Dewdman42

lately I have grooved in a simple rule for stuff under 20 feet, which happens to be approximately 1" of takeaway for every foot of travel I want to roll the ball (including 2 feet past the hole and mentally adjusting for slope). This is based on a consistent tempo that I use. I worked this out using a wellputt matt, which was very helpful in this regard. I got very good at rolling the ball to a stop 18 inches past the virtual hole on that matt, from any distance on the matt (13 feet long) and then it turns out to work very well up to maybe 20 feet. That being said, due to the fact that greens are not perfectly flat or with the perfectly same stimp, it also comes down to some feel, so I use that guide above to get in the ballpark and then still allow myself some feel around that. Over 20 feet doesn't work out that way, and starts to be a lot more about the tempo and feel to hit the ball the right distance, I still feel I get better distance control by looking at the hole when I stroke those putts, but I often mishit the ball that way too...so I would prefer to work out a better way of handling my 20-50 footers.

This is an area I am still working on. For me I have become deadly accurate distance wise by looking at the hole while I stroke the actual putt. Nearly any distance I am scary accurate with distance this way without even thinking about any calibrations or calculations or systemic ways to determine the backswing along with a hyper consistent non accelerated pendulum swing, etc i just eye the hole, swing the putter while still looking at it and my lizard brain does the rest, and I’m pretty sure it works better when I actually am accelerating the putter through impact this way because my lizard brain is doing constant refining of the swing speed on a nanosecond level, all by feel. however i also miss the line often this way, I mis hit off the center of the putter face, sometimes hit thin or fat, etc. so…. Doesn’t always work out. For this reason I am trying to do my practice swings thet way and then the actual swing while looking down but I lose my lizard brain when I do that and completely miss the distance. I have to actually be looking at the hole when i putt to get this kind of lizard brain feel, with the stated problems sometimes present, not always. Not to mention everyone thinks I’m weird and also people tend to move around a lot when standing by the pin, thinking I am stilL practicing or something and it becomes a distraction problem. i wish I could find a way to use this lizard brain feel while looking at the ball to putt I have tried to visualize it but in my mind all visualizations become zoomed in closer the minute I look down. Meanwhile when I look down I can get the line right but totally miss the distance, particularly anything longer then about 20 feet. By now i have a feel and perhaps some loose system for making 5, 7, 10, 12, 15 and even 20 footers while looking down. Longer then that I find backswing calculations to be impossible to get right compared to my lizard brain feel while looking at the hole. From really far away I find it more helpful to get the distance right even if it ends up 5 feet off line, so thet is what I do, I would love to find a better way to get those lag distances as scarily accurate as my lizard brain can do, but while looking down at the ball for the stroke in order to get the line and strike right. it also makes me wonder frankly about all the good advice to have a perfect pendulum swing without acceleration, and perfect strike and angle of attack, etc which basically means you start to lose feel and it’s all about precise calibration for the day and precise backswing, etc. human brain. Well that may be the best compromise due to the need to look down at the ball, I don’t know, but this disparity between putting by lizard brain feel or human brain logic has haunted me for years

if you buy or build a house on a golf course, where golf balls will be flying around, its your responsibility to cover damage, just the same as if you buy or build a house in a hurricane or flood zone. Get insurance or factor it into the cost of ownership. It should not be the responsibility of the golfer period. we are talking about houses built on a golf course, not a golf course built on a suburban city block. Golf is a game where golf balls are known to fly around and in some locations it will be quite common for balls to fly into certain locations... why is there a house even remotely close to that? It's your responsibility. I know some owners may be frustrated about this, but they are the one that chose to put their house in a. place where golf balls are likely to fly. I will never check on a house if I see my ball go there and even if I heard a big bang or shattering glass, I would go my merry way without a single concern about it. Fortunately that hasn't happened yet (that i know of). It's not my problem that you put your house there. Get insurance or set a budget for it, or move somewhere else. This is a a golf course.

Now that OOB golf is basically going away, which online scoring and stats sites do you like the best, preferably free ones. Including iphone data entry. What i loved about oob golf was that as I was playing a round it would kind of predict on the iphone how my score was going to end up, as I played. I doubt anything else does that now, but anyway I need to find a new solution for entering scores and basic stats into iphone and tracking it over time on the computer in some way. Seems like there are a lot of alternatives right now, its a bit overwhelming to consider them all...just wondering if anyone else has already done that and reached any conclusions.

