RetiredOldMan

I usually do this one thing for every shot. When I have lined up and addressed the ball, I take a deep breath, breathe it out and then relax before I swing. I find it helps me tremendously hit a good shot. I try and do this every time. Retired Old Man

One of my "Pet Peeves" is to arrive at the course, change shoes, throw the bag on the cart, and proceed to the tee box. I am then expected to hit my first shot immediately. I will warm up with several swings so I don't try and swing my driver with a cold body. But when that happens, I may hit my 3 wood off of the box until I warm up. The first hole is critical to your whole game. Why take a double bogey, or worse, and force yourself to be in a bad position from the very first hole. With that being said, my golfing partner, can walk up and hit his tee shot with no problem. I am just not built that way. A specific routine is a necessity for me to shoot a decent score. Watch the Pro's! They go through a specific routine for each shot. If something is not right, they stop, and start their routine over. By the way, I play quickly so I am not holding others up. But I still have a routine. Retired Old Man

Last year, I broke 90 in my playing. I can now shoot to the low to mid eighties. (82 being my best) One thing that helped me a lot was to keep track of my number of Putts. I score the hole, i.e. 4/2, on my score card, for a Par 4 and 2 putts. I was amazed that when I started counting my Putts at how many 3 Putts and higher I had. I am sure this is "Old School Basics" for a lot of you but for me it was an eye opening solution to dropping 5 to 7 strokes off of my score. Another thing I did was start lining up ALL Putts. There is no excuse to miss a tap in. (I am talking about using 1 hand and just tapping it in without lining up.) I don't take a long time but I do clean and align my ball just before I Putt. My golfing partner used to keep track of his fairway shots and other statistics. Anyone else this tedious besides me. I would really like to break 80 at least just once and could use some pointers. Retired Old Man

I basically find no change in my putting. I liked the upside down cup the best to where the ball will go into the cup and stay but is easy to lift out. One course had bumpers around the flag stick. You could hit it hard and just bounce off of the bumper. I found this to be distracting. I will be glad when we go back to normal. I Like Normal. 🤪 Retired Old Man

Early last year at Fort Hays Municipal Golf Course, Hays, Kansas, I broke 100. Shot a 98. Late last year at Fort Hays Municipal Golf Course I shot a 82 and an 84 for eighteen holes. 82 on a Tuesday and an 84 on a Thursday. The specific dates escape me. Two weeks ago I had an Eagle on hole #5 at Fort Hays Municipal Golf Course, Hays, Kansas. Had a nice drive and an approach shot from 80 yards that went in. (Two witnesses) I haven't been a member of this forum very long and have just recently become active in the past few months. I got to noticing all the awards others have and decided to post some of mine. If I don't meet the Forum Rules for the posting of the awards, I will start keeping records where I can. Thank you, Terry Warner Retired Old Man

My golf partner won't even play with a golf ball that has a scruff mark on it. I am not so picky. I will play with a used ball as long as it appears to be in good condition and has a good bounce to it. I do not like colored balls. for some reason, I have a hard time seeing them and I seem to lose them frequently. The old "White" ball seems to work the best for me. Retired Old Man

No, of course not, but a good quality and well conditioned golf ball will help you play better golf. If we are going to track speed off the club face and spin revolutions, it makes sense to have a golf ball that can keep itself within the proper parameters. Retired Old Man

Colbert Hills Municipal, Manhattan, Kansas My company is treating me to a "Day of Golf" with the CEO next week at Colbert Hills in Manhattan, Kansas. I have never met the CEO and they decided to give the "Retired Old Man" a treat for working for them. Needless to say, I am ecstatic! Our Tee time is next Wednesday at 1 pm. Should be in the 80's and partly cloudy. I will let you know how it turns out. (I keep thinking of Bill Murray in Caddy Shack 😄 ) I will definitely bu some new golf balls for this event. Retired Old Man

Good one! 😄 However, this type of thinking puts me in a dilemma. I am 73 and wear a lot of T-shirts. They are nice looking T-shirts and most of them were given to me by my Grand-daughter while on foreign mission trips as a way to raise money for her trips. I always tuck them in and wear slacks or long pants as I don't care for shorts. So, I get invited to play a Men's Senior tournament and I wear my T-shirt. No one said a word or were there any replies or comments made about my dress. However, a golfing buddy of mine wore a sleeveless shirt (collared) , which had been altered around the shoulders. He was politely informed that they would prefer a collared shirt with sleeves. He took it in good spirits and played a couple of more times last year. He has yet to go back this year. (He is 77 years old and is not sloppy and plays golf in a good sportsman like attitude. ) I will make it a point to wear a collared shirt unless it is real hot and then I wear one of my nice looking T-shirts on Tuesday morning for the Seniors tournament. It is a shame that a person's dress could determine the way a person is allowed to participate in a game of golf when he is clean, courteous, and obeys the rules. I do make sure to wear a collared shirt when I play tournaments but if I play with my golfing buddies, I wear what I want to and just dress nicely, even if it is one of my T-shirts. Retired Old Man

The trouble is I like several of them (golf balls) and always think that some new super duper ball is going to magically lower my handicap. When, in reality, it is a matter of discipline (addressing the ball, lining up correctly, relaxing ) before I hit the ball and a combination of being focused with my game and still play and have fun. I long for the day (have come close but not totally) when I can play 18 holes and not have one hole that blows my game. I have accomplished the feat of playing 18 holes and not losing a ball. Anyway, thanks for your advice. I think you may have helped me a lot. Retired Old Man

