amoline

Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. The argument could be made that we average Joes need custom fitting more than the best players because the better a player gets the more they can compensate for equipment. Just recently got my first full professional fitting done. It's a ton of fun, like Christmas, and you get new clubs. Enjoy your fitting, tell us how it goes!

Thanks a bunch, @DaveP043! I agree with everything you said. I mainly was just playing to try out Game Golf for the first time and do a little practice. This particular course has no sprinkler yardage markers like I'm used to. If I'm completely honest, I'm not sure the course even has sprinklers. The history behind it was that it used to be an IBM employee-only course, and then IBM sold it and it's now family owned and operated. There is very little upkeep to be frank and it's just not a great course -- but it costs $10 to play 9 holes all the time on a week day so it's just a good place to go and hit it around a little bit. Compared to usual, the greens were just awfully slow. Don't think I left one putt long all day! Thanks much for the compliment

@Hardspoon see first post. Not as unprepared as I look, so ha! I'm just a very good sibling and put his tryouts over my 9 hole exec. course round. Haha. Would do much better with the rangefinder next time though, I agree.

Irritating as usually I'm fairly good (relatively speaking with wedges). Anyway, I'm not sure distance control was the problem necessarily but more so distance perception. Meaning that I know my gap wedge, 3/4 swing goes about 80 yards (and just the two swings I made with it were in that range. Instead, the issue was I hit gap wedge when I thought I was a gap wedge distance out, but in reality I was about a sand wedge. So instead of hitting the sand wedge the correct distance and hitting the green, I hit the gap wedge what was the correct distance, but in reality I just wasn't that far away from the green. It seemed consistently with wedges I was over-hitting them by 10-20 yards, not because I didn't know how far the club went, but just because I couldn't tell I wasn't actually that far out. Anyway, that's not to say that's an excuse or anything, but I'm also not sure how one improves on that. Maybe I have bad eyes, lol.

In reality just poor club selection, and oddly enough with wedges. That's the only reason I'm happy with it -- contact really wasn't awful. I hit everything, aside from the OBs, solidly. Just not where I wanted to! GG considers a shot having missed long if it misses by 15 yards or more long. I just decided to get over my horrendous embarrassment and make that GG round public, so you can check it out there. Discarding OB penalties makes a 54 into a 48, which is not beautiful nor even as well as I did the last time I played this course. But I suppose we can't always have the round of my life. Happy with ball contact. Not happy with such poor scoring. As you can see, my total and utter lack of clubhead speed hitting 4i 160 yards at altitude yet remains extremely frustrating.

Just went to play 9 holes on the small exec course today, and did terrible -- scoring wise, at least. I just did it to try out Game Golf, and I'm not sure I need to even show the results here. I hit a whopping 0% of GIR, and that's just extra sad compared to normal. It's just 9 holes, but from that, interestingly enough I lost just about 2 strokes compared to a scratch player on tee shots, whereas I lost 18 strokes (lol) to scratch on Approach shots -- how does someone get better at this? My short game was bad (or it at least had more pressure on it) and my putting was not stellar, either -- 1.9 putts per hole. Here I am thinking that tee shots are easily the worst part of my game. Also, I didn't have my rangefinder as my brother had it for school tryouts, so I was bad at distance. Shame, too because after seeing on GG how far some of those shots really were, I wouldn't have ever chosen the club I did had I known. Good news is that my poor scoring came from OB penalties, which were just huge block/shanks that reared their head. Had two of them this round, on the same hole, which is much less than I'd been fighting previously. Anyway, ideas for approach shots welcome.

On Moe Norman, just food for thought, but consider that perhaps he was so good because he probably hit more golf balls than any other human on earth, and was painstakingly diligent with how he practiced, and not necessarily because he had a unique swing.

Thanks for the info -- I actually got to stop by the well known clubfitter in the area here yesterday and he suggested a 35" putter with a 3 degree, maybe 4 degree loft. However, I did find a different brand of putter so I think I am going to pass on the PING this time, even though the new milled ones look awesome!

