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I couldn't get a real systematic system to work for me, but two things that helped that I don't see enough people do: Look at the cup (or where you want to putt a downhill putt to) and take 1-2 practice swings while fixating on your target. It helps your brain adjust your swing. I see so many people look at the cup and then put their head down and take their practice swing. Long before Arccos I used an online/manual version to record my shots and got in the habit of walking from my ball to the cup before I putted. This was to measure the putt for my shot tracking, but in reality it really helps me to a better feel for the putt that is needed. Admittedly I'm somewhat doing math in my head of this is 30 feet severely uphill, but I know that when I'm playing in a hurry and I don't walk to the cup it shows in my putting.

Is that for 9 holes or 18? Seems pretty tight for 18.

I look at it this way - my likely result on the back if I had had time to play was between 38-42, meaning that I would shoot between 76/4.4 and 80/7.6. So the 6.1 corresponds to the midpoint and that seems fair. The concern I have is that given the difficulty of the course, I'm probably more likely to shoot 79 than 78, but in TN playing an easier home course I would more likely shoot 77 than 78 (and going way back to my NJ days where I played a moderate course I would say 78 would have been my most likely score). I'm just saying that based upon my experience, without stats to back it up, the variability of one's scores increases with course difficulty and this new method doesn't take course difficulty into account. It should also be noted, and this has to do more with statistics and averaging, that if one's playing ability were to improve or decline and you mainly played 9 hole scores, that the change in your handicap would be somewhat muted.

I don’t post a lot of nine hole scores but I’ve been very curious as to how the new USGA system would work for partial scores. First post on Friday. My differential was 1.8/1.9 (not sure how rounding works) for 9 holes, USGA converted that to 6.1. I’m assuming what this means is that the average differential for me is 8.4-8.6, which makes sense as I’m currently playing to a 5.9 and my average differential is typically 2-3 above my handicap. Initial thoughts are: Like - not having to wait to match 9 hole scores. In the past I didn’t like posing 9 holes because it was ofter 2-3 months between another 9 hole score. Dislikes - Not sure it improves handicap accuracy. When I lived in TN and mainly two low slope courses (114 and 118), my average differential was closer to +2 versus my index. Here playing higher slope courses (135+), my average is likely +3 to my index. Haven’t seen any evidence of increased usage of PCC this year, but to be fair it’s been relatively calm when I’ve played (the wind can be fierce here).

I'm thinking about it this way - 4% of 6300 is 250 yards. If I play a set of tees that are 250 yards longer than my norm, the course rating combined with slope usually goes up about a stroke, so my expectation is that it'll make the course a stroke harder. I'll be 65 by then, so it'll be an excuse to move forward. No big deal. It feels like this is similar to the square grooves issue - remember that one - big todo over very little.

EXACTLY!

What's your 7i distance? The reason I ask is that 3i and 4i (and sometimes 5i), IMO, are for very low handicappers or young guys with high swing speeds. Most of us should be playing hybrids and/or 7w/9w instead of 3i and 4i. I moved two years ago from a game improvement iron to the T200's and love them. Right mix for me of playability and forgiveness. I actually use T300's for 5i-7i to get a little extra oomph and forgiveness on the longer irons. In retrospect, I wish the 7i was a T200 but otherwise have no regrets.

The hole-in-one with this perspective. My best round for the last five years was an even par 71 where I choked on the 18th hole to blow breaking par. Five weeks ago I finally broke par with- you guessed it- a 68. Would I trade that 68 for a hole-in-one - no. But now that I have it, I want a hole-in-one. The other thing I would say is this- how many times has someone asked you if you ever had a hole-in-one versus how times have you been asked, “what’s your best score ever?”

Little bit of a different take: If you are regularly shooting over 100, IMO, focus on full swing improvement. You've likely got plenty of strokes to gain and you'll enjoy playing more. It will also help your wedge game. If you are shooting in the 90's, IMO, focus on your short game. It's likely that's where the fastest and easiest stroke improvement exists. Spend plenty of time practicing your wedges - go to a range for a big bucket of balls and do nothing but full and partial shots, never the same shot more than 2 times in a row, shots between 50-125 yards. You'll get better quickly after just a few buckets and you'll be surprised how it helps to be better from those distances. All that said, at some point you need/want to have matching wedges that are well gapped. Both options 2 and 3 work depending on the rest of your bag. Why wait if you are ready.

Links Courses of The Americas: The Few, the Proud, and the Imposters | LINKS Magazine Here are the six courses that qualify in my book as the true links courses of The Americas - and what good choices they are. Interesting perspective in this article. Streamsong is lots of fun. Chambers Bay is beautiful but I didn't feel links. I'd add Gamble Sands to this list for fun.

