Vespidae

Golf commentary is dead. CBS ... you may as well listen to paint dry.

I feel your pain. Johnny Miller said the range is not the best indicator of your game. All lies are flat and that’s seldom the case on course. His advice was to play more and keep notes. Or, find a place on the range to duplicate various lies.

Get fitted. I did and we went through every club in the bag. My fitter said the distance and trajectory were good all the way down to the 5i, but the longer irons only marginally better and might be useful in only a few circumstances. His opinion was that I wasn’t getting enough clubhead speed and that I should switch to a hybrid for those clubs. My instructor made the same comment and suggested I change shafts as well.

Ben Hogan told John Schlee to play a round of golf taking two shots from every lie. Play the worst one for your next shot and again, take two shots and play the worst one. He said if you can do that and break par, you’re ready.

The a-ha moment for me was when I realized there is no a-ha moment. It’s about setting goals, measuring performance, practice, feedback, and instruction. I wish I had started this way 30 years ago ...

I thought it would be fun to compare and contrast instructors I’ve had over the years .... a number is my rating on a scale of 1-10. Gary (1). Tour pro. Terrible instructor but lots of charisma. Best part was all the LPGA players who visited for tuneups. Always nice scenery on the range. Will (6). Master PGA Professional. Played the Tour early in his career. $500 for 5 lessons, finishes with a playing round. Good guy, would recommend. David (3). Golf Digest Best in state. PGA Instructor. Tons of awards. $125/half hour. Video analysis (one of the first). Has so many students it’s all about hours. His range is in terrible shape and his reply is, “The parking lot is full isn’t it?” Financially very successful, but little else. Barry (4). 3 Day Golf School. Fun! Fixed some flaws, but nothing sustainable. Jan (4) LPGA Instructor. Big into fitness and kinetics. Average. Derek. Former Jimmy Ballard instructor. Had four keys to the swing and could RIP it. No system for playing just “Here’s my take on the swing”. Stan (9). Former D1 player, retired Tour player. Started with assessing goals, looked at my equipment, swing, etc and provided video feedback. Taught the basics of the swing, putting and short game. Included input on course management and mental approach to the game. Current instructor. Jeff (7). Local college coach with a national reputation. Extremely knowledgeable but provides band-aid instruction. No systematic approach to improvement. My game has become very consistent because I’ve got an instructor whose philosophy I buy into and we’re working a plan. Many of the others were Bandaid instructors. I would recommend anyone taking lessons to think long term and first, learn how to select an instructor and then, find one you want to work with. My two cents.

My course is billed as a Ross course. He did the greens, but did not do any of the routing. The greens are long since gone. It’s a nice old style course, but Ross? No.

Exactly. I’m sure he had assistants. Bob Cupp did a lot of Jack Nicklaus’ work.

I’m willing to bet Ross never saw half of the courses he is credited with designing. My favorite Ross course is Holston Hills in Knoxville. Too poor to change anything, it is arguably the most accurate Ross course in the South. The Knoxville Open will be played there next year. Two other country clubs bill themselves as Ross, but the greens have been totally replaced. It’s a shame as the Ross version was strategically a lot more interesting.

Yes. I’m happy. I have a plan, have a coach who supports that plan, and use LSW to support it with a practice plan with what I think is effective for me. Cheers.

Fair enough. I don’t play long irons anymore. I don’t play anything less than a 5 iron because I can’t generate enough clubhead speed. I use hybrids instead. I don’t ignore drivers! I hit more driver than any other club. I worked my way into it as my consistency improved. That’s the message ... build a game based on solid mechanics.

Yes, I do. I'm fairly well off. I've taken lessons from a PGA Tour Player, a PGA Master Professional, a PGA pro, a club pro, the number one golf school in the country, a teaching pro, a Tour coach, a Top 50 Instructor, a Best in State instructor, and finally my current guru. I ditched them all because I wanted to understand how to swing the club, properly. So I found an instructor whose philosophy I agree with and said, "I will only use you as my instructor. No one else." My current instructor is great. He played the Tour and is retired from competition. He asked me my goals and looked at my swing. His assessment was "your scores are ok but ... you'll never be any good because you just don't have a swing that repeats. And to create a swing that repeats, you have to ditch that shit you're doing now." So I did. The goal was to a) make solid contact, b) be able to compress the ball, and c) repeat some predictable shot path. So I hit thousands of SW shots. Still do. Just to find the face of the club at impact. I've worked on rebuilding my swing over the last 2 years and am playing the best, most consistent golf of my life. I reworked the practice plan I use and it's now built on LSW principles. Combined with working on swing mechanics, I have a solid improvement plan. And I'm playing the best I've ever played. I won my flight in the club championship and can still fly a drive 260 yards. (I'm 60 years old.) My point is ... which no one apparently agrees with ... is mechanics matter. I used a SW to build a fundamentally repeatable swing based on solid impact. Because the swing doesn't change that much until you get to the woods. Regardless, this is the approach my instructor designed for me. And it is working. For me. Long story short, I'm very happy with the progress I've made because I have one instructor working with me on one swing philosophy and I have a practice plan (65/25/10) that supports what we are doing. It is working for me now .. which honestly, is all I care about. If it helps the original poster, great! If not, I'm going to stay on track with my plan and hopefully, by year end, I'll be single digits.

I think you’re right. It won’t be taken. Do I agree with the basic philosophy of developing a good long game? Yes! I just think you start with a good foundation and stretch it out. That is what worked for me and I’m happy for you if you found another way that worked for you. People learn in different ways. You can agree or disagree. I can only say it worked for me.

