Buckswin

I've been under 90 a few times, all in the last year... Every time I go out, my goal is bogey golf... I picked up 3 birdies over the weekend. Didn't have 3 all of last golf season!

I picked up a SureShot a couple of weeks ago. Alas, I've only been able to use it once, as we got "colded" out this past weekend. The course that I played was an amateur course, so it had front/middle/back. I didn't use it much, as I was trying to get other points (hazards, layups, etc.) marked during the round. I'd recommend going on a slow day and playing as a single if you want to get the course marked in one round. My only gripe was that it took 10 seconds to mark a point (once you told it to mark it). Playing cart/ready golf made it tough to not hold the rest of the group up. I'm going to get out a play a professionally done course here in the next week or so to see how it goes.

I started to keep score that way, but it got messy when trying to keep score for everyone. Now, I use a different method. If I hit the fairway, I make a small "O" in the upper L corner of that hole. An "X" if I miss. In the upper R corner goes an "O" for a GIR ("X" for no). In the lower R corner goes # of putts, with penalty shots in the lower L corner. My score for the whole goes in the middle. Sounds crowded, but it's not. At the turn, I'll add Fairway, GIR and putts so that it's easy to add it up after 18. I created a spreadsheet to track my handicap and stats (Fairway %, GIR %, Putts/GIR, Putts/MGIR, total Putts, # eagles, # birdies, # pars, # bogeys, # doubles, # others. I'm a 20.4 right now and my goal for this season is to be a bogey golfer. I've added a column to track # of holes at bogey or better for a round. My best so far is 15, which led to an 88 score.

I play with 3 guys that do the same thing for the same stakes (plus $0.25 skins for par or better). I started playing the ball down 2 years ago as I got better at golf, and it drives me nuts that the "noodle" the ball all over the course and encourage me to do the same! Several times, I've had a shot where my ball had picked up some mud on one side and was told to lift, clean and place. I responded with, "how am I going to learn to hit the shot if I don't hit the shot?" They couldn't understand. I hate playing with them because I'm usually high score by 2-5 shots, meaning that I always pay out, but the 1 or 2 times that they've agreed to play it down have left me with the low score of the group. One guy shoots in the low to mid 80's as he normally plays but is a low 90s guy without noodling.

I just came across iGolf today and have the same question. Has anyone here used the iGolf, SkyCaddie or SureShot?

I have more success hitting 3-woods/5-woods by doing a couple of things: 1. choke up on the club a little bit (about 1" or so) 2. flare my left foot to about 45 degrees I find that I'm much more successful doing these 2 things. Natalie Gulbis said the same thing on her show recently.

Absolutely unforgiveable. I hate waiting and it can be embarassing if you're playing so slow that a group asks to play through. No excuse though...

I'd be interested in beta testing the Windows version. I've got a homebrew .xls spreadsheet that I use, but I keep wanting to add things to it but don't because I wouldn't have all the data points needed for an accurate history. Your Mac version looks great.

There's no way to get pin positions on that, though, right? I'm stuck between the distance to the pin accuracy of a rangefinder with the elements of the GPS that you noted. Not sure what I'll do.

As I think back to the courses that I've played locally, it seems to me that most have a white line between the 9th/18th green and the clubhouse. Perhaps I'm remembering incorrectly, as I've never had to worry about a shot like Tiger's. The clubhouse wouldn't be called a TIO, would it? If the ball hadn't been picked up and/or the grandstands weren't there, what would the decision have been?

Last night on Pardon the Interruption, they swore that Tiger had the tourney handed to him because of this ruling. Wilbon and Marrioti seemed to not understand that the relief was granted not for the clubhouse, but for the grandstands that he would have had to hit over. I was suprised that Reali didn't correct them, especially given that the rules official was interviewed live on TV just after it happened and explained exactly that. That the clubhouse is not marked o.b. is a suprise, as I've never seen that before. The ruling would have been the same for anyone there. Certainly would have been different if you or I did it as we wouldn't have had the benefit of a blimp camera to show us where the ball went. What would the ruling have been if the grandstands weren't there? As I understood the rules official, TIO was the grandstands, not the clubhouse...

Makes sense. Thanks.

One thing that I do to help me when I go through that is to close the clubface a little bit at address. It helps me to "remember" to turn my hands over through impact, and if I don't, I'm at least just leaving the clubface a little bit open.

Probably a stupid question, but I've never seen the answer... Why would you bend a club to change the loft vs. buying a club at the desired loft?

I spent some time at the range yesterday trying to work this out... It seems that I had the ball too far forward in my stance so that I was basically hitting the ball after I'd turned over my hands and was hitting the ball too far into the "upswing" of my follow through. Not sure if that make sense... I basically moved the ball back a little bit more and seemed to be back on the right track. Thanks for the ideas.

I do something similiar to calling every hole a par 5... My personal par is bogey golf righ now, so I just add 1 stroke to each "par" and make that my goal. If I start a round with (real) par, par, bogey, I call myself 2 under. I have also started keeping stats for my rounds and created a column for total holes of (real) bogey or better. My best is 13 holes, which of course corresponds to my 2 best rounds of 89 and 90. Using this strategy, along with just playing more, has brought my handicap down from the maximum (I was shooting in the 120-130 range with an occassional 150 in there) 2 years ago to my current 24.2.

So my wife picked up an r7 460 and rescue dual for me from Dick's because of the deal that they had (buy the driver, get the rescue for free). The first round I played with both was amazing. The r7 had a little fade in it (even with the draw weight) but I was very accurate with it (never more than 5 yards off the fairway) for me. The rescue dual was unbelievable. She picked up the 19* one... I was pin hunting from 200+ yards out with an extremely straight ball flight. Since then, the r7 has been hitting mostly very low and left. I went to the range and moved the wieghts to nuetral, which hasn't helped much. When I'm not hitting it low and left, I'm seeing a pretty big hook, where my natural ballflight is more of a fade. The rescue has been very difficult for me to get in the air since the first round. It seems that I'm hitting it fat. I've been playing the ball closer to the front of my stance than I would for a short iron, but farther back than a driver. Obviously, without seeing video, it's tough for you guys to provide feedback. Any ideas though? I seemed to have picked up an occasional hook with my 3-wood now too.

The 3 guys that I play with every week have a bad habit of noodling their ball all over the place. I used to follow suit, but got serious about getting a legit handicap so I stopped. The only time that I'll ever improve my lie is if I'm on a gravel path. It's just not worth it to me. I'll take a stroke for unplayable, but I'm not gonna screw with my irons.