B-Con

Historically, always a scorecard. I've sampled a few Android apps for scorekeeping, but none were all that great. In specific, most didn't keep the stats that I like to keep. But recently I found the oobgolf Android app looks like it's pretty cool as far as score and stat keeping goes. I've decided to give it a try. The free version keeps all the stats except one (distance of first putt) that I like to keep. For $10/year they open up a ton more stats to keep. There's something nice about using a physical scorecard, but I wouldn't say no to an easy-to-use app on my phone.

A swing on a simulator isn't the same as a swing on a real course. If you're not hitting a real ball at a real target, you can modify your swing without even realizing it. Even a swing on a driving range isn't perfect, but it's better than on a simulator.

A lot of courses have spectator fees for this type of thing. You can bring someone along, pay for their spot on the course, and not have to worry about whether it's OK; the course said it's OK and sanctioned their presence. If the course doesn't have spectator fees, they probably have some policy on the practice that they're willing to share with you.

What's his impact position look like? Does he hit the ball on the upswing? The difference between 6* and 9* is very small. Considering that launch angle is the result of a couple factors, he could have a launch angle that's closer to average than expected.

Midsize, but I fit oversize grips. I like the feel a lot better than standard size grips. Grips that are too small cause the tips of my fingers to sit under my palm, which feels weird.

Rooting for a 4-peat from Stricker.

Really interesting poll. We should have this yearly. :-) I said 76-90%. I'm more consistent now and my average score has dropped a couple strokes. Last year at this time I was just recently thrilled to break 90, now it's my average score. I think my driving is less consistent, but I'm working on that. My putting is better, my chipping and pitching is better, and my irons are better. I can play bogey golf pretty easily now.

Looking for a Ping G15 driver, regular flex, 10.5* loft. I'm looking for the < $140 price range. Biggest concern regarding the condition is the crown at address, not too picky otherwise. Grip irrelevant as I'll probably replace it. Cut down shaft potentially a plus because I'll probably trim it myself.

I didn't say they weren't. Note that I quoted your original post and pointed out I was replying to the original post. I wasn't interjecting to the current conversation. You wanted to know why people were so skeptical. That's why.

To the OP: [quote name="Jimbo Slice" url="/t/60345/why-is-it-unbelievable-i-can-drive-300#post_741560"]I've recently posted in a few threads mentioning I hit some 300+ yard drives. Even a 326 yarder measured with my gps. I've only been playing for 10 weeks and have a 27 handicap. I've been called a few names and would like to continue any conversations/debates with doubters or believers in this thread, instead of continuing in the other ones. Any input good or bad is very welcome. Cheers :beer: [/quote] In general... First, it's [b]hard to measure a drive accurately[/b] without a GPS. In short, if you don't have GPS readings, it's very hard to accept eyeballed measurements because they're notoriously unreliable, especially when you consider the fact that people want to think that they hit it farther than they do. Almost everything about estimating the distance will lead in favor of over-estimating. The climbing-and-dropping trajectory of a shot fools the eye into thinking the ball went farther than it did. The feel of swinging extra hard is meaningless, but may make you feel like you hit farther. The sound of the ball on the club may sound like an extra-loud crack, but it doesn't mean much. Tees are more likely to be shorter than printed distances instead of longer. Cutting a dogleg can "add" a lot of extra distance. And 300 yards is a lot of distance, 250 yards looks extremely far to the naked eye. And the driving range is a terrible place to evaluate long drive distances because you have very bad perspective from that distance, markers are often placed at incorrect distances, etc. We don't assume such claims are lies, there are a bunch of honestly delusional people out there who mis-estimated a distance. So it's a good rule of thumb to guess that reported distances tend toward inflation. It's easy to mis-measure distances, and we [b]see exaggerations happen[/b]. We've played with someone who crushed the ball and thought he hit it 280, but only hit it 245. We've heard the guy who thinks he averages 270 but is closer to 240. We've seen the guy who averages 300 but seemingly can't get the ball beyond the (confirmed) 270 marker on the range. We've read [url=http://www.golf.com/instruction/quest-300?page=1]articles[/url] by people who make estimates as to how far they drive but then get measured and are shocked at how much shorter they actually do drive. We ourselves have seen many examples where we didn't hit it nearly as far as we thought we would have. Etc. The examples of exaggerated distances are constant and abounding. Next, hitting 300 yards is [b]harder than it looks[/b]. Under fair conditions (eg, no downslope, no elevated tees, no hind-wind, etc), it takes a lot of clubhead speed to hit that far, which in turn usually requires good fundamentals to create and properly channel that energy. Most ammetuer golf swing mistakes tend to drain energy from the swing, so driving 300+ in fair conditions is usually a good sign of decent swing fundamentals. It's just hard to swing that fast without doing a lot of things right. So if someone says that they often drive 300+ but averages a score of about 100, it raises questions because those convey seemingly contradicting pieces of information. Watch the swings of pros who only average 290 yards off the tee. Watch how controlled and powerful their swings are. These guys hit it long for a living (although they do place a premium on accuracy) and they excel at hitting the ball very powerfully. For an unexperienced player to say that they too can do part of that comparably raises an eyebrow. And there's a difference between [b]hitting vs averaging[/b] 300+. Everyone hits the long drive of their life once. (I've hit two drives (that I'm aware of) past 300, and one of them used the cart path to do so.) But a lot of people don't estimate their average driving distance well. They remember the few long drives they hit and forget the others. They think they could average "about 300" when in reality they might be lucky to break 300 once in a round. And it's possible to get lucky and hit one or two good drives 300+, but to average it takes incredible skill and consistency. To claim to average such a long distance is to claim to have consistency with your swing fundamentals that you can harness to generate a lot of power. "Averages 300 yards of driving distance while shooting in the 90s" is a phrase you should only need to use once or twice in your life (for the exception golfer who no doubt exists somewhere). So while some think that most 300+ distance claims are dubious, they're very sure that lot of 300+ averages are wrong. Finally, hitting 300 yards is often used as a classic marker for "long way". A lot of people will casually say something about hitting 300 yards without one shred of evidence to back it up. Their friend will hit a terrific drive and later the person will say "wow, Bob must've hit it 300" without having done anything to confirm it at all. 300 yards is just a nice round number that we associate with really bad-ass long drives, and it gets tossed around casually by a lot of people. Put it all together and you have something that's very hard to do, easy to mis-report, very often wrongly reported, and sometime intentionally exaggerated to. That's why there's so much skepticism. 300+ drives probably happen 20% or less of the time they're reported on the Internet. So statistically speaking, we're just trained that there's an 80% (maybe 95%) chance that any such given claim online is wrong. Guy A online claims it then posts a video of his swing and is obviously wrong. Guy B in real life claims it and then actually uses a GPS and turns out to be wrong. Guy C claims it and then admits he was wrong. Guy D claims it and you were there and it was obviously completely exaggerated. Guy E claims it and happens to be right, but why would we have assumed he was right? It's entirely possible that you have driven 300+ yards. Even multiple times. Someone is out there doing it somewhere. Often these are one-time occurrences with a perfect drive under perfect conditions. (A low running drive on a rock-hard fairway with a little downslope can go a lot farther than it deserves to.) Odds are good that if you did it only a few times and you acknowledge that they were exceptional drives that a lot of people will believe you. But the odds of each individual claim being true are low, so we're skeptical in general. Post GPS confirmed yardages and if you had favorable conditions, mention them, and move on. Some will buy it, some won't. For me personally, I can believe that any reasonably athletic golfer [i]can[/i] hit the ball 300 yards at some point. But if you claim to average it or frequently do it, I'll be very skeptical.

