Used to Be a 3

If you look at all my posts here (and it wouldn't take long, haven't been here long), I think the term "self flagellation" would be more appropriate than lack of humility. If you go back and look at the post I made about the fellow who was overestimating his wedge yardage by nearly 40 yards, you'll also see me describing a young, fit golfer who could rip the ball and hit a wedge a good 25 yards farther than me. But in your mind I was only comparing myself to the short knocker. Truth is in that first post I wasn't comparing myself to anybody at all. That was your angle. When you scold people like that, really just make up reasons to do it, it kind of makes you a bit less of a pleasure to converse with. But maybe that's just the way you roll--or maybe you just had a bad day. I don't know, don't know you.

You know, Lihu, I don't know why you're getting all aggressive here . All over a guy I saw one time in an Edwin Watts for a few minutes who was, in fact, being way, way unrealistic about his abilities. It's not like I called out the guy in front of his wife and kids, mocked him to his face, or slit his car tires in the parking lot after I bought my dozen golf balls and checked out. Heck, man, I only used the guy as an illustration of being unrealistic about golf distances, and I dare say, oh call me crazy, thinking you can smoke a wedge out there 140, which is pretty close to the average for the bloody PGA tour, is perhaps being a mite unrealistic when you have a swing that clearly indicates you don't break 90 and you hit it 40 yards less than you represent. Dang, man, are you that guy or something? Is there some back story I don't know about? Because this is just weird.

When I hit on a monitor, which I've done a few times since I took the game up again a few months ago, it's just the danged truth that I see on the course: erratic as heck, game's a dumpster fire: one drive of 215, next time 275, slices, hooks, everything in between--and no clue what's going to happen from moment to moment. It's already happening on the course where 80% of my scores are absolute garbage, I'm used to it, nothing new. Now there's realism. Now for the ways in which I con myself: I imagine that I should be playing as well after a 20+ year layoff in my 50s as I once was in my 20s when in practice and sporting a flat stomach. Otherwise, wouldn't be calling my ball striking "garbage", would be glad to just be playing. So there's how I'm conning myself. Not a 3 anymore, and likely never will be...and what's the big deal about being low single digits anyway? It's nothing special, not like even at my long ago peak anyone would've considered me serious competition at the state am, really good golfers schooled me even at my best.

I can hit a wedge 120, no humble brag there, and it's not even a brag, who the heck brags about hitting a club a perfectly average distance that probably 80% of all middling handicappers can hit it? I'm actually a short hitter considering I used to be a low single digit handicap, when playing people of similar handicap, I got used to others just bombing the ball by me. Am not really comparing my game to his, don't really care, don't know the guy. I am, however, comparing my realism about my game and distances to his realism--for example, I do not believe in any way that the guy had any good reason to think he could hit a wedge 135, 140. It's not like anyone gets a 30+ yard rollout on a wedge. He was dreaming or bragging or both. You don't miss it that far, not with that club that you use so much. I am very realistic about swing and distances, and in fact on the member swing thread have been trying to convince people who are telling me "powerful swing, dude..nice lag, etc" that I don't produce much consistent power at all on the course and that swing videos are evidently deceiving, that I am not a consistent long knock at all even though I sure wish I was. I might be a pompous ass and a general curmudgeon, but I am not living in a dreamland when it comes to my golf abilities. Just sayin.

Figures. These gurus at the golf magazines come up with the maxims of the great swing, then they turn out to be just horse puckey. I guess if any essential of the great swing doesn't include people like Eamonn Darcy, Charles Owens, and hickory era Ted Ray, then they're not essentials. I was around when dirt was invented also. Thanks for the advice!

