bones75

I like the idea, thanks! Im often oblivious to the obvious. There are some Saturdays i know i dont have time to even finish 18. Hitting the range sounds like a good option considering. And will leave me time for other golf practice/exercise too.

My statement was addressing the question of whether I should stop carrying. This was not my topic or OP, but it was challenged (understandably*) and consequently took over most of the contents of this thread. This Feb I got to a place where I could walk/carry 18 holes and feel great. And I loved it (and I even posted on TST about it). I got there after about 14 months of carrying once a week and other fitness stuff. Since then, I took a few months off golf and regressed. I was seeking advice on how to get back to that physical state faster than it took me the first time (14 months), knowing I only have time to golf once a week, etc.. My OP was poorly written, and regardless, to your point, I'm now thinking about seeing a TPI type guy to make adjustments in my fitness routine w/ more of a focus on golf. *I do appreciate in particular @Vinsk, who as a physician, with the best of his understanding, simply tried to give me good health guidance. It's wonderful. The fact that his advice is contrary to my doctor is noteworthy, but I don't think differing 2nd opinions from doctors is anything new. In this instance, I trust my doctors more, as I'm sure his patients do likewise with him. (however, if he feels I'm being given unsound or incorrect medical advice to a level approaching malpractice.. then I'm still all ears!) edit: @klineka: i just realized now I misread your question! which is why the above may seem misdirected. although I eventually did answer your question.

I think I heard that you were a physician before, but forgot. I now better understand your concern and well intentions. Appreciate it. I have a heart issue and my doctors have given me a (lofty) goal of 300 minutes of 70%+ max HR (high-moderate) exercise per week. I pretty much never hit that because of my work, family etc.. So i'm trying to squeeze in as much as I can. I could give up my golf rounds to do spinning or something and help get there. Instead, I prefer to play golf and just try to max my heart rate while playing. Independently of the above, when carrying a golf bag as the doctors prescribed (for me: 18lbs, both straps, keep good posture, once a week), I was told it is better for my back health and for my general long term health (and likely help my posture), not vice versa as seems to be your concern. I don't know what medical literature and studies there are on backpacks and backhealth, but I feel confident that my doctor's recommendations are consistent with it (walking with a golf bag was discussed specifically). If you wish to share any research that is contrary to this, I'd welcome it. Thanks again for any of your concern.

Sorry to disappoint! I'm just gonna do what my medical professionals encourage me to do. It's wild. It's crazy. But I'm a wild and crazy guy...

I did go over this w/ my sports therapist (pt). I just didn't want to get into it in this thread. Here's all the details: - If I golf once a week (4hrs) and keep my golfbag under 10% bodyweight, it will ONLY be a healthy exercise for my back. Additional weight on the back for not too long or too often is actually healthy for it. It adds compression as is good for the bones. - backpacks are bad for daily use or being overweight - He agrees that anyone who golfs a lot, like an athlete, should not carry as default. - He agrees it will fatigue my back for worse performance in golf. - He treats Stanford's athletes - He's 100% in favor of increasing my bpm by 10+ for 4 hours at a time, so long as I don't mind the drawbacks (having to watch my posture all the time.. which I admit is tiring)

I agree that can be the case. My doctor, cardiologist, and phsyical therapists have all given me the thumbs up for it. It increases my heart rate, lowers my cardio vascular age. Stanford Sports Medicine. Their notes are simple: - never use 1 strap - always watch your posture - you will perform worse in golf because you are exercising your back (which I'm okay with) I've walked tons of rounds w/ a heart monitor. I average 11bpm higher carrying than pushing a cart on hilly courses. W/ that data and my health care dude's happiness w/ it, I'm gonna stick with it.

.. and I'm just dumb, I probably won't change a thing and get there like how I did early this year. Just keep playing once a week until it happens naturally. I do think range time would be the best exercise for me, but can't see it in the foreseeable future. I've also never carried a bag religiously before, so the last two years was a new challenge. Despite it looking stupid to do so, I'm satisfied w/ my reasons that I do carry. I played volleyball last winter for the first time in years. You'd be shocked to hear I was sore after that too!

My bodycomp has also completely changed (in a good way) over the last year or so. I consider myself super fit right now, but that wasn't always the case. ~2 years ago my doc said my heart thing was on the radar again. So I dropped a ton of fat, started lifting for the first time again in years (I couldn't even squat my bodyweight 18 mos ago) and started eating right. Can there be some impact of that on my swing? I only have about 40 min in the mornings to exercise/run. Is HIIT hiking a thing?