I took a college class and played a couple sets of 9 holes over a few months. I think I eventually played a full 18 about 3 or 4 months after starting. If you're trying to get a feel for the game before you play it, definitely spend some practice time on the range first. I'd recommend you then find a par-3 course to warm up with. You only need 5 rounds to establish a handicap, but you need to play 20 before your handicap is "fully" filled out.

I almost always use a 3-hybrid for those second shots. Usually there's very little to no chance of getting pin-high on the second shot, but a solid strike will leave me with a full PW, which isn't bad. The 3-wood introduces the potential for another 30 yards of distance under perfect conditions, and 15 to 20 under decent conditions, but it also introduce the potential for -50 yards. That said, I occasionally use the 3-wood off the deck and I do practice with it. The problem is that it has the length, and to some extent the feel, of a driver, but off the deck it doesn't have that same level of up-down forgiveness that a tee'd up ball gives you. So typical misses with the driver aren't as easily forgiven with the 3-wood. Good weight transfer is usually key for hitting it well; locking up and swinging "around" at it is a recipe for disaster. I try to hit it with a slightly descending blow and I play it a bit farther back in my stance than I would suspect is average, pretty close to a long iron's ball position. I usually practice off the matts.

I love the Callaway Warbirds. They feel great wrapped around a club handle and they also fit my hand perfectly. Usually a glove always has a finger or two that doesn't quite match up with the actual lengths of my fingers, but this glove gives meaning to the expression "fits like a glove". I love it. I think it's either the only (or one of the few) reviews I've written here with a full 5 stars. And at $15 for a 2-pack, it's a good deal.

I see enough mulligans, gimmes, and foot wedges from my partners that I don't think most golfers take the rules too seriously.

First, I set my price range. Then, I read reviews and tests on the various balls in that price range to see which were regarded as having the best spin. Then I started buying a dozen of each of those balls. I've found a few favorites. My most favorite keeps getting discontinued, so I'll probably pick a new favorite.

