BC-to-MI

Hoping to do a driver fit this summer as a birthday gift to myself. I'm really keen on the Titleist TSi series and Cobra seems to be keeping up with the big boys at a bit of a discount, but I'll ultimately just go with whatever performs best.

In general, I would rather just ride in the cart, especially because I am unfortunately terrible at finding golf balls even when I watch them the whole way. That said, I have a buddy who loves parking 50 feet away from the ball and is real bad about playing quickly, so if I am playing with him, I will always try and drive.

Pretty much any driver made right now is going to be really good. The best thing you could do is go get fit, but if you don't want to or can't do that, I would at least go and try hitting them all on your own and seeing if any stand out above the rest.

My buddy and I had a few things in league last year, but we generally didn't make much of a fuss about it if it didn't impact the outcome of our matches because it was the lowest flight at our club and most people in that flight are there to drink beer and have fun. I caught one group fluffing their lies in the rough a couple of times, but the two guys are everyone's favorite at the club so it wasn't worth bringing it up. They also were quite high handicaps (and definitely vanity caps even at that) so it didn't make any kind of difference. Another guy hit his tee shot right near some white stakes in a group of bushes but found it "literally right on the line." He then duffed his second shot and punched out his third. After he came out of the bushes, he laughed and said "wow, my second shot went backward," which would seem to mean it must have been OB. But, my partner and I were on the other side of the hole, so we didn't have any view of the ball to call him on it. We also played with a guy who only had a few rounds of golf played at the time. He started giving himself free drops when he couldn't find his ball and raking putts he felt were gimmes before we said anything. We tried to find the balance of kindly teaching him the rules while also ensuring he knew that we were applying the penalty strokes because they were affecting the outcome of holes (over 9 holes, he was getting 13 strokes against me, so every extra shot really mattered). This one was definitely awkward because he was getting upset as it appears his friends never make him play by the rules. Not so much blatant cheating as unknowingly not following the rules.

I would say yardage, for the most part. If it is a course we haven't played before, our group generally lands in the 6500-6800 range. Conditions can also play a factor. We have played in some nasty wind on some course that are on the water that definitely would have changed our tee selection in hindsight.

Well, probably should have just ended the other day. This is one of the "best" shots I had during the whole session. Anyway, onto the winter.

So, essentially, you are saying that when we decide to "take the break out of it," we are subsequently deciding to take the margin for error out of it, as well. Interesting, especially since one might think at first glance that taking the break out results in needing to be less precise because there is less of one major variable (break), but in reality you need to be more precise because you have made the capture size of the hole smaller. This example is on a 5-foot (or relatively short) putt. Does the thinking change as you get further away from the hole and the focus, at least for higher handicaps, might be less about making the putt and more about getting into a position to make the second putt? Or is the idea relevant across almost all situations?

From what I understand, your best swing coupled with the best centered strike is going to be more or less the same. There are limitations on drivers, so the absolute peak performance is only incrementally better. The big gains in technology are going to be on off-center strikes. Newer drivers are going to perform considerably better when you don't make a great swing or great contact, so your misses will be better and your standard deviations will shrink. (Granted, this video includes one driver that has been fitted and one off the shelf, but the conclusions are the same) The same guys also do tests of all the major OEM drivers vs past models and come to basically the same conclusion. This is the Ping version, but they did it for most manufacturers if you want to see more.

Tried to just focus on the club face in the takeaway today. Not sure how well it is really going. Seemed like I had more good contact than I have in recent range sessions, but my good contact wasn't as good as it normally is. Driver is a disaster. I randomly will hit a good one every 10 swings or so but can't feel anything noticeably different. The first video here is a swing that carried about 18 inches, the second one is pretty typical for me right now: high, spinny, and finishes two counties over to the right. Pending any more unusual November weather here in Michigan, this is likely the final range session of a frustrating, if not thoroughly disappointing, year. I saw my handicap jump nearly three strokes (8.9 to 11.6) and even that is held down from a lack of rounds this season (I would be a 14 if you calculated with my 8 best rounds just from this season). I never really felt like I played any good golf and I'm at the point now where I feel uncomfortable standing over the golf ball, even at the range. I definitely attribute a lot of this to a lack of reps (13 rounds on GHIN this season vs 62 last season), but it has certainly been a struggle, nonetheless. I don't really have a place to take full swings during the winter, so I'm going to need to try and find some drills specific to my needs that I can work on indoors and don't require a ton of room.

Sure, but a slow group of high handicappers playing 7,000 yards is going to be a lot worse for pace of play than the same group playing from 6,200 yards. Either way, that's not really the issue at hand. I'm talking drivers, which are almost always represented by professionals in commercials, because the original topic we were discussing was driving distance.

Agree with what everyone has said about video because this: is absolutely me. And I didn't realize this until I started filming.

Pace of play can absolutely come from playing the wrong tees. High handicaps playing from the tips, trying to hit long iron approaches into par 4s and off the tee on par 3s and spraying those around the course vs hitting wedges/short irons and having considerably more GIR or nGIR is going to slow a group down a ton, especially if they aren't the quickest anyway. The average golfer has no idea what shafts the pros are playing and definitely doesn't care about lie angles and grinds when they say they are playing the same equipment as the pros are. And if the idea that pros using the same equipment doesn't impact consumer buying habits is true, then how come every single golf equipment commercial has PGA tour players in them hitting the club?

Yeah, I think one of the things that bothers me the most is that within the complaining, so may people seem to ignore the fact that being able to drive the ball like Bryson, Rory, DJ, etc do is incredibly difficult and skillful -- otherwise, everyone would do it. Yes, the advances in driver and golf ball technology have made hitting driver much more forgiving than it used to be, so there is less risk in whaling away with driver 14 times per round, but the margin for error at 170+ mph ball speed and 300+ yards of carry is considerably smaller when you think about how far offline a similar poor swing will go relative to their slower/shorter counterparts. People seem to be upset because bombing driver seems boring, or it isn't how golf "should be played," or because this specific skill has become so valuable compared to others, but it truly is a skill and that seems to often be overlooked, especially by old, former player talking heads.

Yeah, in this scenario where there is nothing on the line besides a score, I am definitely going for it. I'd much rather miss out on my personal best by two shots because I was going for it and doubled than miss out by one shot after playing it safe. Beyond that, the chances of me getting up and down from 125 yards really aren't that great, so I may as well take on the risk to improve my chances of a par.

So, I finally got my stubborn, impatient self to work on stuff with slower swings (I know, I know). I didn't take a single full-speed swing the entire day, so if nothing else, progress there. I'm not going to lie, it is really awkward feeling for me to make swings at less than full speed. I really tried to focus on controlling the club face early as @Lord Pastrami mentioned a couple posts ago, and without thinking about it, there seemed to be some improvement on the lead leg angles that @iacas was talking about based on the face on video. I worked on some different feels, and the one below seemed to work best, which was focusing on the back of my trail hand and how it should be working in the takeaway. Still was very awkward compared to what I'm used to, but *on average* my start lines were improved. Driver was a mess. With the slower swing, I was having trouble even finding the clubface, let alone making even half decent contact. Just felt wrong the entire time.