bweiss711

Currently, I'm an unofficial 24.6. Next September, I'd love to be an official 16.5. My prediction is going to be 18.7 however.

Since I last posted here that I finally broke 100, I have a played a few more rounds. None of them were particularly great. Its almost like I said to myself, "Well you broke 100! You're good at golf now!" And I stopped practicing so diligently. I first played my local 9 hole course, which isn't particularly difficult, and couldn't hit the ball cleanly. Scored a 51, which is actually my worst score there this summer. The good news was that it was my first scorecard all summer which didn't have an 8 or worse on it. The next round was 18 holes, and the first nine we played was much of the same and not hitting the ball clean, getting myself in some trouble. Luckily, I parred the 2 par-3s to keep the score on the first nine holes at 52 and a shot to break 100. The second nine holes were much better, even though I only scored a 48 for an even 100 on the day. I actually met my intended goal as an improving golfer to have at least as many pars or better as doubles or worse. I had my first birdie of the year, 2 pars, 3 bogeys, 2 doubles, and an 11. The 11 was a freak hole where a wicked slice came out of nowhere and I hit 2 tee shots OB, and put my 6th stroke in the water after hitting a fat wedge out of the rough. My last round was another 9 holes at a course by work. I was cruising along with 3 pars through 7 holes. But then that wicked slice appeared again on the 8th and 9th holes and I finished with two 8s and a 53. So, after that slice appeared again, I've gotten back to solid practice this week, and had a great range session yesterday. I focused on making sure my feet and shoulders were square to my line with the ball in the middle of my stance, and the slice was nowhere to be found. I plan to play my local 9 hole again tomorrow morning, and then play 18 on Sunday at a course where I had my worst round of the summer. I'm really hoping that next week I'm posting about having my best score ever at the 9 hole course, and scoring another round under 100 on Sunday.

Congrats @grantisadrummer! Well done!

Age: 33 Height: 5-9 Where are you from: Chicago, IL How long have you been playing: 18 years in total, 2 months "seriously" Best Score: 96 a couple weeks ago Favorite club in the bag: 8 iron Golf Books / DVD's that have helped you: Ben Hogan's Five Lessons Where do you play: Chicago Park District/Forest Preserve courses and other courses in far NW Chicago suburbs Best courses you've played so far: Don't remember the names, but played a bunch of nice courses in Myrtle Beach several years ago Things you enjoy most about golf: Two things: 1) Planning a shot and actually executing it 2) Getting out on the course with my buddies, drinking beer for a few hours away from the wife and kids (although I love them dearly). Goals for 2017: Make more pars or better than doubles or worse.

I'll usually book hot rates from golf now. But, if there isn't a hot rate available at the time i'd like to play, i'll use the website to compare available tee times from all the courses in the area. Then, for the tee times that work for me, ill check those courses' websites to see if its any cheaper. I've actually saved almost $20 in the past by booking directly through the course instead of golf now.

Only you can determine what's the best thing to do with your money. But, I would recommend looking at the preowned websites if you want some nice clubs for less money. I've been very happy with a couple purchases from Calloway Preowned, and you can get length and lie adjusted on the Calloway branded preowned clubs. Not sure if the TaylorMade website offers the same customization or not on their preowned clubs.

I have the TaylorMade Speedblades. The pitching wedge looks just like the 8 and 9 irons... cavity back without the "speed pocket" of the 3i-7i. The AW is also Speedblade branded, but is muscle backed. Looks like a totally different club. So I agree that it wasn't just about loft in this instance. I believe the club design contributed to more than a 5* difference in clubs would suggest. My wedges are Cleveland 588 RTX cavity back wedges, so they also just feel more natural to me for full swings. After swapping out my 3W and the Speedblade AW for the Cleveland 48* and 52*, my gaps feel much more comfortable. PW (45*) ~ 125 yds 48* ~ 105 yds 52* ~ 90 yds 56* ~ 75 yds 60* ~ 60 yds

Not to be the off-topic police, but this thread wasn't intended to be about golfing with terrible golfers. Its about golfing with people who's objective was not to go out and play the game of golf with the intention of doing their best. Instead, their objective is purely social, and they just happen to be having that social experience out on the course. I've played with plenty of bad golfers, myself included, but as long as they are striving to play the game, and score their best, they are still playing golf. They are playing it poorly, but they are still playing the game. In the scenario i described in the OP, I would have been much less thrown off if he just played poorly and was 20+ strokes over par after 9 holes. But instead, he wasn't even trying.

I think the simplest solution is #1. Fill your 30 yard gap with a new wedge. But, that is probably dependent on what will come out of your bag. I recently took out my 50* AW, and replaced it with a 48* and 52* so i can get better gapping between my 45* pitching wedge (~125) and that 50* AW (~95). But that was an easy decision for me since I don't carry any hybrids, and don't ever play my 3W. This means I'm carrying 5 wedges, but so what. It what works for me and I have a club to swing fully and comfortably from as close as 60 yards in. (Also, I think of my PW as more of a 10 iron than a wedge.) If i ever find that I need to add the 3W back to my bag, its probably my 60* LW that will find its way back into the corner of the garage because filling those gaps between 80 and 125 yards has already proved to be beneficial. The other solution would be for you to go with #4 if you feel like there isn't a club you want to take out of the bag to fit in a new wedge. But you could always learn to hit new shots regardless of whether you carry another wedge or not.

