Baculus

Broke 80. The badge will encourage me further to go for the par badge because i haven't broken par yet and that'll be a massive achievement for me. (As an aside, in Australia we have a thing called mi stats integrated with the national handicapping system GolfLink that integrates scores on a round and gives you an average, quite handy for stats). Hole 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Out 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 In Total Par 4 4 4 3 4 5 4 3 5 36 4 3 5 5 4 3 4 4 4 36 72 Index 1 8 3 10 12 17 15 5 13 6 16 18 9 2 4 7 14 11 Score 5 4 4 4 4 5 4 3 6 39 5 3 5 6 6 4 4 3 4 40 79 Average 5.2 4.6 4.5 3.5 4.3 5.1 3.7 3.2 5.4 39.5 4.5

Haven't seen this thread until now so Ill just give it a dry run for March @iacas so I get in to the habit of posting here. Today after work I hit approx 50 balls w/ driver on the range practicing the swing plane drill pushing the ball with my path inside to out shown on my swing thread. My short game (getting up and down, scrambling) needs work so hopefully tomorrow I'll get some pitches in because I need to practice distance control. Club's greens are being cored though so I'll see how i go, if not, practice putting on the practice green.

Here are two vids of the drill @iacas. As I do this drill I feel like my swing is getting more 'handsy and armsy. Is this a good thing? By the way that one instruction about keeping my head back has worked wonders. Hitting it so much more solidly/ much better feedback and getting it a lot more higher and straighter.

Thanks - I'll upload some videos of me doing the drill tomorrow to make sure I'm doing it correctly.

Thanks very much for your time @iacas , I really appreciate that. In practice I've been aiming to get the clubhead on the right plane behind the ball by trying to get my right elbow in toward my hip but I didn't realise my head was moving so far forward. Coming across seems so hard to change, I've been swinging it that way for years :( now I know about my head it helps. Should I worry about ball flight with this drill? I gather the ideal would be the ball drawing back to the target line.

@iacas I hope this is better, feel free to tell me if it's not. @iacas

In hindsight yes it's pretty bad. I'll buy a stand and make some good ones. Cheers for being honest!

Cropped.

Thoughts @iacas?

Just can't help myself :P

You're right, but more of an omission rather than an intentional act like practicing I hope (to think I play golf to get away from my law job, sigh)

Both good points, and now I mention it I have a very vague feeling of doing it when I was a junior. Though very embarrassing for you and annoying for the person who's ball you've played - if anything it probably advantages them, as naturally you're more inclined to place it favourably. Consistency with other rules like the practice rule is important, though that rule is targeted toward more overt behaviour, but I can see the need for parity.

Does anyone else find it slightly excessive that the penalty under rule 15:3 for playing a wrong ball is two strokes? (now also in a hazard circa 2008) I mean I don't think I've ever done it, and there's absolutely no excuse as rule 12.2 provides you can lift your ball for the purposes of identifying it. I understand the advantage gained should not be greater than the penalty - perhaps you could theorise a possibility where one has gained a two stroke advantage by the testing bite of the greens out of the rough with someone else's ball. Thoughts? http://www.randa.org/Rules-of-Golf/MainRules/15-Substituted-Ball-Wrong-Ball/SubRules/3-Wrong-Ball

Hi @iacas, thanks for taking an interest. Here are a current set of front on and down the line vids as of today. I'm still trying to weed out that "over the top" action at the top of my backswing I rotate my trunk but my hands and arms rotate with it resulting in coming across the ball rather than my hips rotating a few miliseconds before my arms and hands start moving as is what should happen. I'm also trying to move forward less on impact - usually I have a low ball flight off the tee. Any advice will be appreciated - I've started playing a lot more and my handicap is now 7.5 rather than the 9.7 I had when I joined up to the forum.