I just purchased a game golf system and it's supposed to arrive today. excited to see how it works!

Those don't look pretty! Sorry to hear that you pulled them out to see that. However, everything aside, from a pure safety perspective I would be concerned that even if you cosmetically repaired them there could be structural degradation somewhere inside or within the shaft after severe flaking like that. Every shaft for a golf club has certain points where it's designed to bend and flex and certain points where it's, well, not. Depending on where those particular shafts (especially being a junior set) are designed to do that, I'd be worried that if there was rust/flaking in a particular point that's significant to the shaft, you may have to worry about the shaft snapping. Me being pessimistic of course but just throwing that out there... A little trick that I've used in the past on stuff that was too delicate for steel wool is to dip some squares of aluminum foil in water and rub that -- chemically, it'll still remove rust. It will also create a sort of polishing effect to get some of the flake off, too. You don't have to rub very hard for it to work. Let us know how it works out. EDIT: Whoops! This thread is old. -- Did it work for you?

Take a look at your position left arm parallel coming into impact -- the shaft is almost intersecting through your neck, which is extremely steep. It fades because that's your only choice from that position. Need to get your arms working together a little better, I'd say. Here's a video that's helped me a lot with this issue in the past, from an instructor I really like. Let us know how you do!

Ordered my set of iBlades -- super stoked .

Welcome! -- Get out on the course again and then start up a My Swing thread. Never visited OH, but have some friends from there and would like to make it to Columbus someday. Hear you all have a phenomenal zoo.

Well, you did now. Glad you had an awesome time -- sounds like great fun! The top club golf teammate of mine didn't make it to the regular golf team at my university, and he plays off +3.3, so it's always a good if slightly embarrassing time playing golf with him.

Just wanted to hop in and say congratulations! Work on a great swing and it pays off it seems! Sudden death is no joke. Have had teammates of mine choke - I've done it myself - in sudden death and it's incredibly hard to hold on to your nerve like that. This, and we are in college! Next time a teammate chokes I'm going to bring up your story and make fun of them for it. congrats again! Andrew

I have one from GolfBuddy. It's just the most basic one of the two they have. It seems to work very well - sometimes I have trouble just my own if I try to rangefind a pin and the flag isn't blowing or anything at all it can be difficult. So instead I rangefind to a tree nearby the green and guess from there. It's pretty obvious though if the green is 163 yards out or 391 depending on what I hit around the green. may or may not apply to your course though. They have an 'S' and non S version for slope. I know some brands have it in the same that you can turn off but again this is just basic so I got it without slope. It does have 3 modes though. I got mine at a discount but I think even without a discount the model is somewhere around $200. Gets the job done.

Truth be told despite how cool everything was the putter fitting was a little lackluster. For as high tech as everything else seemed the putter didn't seem as much. Granted ping is fitting only within their own product line. The fitter used the ping fitting app on his iPhone -- attaches to the putter and measures the stroke. I didn't get to personally see any of the data but I was put into a slight arc stroke. The fitter also took into account some feedback I had based on feel and the look I like compared to my current putter. Honestly the putter was the only part I felt I could've done myself with the same. I'll caveat this with saying we didn't have tons of time before we went on a tour so perhaps I didn't receive the full gamut for putters. PING has a LOT of putter lines and models. By the way, what did your fitting entail? I'd love to go to something like a sam putt lab but don't think there's anything like that around my area. What did your fitting use?

