klineka

Gotcha, yeah it's hard to tell from single aerial pictures what the rough is like. From that picture everything on the right just looks like traditional rough, not necessarily fescue. But that makes sense now.

I mean maybe? Or maybe they just aren't playing frequently enough to stay super sharp. Just because they don't put up good results doesn't mean they aren't trying/practicing.

Just curious, why don't you usually hit driver there? Downwind would typically help keep it a bit straighter, and it seems like laying back some would bring that right fairway bunker into play, right? Looks like the only penalty stroke hazard would potentially be way left, right?

2nd shot into a short par 5. I had ~185 left but was just off the fairway to the right with some low tree limbs in front of me. Aimed at the water and hit a punch slice 4 iron that started low under the trees, rose higher as it kept going, cut towards the middle of the green, carried the water and rolled to ~25 feet for an eagle putt. Lipped out the eagle putt but never going to complain about tap in birdies. It was one of those shots that I've done before and was a perfect yardage gap. I have a punch 4 iron swing that I know goes right at 185, and I can cut the ball much easier than I can draw it, so it was actually a much easier shot for me than it appears to be in the picture. I would have been fine if it would have over cut too, rough isn't very penal here so it would have been an easy chip from short right. Although to be fair I didn't realize/remember that the water cut in as far into the fairway as it did, I thought it stopped right around the left edge of the green.

I absolutely LOVE my new Titliest U505 3 iron. It was slightly chunky looking at first, but I don't even notice it anymore after just a couple rounds with it. It's super easy to launch it high and I have no issues flighting it down either. Perfectly fine to hit off the tee for tighter tee shots and for 2nd shots into par 5s. Even the mishits go much further than I think they should, it's quite forgiving.

Wild.

Please stop yelling at me

You're welcome to come on my lawn with any take you want, as long as you have facts that support your position. If you come on my lawn spewing nonsense and don't back it up with facts then yeah I'm going to turn into the grumpy old man and tell you to get off my lawn. What facts do you have that support your claim that this isn't the toughest test of golf in the month of June?

I've made quite a bit of progress on my swing by hitting the "almost" golf balls in my garage over the winter. I can and do hit regular balls too but it can be a bit loud so often I just hit the foam balls into my impact screen. I think plastic, foam, etc are better than no ball for sure.

I think Northstar would hold up decently well, subject to strength of field of course. They can stretch it way out, the tips on the scorecard are 7516 and is 75.9/140 rated and there's a few holes with some really long greens so depending on pin placements I bet they can get it upwards of 7600+ if they really wanted to. There's enough room to push a par 3 to mid 200s and multiple par 5s can get right around 600 if they wanted to. Fairly wide fairways and big greens for the most part, but if they grew the rough up and didn't mow the fescue/native areas combined with rolling the greens it could get very difficult in a hurry especially since it's usually fairly windy out there. If they wanted to make it really hard just for the sake of really hard they definitely could there. Then again the non-tournament course record is a bogey free 65 from that 7516 tees so maybe it wouldn't play as difficult as I think even if they did grow the rough up and got the greens rolling very fast. FWIW (and not really sure how relevant it is to a US Open Qualifier) they just hosted a US Junior Qualifier there last week and from 6863yds only 7 kids out of ~80 broke par and only 1 kid broke 70.

Two from my round today. Started on 10 and had about 30yds left into a par 5 for my 3rd shot with a decent amount of green to work with. Since I had green to work with I wanted to hit a low to mid trajectory shot. I hit a low driving 58 degree and as soon as I hit it I knew it was going to be perfect but my buddies started saying "bite!" and "get down" as soon as I hit it because they thought I thinned it. It took one hop about 6 feet in front of the hole and stopped on a dime about 15" away from the hole for a tap in birdie to start the round. Last par 5 of the day my buddy chipped in for birdie from about 20yds away across the green, I was just off the green but only about 20 feet or so from the hole for my birdie look, maybe could have putted it but I trusted my 54 degree that I've been practicing and carried it about 2 feet onto the green then it rolled the rest of the way straight into the hole for birdie right on top of his before he had even walked up and picked his out of the hole.

No, too little. I plan to be in that 12-14 range for a lob wedge too. That current 58 I have is 12 bounce but just with a really wide sole.

The 8 degrees of bounce that comes with the C-grind scares me a bit. It does look like they have an X-Grind that has 12 bounce but a narrower sole along with heel and toe relief so maybe that one is worth looking into for me. Although I wouldn't mind moving away from Callaway wedges for now as I've had some model of Callaway wedges for the last 5+ years and am ready to look down at something different.

Yeah I was equally surprised at both how much it had reverted but then how quickly it came back. I know it's not fully "fixed", but I now know how much I need to stay on top of it to keep it from reverting back that badly again.

Go figure. Within 2 filmed swings I was able to get back on track with my full swing priority piece and the ball-striking immediately improved. More mirror reps, more static holds as part of my pre-shot routine, no excuses for me to revert now. Got some solid short game practice in too, focused on shorter backswing and letting the clubhead fall into the ball. Ball popped up high and soft out of the rough when I did it right. Also practiced bumping my 54 into an upslope and letting it release onto the green, just learning how to hit various trajectories to the same flag. Going to keep making incremental improvements with the short game and building brick by brick.

