Jenks465

I always liked the way Harvey Penick used to make Ben Crenshaw practice his chipping and his putting, one ball only. Just makes more sense to do things the way you do them on the course, and while you may hit fewer putts overall, the quality of the feedback you recieve regarding different conditions is greater.

My favourite would be 'Golf on the edge' by Ross Biddiscombe. Gives you an idea of what the non-superstars of professional golf are prepared to endure just to play on the tour.

Thats good advice! Take care of the short ones and the long ones and all of the others come easy! I'd also suggest practicing with one ball and going round all of the holes on the putting green (I usually do it until i've played nine holes in 15 putts), especially just before playing. That recreates the situation you get on the course better than hitting the same putt over and over and gets you focused on trying to hole every putt rather than thinking too much, good luck, Jenks.

When taking a drop, if the ball rolls more than two clublengths from the drop point, rolls closer to the hole or rolls into a hazard the player MUST take another drop. If this happens twice the player MUST place his ball on the spot the ball first struck the ground during the second drop.

The two 'different' grips are basically the same (placing your hands as close together as possible to stop the right hand 'over powering' the left). In terms of technical differences there are very few, and both have been used successfully (interlock: Tiger, Nicklaus, Daly. Overlap: Watson, Norman, Faldo), Steve Jones (reverse overlap) and Jim Furyk (double overlap) even use very individual ways of connecting their hands but it isn't really important, more important is the orientation of your hands to the clubface.

Trevino used to do something simillar, he adjusted the club face (open/closed) rather than his grip but it would produce the same result!

How do you practice?

What a pretty golf swing! Looks like you fade it a touch and looks pretty under control. I'd guess if you keep doing that for a season or two and you're a decent putter you should be looking at + figures! Just one piece of advice, don't try and change your swing to 'look like' someone else, just focus on fundamentals and the 'look' of your swing will draw it's own admirers!

Their just trying to make the game as fair as possible! Plus whos going to pay admission (what does it cost, $50 a day to go to a tour event?) to watch players hitting the fairway and then missing the green from 120 yds because half the ball is caked in mud! I want to see 'proper' golf being played and the result not being decided by who got the least amount of mud on their ball!

I used my hybrid to replace my one and two irons (it goes right in the middle of where those two went, 205yds, and makes it much easier to flight the ball correctly), and leave more space at the shorter end of the bag!

Yeah, thats the same as happened to my friends Ft-5, before the crown came off! It's where the join between the titanium face and and the graphite crown hasn't been bonded correctly in the factory. If you send that back they should send you a new one without any problems (might even send you an Ft-9 if no Ft-5s left!). It wouldn't affect the performance too dramatically if you continue to play with it though, you'll just get a nasty surprise when half your driver head follows the ball down the fairway one day (one of the funniest things i've seen on a golf course by the way!).

Hey there, just stumbed across this thread and looking through it I think I might be able to give you somethings that might help. First off congrats on the massive improvement in your set up position between video 1 and 2 that really doesn't seem to be an issue now! What does seem to be the main issue is how low you swing your hands in the backswing (you can really tell that you used to play baseball )! What you really need to do is feel like you are swinging the club very high in the backswing like Davis Love does. Find a video of Davis's swing on youtube and just stand in front of a mirror and try and copy the top of the backswing position that he gets to. Do it ten or fifteen times a day and you should see a lot of progress pretty quickly. The second thing I noticed was a real lack of balance in the follow through. For that i'd suggest again working in front of a mirror and try and copy the finish position of any pro player you like. Weight on the left foot, right shoulder pointing at the target, club wrapped around your neck. Then when you go to the range hold that position at the end of every shot! Hope this helps, Jenks.

Where exactly is the mark?

As a general rule the combination of 905R with the UST would produce a slightly lower flight with less spin and the shaft would feel a touch stiffer to you as well. The differences in trajectory and spin are the result of how the shaft bends during the swing some bend slightly lower resulting in higher flight and more spin, some bend higher resulting in lower flight and less spin. Also the 905 head gives a naturally lower flight and spin rate than the Nike. Hope this helps!

Well he drove it through the back of the 18th at St. andrews in 1970, so he must have been close to 450yds with the new stuff!

Titleist 909 D3 9.5* with a Graphite Design YS6+ shaft (not sure about flex yet, got some demos on the way!) and a lamkin Cross-line grip stretched slightly thin! Won't make any difference to my scores but can't let the young guys hit it past me to much, bad for my rep! LOL

Those are all excellent sets with very similar performance characteristics. I'd just go for the ones that look the best to your eye when set behind the ball! For me that meant that I went for Macgregor Pro M irons as the profile was very similar to the clubs I used to play in the dim and distant past but if you prefer a more modern look the Clevelands and Callaways could be more to your taste, good luck, Jenks.

