alisdair

Also because Windows users generally don't buy software very often. There's much more of a return on developing for OS X, as people are used to paying for well-designed software. Erik, are you testing on lower-end hardware? The only Mac I have just now is a first revision MacBook Air. Will there be some sort of demo version to check performance?

Studio Select Newport with custom paintfill: I still feel like I'm going to make every single putt with this in my hands. Can't imagine changing to another putter.

76 (+7) in the October Medal , for a net 59. Probably the winning score. After hurting my shoulder on the 15th, scrabbled home with double, bogey, bogey. Push-draws

Same as for chipping and pitching: the 3 bears approach. I make a practice stroke hard enough to hit the putt to make it halfway there, then one to put it 6 feet past, then my last practice stroke is something in between those. (Then I hit the putt fat.)

38 (+4, 3.1 diff) . A bit of practice for tomorrow's competition. A swing thought of "straight right arm" helped a lot.

Here's a quick dumb question: does chipping in for birdie count as a successful up & down? I'm guessing yes, but is that how the PGA count it as well?

Push-draw 2H on a 205-yard par 3, into a 20 yard wind, right at the flagstick, hopped and stopped 12 feet past. Instantly made me forget about going double, bogey, bogey :)

Those of you that use Scorecard (or track the same stats): how are your putting stats? I can't find any averages for amateurs broken down by distance. Mine are at: 0-3 feet: 94.4% 4-6 feet: 43.4% 7-10 feet: 25.0% 11-15 feet: 12.8% 16-20 feet: 3.4% 21-30 feet: 9.6% 31-50 feet: 8.0% 51+ feet: - Seems like the right sort of curve, but I've really got to work on the 4-6 feet ones for sure.

78 (+9) for a 6.6 differential , and my first time below 80. 3 over at the 15th tee, then finished double, quad, birdie, bogey. Oh well.

On the elasticity of a golf ball:

I carry a Gorillapod , which I fix onto the top of my bag. Works well.

Down. Mostly because it makes it difficult to turn my shoulders on a flat plane---I'd hit my chin and move my head back. Chin down makes my shoulders turn steeper.

Hands should be deep on the backswing to maintain the relationship between your hands, arms, and shoulders throughout the swing. The club should not go far inside of your hands, because doing so requires that you manipulate your forearms and wrists on the backswing, then manipulate them back on the downswing. Watch this old chestnut of a Charlie Wi swing: Notice that the clubhead doesn't go inside past his hands until the club is parallel to the ground. If you can possibly afford it, a video camera is the best investment you can make for your golf swing.

I haven't heard this phrase before. What do you mean?

Looks to me like the club is going inside, but the hands aren't. PiustheDrGolf: try bringing your hands deeper inside, without flipping the club inside as much, and allowing your hips to turn back more. Give yourself room to drop the hands on the downswing.

Have any S&T; adopters had problems with duck-hooks and straight-overdraws? I'm suddenly missing way left off the tee, and hitting my long irons really low. Mid irons through wedges vary from push to overdraw. I'm going to do some work with tomorrow, based on the book's #3 fault tree, but I'd appreciate any suggestions.

I think what they're saying is that it's more important that your instructor knows the flight path laws than anything else, not that you as a player should learn them first. Far too often you'll see teaching pros give absolutely wrong advice due to their misunderstanding of what causes the initial direction of the ball. If you're trying to fix someone's swing, you must first make sure that you're correctly diagnosing the problem.

As a counter to that, I'm finding it more useful to mark U&D; failure/success every time I have a chip, pitch, or sand shot to a green, whether for par or triple-bogey. I can then track my "U&D; first putt average length" stat to track short game effectiveness.

As a follow-up to my own question: video showed me that my problem is my stubborn tendency to roll my wrists through impact. I've corrected my right-hand grip back to neutral and I'm working on holding the face square (well, slightly open) to the path. I have no idea how anyone can work on something as major as S&T; without video or an instructor. I felt like I was almost there, but video showed me that I have a long way to go. Does anyone know of any S&T; friendly instructors in the UK? Everyone I speak to around here is simultaneously terrified and dismissive of the pattern. There must be a huge market for a S&T; two-day course somewhere in England or Scotland.

Ping Zings are great clubs! Stick with them if you like them. If you get a chance, try hitting a few demo clubs at the range for comparison. Technology in irons really hasn't progressed that much in the last 20 years. Lie angle is the angle between the sole of the club and the shaft. This can be adjusted for particularly short or tall people, or those with short or tall arms. If you're average height with ordinary length arms, it's not worth getting your clubs lie fitted until you have a repeatable swing that you're happy with.

Slam dunk! Short par 5 10th, 115 yards out, perfect PW: Thunked the cup, clanked the pin, dropped for eagle. Pity about the rest of the round.

Lenzie Golf Club , par 69, rating 69.5/128. While CONGU sadly doesn't support slope ratings (or a sensible handicap mechanism in general), the Scottish Golf Union almost did. As a result, The Pope of Slope has slope ratings for most Scottish courses , which are useful if you want to use another tracking system (e.g. Scorecard) for your handicap.

For successful S&T; adopters: how did you change from having a square clubface at address to having it a degree or two open? I'm struggling with straight-draw and straight-hook, and find that if I rotate the club open and regrip, after waggling my wrists seem to automatically rotate back to square the face. Then they move back open at impact. The result of this can vary from a straight-hook to a push-slice, which I'm sure you can imagine is difficult to manage around the course. What did you do to get a consistent small change in how open the clubface is?

Wedge gaps depend on how far you hit them, not the lofts. How far do you hit each club? If you don't know, it would probably be useful to measure it.

I hit a straight-draw on 16 which put me in the left trees, with 190 to the pin. There was a decent gap, so I punched a 4 iron through, which chased up nicely to the front fringe. Holed the 50 footer for birdie.