I was in one of those chain golf stores some weeks back and a florid-faced guy about my age (50s) was looking to be custom fit for a wedge. This guy did not look athletic, was a good 50 lbs overweight, and just got the feeling he couldn't break 90. The clerk, with whom I'm acquainted, was talking about wedge distance and casually mentioned that he hit a wedge "140, 145". The middle-aged guy nodded and said he hit one "135, 140". I looked over at both and said "You guys hit the ball a ton, I don't get over 120". As it turns out, I know the young clerk played D1 golf and can definitely get it out there, he wasn't conning himself, but figured the older fellow was just dreaming. So when they went over to the net to hit balls with the launch analyzer thing, I casually walked nearby to see the fun. Sure enough the guy was hitting his wedge 100 to 105 with one of those stiff 20 handicap swings. The numbers didn't lie. He kept saying "I don't know what's going wrong here!" My son asked me why the guy would lie when he knew he was about to be fit and his swing analyzed, it gave me the opportunity to talk about the worst person one can lie to is themselves, because if they do, they'll almost never learn a thing.

Going up to the big city tomorrow for the weekend, will be there for a couple days, wife's going to be hanging with an old friend the whole weekend, huge PGA Superstores there, so that's where I'm going with the kid. Tons of launch monitors. Will see what the clubhead speed and ball flight is. I see one thing I'm doing improperly, at least according to Golf Digest: leveling out those shoulders at the top of the backswing, kind of straightening up, shoulders parallel with the ground. Think that's the way I've always swung. Golf Digest says that's a hallmark of a higher handicapper. I get the shoulders down into an OK angle at impact, but it looks like only after trying to re-angle them on the way down. Could that be part of my issues with consistency? I tried swinging with the shoulders maintaining angle relative to the ground through the entire swing, like Golf Digest says pros do, and it felt funny as heck and the results were a little wild, but it did feel like I was able to develop more leverage and maybe clubhead speed as I swung down through the ball.

Thanks. Chopin just kills. Going up to the big city tomorrow for the weekend, will be there for a couple days, wife's going to be hanging with an old friend the whole weekend, huge PGA Superstores there, so that's where I'm going with the kid. Tons of launch monitors. Will see what the clubhead speed and ball flight is.

230-240 carry or total, including roll? Because if it's the total, that's spot on, if it's the carry, then that's awfully high for what I'm seeing out there. But heck, what do I know? I've been scoring a million and playing in a state of shock and confusion. It's the barn. Reason I was hitting that way that time was because the sun was setting part way in our faces and my son who was recording said it was messing up the video quality, so I faced towards barn, away from setting sun. It's chickens, by the way. No cows, got rid of the pigs years ago. Not a farmer, a prof, so I don't know jack squat about farm animals, but it was always the wife's dream to have the hobby farm, so here we are. If one of my duck hooks or tops takes out a chicken, then it's chicken dinner that night.

I do a lot of things wrong. Last round, a 50(!) for 9 holes (on a championship-level course like we used to play back in high school state championships, albeit played from the 4th of 6 tees, not the tips), I drove into the trees on the first hole, a par 5, then recover, reached the green in regulation, then 3 putted for a bogey, next hole drove OB to the right, triple bogey, then went on a run of holes where I was either on the green, right on the fringe, or a short chip away in regulation every time, hitting the ball pretty well, but this run included a 4 putt after reaching the green in regulation and multiple 3 putts. Had 22 putts (ugh!) for nine holes. So the round started with errant drives and bad putting and then just got worse. Only parred one hole the whole way around, and that was where I hit an iron on a par three right at the hole, then two putted from 15 feet. So a lot of it's short game, but it's also long game inconsistency. I hit about three poor full shots the whole nine, though, but horrible results. I love and hate golf.

