Killa

Exactly. I mean the USA does like a gazillion billion dollars of trade with SA, especially weapons and nobody bats an eye. But everyone is "disgusted" by the money when they pay for golf 🤣

I wonder how all of the “holier than thou” folks will comment on this now. I guess watching golf is off the table all together now.

Gave this a go a couple of days ago. I do tend to leave putts short but in this one I didn’t leave a single one short, I did 3 putt a comebacker that I shouldn’t have. All different putts to different holes except maybe some to the same hole but from a different direction: 1. 12” made 8 points 2. 10” 2 putt long 1 point 3. 11” 3 putt long -5.5 points 4. 8” made 4 points 5. 14” 2 putt long 1 point 6. 10” 2 putt long 1 point 7. 13” 8. 11” 9. 15” 10. 15” Last 6 were 2 putt long two of them lipped out 14.5 points. Bad but I did take a lot of long ones in the end going for points where maybe 4 8”-10” were a better strategy

The new driver is in the bag and I have not been recording my swing for the past few months. The game is definitely good enough to smash 80 but I just need a couple of things to fall into place. Working on the tempo and smoothness of my full swing (think Couples) with the principles of dr. Kwon I have now moved to a draw being my primary shot shape. If I shallow out too much I get too much of a hook so I’m not actively shallowing anymore. The main problem is that I still have a two way miss, but the miss to the right is a straight push so I can account for that. Been working on my short game a bit, greenside shots, longer putts. I was on summer vacation for 2 weeks so no golfing was done, but now the plan is to get my wedges dialed in with my Mevo. That’s the only reason I bought it, now I just need to put the work in. The new driver is working, have broken some distance records on the course, all in all it was a good purchase. Went out yesterday by myself, it was way too hot to play but I decided to do the back 9 after I shot 42 on the front. Shot 41 on the back 9 and the golf that I was playing was really far from good. Only got 1 birdie and I had 3 or 4 that barely missed. Also my only 3 putt (was a 4 putt) came on a sloping green where I rushed the putts as the players behind were waiting. The worst thing about the round was that this course has 6 par 5s and 4 of them are really reachable(and 2 are really tough both curving two ways, being true 3 shot par 5s most of the time), and my scores were double, birdie, triple, triple, bogey and par. So instead of shooting under par or at least even I managed to go +8 on the par 5s which is disgusting and that’s no way to break 80. Driving the ball 300-320yards does do a lot to lowering the scores.

So spring has come. I did like I said I would and worked a lot on my swing and my putting. The lag putting has been great the last few rounds but I still need to drill the 5-12’ more. I did a lot of practicing on a 12” mat but without a proper hole it’s just that more difficult but I’ll work on that outside in the coming month. I have only done 1 outside pitching session maping out my grid and it already showed some effects on the course. Will now have to focus on chipping and pitching for the next month or two if I want a real shot at breaking 80 this year. I have ordered a mevo from ebay but I’m still waiting on it. The main use of it will be exactly this - pitching from 100 meters in. I did however still work a lot on my swing outside and finally I figured out the proper tempo. And it was somewhere around what I thought my slowest possible tempo is, and then half of that 😁I do not yet know where to add speed with such a tempo though but since I have no trouble hitting it far that’s a problem I’ll solve over the next winter. Finally had a fitting for a driver today. I’m going with the Ping G425 max with the Ping tour x-stiff shaft and a ping gold grip (one size larger than regular). These were all my on course swings, didn’t jump out of my shoes (max speed I got in the winter was 118.5mph), but with the new tempo. The fitter did keep me changing a lot so that’s why I was spraying it a bit but in the end the neutral setting looked best. Will play around with it myself once I get the driver. The good thing is that our club is the Ping dealer so I can easily try other shafts if I want. But with this setup I was consistently carrying the ball over 270 and I hope I can carry this over to the course where my old driver was much less consistent in the length category, or better said it punished me much more in distance on mishits.

Yeah but Tom Brady, Payton Manning or Michael Jordan are not putting anything below 10’ on this one... and if you want to imagine my point of view just erase the zeroes. So 5,10,25,100 and 500 bucks. If it’s this I’m definitely putting for 100 or 500.

I feel like this question is irrelevant as the answer is highly dependent on how well the putter is doing financially. But like it was said the two longest ones are the best value. That being said if it were a straight putt I’d definitely go for the 5’ and might even go to the 10’. I sink enough of those while practicing that it’s realistic. The 20’ is such a low % shot for me that even the possibility of hitting it isn’t worth it. I wouldn’t go for the 3’ as the $50k don’t make much of a difference for me.

