Greg

I hate it when I cant get my tee shots to go straight or at least stay reasonably close to the fairway, especially if its a tree lined course and your tee shot goes close to a tree and cant get a clear 2nd shot to the green because you're under or in front of a tree and have to kind of punch it out to the fairway and hope you can still get bogey. Sometimes I'll get daring and try to hit it through, just take more club knowing I'm going to clip a branch or 2 and sometimes can get away with it, thats where I love my hybrid clubs, they're just easier to hit out of awkward spots like that. I also hate when my irons cant seem to find the target, I know at my skill level I wont get a majority of gir, but I at least want to be close enough to chip on and have a chance at par, thats all I ask for on any hole, I want to at least have a putt for par at a reasonable distance, anything inside of 20 ft is fine, sometimes I get lucky and make those, and I've gotten pretty good at the 5-6 footers. At my skill level bogey is an acceptable score and par is great.

In reality, how long is a ball new anyway, the first round of golf you play with it, it isn't new anymore, you might hit a cart path on the first hole you play it and scuff it or cut it. Im not good enough myself either to buy expensive new balls, I either buy used or cheap new ones, actually the walmart intech balls arent bad, they go pretty far and straight and you can get them for $10 for 24 balls, used balls in good shape rarely cost less than that and by the time you factor in shipping on ebay or any online store, they will be more expensive than that. They even have them in larger quantities sometimes, I bought 48 for $15 before, they were the overruns of the intech balls, its a mixed box but they were all new, found those ata local Kmart, they have even had older stock of new balls left over that were discounted greatly too, last year bought some top flite 3000's for $6 for 27 balls because they were old stock left over and they had some dunlop ddh distance balls this year for $4 for a 15 pack. But if you prefer the brand name balls then there are plenty of people on ebay and other places who sell them used for a fraction of the cost, most sellers are honest about the condition and have pics. Unless the balls have cuts or bad scuffs, they shouldnt play any different than new balls unless you're a very good golfer who would notice very slight changes and I dont fall into that category.

I guess you could finally make club heads too big for irons and it would feel like swinging a shovel, forgiveness is pretty hard to measure, its still not easy to hit a target some 150+ yards away with an iron and get it really close no matter how accurate it is every time, even pros routinely are 20 or more feet away on approach shots.

Well just look at how clubs were made a few years ago, fairway woods and driver were made of wood, then steel club heads and then titanium, irons are much more advanced and easier to hit now with the invention of hybrid clubs as well. Yeah you could make the driver bigger and go farther, but you still have to hit the ball on the green and putt to get a good score. A driver that goes further might not be helpful to someone who doesnt hit the ball accurately, just further offline. For pros, yes it would make it easier but they would simply make courses longer as they have done in the past, 380 yards used to be a long par 4 for pros, now they are routinely 500 yards or more and they still have little trouble reaching them easily, thats a par 5 for me. This probably is the best time for a beginner to start playing as the clubs are more forgiving and the balls go farther than ever before.

Yeah, on a busy course it would get quite annoying to have anyone jump around even if they were paying customers, thats one rule every course has, dont jump from hole to hole but that would also probably be the easiest time to sneak on as you probably wouldnt get noticed. If it interferes with play from paying customers then it can be a problem

One course i play at has the clubhouse right behind the par 5 2nd hole and sometimes people park in the gravel in front of it if its busy. Ive never hit a vehicle yet, but once I actually hit a ball under a truck that was parked there and had to go get it since there is basically no room behind the green to hit the ball long, 10 yards over the green and you're in the gravel, im sure the clubhouse has been hit before many times.

I have played at a local course when no one was around last december but I was also a member there at the time and walked the 9 holes I played, which is free if you're a member so other than maybe being there when I wasnt supposed to, I didnt really do anything wrong. It was about 40 degrees that day and I actually didnt play that poorly dont remember my score but I did get one birdie on one of the par 3's I played, I dont get many birdies. As far as sneaking in the worst that could happen is that they would probably run you off if they catch you but if its a private course I'm assuming you dont play there anyway normally. Like some said, if you dress like you're a member I doubt anyone would think you looked out of place as long as you behaved properly.