Gotcha. Good to know. I'll have to test them.Any other specific models/grinds from major OEMs (not Edel) that you like and/or have a good blend of narrow sole but enough bounce? I said Non Edel just so I'd be able to test in person/have a variety of buying options

Let's recap how things have been going lately now that the tournaments/events I had in May are done. Overall I'm satisfied with how I've played so far this year. Not ecstatic about it, but not disappointed either. Certainly have some things to tighten up, but I've also made some good strides and hit a ton of high quality shots. Breaking it down by section Driving - This has been quite solid when I remember my swing thought and fully commit to a very specific target rather than just aiming at the fairway and hoping. Distance and quality of strike have been good. The new U505 3 iron I put in the bag has become an absolute weapon. I hit 5/5 fairways with it at Virtues yesterday averaging 250yds over 4 shots (Removing the one outlier where I hit it 299 with a severely downhill tee shot to a downslope fairway) I need to rely on this more and stop trying to force driver when I don't have to. Approach - When I focus on and remember my priority piece, irons are solid. When I don't, they aren't. Go figure. Fell into some old habits over the past few rounds due to mostly playing with not much practice lately. Will be changing that over the next few weeks prior to a few upcoming events towards the end of June. Distances have gone up a bit, everything is about 7-10yds longer than I'm used to so that has taken a few months to fully trust on the course, but I'm getting there, I'd say like 95% of the way confident with fully trusting the yardages. Need to work on hitting partial yardages more, especially with longer irons. I'm decent at it with shorter irons but don't have the same feels and confidence with longer irons. Wedges of 50+ yds have been pretty solid, have good feels for yardages and have done a much better job of taking the extra club and hitting lower flighted wedges that hop and stop rather than rip back when they land. Short Game - Mixed bag here. Chipping and pitching from the fairway has been good, not quite as good out of the rough, worked on some technique yesterday with @iacas at Virtues and he thinks a thinner wedge sole should help too. I have been chipping with my 54 more lately instead of automatically grabbing my 58 and it has been good, I'm realizing I don't always need to go high and soft, mid trajectory and running works just fine most of the time. Putting - Pretty solid overall. Have done a good job implementing my setup changes from Evolvr and trusting those. Speed control has been good, short putts have been solid, biggest thing I need to work on is being very specific with where my aim point is, especially in that makeable 6-15 foot range. Couple overall takeaways that I learned from watching some better players and that don't require any additional skill to implement My dispersion/shot zone with Driver and long irons is bigger than I think it is. I need to do a better job aiming away from trouble/hazards and don't be afraid to lay up on a par 5 from 200+ out when there's hazards near the green. I need to do a better job reading the greens prior to chipping/pitching onto them. I've hit a number of solid chips and pitches that landed where I wanted, but my landing spot wasn't correct for the pin position based on the green slopes. Implement the feel I have for my priority piece (especially with irons) as part of my pre-shot routine and make sure I do it every single time. I'm making plenty of birdies, in 2024 I'm averaging 2.4 per round, but I'm also making plenty of bogeys or worse, averaging 5.81 bogeys or worse per round. A lot of the bogeys are sloppy silly ones that could be avoided and that better players simply don't make. Better aiming on long approach shots and more attention around the greens should help quite a bit towards reducing the bogeys per round. Main things to work on over the next few weeks Film iron swing and get back to mirror work at home/gym and more partial reps. When I was hitting my irons the best a month or so ago I was doing mirror work daily. Pick very specific targets with tee shots and rely on 3iron more often especially when I can hit it and still have a short wedge in my hand (which is most par 4s at the yardages I normally play). Figure out what wedge setup I want to go with to replace my 54 and 58, Vokeys and RTX are at the top of my list. Leaning towards Vokey 54-10S and 58-12D grinds at the moment, those seem like good fits for what I use each of those clubs for. Continue to practice chipping with my 54 and short game shots from the rough with both wedges.

1 for me, 18th at Harbour Town. Kinda surprised nothing from Wolf's Creek was on there but maybe they're not great golf holes architecturally, just visually stunning holes.

If you have the scorecards and the dates that you played, I would post them. I don't know what the "official" right thing to do is, that's just what I would do. The main reason you're supposed to post on the day you play is so that the PCC (if applicable) can be applied because I believe those are only applied when you post scores the day that you play them.

This is the one time I actually would have entertained your schtick regarding how easy the course was and how low the winning score was and yet not a single post about it from you in this thread. I'm shocked.

Thought you were going to play the 7,400 tees at Virtues since you haven't shot 100+ in a while Back tees for me at Virtues on Sunday.

What are some other examples besides the one at the beginning of this thread? Also something to consider, it's fine/normal to let something unusual "get to you" but the key is that you need to also learn to let it go prior to you hitting your next shot. Don't let the movement of the spotter turn what could have been a single bogey into a double or a triple. Sure his actions might have affected that tee shot, but there's no reason his actions need to affect your approach shot, or your tee shot on the next hole.

Just because you can do something doesn't mean it's optimal or the most efficient/repeatable way. Tiger can out drive people from his knees as he demonstrated in a YouTube video a few months ago, doesn't mean it's optimal or the most efficient. My understanding of early extension was more of the body/torso standing up through impact, hips thrusting at the ball, etc. More of movement towards the ball and up rather than rotating. If I'm understanding what you are describing, you can close the face by rolling the arms through impact without early extending.

And yet we both made par. Maybe drive for dough isn't accurate after all Definitely had some helping wind on mind, it was blowing 15-20mph all day. Yours looks like a fun hole too. Looks like a couple different ways it can be played.

Blind tee shot with 290 to center of the green, wind down and off the left, I aimed at the right edge of the greenside bunker, pushed it a few yards and ended up flying the green and ended up going 325 total. The trees I took it over are definitely tall enough to be a factor if you hit one thin at all. Had a tough angle and downslope to land on, hit a good pitch to 15 feet and lipped the putt out. Easy par. I think this is a fun hole, so many different ways to play it.