klineka

Hit the new wedges much better at the range last night, the gaping fits much better with the 58 compared to the 60, my "full" 58 is 90 yards which was exactly the gap I needed to fill because using my 54 degree I have a tough time keeping spin up while taking enough yardage off to hit my 54 degree 90yds I've noticed something interesting over my last 3 rounds, here are my scores in those rounds 35 - 40 39 - 35 43 - 37 The main issue has been tee shots, mainly with me being too aggressive and hitting driver or even 3 wood when I dont need to and instead on some of the holes I should just be hitting my 3 iron out there 220-230 and leaving myself a 9 iron or wedge into the green, especially since my shot zone and misses are quite large with driver at the moment. I tend to forget the other important part about distance off the tee being important, so is keeping the ball out of hazards and trees. I typically play from shorter(ish) tees (6,300-6,500) so I just need to remember that laying back isn't always a bad thing, especially for my specific swing right now.

Went 43-37 today for an 80 on a short, but very narrow and wooded course. Positives - 9/18 GIR, gained 1.75 strokes on approach shots compared to scratch golfers, hit a 50 degree wedge from 127 to 2 feet for a tap in birdie, hit an beautiful knockdown 8 iron on a 155 yd par 3 to 8 feet. Negatives - 34 putts, lost 3.94 strokes putting compared to scratch, missed at least 3 birdie and 3 par looks inside 10 feet, I was hitting my lines i was missing because of misreads, I was reading more break into nearly every putt and couldnt seem to make an adjustment. Other negative was off the tee, driver was pretty poor overall and 3 wood was below average, had a couple low (like head high) pulls that I haven't hit at all recently. 3 iron was solid enough to give me reasonable approach shots into the greens when I didnt hit driver or 3 wood.

Nice work man. That's crazy that the driver swing you filmed feels like almost like a chip shot to you. I've noticed similar things especially with my irons, a "half" swing feel for me actually gets the club in a pretty good position at the top of the backswing and looks like a lot of people's full swing lengths.

I'm thinking I should be in for at least one if not both days, I'll check with the wife just to make sure.

I think he can/will win majors even if he doesn't become an elite wedge player. It's not like his wedge game is horrible, he's middle of the road right now, in terms of proximity he is T102 from 50-125 yards from the fairway and 79th from 50-125 from the rough

Hit the new wedges for the first time tonight and they weren't bad, I was hitting almost all of my "full" shots with both clubs off the toe which was unusual for me, hit some knock down 100 yarders with the 54 and some 70 yarders with the 58 and those were more centered strikes so it was just the "full" shots that were off the toe. I compared the new head shape to the MD3 when I got home and the MD5 is a much smaller head overall and isn't as wide in heel to toe length as the MD3 so I'm thinking they will just take me a few sessions to get used to. Driver still needs some work, but for the moment am switched into more of a "play" mode since I'm heading to Pinehurst late Thursday night, I just worked on getting my swing thought down and practiced swings and hit shots where I felt that feeling, which is hands in/club more vertical on the way back, then keep right elbow under the left arm on the downswing and rotate my body through. For the Pinehurst trip, below is our schedule Friday PM - Talamore Saturday AM - Mid South Saturday PM - Tobacco Road Sunday AM - Mid South I'll probably add onto my existing Pinehurst topic after this next trip with any updates on Talamore/Mid South and then my thoughts on Tobacco Road too.

Went 39 - 35 yesterday for a 74 which included a 6 on a 275 yd par 4, and an O.B. tee shot on 17 but managed to get up and down from 100 yds to save bogey. Back 9 was very solid outside of that original tee shot on 17. I hit it to tap in range from 124 on hole 10, made 6 straight pars after that, bogeyed 17 with that O.B. tee shot after hitting my 2nd drive 310 yds in the fairway and hitting the 100 yd approach shot to 6 feet, and drained a 10 footer for birdie on 18 to break par for the back 9. I have broken par on 9 multiple times this year but haven't quite been able to put a complete round together yet, hoping it happens this coming weekend when I'm in Pinehurst.

Best shot for me this week was also the closest I've ever been to holing out something besides a chip or short pitch. Had 124 to a back flag, was aiming for a 120 yd shot with my 54 degree, absolutely pured it and it never left the flagstick for a tap in birdie.