I don't lose as many balls as I did when I first started playing, sometimes I will go a couple rounds without losing one, but I have my days when I'll lose 5-6 or more, sometimes because of the condition of some of courses I play, one in particular which I have refused to play in a while because they dont mow their fairway grass short enough, I lost 2-3 balls that I'm sure I hit in the fairway but couldnt find because I couldnt see them. I think they just cant afford to mow often enough because they arent making enough money. If I lose a 40-50 cent ball I dont worry about it too much, losing a new $4+ pro v1 or nike one ball would upset me a bit. I've actually heard that high end balls really arent that helpful to a high handicap golfer, you need to be a good golfer to get the full benefit, i.e. more spin as some claim. I'll usually try to pick which ball gives the most distance since I'm not good enough to impart spin on the ball or shape shots, I just try to hit the ball as far and and straight as I can on full shots with my irons and woods. I dont hit 300 yd drives and I would like to be able to hit my irons further so any extra distance is welcome.

I knew a friend who somehow tried to carry his clubs on the back of his motorcycle, i know not a bike but still similar situation, which is probably more dangerous and I dont think he tries to do that anymore, haven't talked to him for a while. Some sort of way to pull a pull cart behind your bike makes sense, I think it would be very unstable trying to ride while carrying your clubs on your back. Maybe just carry a few clubs. I have a course near here where i think i could play with just a 4h, 9 iron and a putter and probably have a chance to make par on every hole. Its got short holes, longest par 4 is 300 yards the rest range from 200 to 270, and 2 short par 3's, 100 yards and the other is about 130.

Some people are just impossible to get along with, at least 99% of the people I have ever met playing golf were very friendly and patient its that other fraction of 1% that try to ruin it. This guy probably isnt very well liked off the course either.

My friend and I had a similar situation a couple weeks ago. We were playing on a sat on a busy course and there was another 2some behind us, for the first 9 holes. We were going along pretty good until about hole 7 and werent playing as well, apparently the 2 guys behind us thought we were going too slow. They approached as as we teed off on hole 10 and one said something like " are you going to let us go ahead of you or just hold us up all day" my friend said something like we would have let you go if you had been nicer. He had already teed off on the 10th hole. They just skipped ahead to the next hole as there wasnt anyone ahead of us playing that hole and we never heard from them again that day. A similar situation happened around here recently and 2 older golfers in their 60's actually got into a fight and went to jail. I was just glad they left, golf is hard enough without other people trying to bring you down.

Mine was actually last sunday. I sliced a drive on a 350 yd par 4 actually drove it into the right rough on the next hole over, left me im guessing about 175 yards to my green from the rough and over the trees separating the 2 holes, i couldnt even see the green from where i was, just knew the general direction. Took my 5 hybrid and nailed the best shot I've hit probably all year, over the trees, over the bunker on the right side of the green and on the green about 15 ft away, 2 putted and got par.

I think the competition is tougher now, back when Jack and Arnie played there were fewer good players, now on any given week there might be 20 guys or more who could win and I dont see anyone getting to 10-11 wins in one season as Tiger has done before. Tiger is the best but he doesn't always win, he has to play his best or someone else beats him. But Tiger at his best is very tough to beat. And if he's in the lead, its hard to take it away from him.

if i hit them good driver- 235-240 3wood-220 3 hybrid-200-210 4 hybrid-190 5 hybrid-160-180 6 iron-150-155 7 iron-140-145 8 iron-130 9 iron 120 pw-110 56 sw-100

another option would be to buy less expensive used golf balls, thats what i use for the most part. Intech beta ti and nitro blaster balls from walmart cost $5 per dozen at walmart and are brand new. I see you're from eqypt so maybe dont have one of those in your area but can order online from walmart.com. Another option would be to buy used balls from ebay, they come in different grades from almost new to practice grade from the number of A's in the description. AAA-AAAA is very good condition, i would look for those, can usually barely tell they've been hit, and it is a good way to try out different brands of balls to see which you hit the best, like titleist, nike, callaway, taylormade, pinnacle, etc.

Im still a bit of a beginner so I've got a lot of room for improvement, just started playing last year 1. Hit my drives in the fairway more often. I dont hit the ball real far, maybe average 220-225, sometimes in the 240-250 range at my best, so it makes it easier to hit 2nd shots from the short grass. 2. Hit my short irons better. I have hybrids that i use for long irons, 3, 4, 5 and I hit them pretty good but sometime struggle with the shorter irons with accuracy and inconsistent distance. 3. Practice more. This so far I am doing, spending more time at the range during the week and mostly only playing on weekends, hopefully this will help me with 1 & 2. 4. Not get upset over bad shots. Im still a beginner so I know im going to make a few shots every round that are just plain awful but just try not to worry about it, we're all out here to have fun right. I started out basically from scratch last year never having played before so I've improved a lot in a little over a year, at this point im happy to play in the 40's for 9 and under 100 for 18. The courses in my area in southern Illinois are mostly not that difficult or overly long so that helps a bit.