Thank you. Again, I can only reiterate what has worked for me.

Would you say your misses are "acceptable"? If you are shooting 71, you probably hit the ball more or less "consistently" even if you don't feel you did your best. After reading LSW, I deliberately hit long clubs. Still do ... it's most of my practice. But I didn't START OUT hitting long clubs. That's the point I'm making.

Exactly. A response to that post was ... “A golfer who struggles to break 90 isn't going to have a club they can consistently hit 160 and keep out of trouble. They likely struggle with solid contact and at times are prone to thin, fat, or topped shots.” My point is why don’t you have a club you can consistently hit? It’s because you can’t make solid contact, compressing the ball and flying the correct distance, direction and trajectory. So work on that before you try to master all 14 clubs. We don’t agree. No problem. Do I support 65/25/10 practice? Yes. Do I allocate time to various shots as outlined in LSW? Yes. Did I start there? No. I used 5, 7, 9 irons until I could hit 60% of my targets before adding woods. That’s me. Others do it differently and that’s fine.

To shoot the lowest score, you should learn how to hit a driver. On that I agree.

More forgiving? I don’t know one instructor who starts beginners with the driver. Maybe there is, but it’s not my experience. They usually start with a lofted club.

You can play bogey golf with a 7 iron and a putter. If you can’t hit the easier, lofted clubs ... why would a student practice the harder clubs? Get the mechanics right. That’s the point of deliberate practice. There are a number of paths to the top of the mountain.

The important thing is to work on the Full Swing. I chose to do it by working mechanics and compression by using a sand wedge. While ai doubt you will be successful by starting with a driver, it’s up to you to figure it out. If you are in Sweden, the Swedish Golf Federation has published some excellent manuals. Jimmy Ballard consulted with them and you can see a lot of his theories in Swedish golfers.

I don’t. If you can’t properly strike, compress and fly a sand wedge, what’s hitting a driver going to do for you? If you are off on face angle, you are in the woods. A lot. I began my 65/25/10 journey using a sand wedge almost exclusively with the sole intent to swing the club correctly, make solid contact, and finish with good balance. Today, I hit all my clubs on a schedule and yes ... I hit a driver the most, but I didn’t start there. It’s not practice, practice, practice. It’s intelligent practice. Right now, I’m focused on shot shape, not length. I keep detailed records on every round and that in turn, drives what I practice. My practice plan is MWF, full swing and TThSa short game+putting. 50 balls with the full swing and 40 ea on putting and short game equals 65/25/10. The most significant change for me was going from 3 basic short game shots to 12 as I’m trying to improve my scrambling. Get a spreadsheet out and decide how many a week you can practice and then allocate it out. I’ve learned a lot just doing that and when I compare to my actual playing stats ... it’s very illuminating.

To answer, question, I would say yes. Like you, I am an amateur who wants to get better. After reading LSW and all the pages in this thread ... I completely overhauled my practice plan and redid it using 65/25/10 principles. My handicap has dropped 8 strokes and I have a very detailed plan for each practice. I don’t see any value hitting the driver right now. Develop the right swing mechanics with the higher lofted clubs and as those straighten out, you can add length. I struggled with the driver and decided hitting from the fairway was better than OB. The good news is that you are still working on the full swing and that’s what matters. Again, 65/25/10 has transformed how I think and plan for the game. I highly recommend it.

Correct. I was pretty good with the chip and run but I'm reconsidering. My course has three tier greens and you must, must, must get to the correct tier or you will have a very difficult putt. So ... I made a list of 12 shots that I can play from 30 yards and in depending on the lie and the pin location. Here's how I dug my hole. I spent Sunday calculating my carry to run distances for all my chips. After I was done, I researched it and compared it to typical charts and as I did, one of the articles mentioned that with the slopes on today's greens, that "chip and run" is not a shot that is used much anymore. Instead, most players use a single club (52 or 56) for all the shots around the green and vary the trajectory and the swing length to flop the distance. This was an "a-ha!" moment for me as I remember a tour player on Mark Immelman's podcast who said the same thing ... and that got me thinking. So here is what I practice ... < 10 yards: Chip Putt (a la Paul Runyan) 10 - 20 yards: Basic pitch, trap pitch, trail edge pitch (all the same shot, only thing that changes is the trajectory), downhill version/uphill version, flop shot (as in over a bunker) 20 - 40 yards: 1/2 wedge (sw) from fairway, and from rough 40 - 60 yards: 3/4 wedge (SW) 40 - 100 yards: low spinner Short sand (less than 30 feet), long sand Does this make sense? Or am I overdoing it? I feel like if I'm inside 30, I can score. In 25 rounds this year, my putting average is <2 from nGIR so I feel like even if I miss the green, I can still score and my confidence has soared as a result. I welcome thoughts.

I'm curious about how the short game should be practiced. I've read where the old school chip is largely not used anymore ... is that correct? If so, is there any reason I should practice the chip and run vs a controlled pitch?I

I was practicing at the range one day and watched as the local teaching pro grabbed a bucket of balls and walked down the side of the range to a spot on the right near the practice putting green. He proceeded to hit a bucket from various lies ... uphill, downhill, sidehill ... all to various greens. I decided to do the same ... and at least get experience hitting those shots and not just have perfect lies on the range all the time. It really forces you to think about the club face and where is the ball going to go ...