Its not so much I was blaming anyone for my lack of ability to focus on my game. It had just found myself in an unfamiliar situation. The thing is, I have never played a truly competitive round of golf. I don't keep an official handicap, and I've never played in a tournament. I play golf because I enjoy attempting to be good at it. Its fun for me. And a vast majority of the times I have played, its been with other people who also are trying to actually play the game. Even at work scrambles, and you get the lady from accounting who has never picked up a club in her life, the collective goal of the group is still to hit as many good golf shots as we can to get our lowest possible score. We have fun and don't take it so seriously, but we are still playing golf. Most of my rounds are played with my buddies or my dad. When I'm out with my friends, and we have a few more beers than our wives probably realize, we are still playing golf. The social experience is being out there with each other, watching each other succeed or fail at hitting good shots. Playing the game still comes first. Some of my favorite rounds are getting to play with my dad. I love that he got me to fall in love with this game, and we get to spend that time together on the golf course. But again, the shared experience is playing golf together, thinking through each shot, and trying our best to score well. I guess I had just never played with someone who's objective on the golf course was to socialize first and not even care at all about playing the game of golf. I'd still sign up to play with him again. It just caught me off guard.

I also agree with everyone who says good is a relative term to oneself. A scratch golfer who shoots an 85 will say he had a horrible day. A golfer who struggles to break 100 who shoots an 85 will say he had a phenomenal day. However, if you had to make good a non-relative term in the grand scheme of all golfers, I've always kind of looked at it like this: (and this stems from somewhere, i wish i could dig it up, that stated much more than 50% of golfers don't break 100 when they play.) 120+ or worse than double and a half bogey golf is horrible golf 110-120 or between double and double and a half bogey golf is bad golf 100-110 or between bogey and a half and double bogey golf is average golf 90-100 or between bogey and bogey and a half golf is ok golf 80-90 or better than bogey golf is good golf <80 is great golf scratch-ish or better is professional golf

What I meant is that I would be cheating myself. As someone who had yet to break 100 when I wrote that, breaking 100 with the only club I felt like I could hit with any consistency and a putter would be meaningless. And that was also a joke I would tell. Not an actual expectation that I could. But even if I could break 100 with only a 7 iron and a putter, it wouldn't really mean anything other than having a fun anecdote to bring up every now and then. I wouldn't be any better of a golfer. It wouldn't mean that I could hit a driver with any consistency. Or be able to get on the green from beyond 180 yards or over a trap from 50 - 120 yards out. I would have broken 100, but made no actual progress towards becoming a better golfer. And I believe that was the sentiment of this blog post and especially the portion of it that I quoted.

This describes me fairly accurately as well. I'm the kind of guy who has fun when I'm competing. That's how I enjoy myself. I don't always have to win, but I really like the competition. Glad to hear there are others out there like me. And this morning was really just about expectations. I've been in this singular mindset the last couple months about improving my game, that I forget that some people enjoy golf for reasons other than attempting to be good at it. Next time, and I really hope there is a next time, I'll go into it with the expectation that its a casual round and just be happy to spend some quality time with my neighbor without a fence standing between us.

My neighbor has seen me practicing in my backyard for the last couple months, and always says that we need to get out and play. He's the nicest guy in the world. I absolutely won the next-door-neighbor lottery when I moved in next to him. So when he says he loves to play, of course I said lets do it. And we finally made it out to play nine holes this morning. On the car ride over, he was (or so I thought) joking about playing "best ball" as he called it, and that we'd always be hitting from my spot. Turns out he wasn't joking. Its not like he was the worst golfer I had ever seen or anything. He was capable of some nice shots. But on the first few holes, he'd top his ball, or hit it way over the green, and then just say "oh well, I'll just drop next to you." And he would. He'd play the rest of the hole from when I was. At first it didn't really bother me. I just figured this is how he likes to play. But its not like I was playing my best either. I feel like I'm in this period of real improvement, and I went to the course this morning with the intention of shooting my best score at this particular course. But he just wanted to chit chat the whole time, immediately after each shot until right when it was time to hit the next. It took me out of my game, and I had no time to get over my last shot, or fully prepare for my next. And to make it "worse", we got grouped up with a single who also happened to be one of the nicest guys in the world. Turns out him and my neighbor had similar backgrounds, knew a lot of the same people, and really hit it off. The single was a pretty good golfer, one of those easy swingers who gets up and down like a champ. After a couple holes, he decides to give my neighbor a tip about his swing which was received well. And eventually, it basically turned into a full lesson on the course. He'd give a few tips on what to do, and toss him another ball to hit after the first one didn't go well. My neighbor was just eating it all up, loving the free lesson. Thankfully, we were still keeping pace with all this going on. Which is good because I really don't know how I would have reacted if we weren't. After 5 or 6 holes of getting frustrated, I finally took a mental step back to see what was really going on here. I was getting annoyed because I was stuck on a golf course with two of the nicest people in the world on an absolutely stunning morning here in Chicago. I decided it was time to take myself a little less seriously and enjoy this for what it was. It didn't help my play, but I certainly had more fun. Have any of you had this happen? Where you had to completely shift your mentality mid-round? Or the opposite, where you expected to have a casual round and it turned into something more competitive? Or do you normally play in a certain mindset regardless of how the rest of your group is going along?

My best is only 1 in a round, but i've only got 2 or 3 in my lifetime. Hoping that changes in the near future.