saltman

I presume only if they somehow cheated their way to a worse handicap. Sandbagging is different discussion.

So you carry a legit 6.8 index and your ego is so fragile that you care about the legitimacy of a 25 handicapper? I simply don't get it. I think its arrogant and just childish to say they are playing a variant of golf. By the time someone works their game down to even a mid-teen index they will have also grown to understand the rules much better. I have taught a lot of people the game over the years. I take pride in doing so without being judgmental and also keeping the pace of play to a reasonable standard. Edit: I didn't mean for this to sound unduly harsh. I just think this talk of variants of golf is just silly season. I also think those people that go out and practice on the course 4 out of 5 times they are playing and only record 1 score are likely more guilty of handicap manipulation than those that don't fully understand the rules of the game. As a general rule I really don't like practicing on the course. When I am on the course I don't want to take more divots or create more ball marks than necessary.

For the life of me I cannot understand why people get so bent out of shape about the legitimacy of handicaps. If someone is cheating to get a better handicap, how does it hurt you?? In my 30 years of playing this game. There are 2 kinds of players that I despise playing with the most. The slow player and the pro wannabe rule nazi. I happen to play by the rules all the time, but frankly my game allows me to do so AND keep the pace of play because 98% of the time I don't have to deal with a "penalty" situation. For the 20+ handicappers, they have penalty scenarios on 50% of the holes depending on the course. I don't expect people to memorize the rules before stepping foot on the course or even before they begin keeping a handicap. For the sake of pace of play, I don't want them pulling out rulebooks constantly. I am not sure USGA does either. I think as people learn the game and learn the rules, their handicaps will become more legitimate. When I teach my son this game, I will first teach him ettiquette and pace of play. When tournament golf is on the horizon we will teach rules.

I had a baby boy in December and ankle surgery last July. Haven't quite gotten the motivation back for triathlon so I picked up the sticks again. My participation in the forum is directly correlated to how much golf I am playing. My game is odd right now, feels so close, really striking the ball well enough to be low single digit handicap, but can't seem to keep it together for an entire round. As for this rule, the rule may be long standing and simple, but I don't necessarily like it. They could also consider 1 of my suggestions only in closely mown areas. I don't think these changes would make a negative impact on the game at all and still fit in the spirit of playing the ball as it lies. We seem to blindly accept the USGA rulings, but as I said, they aren't perfect. Rules of the game evolve and I think this is 1 they should look at a bit closer.

Except it doesn't change the lie because the rule requires you to replace the ball. So this rule is double punative. In my opinion the rule should be changed in 1 of 2 ways. If the player causes incidental ball movement in which the ball is moved an insignificant amount (which can be defined as say less than 1 inch). The player should be able to replace the ball to the original spot under no penalty. OR If the player causes incidental ball movement. The player would be deemed to have made a stroke at the ball and must play the ball from the new position. The USGA is not perfect, it's common knowledge that the game feels over-regulated and this is an area that could easily be cleaned up in my opinion.

Twice in my life, I have dunked the ball on the fly for what would have been holes in one. In both cases, the cup liner and holes were mangled and the ball bounced out both times off the green. I am still waiting for my first career ace after 25 years of golf.

Real solid, I would say indicative of your index. Missing the fairway is usually okay if you miss close especially on your everyday 6400-6800 yard course. My misses have not been close in recent years. The upshot is my creativity and shot making ability is vastly improved. I recall a shot last year in which I hit a punch-cut driver off the deck from a dirt lie from 230yds running it to 4 feet from the hole. It was probably the most incredible shot of my life. Unfortunately it was my 4th shot after launching my first t-shot OB, re-tee and hit my 3rd shot into the trees. Best bogey ever.

The "hero" shot menatality. I know it all too well. If I am playing reasonably well, I will play smart. If I am already 8 over through 10, I am going for the hero shot and then I usually end up 11 over through 11.

This has been an issue for me as well. I am certain that if took anything longer than a 5-iron out of my bag every round, my handicap would be 2-3 strokes lower. That said avoiding a club is even less fun for me however and in the long run doesn't make your game better. I am hoping this most recent club fitting exercise has solved my issues. I am not expecting to hit 9/13 f/w every round but 6-8 will bring me down to a 4-5 handicap without question. Don't give up, make sure you have the appropriate driver for your game and work on it on the range and it will come together. The game is a lot more fun with the big dog in your hand!

