gbogey

So curious after two months usage what do you think about it? Looks fabulous - want to make sure it's durable and functional as well.

Good article - I think the impact of point #1, awful drives, is often overlooked. Much more important to avoid par killing drives than to find the fairway at most courses. I question the range on point #4 - most amateur golfers should be focusing on 3-7 feet, not 3-10. The odds of making a 10 footer are too small but most of us can have realistic score improvements if we made more from 5-7 feet.

I'm going for it no question. One of my most memorable shots was very similar to this - was trying to break 80 at my old home course the first time - I had previously shot 80 there many, many times - and had to aim OB and curve the ball around a tree to reach the green. Also, since my old home course was heavily wooded on both sides, my punch through game rocks - just takes lots of practice.

I found your 4 + 2 explanation complicated so I can only think that trying to manage six shots is complicated. If there's really only two shots then you are going down the right path. I personally don't like the low and high trajectory explanations. I prefer to think of a "chip" is where there's more/equal roll than carry and a pitch where there's more carry than roll. Then you change loft (by club choice), ball position, or face (amount open vs. square) to adjust trajectory and amount of roll. I don't think it matters whether you are 10 yards or 50 yards up to about 60 yards for me, this pretty much stays the same.

I don't want to criticize your instructor as I'm sure he knows more about golf than I do, but that sounds crazy complicated. Especially if your profile is correct and you are a 17 handicap, I would think your priority is to eliminate mistakes that lead to DB, not get up and down close every time. I think most amateurs are good with a basic chip and a basic pitch, and then add how to make the chip low and run and how to open the club face to make the pitch a lob. I wouldn't advise more than that. As you get proficient you can add some / play around with other types of shots, but for where you seem to be stick with the basics. I've been a 5 for the last two years (haven't update my profile) and I basically only hit the two shots that Iacas mentioned with the two variations above.

At my most regular course the back tees I play are 6013 (par 70 / 68.8/114). The next tees up (Yellow) are 5472 (70 / 66.1 / 110). I play the Yellow tees occasionally to prepare for a senior event. These tees are supposed to play 3 strokes easier - I find that I average about two strokes better. Completely agree with @bkuehn1952, bogeys magnified. Also, you would think that you should be able to play three strokes better by making fewer mistakes - some of this is doable as your approaches will be closer, but you are still going to make mistakes so in the end you also need to make more birdies to pick up the full rating differential. I've finally decided the best approach is: Play par 5's aggressively as now all three are reachable in two (only own is typically reachable in two from the back tees). Any par 4 where driver now brings difficulty into play, club down off the tee. I typically now use driver 3-5 times less a round from the Yellow. Middle of the green even more than usual - avoid bogeys.

My observation / experience is that providing a golfer gives a putt careful attention, 2' is to amateurs what 3' is to pros - 99% make. At 3', the make % goes down a little so these should be putted out. Unfortunately this has applied to me as well.

Exactly. My observation from this season is that if you rush / get careless on the less than 2' putts, you will miss 1-2 per round. What shouldn't be lost on this point is that the most common way to get careless is to miss by 2' and then decide to finish but rush things because you are putting out of order. This leads you to mark from 2' much more often, which adds 15 seconds to that person's play of the hole. I mainly played with players whose handicaps ranged from 3-13, so better than average golfers. For yucks this morning I pressed start on my stopwatch: Walked 5 steps across the room Put a ball on the floor to simulate putting down my ball behind a mark Moved back a step into a squat to simulate looking at the line for a count of three Addressed the ball Quick practice stroke Simulate a putt Took a step forward to simulate picking up the ball from the hole Then stepped away 5 steps (to get out of the next player) and pressed stop. Took 29 seconds and it felt rushed. Putting out, especially in tournament type play, is slow. I don't like it when my other group "gives" putts from four feet. Still looking for an answer.

Think about it this way - if you are in a tournament and have to putt everything out, you probably have 50 putts in a foursome between 1-3 feet. If each person takes 20 seconds to look at his putt, practice stroke, putt, pick up your ball, that's 17 minutes. That doesn't include the time to mark a two footer that you would normally pick up but you're not away and you'd rather wait to putt out. May be more like 30 minutes. Putting out really slows things down.

I've played with two different golf groups this year. Group #1 is a competition group which putts everything out. No problems there, but it easily adds at least 20 minutes to a round for a foursome. Group #2 is a betting group with putts given. There's supposed to be a standard gimme, but it's subjective and some guys are very generous (and expect likewise). Personally I would prefer something in between, say 18 inches (or two feet) or less is good. The reality is if you take your time you aren't going to miss that many short ones and it's worth the 20 minutes saved IMO. But I don't make the rules for either group.

I'm usually between 74-78 at my home course, but it's a short par 70 (6013 / 68.8 / 114)

My knee issues were no where near as severe but simple leg lifts made them go away. Can do them anywhere.