@saevel25 Feels like you hit on something there. I call it my "legs" but that may be generally. For example, there's an area about 3 inches left of my belt buckle that gets slightly tight after a round now. Like where my leg meets my hip. It's not painful, or even uncomfortable, but I just noticed it because I've never had that after a run. I really liken it to a "jumping motion", the part of my swing that I feel I lose power on, but it may be my hips. (I don't know the names and details of all the hip & leg muscles) Does any of this change your thoughts?

I said I didn't want to go there! I have a heart condition. One of the lifestyle changes I need to make is strengthening it via longer periods of higher intensity exercise (higher bpm). I'd say that's exclusive to me, but in general the health benefits of including more high intensity exercises is ridiculously rewarding to anyone. My bpm is higher carrying than pushing. Some people care more about health than score! (some oldies I play w/ I swear don't even like golf that much. They just hate the treadmill) Sounds like a good idea. I'm going to incorporate some hiit stuff. I just hope it doesn't take a year again to get there. Idk what else to tell you. I'm shorter and less straight on 18 than I am on 1. And I'm certain my vert measurements would confirm that. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I can't swing a club. I just swing noticeably slower. But I did get to that point (of not feeling tired) early this year. But it took over a year of basically just golfing once a week. I'm just trying to find the quickest way back. There appears to be consensus (by absence of support) that medball/kettleball stuff wouldn't help?

@klineka @ncates00 My sleep/nutrition recently is about the same as it was previously. Perhaps a little more stress and tiredness in life because of covid and young kids (but not that much). I am referring to "golf conditioning" only. Meaning simply feeling strong swinging for a whole round. I believe I was understating it when I said I was fit. - Strength training 3x a week full body. F/B squats, dls, bench, cleans, isolations. As ref, my 1RM squat is about 1.75x my bodyweight. - Run ~7 miles 3-4x a week @ ~5.15 min/mile pace (I used to be a competitive long distance runner) - My nutrition is pretty tight. I count my calories, meet my macros, no junk foods in general. To me golf uses my muscles diff and maybe even diff muscles than in my current fitness routine. I feel I don't have a lot of fast twitch muscle in general (my legs are great at running a long time, not great at swinging for a long time). Was thinking about swapping a run session for a medball/kettlebell type of session just for golf reasons. (I actually like running, it "destresses" me a lot more than lifting or other exercises). To provide color: I can easily go for a 5 mile run after a round of golf. But I can't just can't swing anymore. My legs feel like jelly swinging a club, but I easily have enough energy for a run. It's true.

I'm 45 and pretty darn fit, imo. I got my golf conditioning in a great place in the beginning of the year after 12 mos of diligent strength training and cardio, and playing once a week. I recently took 3 mos off of golf, but continued my other fitness stuff. But now my golf conditioning is noticeably worse (tired at end of the round). Last year I never did golf specific exercises, and although I achieved my golf conditioning goals (feeling light footed on 18), it took over a year to get there. Is there some golf specific conditioning exercises out there that can speed up the process (more box jumps, for example)? Or do I just have to keep playing and let my body slowly get conditioned. I do walk and carry, let's not get into why in this thread. Just take it as a given. For life reasons, I don't have time to go to the range at all. Just get to play once a week, and I'm grateful for it! At the end of a round, my legs in particular have a lot less power in my swing. That "jumping" kind of feeling teeing off on 1 becomes a "slowly getting up from a seated position" feeling on 18. I also find I can't rotate my upper body as easily or fully at the end of a round. I also stand closer and closer to the ball as the round progresses (no idea why, but I do fix it when I notice it). Appreciate any tips.

There are places where there's no such thing as a stupid question. TST just isn't one of them. 😋 I just watched a clip Bryson at the Schwab event. Definitely looked like I saw a gut through his shirt, and looks like a different guy than in the 2nd photo.

I know pictures can be misleading, but when were these two taken? If the latter is very recently, his body fat percentage looks to me more than 15% on the right (can still see abs), and no less than 10% on the left. Doesn't look to me it's total beer gut at least.