This is true to a point. I can hit 0 fairways in a round and still shoot 85-90 depending on the penalty, but not keeping the ball in or near the fairway is costing me 6-8 strokes per round, a ton of money in golf balls and lack of general enjoyment.

Driver has always been the hardest club in the bag to hit for me and I am pretty sure it is supposed to be. That said in recent years I have been driving the ball more poorly than some of my playing partners that only hope to break 100. Nothing else in their games can remotely match mine, but driving the golf ball seemed to be only my problem. Hopefully it is solved, next round is Thursday and I am licking my chops!

So many threads about hitting the ball long, thought I might start one about hitting fairways. Just purchased new driver and 3wd after going through a fitting on Saturday. Sunday first round with the new clubs. Hit 4/5 f/w with the driver, 5/5 f/w with 3wd. 9/13 overall on the day. Ironically missed a fairway with a 6-iron and 3-iron. This was easily the best round driving the golf ball for me in years, possibly ever. Over the last several years, I have been hitting about 25% of fairways so you can imagine my excitement at 9/13. Didn't translate to a low score, shot 82, some bad luck and absolutely no putts dropping. The two missed fairways cost me 6 shots to par, a double and really horrible bad luck quadruple. So how accurate are you and what is your stock club when you need to hit the fairway? I feel like this 3wd is going to be the money club.

I consider myself solidly long, certainly not grossly long. 320yds is a reachable number, 290yds is probably slight mishit under the same conditions. Over the years it has become much more of a curse than a blessing. The greater the clubhead speed the greater the miss. I can miss fairways by 75 yards without even blinking. Try getting that out of your head the next time you step to the tee. All that being said, I have never ever met an instructor that advised me to "swing easier". The last instructor said we will work on everything BUT my swing to become more accurate. Posture, grip, alignment and course managment. These days, I hit about 2-3 drivers per round. It's a club that scares the dark matter out of me. I have a 3-iron that I can rely on for 240yds which makes most courses these days very playable. I don't know where my distance comes from as I am all of 5'6", I suspect I have much more lag in my swing than the average bloke. That said I would gladly give someone 30 yds for 3 more fairways per round with a driver. I'd love to play from 280yds in the fairway as opposed to 240 or 315 out of the fescue or worse yet hitting 3 off the tee!

Several of courses that I have grown up on have created environmentally sensitive areas. The reason for doing so was to save on money on not mowing those areas which is a wise business decision. Of course they are not marked as hazards and you cannot go in and search for your ball. So this effectively becomes in course out of bounds. Not a fan of these areas at all. Nor am I a fan of courses that have little primary rough. I personally think lining your course with fescue is little more than a masking agent for a poor layout.

Anthony, my standard caveat is that I am not great at analyzing the golf swing. There are a lot of things that I think are pretty good about your swing. I did see one thing that might be useful. Others may disagree, but I notice your right elbow more than anything. I think it starts in the backswing when you fail to cock your wrists until well after your waist. This results in a bit of a flying right elbow. Then on the down swing that elbow stays far outside of the body as opposed to driving down towards the right hip.

Hey Kasch, I am not very good at analyzing swings and have my own huge issues, so take it for a grain of salt! That said, the 1 thing I can see is how far off the ball your hips appear to sway in your backswing. I was always taught to imagine my spine was staked into the ground like a pole. You want to rotate around a pole and try to maintain that spine angle. I am sure others will have better commentary. Good luck!

I've been Playing Golf for: 25 years (off and on) My current handicap index or average score is: 12 My typical ball flight is: slight draw with irons struggle with pull hooks particularly with/driver The shot I hate or the "miss" I'm trying to reduce/eliminate is: Pull/Snap Hook w/driver. Honestly just trying to find some consistency with driver. Not keeping the ball on the golf course is making it hard to have fun. Feels like I have the driver yips, I am absolutely mortified of my driver and it is now creeping into the 3-wood as well. First vid is a 3-iron, second vid is the devil...errr I mean driver. Videos:

This year has proven a disaster in coverage thus far. All the leaders were done or nearly done by the time the coverage started yesterday. Watching everyone struggle in the afternoon was totally uneventful and nobody got to witness an incredible round by Freddie. Now, its moving day and you have all these guys within 10 of the lead including the #1 player in the world and this other guy that has won 14 majors and we are seeing none of it. It's shameful on the part of CBS and the Masters and they are getting what they deserve this year.