Break 80, get my gross stableford up to the 30s hopefully consistently. I am working a lot on swing changes over the winter and on putting, just got myself a wellputt mat to do so. I also do a bit of chipping indoors but mainly focusing on technique not on distances for now. Doing a lot of indoor cycling, hoping to lose about 20lbs till spring. After we can start training outdoors my focus will shift to the short game, specifically 100 and in by “building a matrix” for my 4 wedges. So the well known 3 shots with 4 wedges so I get my distances dialed in. When I did it this summer I shot my best rounds, one was a 14 over with 10 pars and 6 bogeys. Now I’m lost with distances and you can’t score well when you don’t know what swing will give you ~50 yards.

Thanks for all. I’m just gonna elaborate on why I posted about lighting - the trackman itself sends an error about not being able to determine the correct impact location due to insufficient (could be that a different wording is used cannot remember exactly) lighting conditions. It’s interesting that it’s from a Ping VP and we are talking about Ping drivers here.

He is hitting premium balls, we tried it today with a variety Taylormade tp5 (it is the “practice” version but it should be the same), a Honma top of the range ball and I gave him one of my (almost brand new) Pro V1x. The indoor lighting is a bit bad so the club data isn’t showing all the time but we also used foot spray (or dry shampoo) and even on a hit that was basically dead centre he wasn’t getting above 1,45. I could get some data of some specific hits next week when I go back but he’s playing a g425 lst turned down to 7,5. He is launching it about 11-14 from what I remember, the spin loft on the optimizer is what is recommended. He is hitting it anywhere from +1 to +5 up. His path and swing direction are to the right (he is setting up to the right from the get go) and his face is obviously closed to path. When I had him hit with a face to path that was close to 0° the smash was about 1,45 which was the highest. He did try a g425 max head today at 9 and 7.5° and it was the same. He also tried my cobra driver but that one is a stiff flex not x and he had trouble swinging and hitting it as well as he did with his shaft (granted he only hit about 5 or 6 balls with it). He will try another g425 lst head from a friend just to make sure there isn’t something wrong with his specific head. And trying to understand from a physics standpoint I really don’t get how shaft lean has an effect on smash factor other than the obvious change in delivered loft at impact? What am I missing. And if the face to path and aoa/launch are not too much of a glancing blow a sweet spot impact should result in a 1.5 smash regarldess shouldn’t it? We could also gain access to a QC Quad, would that give more accurate/dependable indoor numbers, as like I’ve said, there is no place to hit driver outdoors now and from tomorrow also the shorter ranges should close due to the incoming snow.

So we are training a lot indoors over this winter and alongside is one of our hopeful touring pros, so we are talking about a +5hcp at a minimum. He has to play Ping clubs so changing the driver is out of question, he was fitted in an aftermarket shaft. Now while he is hitting indoors (can’t hit outdoors anywhere atm) his driver smash factor never goes above 1.46 and even that is very rare. This is all measured with a TM4 and a dot on the ball. When I go hit my driver I can reach 1.48 but my highest outdoor was 1.51. His swing speeds are around 120 mine around 110 when I’m hitting my on course swings. Now we all find it very curious that a player of that caliber couldn’t hit at least 1 ball in the 1.5 range when he is hitting 100 balls. So what would be the parameter to look for as to why he can’t get the smash up? Because his swing speed is around 120 and his ball speed was 173 at the highest today usually around the 170 range.

You might have mistaken the umbrella tray...

88 on 6500 yards. Had 2 shots OB on the first 5 holes as it’s a course where it’s hard to go to the range before the round as it’s a long walk away from the first tee. Putting was a disaster all day long. Really hitting the long clubs well now that I grasped the concept of rhythm in the full swing. Was testing a g425 lst with an xstiff shaft this round and it still felt a bit spinny.

Wanted to break 90 for 2 or 3 years even, got close a few times but couldn’t. Over the winter I worked a lot with a coach, on putting and then in the spring I got my wedges dialed in for distance. I am now regularly breaking 90, usually only a hole or two will stop me from breaking 80. So my best 9 hole result is +1 for example. I will be working on my game a lot over the winter and I expect to break 80 next year.

Practiced 3 hours on Tuesday indoors, also had access to Trackman and testing a g425 lst with an xstiff shaft. Managed to hit 117.5 clubhead speed. Today I probably played one of the last rounds this season, played a longish course and shot 88. My putting was horrible and I had 1 water hazard penalty and one ball OB, plan for next season is to break 80, as this year I finally broke 90 for the first time and did it regularly. I will be working on my full swing and putting over the winter and then I will be drilling my short game and yardages as soon as spring season starts.