I didn't find this yesterday (I was actually looking for academic journals on another statistics topic when I ran across the previous papers). But found this now: The Impact of Pressure on Performance: Evidence from the PGA Tour https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1750984X.2017.1408134# "our study suggests that an attenuating force, known as choking, does exist in which large rewards lead to a drop in performance due to psychological pressure" "The findings from our primary model indicate that increasing the value of a putt by around $50,000 will decrease the likelihood of a player making the putt by 1 percentage point. However, for certain shots, such as those taken from 6 to 10 away, the magnitude of the effect is substantially greater. We also show that pressure affects less experienced players more than those that have earned more money throughout their careers, and that the impact of pressure on performance varies based on how well the player has been putting in the tournament up to that point." ''''''''''''''''''''''' Although off topic, found this reference to golf too: Choking interventions in sports: A systematic review https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1750984X.2017.1408134# "Implicit learning represents a distal choking intervention to minimise the accumulation of explicit knowledge during skill acquisition to reduce the likelihood of reinvestment (Masters, 1992). Masters found that golfers who had acquired golf putting skills without any explicit instructions on how to putt a golf ball (i.e. implicit learning) improved their performance under pressure, whereas those who had received specific instructions during the skill acquisition phase (i.e. explicit learning) worsened their performance. Participants, however, in the implicit learning group learned the golf putting skill rather slow in comparison to the explicit learning group." "In their initial study, Vine and Wilson (2010) trained novice golfers to putt a golf ball using either QE* instructions or technical instructions (the control group). Vine and Wilson found no differences in the learning rate between the groups, but the QE group outperformed the control group when putting under pressure. These findings have been replicated and extended with both novice athletes (Moore, Vine, Cooke, Ring, & Wilson, 2012; Vine et al., 2013; Vine & Wilson, 2011) and experts (Vine, Moore, & Wilson, 2011; Wood & Wilson, 2012) indicating robustness of this intervention." *QE = Quiet Eye training. Basically the act of visualizing your task before you perform it

I still haven't figured out when i can edit a post and when i can't. Here's the link for the darts study if you mods want to put it in my OP. Performance under pressure in skill tasks: An analysis of professional darts Understanding and predicting how individuals perform in high-pressure situations is of importance in designing and managing workplaces. We investigate performance under pressure in professional darts as a...

I work in statistics and came across some studies on how pressure impacts performance. I'm just offering up the data/papers, not making an opinion. I selected 3 studies here because they were the only ones I could find w/ hard data on what they all refer to as "choking". There's literally tons of academic research on psychological impacts on sports, if you want to look yourself (home/away, superstitious routines, etc..), but these are the only ones I quickly found that used hard data. Please note that these are academic papers, so I'd be cautious into getting too deep into methodology. I included a short summary of the data, normalizations, and what I thought were the relevant conclusions made by authors. I really tried not to be editorial about it. NFL field goals "Choking under the pressure of competition: A complete statistical investigation of pressure kicks in the NFL, 2000–2017" https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0214096#pone-0214096-t002 - 30k field goal attempts - normalized by environmental (at least by temperature, field surface, altitude, precipitation, wind speed, humidity) - normalized by situational (at least by regular vs. post-season, situational pressure, home vs. away, and “icing”, rule changes, individual player performance levels) "Our findings show that NFL teams can differentiate their kickers’ performance variations in terms of their performance during pressure kicks over using kickers’ performance for longer kicks or difficult kicks" "kickers are susceptible not only to environmental factors, but also to situational pressure or psychological factors" "The research also suggests that players who are able to maintain their performance under circumstances of change do so because of aspects of both physiology and psychology" NBA free throws Review of "Performance Under Pressure in the NBA (2002-2010 seasons)" http://blog.philbirnbaum.com/2011/05/new-basketball-free-throw-choking-study.html - No public access to the full paper, so this is someone else's review of it's findings. Note that the reviewer appears to be a skeptic of the phenomenon of "choking". - >400k free throws - normalized by at least (home/road, winning/losing, situational (when in the game), shooter proficiency (by team season %), and others). Again, don't have access to the full paper "In the last 15 seconds of a game, foul shooters hit .726 when down 1-4 points (922 attempts) .784 when tied or up 0-4 points (5505) .776 when up or down 5+ points (4510) "when you compare the "down by 1-4" group... to the "5+ points" group.... the "down 1-4" is .025 below average, and the "5+" group is .025 *above* average. The difference of .050 is ...about 3 [Standard deviations]." "I'm not absolutely convinced there's a real effect overall, but yeah, it seems like it's at least possible." Professional Darts "Performance under pressure in skill tasks: An analysis of professional darts" - 32,274 tournament dart throws - Read yourself for methodology, pretty techincal "We find no evidence that professional darts players are impacted by (high) pressure situations" --------------------------------------------- If you were *mental* enough to read this.... What do think? (I also found a paper on psychological stress impacts on kinematics and sports performance, but can't find it at the moment. will follow up with it. It's conclusions were something like high pressure situations impact less-trained-individuals more than well-trained-individuals at a certain task)