The PGA Tour is, for particle purposes, a union that tries to maximize the benefits for its members. If you look closely at some of the tour rules, they seem to favor current members a bit over future/potential members. I think if I was tour member I'd be pretty piqued by this - basically the tour is favoring some members over others. Isn't that what sponsor dollars are for? The entire concept seems counter to what the tour is supposed to be.

I think it goes without saying that participants on sites like this tend to be either more into golf than than most golfers or trying actively to improve (I know that I frequented sites much more heavily when I was in the "big improvement" mode). Active golfers tend to be better golfers, much in the same that studies show that golfers who walk tend to score lower - probably because golfers who walk tend to be better golfers, not that they play better from walking (although in my individual case I think I do play better when I walk). As to your foursome, if you are regular players meaning weekly or so, then your results are surprising to me. I believe that most golfers who are reasonably athletic and coordinated should be able to play in the 90's unless you are playing Bethpage Black every week (or similar difficult course / wrong tees). Failure to do so likely indicates that they've never practiced enough to achieve minimal proficiency or poor course management or lousy short game. All of these aren't that hard to improve but improvement doesn't come without putting some time in. Just my two cents.

Not even close for me. My personal threshold is a real feel of around 45 or higher to play. Using that I usually play 8-12 times during January and February combined. Around here, the real feel is 100+ from late May through early September. I average about 15 rounds a month and usually walk up unless the real feel is close to 110.

It would be close between LPGA and Euro Tour but I would lean for LPGA as I can relate to their distances much better and the tournaments generally play live at times I can watch. Don't like Korn Ferry Tour at all - they all seem to be birdie fest type of tournaments that I hate.

I love putting and I'm generally considered to be a good putter, so a few things that might help: At the level you are trying to play, shooting 80, a median miss should be about 10% of distance (a tour pro is 5%). So from 40 feet you should be within 4 feet at least half the time, from 20 feet you should be within two half the time. So, and I'm making this up a little bit, if you are regularly more than 6-8 feet from 40 feet or more than 4 feet from 20 feet, you should work on your lag putting. As someone else said, make sure you're realistic. I spent a winter practicing 30 foot putts in my basement. I got better at them. I make more, but not enough to ever notice in my score. I spent another winter hitting, and I do not exaggerate, thousands of 7 foot putts (that's the amount of carpet I had to work with). My make putting got better and I could see it in my scores. For me I think of an 8 footer (3 steps) as a make putt, maybe extend to 10-15 feet for an easy uphill putt and shorten to 5 feet on fast downhill putts. Everything else is a lag where it's a bonus if it goes in.

I'm trying to find the right scotch with the right blend of smooth and smoky. So far Laphroaig is my favorite but I would like just a tad more smokiness. The last bottle I bought was Ardbeg - too smoky for my tastes.

I'm a highly unusual case in that I broke 80 with a really freakish round about three months after first breaking 90. But the reality is that once I broke 90, I was pretty much doing it all the time whereas it took me four years to improve enough to break 80 with any sort of regularity. My experience was that I broke 90 while focusing on my short game and thereafter saw several strokes of fast improvement. Somewhere in the mid-80's (score, not decade), it became harder to improve. Thereafter I would guess it became about 2/3's long game, 1/3 short game in terms of improvement. Today it's even more skewed towards the long game. About the time I broke 90 for the first time, there was a Golf magazine article called "How to Break 80 in 6 Weeks." Dumbest article title ever - but it was really good about what the skills are that are needed to play at that level. It became my road map on how to improve and I still track stats manually to see how I'm doing on these key skills.

Even if you had your favorite wedge distance 18 times in a row, most of us would do well to hit 15-16 greens. I've hit 15 GIRs twice although the better round, which I consider to be my best ever even if not my best score, I feel like I hit 17 in a row. Missed the first green but after that hit 15 of 17. One hole I had to pitch back to the fairway (no GIR) but then hit a wedge to two feet to save par. The other miss was on a hole with a funky green. Shot landed squarely in the middle of the green but rolled off the back.

Sort of how I approached the question. What would I expect? At my home course I would expect to two putt every time from 25 feet but in reality I would likely blow one. From 15-20 feet, I believe that I would either two putt every time or sink one birdie to counter the one three putt. I did this once for nine holes - hit nine GIR's and every birdie putt was 15-20 feet, all two putts. Not my best nine by any means but maybe my steadiest as I also only missed one fairway and that was by two feet.