I think they're both already working on it. :whistle:

My guess is that 4 or 5 is probably the most efficient group size in terms of total throughput for the day, assuming you send out nothing but full groups all day long. The gap from 3 to 4 adds 33% carrying capacity while possibly not adding more than 33% extra time, so it's probably more efficient than 3. From 4 to 5 you add 25% capacity, but the new guy might cause them to take a quarter extra time. It seems like a toss-up on whether 5 continues the trend of being more efficient. But once you reach 6, I would think the efficiency graph would start going downhill. Once person seems likely to add about 20% of time to a group, especially in a turn-based group such as golf. And the more people you have, the more likely people are to be taking a drop, re-hitting, looking for a lost ball, and there's confusion of order of play, putting, etc. And to me seems like people don't work effectively in groups of 6. (Most conversations break off into sub-conversations once they hit 6 members, teams of co-workers form sub-teams once they have 6, etc. Trying to remember if I read a study once to this effect, but at any rate I think that I've observed it on my own.) Threesomes would also introduce scheduling problems. A lot of foursomes are just two pairs of twosomes, but if the course only sent out threesomes then they could no longer mix-and-match twosomes. They'd be pairing up singles with twosomes or requiring full threesomes to get a tee time. Busy courses that don't change to accept tee-times for singles might require full threesomes for teetimes, which means no more tee times for just you and a friend.

I said 1 in 20, but was tempted to say 1 in 50. That's for putts of about 15" long, not within 15", which would include 1" putts. It's not too rare to fine an awkward putt of that length into a cup that was cut in a bad slope by a disgruntled greenskeeper. You make some of them, but I know I've lipped some out. I'll have a small handful of putts of the course of a day, and while I probably wouldn't miss one on average I probably would every few rounds.

There are easier holes and harder holes. Easier holes tend to yield better scores. An eagle is when you get the ball in the hole in two strokes under par while playing by the rules. Do you feel bad about par-ing an easy par-4? Do you not count birdies on the shortest par-3 on the course? Etc... There are hard holes where you're pretty much guaranteed to not shoot under par, and there are easy holes where you have a really good chance at it. Everyone plays the same par, and every course has harder and easier holes. Sure there are similar accomplishments that are of different levels of difficulty, for example a hole-in-one on a 220-yard par-3 is harder than a hole-in-one on a 130-yard par-3. But the accomplishment still is what it is. I don't think it makes sense to trivialize it for not "really" being what it is because you think the challenge posed wasn't hard enough. The pros count easy eagles just like hard ones. When Phil drives a par-4 and drains a long putt, it's counted as an eagle.

It's the "hacker" logo for Linux / FOSS enthusiasts, and I kind of consider myself one. I'm also a "hacker" in the golf vernacular. So by using the logo on my golf ball I'm bridging my two interests using an self-descriptive vocabulary term for both.

Who puts a pin in the middle of GUR?

I've made a lot of changes that I'm working on. Old stuff I'm re-focusing on: - Steep shoulders (aka, shoulder turn on plane) - Not flexing the left knee too far on the backswing Newer changes: - No more hitting with my left wrist. - I'm trying to fire through impact primarily with my right arm now. I used to keep as passive a right arm as possible, due to it causing trouble for me in the past, but I think that's silly paranoia and I've decided to learn how to use it. Progress is decent so far. It took a couple range sessions to get comfortable with it, but now I can swing without exerting my left wrist hardly at all in th downswing. - Holding lag longer. - Rather than strain during the whole backswing, I've decided to just let centripetal force do it's thing on the first part of the swing and hold off trying to intentionally hit the ball until impact. Initially I fought to hold my lag as long as possible then I'd "throw" it at the ball, but that created a lot of problems for me. Now I have more of a swinging motion than before (was more of a hitter), and I let the lag naturally unhinge a bit during the first half to two-thirds of the downswing before intentionally hitting with my right arm. - Tempo. - Not sure how visible the difference is, but I'm trying for a tempo of controlled, constant acceleration of the left arm through the downswing. I had more of a "accelerate as fast as you feel you can" tempo before. My left arm guides the downswing, so the tempo feeling I have for it is important. Today I had a great range session. Once I got a groove going with the new things, I had several runs where I was hitting almost everything well. A couple mishits crept in, but I was hitting online and not hitting those OTT pulls that I'd been struggling with before. I was hitting about as far with less effort, too. Good stuff, we'll see if I can keep it up.

I played off and on for a couple years and then seriously for maybe a year before I got one. I had no natural golf talent, so I had very few chances at birdie to begin with, let alone ability to capitalize on it. It was a short par 4. Hit a good, long drive, then a PW to about 12 feet, then made the put.

Shot 100. Haven't broken into the triple digits in a long time. The front 9 was only 45. The back was 55. I put multiple shots in the water or OB, skulled perfect approach lies, and just didn't hit any of my clubs well, including the putter. Also carded my first +5 in a while. On the plus side it was on a new course that was quite enjoyable. I wish I could say it was a bear of a course, but it wasn't. Just bad golf on my part.

Practicer. My worst usually comes out on the course and I don't feel comfortable on the course unless my practice routine feels comfortable. Right now I don't think that actually playing improves me much. It's good to do, but the bulk of my improvement happens on the range. Eventually, hopefully, the things I need to work on in my game will actually be things I need to play in order to practice, but I'm not quite there yet. I try to hit range balls two or three times a week. I play every other week.