I also think you should score what you shot (playing out the hole), unless you're falling behind, in which you case you may need to pick up at some point. Imo, your score is only how many strokes you played. An ESC adjusted stroke count is not your score, although I agree tons of people say it that way on the 19th. Just don't play them for money unless you agree on ROG or otherwise. Or better yet, bet them the next game, giving/taking strokes based on what they say they shoot, and make some $.

It's funny. I watch holes an hour of the Taylormade Driving Relief last night and timed a few guys (not exhaustively or selectively). No claims on whether this is fast play or not. I believe they finished their round in 4:10 (which I'm sure is slow play to many) DJ, Rory, Wolfe, Rickie are all about 30+ seconds off the tee, when not hitting first (from when last guy hits). Felt a little bit faster for iron shots, although it's harder to tell because of camera switching. It seems they all take the same practice swings as me (although they usually take the swings, then walk behind the ball, eye their line, then go up for final address), so I don't feel this part of my routine is unusual at all. I personally don't walk behind the ball before swinging, but I've been told I should. For putting, they seem to take 10-15 seconds when standing above the ball (even if a bit further away for practice strokes), and sometimes up to another 15s if they spend time lining up the ball first (line on ball to putt line). I did find a few examples I could time. For example, on #7, where DJ had nearly the same 10' putt as Wolfe, but was putting 2nd, DJ took 22 seconds to putt (and he was walking to putt as soon as wolfe's ball was rolling). I'm pretty sure I'm as fast or faster than any of them off the tee. (again, pre-shot routine starts only after club selection, lie reading, line reading etc) For putting, it's hard to tell. I'm slower over the ball, but I don't do the line up the ball thing (ball line to putt line), so start to finish I still feel like I'm faster than any of them (except maybe DJ). So while my routine may be not that slow, I'm pretty sure it *feels* slower to others. Since I stand over the ball looking like I'm about to hit, you just can't tell if I'm exactly gonna pull the trigger, so it's like your holding your breath forever (5-15 seconds). While for most others, you only need to be "deadly quiet" for like <5 seconds. If you had certain things in your routine that you felt helped you, like lining up the ball carefully, or walking behind the ball before you swing, would you consider stopping it for pace of play reasons? *** I'm still on the fence if I should just force myself out my comfort zone and walk up and hit it in a few seconds. When I play regularly, it gets easier, but my routine just slows down when I haven't played recently. *** 100% NOT suggesting these are slow-play mechanics, I know a million fast players that do these things too. Just posing the question of how far you will go for fast play.

One of my old boss's said that's why he doesn't go to the range. "Why waste your good swings there?" He wasn't an impressive golfer.

I wasn't counting club selection, yardages, lie evaluations, green reads etcc in my pre-shot routine. For putting, it's 15-25 seconds* after the guy putted before me. The longer the putt, the longer it takes for me to make any last minute adjustments in line. However, the 5-15 second pause which I'm now doing does feel like a lot of "required silence time" I demand from my group. This as opposed to the guy who also takes 20 seconds to putt, but you only need to hold still and be quiet for the last 5 seconds. I also don't do this pause when I feel comfortable w a putter (playing regularly). But every time I'm shaking off rust, I get like this again. They aren't full swings at all. Feels like 25% effort swings. Just making sure the wheels are on the right rails. But they do take time.. about 25 seconds for the whole routine* (no more than 30) Again, I don't do this when I feel comfortable, but can't stop it when I'm shaking off some rust. In fact.. I typically want to do more, I just stop at 3 maximum because of time pressure. I only felt my routine was 5-10 seconds longer than everyone else's, but that's just because I thought they were pretty fast when standing over the ball. They just took their time getting there. When you've hit twice already on a par 4 and still have 150 in (and took a penalty), in hindsight I should've stopped w/ the practice swings. But I often then do what I did today on that hole: poor approach 10 yds short, ran up to the green because they were all waiting for me, fatted a chip, and two putt for snowman... But i don't see a better alternative. *I just timed my routines