Thanks Dave! So awesome you love your G irons. I'm looking forward to a set of ping irons. I'd like to become a ping convert, too but financially it can't happen all at once here. Perhaps the irons and 3w first, and adding a putter and driver as I sort out my driving swing! Still not heard back if I'm actually supposed to be in yellow or blue dot. Or either. But still interested in knowing what's up with upright lie for a heel strike. Thanks for your thoughts Dave

Good point you bring up tees2trees. Indeed in my fitting I was put in XP95 shafts which are lightweight and got me an extra 4MPH of SS with a 7i. 4mph is nice but it's not changing the game for me sadly. I've also considered getting irons perhaps 3/4" longer than normal. I'm not short at 6' and if I could control it it might help me too. Bubba jumps because of rotation; if I try to jump midswing I will probably blow out my knee. Funny you bring that up though. Here's my old swing next to bubba. I naturally have a huge hip turn. Too much, arguably. My left heel comes off the ground which is fine and even helps my back, but my issue at the moment is it doesn't replant in the same place. My lower body fires way too fast and my knee and leg goes along with it. Anyway, my fat man clone of bubba Watson didn't help. I am flexible enough to get into the same position essentially, but don't have enough technique or swing speed to correctly return the club to impact. I'll flip at it instead because I have nowhere near the speed required. For me at least there are no issues getting to a backswing where I could create speed. It's properly creating the actual speed that's the issue. I either don't know how or just cant. But again I know I can just not in golf. I've only been playing golf for about a year and a half. To the actual longer hitters out there: did you get any more distance as you played golf for 5, 10 years? Have you always been able to hit the ball far? ( for me) if speed is something that can be improved upon it would make me feel better. An instructor in the past told me that there's no substitute for just going to the range and swinging as fast as you possibly can sometimes. Not even worrying about flight. This is something I've never done even once. I'm very concerned with ball flights on the range and not sure I could mentally 'swing as fast as I physically can' even on the range. Thoughts/advice still welcome.

Hello everybody! I had the opportunity while on vacation to get custom fit for PING clubs at Karsten HQ in Phoenix. Ever since I was young it was a dream to own a set of ping clubs so needless to say I was like a kid in a candy store. However being the techy mind that I am I had a few questions offhand after looking at some of the results. Anyway, here are those results from the fitting: You can ignore the driver somewhat because relative to the rest of the clubs I was just not hitting driver well whatsoever. I have serious swing speed issues with driver vs irons, lol. Anyway, before I get too far into it, the dot color code should be from what the fitter told me a yellow dot (1.5 upright), so I'm not sure why it says blue. Still waiting to hear back from the fitter on that for sure. My question first off is on a lie board what would indicate a 1.5 upright lie angle change? Off the lie board (when I finally contacted as opposed to picking, lol), there was a mark on the club fairly heel side. The fitter adjusted to a yellow dot and had me hit off a lie board again; the strike was still heel side but the flight was much, much better. I'm now confused because a heel strike on a lie board would seem to indicate flat bending -- at least I think. I'm not arguing with the results, as I'm sure if anywhere in the world to get knowledgeable ping fitting, PING, itself, is the place! However, I'm just curious. Any comments from the club fitters out there? Forgot the other thing I was going to comment on, but I'm sure it'll come to me. Thanks for all the help, everyone! Andrew.