I forgot to mention that recently I bought a dozen X'd-Out Titleist at Walmart for $19.99. They played fairly well but my partner gave me a bad time about the balls. ( Teasing me ) Well, we compared the balls and mine actually felt heavier and consistently fell short of his new Titleist 100% compression balls. He claimed that even though they were sold with the intention of being equal to new balls, they were not. So, I use Titleist soft with red numbers or a Callaway or some good quality ball. (Pinnacle, Noodle, Nike) A cheap ball that I really like is a Wilson-Staff. I don't know, I just seem to like them. (50% compression) My Dad, was Texas State Champion one year back in the 50's (Left Handed) and he played with a cheap Woolworth golf ball. He and Ben Hogan were golfing buddies. Also, on a side note; Do any of you "Old Timers" remember when a Titleist ball was so soft that the heavy hitters would crease the ball with an iron because they didn't catch it just right? When I was playing back in the 60's and 70's I would play with a "Solid State Golf Ball." One cold morning I was playing Patty Jewett golf course in Colorado Springs and when my partner hit the "Solid State Golf Ball" it shattered into pieces. 😄 It was so cold that we had to play with yellow golf balls and hit around the patches of snow that had not melted yet. On the 18th hole, the lake would still be frozen over and you could hit your driver, land on the ice from the frozen over lake, and if you were lucky, roll onto the green. Some of you fellow golfers may think I am "full of it", but I don't care. Everything I just wrote actually took place. Enjoy the story telling and head for the next post. (Or feel free to share your golf ball story) Retired Old Man

Until recently, I played golf balls that I found, including X-Out Balls, and some had minor cuts or scuff marks on them. I managed to drop my handicap under 20 and now find myself liking new golf balls and golf balls that are in good to excellent condition. I used to hit Callaways, soft golf balls and then bought a dozen X-Out Titleist to play in a Senior's tournament and from there moved up to a Titleist 80% compression golf ball. However, being a senior citizen, 73 years old, I actually like a Wilson/Staff 50% compression golf balls. It is very soft, comes off of the club face nice and feels comfortable when I hit it. However, with a handicap of 17.9 and trying to get it down to a 10 handicap, I find that I need to make sure that my ball is in good to excellent condition so I don't inadvertently wind up in the rough. My partner (8 handicap) says it is in the rough for a reason. Maybe a player hit it there or maybe the ball got out of round or balance and went into the rough. Either way, if you are serious about lowering your handicap and want to have a better golf score, then you need to pay attention to your golf ball. We spend hundreds of dollar, maybe even over a thousand, for a set of golf clubs, several hundred for a pair of shoes and then try and shoot excellent golf with a crappy golf ball. We never blame the ball, use old beat up balls for our water shots and then get disgusted when it goes into the lake or water hazard. Then I have friends who walk the golf course and bring me golf balls and I feel obligated to take them. But when I play on a nice, well kept, green golf course, I just cringe when I see golfers scrounge for tees and use an old golf ball from the rough they found three courses ago. I am an instrument rated private pilot. If I used old, out of date instruments, to fly in bad weather, I would very quickly get myself in a serious condition I could not recover from, and even lose my life. When I play golf, how can I justify the skimping of using cheap, free, golf balls only to wind up in the rough with a condition I cannot recover from? (I know, I know) (Just having fun). So now, I play with "Good to Excellent" golf balls. Come Hell or High Water, the 10 handicap will become a reality in 2020! Anyone else feel this way? Retired Old Man P.S.> It s cold, 38*, and rainy today. I can't get outside to the golf course. 😞

Yes, absolutely. I quit playing in 1975 because of work and raising a family. Now retired, I started playing seriously last year. (2019) My handicap was 28. (2019 when I started keeping track of it) This year my handicap is 17.9. Hoping to get it lower yet, but right now I am at a plateau where I am forced to plan my shots and always stay in the fairway. I am shooting for a 10 handicap. May not make it but then I may still get there. I find that playing daily helps a lot. (Well, duh 😄 ) Retired Old Man

Sorry to be so late in posting. 1. Morning started off cold and cloudy. 2. Wind 15 to 25 mph with gusts around 40 mph. 3. Temperature was 45* and wind chill at 38*. 4. Paid my money, ate doughnut and had a cup of coffee. Tee of was around 9:15 a.m. and we started on hole #2. 5. Had a strong wind to our back. Par 4, and my partner drives to the edge of the green. (Fairway is a dog leg to the right and my partner shoots across the trees and just to the edge of the green. He is using the white tees.) (I hit from the shorter green tees and lay up beside him. We chip on and 1 put for a birdie.) 6. That was our 1st and last good whole. 😞 7. Cold and windy and miserable until the last 4 holes of an 18 whole tournament. I did miss longest putt by 1 1/2". (18 feet) 8. We shot a 40 on the front and a 39 on the back. 9. After it was over, we loaded up the cart and left. We know we didn't win anything and couldn't sit around inside because of the virus rules. 10. We were very disappointed...........we didn't do better. 11. Would we do this again? Well,,,,,,,,,Absolutely!! 😄 12. I play this for fun and exercise and winning is fun too. It was just that yesterday wasn't our day for being on the leader board. Our next course to play next week I think is closed. So, I will just keep practicing until the week after. Surely we will warm up and have better days. Thank you for the advice and tips. Now it is "Nap Time" again. Retired Old Man

Good Morning All, I last played in a July 4th tournament in Colorado Springs, Colorado in 1970. (Maybe 1971) Well, my golfing partner signed us up for a 2 man scramble for tomorrow at Ellis Golf Club in Ellis, Kansas. ( I live about 40 minutes away from there now. ) It is a nine hole, well kept up, and fun course to play. Very forgiving if you just stay in the fairway. (Aren't they all) My partner is 61 years old with an 8 handicap and I am 73 with a 17.9 handicap. Since this is a scramble, we are hoping to do well. Will post scores and critique when I get back tomorrow. A little cool for our taste but hey, maybe the good gofers will stay home. Wish me luck please. 😄 Retired Old Man