Surprised by all the venom spewed Nina's way. She is relatively new to the game, but she is clearly an athlete. She has a typical jock attitude and she is extremely hard on herself. That's nothing new on this show, why is everyone being so hard on her for it? She knows she hasn't played her best but she grinded it out and made it to the top 5. Julien might be the nicest guy on the show and he seemed to have a good relationship with Nina, so I think that says a little more about her. Mark and Nicole were at times unbearable this season. Julien is extremely solid, he is nervy though. He needs to trust himself a bit more whereas Andy perhaps needs to trust himself a bit less.

I have no doubt that Nicole has the talent to have a very fine LPGA career, but in my opinion her head was in a bad place in the last episode. She was totally unable to take it 1 shot at a time. She had an opportunity to keep her team alive and failed to do so prior to elimination, because she had already given up. She then went into elimination completely underestimating Nina. In a 2 hole elimination, ANYTHING can happen. The inability to recognize this is a troubling aspect of her game. It's been a good season. Pulling for Mallory and Julien.

I have nothing bad to say about Joe's decision. I don't think Julien was mentally prepared to be facing elimination. What I don't understand is the need to hit driver on an obvious 3 shot hole.

I am currently an 11 and shot 96 yesterday, with a 51 on the front that included 4 triples. My lifetime low round is 66. I used to have a really hard time dealing with rounds like yesterday, now they just happen and I keep drinking my beer and smiling. I rarely have time to work on the range before I play and find myself trying to correct whatever ails me on the course while I am playing. Also, my short game is complete caca. I think mid-handicap players 8-15 are the players that have the wildest swings in scores, such as myself. I can still go about 75 low, though it hasn't happened in some time, and then I can have days like yesterday. In my case though, I could go out with nothing longer than a 5-iron and probably shoot 85 all day on a reasonable 6800-7000 yard course. I just choose to spray my driver all over hell and shoot 95+ from time to time because it is more fun. To answer your question I expect to shoot 85 or better on ANY course. 90+ feels like a terrible round.

Its not just logistics, its cost.

I think the remaining 2 are certainly worthy. I still think Petey will very likely be the best player to come out of this season and I think both Carl and Shank will eventually surprise some folks. Carl I think is just too stubborn to not chase his goals and is very likely practices harder than any human on the planet. I think Shank needs a little confidence and his game will turn around in a hurry. I think Carl was the best thing to ever happen to Shank. I'll definitely keep an eye out for these guys. Highly entertaining season in my opinion and this is why I watch. Carl was cast specifically to play the role of underdog and he played it amazingly well. I think his casting was genious.

wow....lots of venom has crept into this thread regarding Carl. I bet there are a lot of people on this thread commenting that have never experience a club championship, much less a US Open qualifer. I don't think Carl is a scratch golfer, but I am quite certain he is much better than that 1 scorecard shows. More than anything he represents himself with a lot of class as did Shank, Petey, John, Robert and Oren of those departed. Its not that hard to bang a couple balls OB off the tee and come away with a 10. Its not even that rare! Golf can be a very fickle game and the line between good and rotten can be thin. Those of us that have had low single digit handicaps and have suffered collapses either in a single round or a month or a year know this all too well. Carl is new to the game and probably extremely new to tournament golf and I suspect after things spiraled early for him he had a tough time trying to right himself. He could have easily withdrawn after the 2nd hole and saved the embarassment of his card being published all over the internet. I am not surprised he stuck it out based on the mental fortitude he has shown thus far. If you know your golf history you will recall that Ian Baker-Finch won the 1991 British Open and just 6 years later carded a 92 in the first round of the same tournament. You know about David Duval, a former #1 player and major champion and later was struggling to break 80 for a couple years. Hell, Robert Floyd suffered a bit of a meltdown on the show as was previously discussed. I mean does anyone not recall the fact that TIGER WOODS just shot 42 on the front nine of The Players before withdrawing?? I have found that in golf that when you start casting stones, its interesting how they all seem to be shaped like boomerangs!