Not to hijack your thread so I hope it doesn't feel like I am but I very much feel that I am in the same boat as you are. Your thread has helped me but for what it's worth I am actually in a slump and very much debating quitting. I know, distance isn't everything, but gosh can it be demoralizing. At the course I play a lot plays at just over 6,400 yards from the white tees. We are at altitude, but it's just tough all the same. I honestly feel like distance (lack thereof) is one of the few things holding me back. To put it into perspective... I am currently in AZ on vacation and was fortunate enough to go to PING and get custom fit. I was fit into iBlades with a total carry distance of 135 for a 7i. (Yes, iBlades. I really hit my irons THAT well compared to a driver.) So anyway, swing speed with a 7i: 76 MPH. SS with a driver: 81 MPH. That's depressing to me. I'm just ridiculously horrible with a driver. It's especially frustrating, because I have a black belt in martial arts, and my former sport before I injured myself was baseball. I often pinch hit and have hit a homerun or three in my life. Basically, I know I can create speed with myself. I just can't figure it out for golf. Result being I take 3w all the time, and driver isn't getting any better. Here's my dispersion map with the iBlade 7i: The shots in orange are the final 4 iBlade with the correct shaft combination (which ended up being stiff, even though I'm below the "suggested speed") Every shot was a 4-6 yard draw, and they land right next to each other; I have extremely tight dispersion circles. It's just that the shots don't go very far. I understand your frustration on an extremely personal level. I've not been playing golf for very long. This is my second year, and I've gotten decent at it so far (at least, if a fitter reaches for the blades based on my first shots, lol.) It's just incredibly frustrating to be around the idea that if you aren't born to hit the ball far, you're screwed. My younger brother is trying out for his HS golf team this upcoming fall, and can regularly carry a driver over 270 -- he's 14. He was born able to hit a golf ball far. It's hard playing next to him, or anybody really, when the options are either be made fun of by your tee selection from playing partners, and if you win, then the reason was because you chose the short tees, and if you lose, because you are a short hitter. Seems that all the people saying you have to be born to hit the ball far comes from only those who can already do it. (Argument to find better friends acknowledged). My backswing is competent enough. I just don't have the ability -- at least, yet -- to create that kind of speed. It doesn't help when the average internet golfer hits it 350+ at least Maybe all hope really is lost for those of us who are short hitters. Maybe not. I don't want to become a World Long Drive champion. But it'd be nice to not take 4i when playing partners take 8i. Will keep an eye on this thread -- Best of luck to you. Again, hope that I didn't hijack your thread! Tell me if you find the secret. Andrew

It is going to be tough because it will feel entirely wrong like you are just throwing your arms at it. But you want your arms speeding up in front of everything. As the favorite instructor of mine for earlier says, there is no other sport than golf that we are taught to keep our arms passive. The feel that has been working well at least for me has been to feel like I am not rotating at all from the top but my arms are the first things to go over my left shoulder. The feel that I was given at my last lesson is to feel like I am throwing a frisbee or doing a tennis left hand backhand over my left shoulder to start the swing. It it is very weird. But not having your arms lag behind like that is crucial.

You are losing tilt at the top just FYI. Just from your still photo you are firing your lower body way too early. Going through this same issue myself. If you posed yourself as the still picture, your hips are in a finish position and your arms aren't even close to impact. So your only option is to flip at it or rake everything off to the left, or both. The only thing worse -- results and body wise-- than flipping at it is crashing into the ground which is where your 6 inches fat shots come from If you put yourself just standing at the ball like in the picture that you have, you have absolutely no room left for your arms. You need to feel like you are starting your arms way, way sooner. After having 'lead with the lower body' drilled into my skull for forever, I'm now trying to fix the ramifications of way overdoing that move for way too long.

Truly, truly, I believe that lifting your lead heel on your backswing is a key to this, because it unrestricts your hips. I'm not knowledgeable enough to know when the whole "restrict your hip turn" thing became supposedly good in golf, but it's just absolutely awful. It zero benefits So as it relates to golf, that, and smoothing your transition is paramount, in my opinion. Guys like Jason Day already have back pain (and he's what, 20-something?) but his transition and change of direction is just flat out violent. There's no need for a transition to be so jerky to hit the ball a long way. That's why I love Bubba Watson's swing so much. He has a massive hip turn, lifts his heel on the backswing, a smooth transition, and drives it with the best of them. He has never had any notable back injuries that I know of, that the guys 10 years younger than him are having, but correct me if I'm wrong. And he is approaching 40.

Yes, but it's very simple. If there's wind or a lot of tight holes, or a longer course during a tournament where I need to reach an especially long par 3, I switch out a fairway metal for a fatback 2i. I'm not really skilled enough to do what it's probably actually meant to do. But I'm pretty good at hitting tee shots with it, which is all I'll really use it for in that condition.