ 3/4 swings( including the full shots), whereas the turn is only for the full shots. so full swing mechanics are there for 20% where half swing mechanics account( non- mutually exclusively) to 40%... that is mainly why i have the focus that i do. let me know what you think about that?

Precisely! i think that video was what sparked my search. I always knew that they juiced the lofts of clubs, but i didnt realize that newer clubs werent actually going farther, adjusting for loft. COmpanies tend to trick you with that in their marketing, it wasnt until i started working in marketing that i realized how much BS it entails haha

i don know that i would chalk that up to technology...its an iron. other than making it easier for the average player to keep distance on off center hits, irons cant really change all that much. i have read couple of articles(which i am currently trying to revisit) that test older model irons vs. newer model irons that show that when struck in the center of the clubface (which all tour players do about 90% of the time) there is no difference in distance. workability might be a little difference story. Im not so sure how you would test that. but the restrictions on head weighting for irons hasnt changed, so Cog meeting COG will carry similar results.

One other thing that i realized last night was that i had a very unsolid base when i was swinging and this was causing a huge loss of power, and the feeling that i had to overswing to get enough power on the ball. what was not evident in these swings but i found i was doing a lot, was that i would start to roll my left foot over during my swing and it would cause all sort of issues with pulling, loss of a strong base, loss of balance and and in effect losing power in my swing. I was really focusing on a solid base, connecting my feet to the mat as i was swinging and felt much more power, balance and consistency coming out of my swing. it was great!

i figured as much. will have to work on the optimal hip rotation for myself then. i am a young guy so i can get the hips moving if i need to. despite a little bit of flexibility issues in the past, weekly yoga has been fixing that.

hmmm this is an interesting topic. some intersting responses as well. are majors all their cracked up to be? i really dont know if the fact of someone winning a major can determine whather a player has been a great or not. Wins are not based on just how well you play, they are based on how well you play relative to other players in the field. if you look at the players who contested for majors in the last couple of years? are they the guys that you expected to be in the hunt? Are the top players of the year vying for the championship, what score won the touraments? vs. PGA scoring average, vs. top quartile scoring avg. you have to look at whether the wins were worthy of being wins when comparing to the rest of the fields ability to play that given weekend. Even when tiger was a dominant force, there were times, albeit very few, where he didnt have the best major performances. All i am saying is that not all wins are the same, even if you have a star studded field.

Will be practicing inside this weekend, it just snowed, will be 45 today, and then down to 38 and raniing tomorrow! next week is looking up though. sunny and 55 in the forecast as of right now. hopefully that holds up and us noreasterland folks can start getting out ont he course regularly