Yes but that is a backswing fault. I can correct that in a couple of swings as I was working on that in the past. I was looking at your swing videos for comparison and I’m coming down much more shallow. this would be an earlier example

So last weekend something clicked practicing in front of the mirror and I just felt how to sequence and accelerate the club correctly to get it to shallow. I was working on this semi succesfully for the past couple of years but now it fell into place. I was trying to get it to do passively but you need to add force to the club head if you want it to move a certain way. I was throwing it back behind me a lot with a lot of success this season but it was too steep still and if I didn’t throw it behind me enough, especially with the long clubs I would still come into impact with an open face that would then result in a push slice. Now I everything I hit is a draw. I still need to control it better as I am starting the ball too much directly at the target so it curves left too much for my taste, but that’s something that we will work on over the winter. I am also planning to get my max driver clubhead speed to around 125 if I can hit the gym enough I might try for 130 but that might be a long shot. So here are a couple of videos from today. I still got some major things to work on but for the next few weeks I will focus on the drop and shallow to really sink in.

First tee shot after 3 weeks of vacation. Probably the best driver I hit in my life. Low spin, high launch that got help from tail wind. Not a lot of roll so that was easily 270m carry. The rest of the hole didn’t work out like I planned though, lost all of my short game touch during the no swing period, putting was ok though.

67 will win a lot of tournaments regardless of the field if it’s played from the back tees.

So this is my new “top” of the backswing. From the hands position and the shaft position I feel like this is somewhere I really like to end up. The shaft is pointing much more towards the target and that’s something that seems to suit my physiology. I still need to get my hips deeper to make sure I can then push back and rotate more through the swing but that’s another element to work on. This position is definitely a position of power for me. The swing caddy might not be the best tool to hone in your carry distances but as I tested it against Trackman the ball speed is almost always very close (+- 1mph) so that’s the data I’m looking at and today I was getting close to 170 mph ball speed with my driver. I will be working on the speed, my general strenght and losing weight over the winter and I also decided that this winter I will hopefully be able to use the trackman enough to really hone in my pitching from the impact/spin control/carry distance. I will be doing this until the end of the season as well but I will dedicate winter for another leap like I did this year and hopefully I’ll be breaking 80 regularly next season (hoping to break it once this season but it might be too optimistic).

7th hole hcp 1 (450 yard par 4 playing level) hit my driver about 320 leaving myself 130 in. High draw over the trees and back to the fairway where it widens. Missed the small green just left and nearly chipped it in for birdie. Then proceeded to magnificently miss the comeback putt for par.

This is a great video bound to help a lot of people out there. I came to a somewhat similar conclusion a while back but this one really is good IMO.

Played again today, a course I played a couple of times before and broke 90 easily. Shot 86 with 2x ob and one water hazard. The work that I put in the last year really shows and I feel that on the right course on the right day I could break 80 even this year. It probably won’t happen but that’s the goal for next season. I see that I must work on 100 meters and in. So on one of the hardest holes which is a 440 yard par 4 I drove the ball over 310 and then had a pitching wedge in. It was a bit of an awkward stance but I was just left of the green. Almost chipped in but then messed up the comeback putt and instead of an easy par I made a bogey. Maybe I’m being too hard on myself looking at the tour averages but I feel like that’s one area of the game I need to clean up - no 3 putts and more up and downs. And I really need to put more work / decide on how I want to pitch and then really let that sink in and finally get the distances for all 4 wedges for 1/2, 3/4 and full swings printed out and stick them on the clubs.

Shot 86 and didn’t particularly like the round. Lost 3 balls (2x OB 1x water hazard) so that’s probably why I wasn’t really satisfied. A lot of bogeys on the front and then 40 with two doubles and a birdie on the back. On the 18th par 5 I drove the ball to a water hazard that was about 290 out that I didn’t think I could reach so after the drop I hit the green and made the put for birdie. So instead of making my first eagle I ended up with a bogey with a penalty stroke. I guess that doesn’t happen too often either, so I got that going for me...

First driver of the day and it was my best one. Went a bit closer to the trees than I planned but went over 300 yards but then got stopped by a greenside bunker. If it went 2 meters further left it would’ve probably reached the green. Ended up with a wierd 25 yard bunker shot that I ended up landing at 20 yards and just short of the green. My putting had been abysmal this round though.