Listened to 20 minutes of the No Laying Up podcast while picking up lunch today. My takeaway is that this really impacts elite / tour pro players more than the average player. I guess the things being changed / looked benefit fast swingers much more than the typical golfer. If they can do that without bifurcation I think it's a good thing. Also as @iacassaid, seems to be more of a drawing of the line than a walking back.

I'm sure I'm in the minority but I want to like Patrick Reed. I like his style of play, like his bravado, admire his short game, and appreciate that his body shape is closer to mine than most tour pros. I even like the fact that he's not afraid to make his own rulings - it pisses me off when the players call a RO for every little thing, most of which they should know how to handle themselves. All that said, he doesn't make it easy on himself does he? I don't think he cheated or intended to cheat, but in a trickier situation he just needs to call the RO or other players over earlier in the process. For crying out loud Bryson at least understands that he needs brand value. Why doesn't Reed? BTW, it's my understanding that CBS didn't produce the video that showed the ball bouncing until 10-15 minutes after the whole ruling was over. I have to think if that had been known at the time the whole thing would have been handled differently. But it wasn't so the world has to move on.

I think they have to move it at this point, or have a promise that he won't attend. If he's absent maybe some of the issue goes away. It's a shame It's an absolutely beautiful course in a beautiful setting. It would have been fun to watch the best play there. It was fun to watch the ladies play there a few years back.

I hesitate to post anything to this forum, but below is from a NY Times newletter that I thought was good - sorry their isn't a link How to manage your virus risk The most effective public health messages don’t merely tell people what not to do. They also tell people what they can do with only a small amount of risk. This sometimes feels counterintuitive, because it gives people permission to take some risks, rather than urging maximum safety all the time. In the long run, though, a more realistic approach is actually the safer one, many experts say. Human beings are social creatures. Most aren’t going to sit inside their houses for months on end. And pretending otherwise tends to backfire. It leads people to ignore public health advice and take needlessly big risks. “We need different, more nuanced, and more practical messaging about coronavirus safety,” Sarit Golub, a psychology professor at Hunter College, has written. (Federal officials took a step in this direction this week by shortening the recommended quarantine period after virus exposure.) Today, I want to give you a three-step guide to risk minimization. It’s based on a Times survey of 700 epidemiologists as well as my conversations with experts and colleagues, like Donald G. McNeil Jr. 1. There is one behavior you should try to eliminate, without exception: Spending time in a confined space (outside your household) where anyone is unmasked. Don’t eat indoors at a restaurant or friend’s house. Don’t have close, unmasked conversations anywhere, even outdoors. If you must fly, try to not to eat or drink on the plane. If you’re going to work, don’t have lunch in the same room as colleagues. Group lunches have led to outbreaks at hospitals and elsewhere. 2. This next set of behaviors is best to minimize if you can’t avoid it: Spending extended time in indoor spaces, even with universal masking. Masks aren’t perfect. If you can work out at home rather than at a gym — or do your job or attend religious services remotely — you’re reducing your risk. 3. Now the better news: Several activities are less risky than some people fear. You don’t need to wear a mask when you go for a walk or a jog. Donald, who’s famously careful, bikes without a mask. “I consider keeping six feet distant outdoors more important than wearing a mask,” he told me. “If I had a birthday candle in my hand and you’re too far away to blow it out, I can’t inhale whatever you exhale.” You can also feel OK about doing many errands. About 90 percent of the epidemiologists in our survey have recently visited a grocery store, a pharmacy or another store. Just wear a mask, stay distant from others and wash your hands afterward.

To the contrary, on several of my "wheels come off" rounds this year I haven't lost a single ball. Penalty strokes yes, but lost balls no. When I'm that off I'm typically not hitting the ball bad enough to lose one. But I tend to agree with your post match approach - there's typically 5 strokes (if not more) that were unusually over the top bad and atypical, especially around the greens. And if you adjust for those the round wouldn't have been a disaster.

I've played about 80 rounds this year and have played to a 5 or lower almost all year. I've had four rounds where the wheels have come totally off - think 90 range. The commonalities are: 1) usually an unfamiliar course 2) extremely windy days 3) short game collapse - usually even when my swing is off my short game is solid enough to keep things from getting out of hand. One interesting thing is this: I've always been a more consistent golfer than most. My index has improved 1-2 shots the last two years, but as my index has improved I feel like my consistency has gotten worse. I managed an 85 at Old Waverly in a tournament round. It was my first time playing the course. I shot 40 on the front and but lost several strokes on the back from not knowing the course, so it really wasn't that bad. The next day had one of the meltdown days at Old Mossy - 90 - even after three birdies.