Thanks very much for the kind comments. I don't know about carries that far, though. It seems like my average is more like 230-ish after rollout. Now this may be because I'm hitting the ball all over the clubface and making poor contact, probably so. My game is so bad, that theory makes sense. If I hit 10 drives, it'll go something like this for total distance including roll: 210, 210, 220, 220, 230, 230, 230, 240, 270, 270. So the average is 235 or so. Maybe the clubhead speed is more than I'm thinking and those few long ones are representing that. One thing I can say, I have no video of my swing 30 years ago, but do have several photos of the swing with a high speed camera at different positions, which I pasted together to form a swing sequence many years ago. I used to lose that lag very early in the downswing when I was young, for some reason after the two decade layoff I'm coming back with a lot more lag (still not much more average distance, though, alas) Thanks for comment on impact position, but that left hand looks a little cupped at the wrist, no? Not so good, far as I know. But never had a lesson in my life, so what I know about the golf swing is probably less than the average golfer. Thanks again for the help. Thanks, IACAS, we'll get that stuff together with the angles better. Appreciated. Based on our results, we need a lot of help!

Yep, good one. I don't think you're too far away from playing a lot better. Looked at your swing at the start of this thread years back, lots of improvement. LOTS!

Sure he knows how to win them, that's the point, knowing how to win several major championships, very special and extraordinary thing. And against remarkable competition, 100 players could win it, Tom Watson, nearly old enough for social security, a nostalgic relic, came one adrenaline-aided airmailed green from winning it against many who weren't even alive when he was in his prime. Sure Watson's situation is an outlier, he is an outlier himself--as is Nicklaus. There's my point. But better be careful calling The Open "gimmicky", we have some members here from the UK, "them's fightin' words", as they say down where I live.

The bottom one third of the field is pretty irrelevant for major championship consideration except in extremely unusual circumstances. e.g., Micheel, Sluman, Fleck (though that might not be fair to any of them, as none of them were truly bottom third). And the fact is somewhat misleading, because in the early years of Jack's reign at least, even though the life of the tour pro was pretty attractive, a lot of pretty good players had to be club pros in the offseason to make a living. By the 1970s, Jack's heyday, top golfers were getting quite rich on tour, so it wasn't as necessary. But in any event, Nicklaus wasn't competing against those players often for major championships, the handful of ones against whom he had to compete were, in my opinion, better than the fields against whom Tiger competed in his prime, unless you want to place Els, Vijay, Phil, Padraig, Payne Stewart, et. al. over Player, Trevino, Watson, Palmer, Ballesteros, et. al. I don't know, it's sure not a clear choice for Tiger. 100 players can win a major now? Sincerely doubt it--physically, yes, psychologically, no. But Tiger's reign isn't now, it was 10-20 years ago, that's the relevant comparison (as you allude to elsewhere in your post). In Nicklaus's era (62-86), 46 different golfers won majors, in Woods's era (97-08), 25 different players won majors. I know Nicklaus had a span of 25=/- and Woods a span of 12+/-, but dang, that's a pretty close ratio. If all those golfers could win majors in Woods's era, there sure didn't prove it on the course--and that wasn't just because of Tiger, he didn't win most of the majors even during that great run. Let's leave it at this: No one knows, and no one can ever know for certain. If we had omnipotent powers and could bring all the 100+ major winners forward into time at their absolute primes, from Old Tom Morris right up to Justin Thomas, maybe throwing in Moe Norman for good measure, and gave the old timers a year to hone their craft with the new tech and catch up on the nutrition and conditioning that's been developed in the last century and a half and set up a super tour for the next 20 years, I doubt it'd be a clear cut thing. There'd quite probably be one person who had the lowest round, another with the lowest tournament, another with the top money-winning year, another with the best five year run, another with the longest streak, another with the most wins, and another with the most majors--and we'd be right back where we started arguing all over again who's the GOAT .

You hit the ball a ton, farther than I ever hit it consistently. You seem to hit a nice ball as well, not spraying it all over the course. Your swing looks solid, there was one drive where you were a bit out of balance, falling forward a little at the end, but nothing terrible. So what is holding your game back? Is that a USGA handicap equivalent, the 11? Because you look like you could play scratch or within a few strokes of it with what you do to the ball. Do you feel you're managing the courses well? Making good decisions? I didn't look much up about you, how long have you been playing?