Today was my second day with a golf club in my hands since covid. Have some bad things happening in my game so I have 2 areas where some people *may* consider it to be slow play. 1. full swing pre-shot routine now has 2 practice swings and sometimes... a third! 😕 (but quick ones, in my mind) 2. In addition to three quick practice putting strokes, I stand over the putter for like a good 5-15 seconds before my final putting stroke (I'm looking up and down my line several times). And to add to this, I'm rusty, not playing well, don't have the time to even hit a few balls before the round (young kids), and consequently have multiple blow up holes. I think I'm usually a very fast player in general. When I'm alone on the course, I casually walk 18 in ~2:20. I will fairly quickly drop a ball as opposed to searching for it if my group is waiting on me, I'm always the first to tee off (simply because everyone else seems slow getting ready), and I always immediately start my pre-shot routine as soon as the last guy hits his shot (unless still walking up, like after a tee shot). Went out as a single today and our group fell behind. In my mind, there was no doubt it was 2 guys that were the culprit and not me. Long searches for lost balls, diddling when it's their turn, reading putts only after it's their turn, etc.. I wanted to score well, but was also doing whatever I could to speed up our play, so long as I feel it didn't impact my routine. On the 14th, I was 150 out, hitting 4 on a par4 and one guy politely gave me the "Hey, I think we're falling behind" advisory as I was taking one of my *many* practice swings. I sped things up and blew up the already blown up hole. We caught up on the next hole (we didn't get any faster, that's just where the traffic started) so wasn't a lingering issue. 1. Do you think I need to speed up my pre-shot routine 2. Does speeding up play in one area ever justify slowing it down in another?

i was the lone vote for 85. But then I read @Drv4show's post and kinda want to change my vote. I won't walk if it's 85 or higher. But I'd still be willing to play and ride at 100+ if I have enough cool wet towels on me.

As usual, I didn't read the whole thread carefully. I just read the nytimes article above. I have logged 70+ rounds of golf w/ a heart rate monitor* on the same course (riding, carrying and pushing). I average 11 bpm higher for the round if I carry vs push**. Heart rate/caloric expenditure calculations*** put that at 400+ more calories burned during a 4hr round of golf. Even though that's an estimate, and even if you cut it in half, it's a different result than the article. Personally, I also feel it's so much easier to push a bag on wheels on a flat or downhill surface vs rucking a bag. On uphills, I can see it being about the same, energy expenditure wise. My home course (at the time I was using the heart rate monitor) was extremely hilly (Darkhorse in Auburn, CA), and was ~6.7 miles to walk. I personally want 300+ minutes a week of moderate/intense exercise (the higher the heart rate the better!) and I feel carrying vs pushing helps a lot. Note, I used to be an avid long distance runner, so I just may enjoy/seek out different exercise goals than most. -------------------- *Device used was medical-grade EKG device (QardioCore) **My max bpm wasn't that different between carrying and pushing. But I had more highs and lows while pushing, and when carrying my bpm stays at a higher level and the graph is more flat. So the average bpm was a lot higher when carrying. ***Formula for Determination of Calorie Burn if VO2max is Unknown for Male = ((-55.0969 + (0.6309 x HeartRate) + (0.1988 x Weight) + (0.2017 x Age))/4.184) x 60 x Time

@Elmer I was hoping you could offer an update since your OP. I also like to carry for the health benefits. And have gotten the ok from my docs and PTs to do so, so long as I watch my posture and never use just one strap. I've also thought about "rucking" while playing. I.e. adding weights to my bag. I was like you were in your OP, but started strength training more the last few years. It took over a year of lifting (squats, DL's, cleans, lunges) and always carrying (I play once a week) until I felt like I was at full energy for the last few holes of a hilly course. I'm in my mid 40's, and honestly, for a long while, I thought I'd never get there. I took the last few months off golf, and now, again, I can't finish a round w/o playing noticeably worse at the end of a round from general fatigue. I'm hoping this time it'll only take me a few more months to get it back.