In my opinion there are many disadvantages to cavities (the big spade type ones) too, especially for the advanced player who isn't just hitting the same shot every time. Ball flight too high, impossible to move the ball through the air (try to hit a five yard cut and you have to feel a twenty yard slice), harder to get a 'real' strike on the ball (the fat soles won't let you take a crisp little two inch divot) but that is who these clubs are aimed at, players who are still developing the basic skills of the game and haven't moved on to the more advanced ball control aspects. And in terms of forgiveness there is really no performance difference between any clubs if you miss the sweet spot by quarter of an inch or so, the only differences come when you miss by half an inch or more and growing up playing persimmon and balata taught me not to do that very often!

When I start deciding on what ball i'm going to use at the beginning of the year I go through the following steps; 1) Decide how much you are prepared to spend on a ball and ask your pro (nicely!) if you can borrow a sleeve of each ball in that price category to take to the putting green. My pro is pretty good about this as he knows theres a good chance I'm going to buy at least a sleeve of 3 or 4 different models and a whole lot of my favourite! When on the putting green decide which balls you like the feel of and which ones you absolutely can't stand! 2) Next i'll buy a sleeve of each of the ones that I like the feel of so that I can try them out on the short game area and the practice ground. Depending on which is most important to your game, long game or short game performance I would then take the balls and compare them. For me i'm looking for certain short game performance things (soft feel, ability to check the ball on firm greens) so I go to the short game area first. 3) After i've again decided which balls do best in the second category I then buy a dozen each of my three favourite balls (the ones that don't make the cut are excellent practice balls!) and take them to the practice ground and directly compare their long game performance (length with driver and irons, ball flight, feel, and stopping power). Usually after this, one of the balls has stood out as being a real winner for my game! I know this sounds a bit exhaustive and you may not want to go to these lengths but it has a second advantage of really sharpening my game up early in the year too! . Hope this helps, cheers, Jenks.

Last summer my stats were 64% Fway, 59% GIR. I did try to find some balatas but couldn't find any that were in playable shape, so had to stick to the trusty Pro V1 (now i'm not going to argue with anyone, the balls are a lot better these days!). Iron distances were almost identical (maybe five yards shorter with 8,9,Pw), I think the muirfields came with 'tour lofts' even in those days, and the clubs I usually play tend to have fairly traditional lofts anyway!

If we're talking about scores being lower with cavities, how come the guys with the lowest stroke aves in the world play blades? Tiger (Nike), Sergio (TM MBs), Furyk (Srixon Pro 100), Vijay (Cleveland CG tours), Mickelson (Cally Protos, not pure blade but close enough), A. Kim (Nike).

The old Muirfields actually feel almost identical to the new Macgregors that I got last year and are fractionally softer feeling than the Mizunos (MP33) I had in the six years before! Maybe thats why I went for the Macgregors, old memories coming back!

I tend to think of the blade going straight-back and through on any putt of six feet or less, as your not making a long enough swing for the putter to have an arc without making it almost imposible to time the squaring of the blade. Anything longer and the putter will naturally swing a touch inside due to the longer swing but it's not worth worrying about the exact amount, as you'll destroy all your natural athletic ability. For the guy just starting out i'd suggest that you spend 30 minutes 3 times a week practicing with the first ten minutes being holing three and six footers working on technique, the second ten minutes hitting long putts (30-45 feet and try to hole them), and the last ten minutes just going around the putting green with one ball and try to play nine holes in 15 putts or less. Hope that helps, it's worked for me the last couple of years!

As a little personal experiment I decided that i'd play all of my winter golf this year with my old persimmon woods (Wilson Tour Block driver, Joe Powell three and five woods) and Macgregor Jack Nicklaus Muirfield blades (2 iron to SW, No gap or lob wedge of course!). The result has been suprisingly positive. Driving distance only 15-20 yds shorter (appox. 230 yds) with similar accuracy (65% fairways, 58% GIR) and average scores only 2 shots higher (74.3 compared to 72.5) much of which could be put down to dodgy winter greens (31.3 PPR compared to 29.7 during the summer), so much for modern technology hey, LOL! Just wanted to know if there are other people who do these types of strange experiments and if they get similar results to me? Cheers, Jenks!

Hey, nothing wrong with gimmicks, especially in golf, square driver, futura putter, stack and tilt any one? I even saw some one stick their ball on a BRUSH to tee off once(?!) but each to their own if thats what you wish to spend your money on. While I haven't used any of these others (i'm a 'traditionalist' don't you know) i'll stick with my plumb-bobbing, it doesn't cost me anything (even wins me some!) and if its good enough for, Jim Furyk, Corey Pavin and Ben Crenshaw then it's good enough for me! Good day!