Not a full blown study, but it was talked about on twitter by the No Laying Up guys and others back in December 2019 and I think they talk about it on one of their podcasts probably around the same timeframe.

Continuing to work on making the iron swing more compact, when the swing is more compact and I feel like its a half swing, the shaft doesn't get laid off as much. Also feeling like my hands are going "in and back" towards my right hip/pocket on the way back has helped too, similar things that I worked on in Erie last spring, just slipped back into some old habits with the irons recently as I had been focusing a lot on wedges and tee shots. Speaking of wedges, I went and did a Callaway wedge fitting yesterday for the MD5 Jaws, decided to keep my current 50 degree for now, but got fitted for 54 and 58 degree wedges. I knew I had a gap right around 80-90 yards in my current make up of 54 and 60, it was tough for me to take that much off my 54, and it required a pretty hard swing to get my 60 degree that far, but the 58 fit perfect, a nice smooth 3/4 feeling swing was 90 yards consistently. Stayed with the 10 degrees of bounce and the S grind in the 54 degree, but went with 12 degrees of bounce and the W grind for the 60, I really liked how it interacted with the turf especially on pitch shots and I really noticed a difference in quality and consistency of strikes using that grind compared to some of the others that were available. Placed the order this morning through Callaway pre-owned, who had "Like-New" condition for roughly $60 cheaper per club than brand new. They dont have the MD5 listed on their website, but if you call they have them in stock and will place the order for you. Pretty excited to have these arrive before heading down to Pinehurst July 9th.

Shot a 35-40 for a 75 at a new course on friday, played from longer tees than we normally play too (6,754) It was just the second time I broke par for 9 holes, I had 2 birdies and one bogey. Finally starting to realize I have enough length off the tee that I don't need to be hitting driver everywhere even on a longer course. (Well that plus my shot zone with driver is huge right now compared to 3 wood and my confidence standing over the ball with a 3 wood is sky high compared to driver) On the front 9 I hit 2 drivers and 5 3 woods off the tee and still broke par. Back 9 had a few longer holes (460 par 4 into the wind, 195 par 3 into wind, etc) and I tried to be a bit too aggressive and hit driver where I shouldn't have on a few holes which resulted in 2 penalty shots. Happy with the round overall, just need to clean up a couple course management mistakes and that round could have easily been a couple strokes lower. Royal American isn't too bad, has couple of quirky holes (tee shots on 3 and 9 come into mind) but I do like the short par 4 17th.

My front knee kicks in a good bit and my instructor isn't too concerned with it right now. He said it's something we might look to reduce a little in the future, but in his opinion he doesn't think it will hold me back from being able to reach my goals (break par for 18 holes, get to scratch, etc) Picture below is from last year, but I know I still do it now with my knee too.

The camera angle for the face on view needs to be much lower https://thesandtrap.com/b/playing_tips/filming_your_swing Also, if your average carry distance with a 5 iron is 195 and 7 iron is 165 and you are a 22 handicap, there's a really good chance there are a number of other aspects of your swing/game that need to be fixed first before you worry about trying to add another 25 yards onto your iron distances. There are very few PGA tour players who can carry a 7 iron 190 for their stock yardage. In 2019 according to Trackman the PGA Tour average for a 7 iron was 172, which means there were a decent number of players who hit their 7 iron less than that. I were you, I would focus more on improving your swing so that your accuracy, consistency, dispersion, etc all improve rather than trying to add another 25 yards to your irons. I'm not a golf coach so I typically don't give too much actual swing advice, but one thing I would at least start by checking is your grip, it looks like the shaft is too far in your palms with your bottom hand, it should be more towards the fingertips like in this topic https://thesandtrap.com/forums/topic/75436-how-to-grip-a-golf-club-commonalities-of-a-functional-golf-grip/

I'm not sure I follow the logic. Why is tiredness/soreness an indicator of giving 100% effort at something? Both the gym and gardening are two completely different tasks and use different muscles than golf, so it makes perfect sense to me that they tax your body in different ways. ~30-40 full golf swings spread out over 4 hours is much less taxing on your body than 2 hours of constant shoveling, raking, and bending over pulling weeds. Why do you want to put more effort into each shot? Wouldn't it make more sense to try and get your swing to a point where you can put in as little effort as possible but still hit the ball out of the center of the clubface and a solid distance?

Has anyone actually given that as advice though?