I've always struggled with the concept of "potential" versus "average" performance. I've always thought the handicap should better represent "average," but I also understand that you shouldn't average every score because there are those outliers (which tend to be bad outliers more than good) that skew the average. In practicality I don't know what that implies - handicap should be 5 out of best 10, throw out the two best and 3 worst scores, 7 out of 10 - IDK. The other area where I think the current system gives one pause is using the last 20 rounds. I'm going to post something like 60 rounds this year and I'm not sure that 20 rounds really reflects how I'm playing. Certainly for the league players you mention going into prior years probably doesn't make sense. Maybe there should be a time limit as to when rounds are counted. All that said, I'm always surprised at how well the system works for regular golfers. One of my groups always plays net games and they are always competitive with everyone taking turns with good and bad days and the same people don't always win. So it works.

One of my clubs does the same thing, maintains a club only index after a first season (first season is based upon GHIN). The difference is the indexes are only used to determine flights whereas the competitions are gross within flight and overall. I think that avoids your socialism issue but IDK.

A bunker hole-out first, then a par 4 eagle that was years and years before ever having a par 5 eagle. To this date I have eight eagles (seven par 5 eagles since I moved 3 years ago, not sure what that says) and only three bunker hole-outs. The last bunker hole-out was cool though - very difficult 18th hole for a walk-off the round is over birdie - great feeling!

Having once lived near Far Hills, you'd be surprised at the number of people you meet who work for the USGA who don't play golf. Crazy to people like me! I can also tell you that IMO the museum there wasn't heavily visited. It's a great place to live but not to vacation, so they will get much more traffic and interest from visitors to Pinehurst than they did Far Hills.

I ran into a new one yesterday. Not only did this course have noodles but there was a rubber casing on the flag stick from a few inches below to a few inches above the hole. Made it very tight for the ball to go in. I hit a putt from 20 feet that hit the flag dead middle at a nice speed and the ball bounced directly backwards. The issue was this was during our tour championship. My foursome agreed that the COVID thing was what caused the putt to not go in but it wasn't clear that the rules committee would allow it to count. But in the end it counted.

In fairness most of the courses around here are still operating with reduced tee times, say 12 minute intervals when their normal is 10. That said, total rounds are way up around here. Great for pace of play I must add.

That's an interesting comment. I think of it as being grass specific - works really well on Bermuda but always struggled with it when I lived in the NE and always played bent grass. I found Sieckmann's book to be the one that helped me the most. That said, I basically practice one chip and one pitch to various distances. Nothing more complicated than that. I figure if I can come close to the right landing spot then the ball is going to be close enough unless I make a bad read. Adjusting for lies and stances comes with playing experience.

It all depends on the lie. Mediocre lie or if there's any concern that there's going to be grass between my club and the ball, I'd use my 58, square the face, and pitch to the edge of the green but erring on being long over short. My expectation is to be 10-20 feet from the hole, anything within 10 feet is going to be pretty good. If I know that I can get the club on the ball without interference, particularly if the ball is sitting up, then I'd be more aggressive. In this case I'd open the 58 and hit a lofted pitch / lob shot - I don't like the term flop, that's what pros do and it's much more aggressive and vertical than my lob. In this case, given the right lie and green speed, I have pretty good confidence of getting it to 10 feet and sometimes closer. If I come up short, I should be close enough to the green to use putter and have a routine two putt. As a warning: 1. the pros swing hard when hitting a flop - that's why the ball goes straight up and stops - I swing much slower and the ball goes lower, so it doesn't stop near as fast but I also don't have the bladed flop shot; 2. A flaw is to swing only using your arms - swing your body with the arms; 3. Practice on the range a few times before putting into play - I've practiced this a lot.

I've been in competitions that do the same. Love having a leaderboard. The physical card is available to avoid any disputes.

I agree with you but the one flaw in your logic is what's the benefit over testing the sand with your feet a few feet away versus feeling the sand when you dig in for your shot. Really no real advantage - maybe you dig in a few feet away and decide to play the shot differently, but you could just as easily dig in for your shot, decide you don't like what you feel, and then step out to restart the process (maybe with a different club). So while I think it's a rules violation, I don't see a reason to do it because you'll get the same information when you set up for your shot.

Thanks @bkuehn1952 I went 43/30 yesterday - pretty sure that's the biggest front/back differential I've had. Still haven't broken par. The back nine included 5 birdies and an eagle (and one bogey). The eagle was a pitch in from 30 yards, three of the birdies were +/- 10 feet, two were long putts of around 30 feet. The one on 18 was something to see - straight down a steep slope - my partner (scratch golfer) didn't think I could get it within five feet but it went right in. Ended up with six birdies for the round (personal best), an eagle (only my 8th), and ended the round with three straight birdies for first time ever. Funny until yesterday I really couldn't have told you my best nine hole score. I know I've gone -2 a number of times and I think I may have been -3 once, but my focus has been on trying to break par (I've shot even par twice) so I haven't been paying attention to nine hole scores. Obviously I'll remember this one.

Unfortunately I totally agree although I wish I couldn't. The problem is boom mikes - not everything is meant to be heard. There should be some private time - I blame the networks for not being on guard.

Same here - since I often walk among riders I tend to go to my push cart, put putter / clubs away, and mark my score while watching anyone else putt out. My purpose is to be ready to go once everyone is done so I don't hold anyone up by being a walker, but I agree I wonder if others find it rude.