I just go the 712's. Absolutely LOVE them.

ban it. Golf clubs are designed to be held in the hands and swung. The problem isn't the length, its the act of using the body to anchor it. That goes against the spirit of golfing, which is taking a stick and swinging it in your hands. What if someone came up with some new fangled kind of iron which could somehow be connected to your body in a way to eliminate casting? Would we tolerate that? I don't think so, not in a million years. Being a good golfer is a huge part about mastering control over your hands. If someone is able to bypass this issue by anchoring the club or some such thing, then they are essentially kind of cheating the spirit of the game. Anyone using a belly putter knows they are doing it because they thought they could solve some problem in their putting by using this gimmick. It never should have been tolerated to begin with. ban it, keep everyone on the same playing field.

oobgolf's iphone app is very well designed. You can configure which stats you want to track to keep the entry screen compact and un cluttered. If you make par, you just tap the score button to accept par, or hit +/- for bogie or birdie, etc. Takes one or two taps to enter the score basically. All of the stats have sensible GUI controls to make them very fast to enter. It takes only a few taps to enter all my stats that I am tracking, while walking/riding to the next hole. I track also Playable drive, fairway it(left, right, hit miss), putts, 1st putt distance, approach(left, right, long, short, hit miss), chips, up/down (yes,no), sand saves (yes, no). Some of those I don't have to enter every hole. The hole thing takes anywhere from 5-10 taps to enter. From that, They generate a lot of interesting stats such as GIR, etc... I used to use GolfShots, but ever since I got a laser I've given up on GPS, it takes too long. One very interesting feature of the iphone app is that as you play the round, it puts a "projected score" at the top, based on how you're playing so far. Then you can go to their website and see all kinds of cool graphs and charts for different stats over time.

I just tried this app for 15 sessions or so and settled into a Phdcp that is floating up and down between 2.5 to 3.5. I consider that pretty good, especially compared to the pros. Ha my scores don't reflect that, so I know I need to work on other aspects more, such as green reading, lining up and distance control. I think this is a very valuable training device if used the right way. I do not think its good to groove in your putt strokes with this device attached, due to the weight. You should do much much more practice with it detached. But when you are ready to break down your swing and get into the nitty gritty of what you're doing with your stroke and what that results are, its extremely valuable to have it attached. I was starting to get pretty good at feeling what I did before looking at the display. But most importantly, I could do a putt that was outside my desired parameters, get the feedback that it was off, then think about what aspect of my stance or swing I needed to focus on in order to correct it, then take another swing and see/feel the result. This is extremely invaluable, AS LONG AS, you know the fundamentals and biomechanics that are related to putting so that you can take the results and make proper changes. Once you have worked on that for a while, then go out without the device and try to groove it in for a while without the device, but your awareness of the biomechanics and the results of those biomechanics will increase a lot by working with this device. TEMPO I don't even have to think about tempo, mine is very consistent 1.8-1.9. Consistency is all that matters here. IMPACT ANGLE - my goal, 0 - 1.0 degree range. I could get a feel for what it means to close my putter face down to zero, or actually for me I found around 1.0 degree impact angle to be what I could do most consistently. But I could also tell that when I was lazy about certain things it was very easy to see higher numbers of impact angle. If I wasn't using this device I don't think I would have even realized. But having this device on got me to become much more in tune with what it "feels" like to hit the putter square or closer to square under 1 degree. After a while I could tell without looking at the display when I over did it and went closed negative impact angle or when I was lazy and hit it open. I guess for me about 1 out of 10 shots I tend to have an overly open face, maybe 1 out of 50 go overly closed. But I can feel it now. SWING PATH - my goal - around 4.0 - 5.0 degrees (considered slight arc) The swing path is harder to feel what I did, but the device measurements told me. But I could usually correct the next swing and I was getting better and better and consistently getting in that 4-5 degree range of swing path. I became more aware of what I needed to adjust to impact this parameter. Not as much feel as the impact angle, but somewhat there too. BIOMECHANICS One important aspect to using this device is to never ever under any circumstances try to manipulate the putter with your hands to adjust the results. You have to think about proper putting mechanics and how those things effect things. This isn't always obvious. I discovered a few things while using this device and I believe my awareness of putting mechanics has gone up. If something is wrong, then try to figure out what aspect of proper putting you're missing. Fix that thing and try again, see the result. For me, my follow through is sometimes jammed up. We talk about making a triangle with our shoulders and arms. I have a tendency sometimes to maintain that triangle for the backswing and then on the actual stroke the shoulder line blocks. This causes me to hit too high on the ball for one thing, but I also found this had a dramatic impact on not closing the putter fact at impact. If I make sure to follow through with my right shoulder, the face hits square and my strike more pure. The device shows the open face results, then I think to myself, did I block the shoulder again? Next stroke I correct that and wala, straight putt. Swing path has a lot to do with stance and everyone has their own way they like to do it, there is no right or wrong. But using the device helped me to figure out that I am most comfortable with the stance and swing of a 4-5 degree slight arc swing. Once I realized that once and for all I could really think about where my eyes need to be over the ball to make that happen, which part of the putter grip to use, how far away to stand from the ball, etc. It gave me data points to stop second guessing myself. I know now I'm a 4-5 slight arc back swinger, so accept that and setup for that. Very useful device. I really think it can increase awareness. But yes, its important to detach it after a period of nuts and bolts practice, then go out and groove the swing with this heightened awareness.

I love my Scotty Cameron Fastback. Best putter I've ever owned without question. I always try out different putters when I go to golf shops, and I just keep coming back to the SC's, especially the fastback. It has just the right amount of weight and has a comfortable swing , its very nice to look down at with just enough straight lines and curved lines to help me line up right. Worth every penny. I've spent far more on drivers over the years then putters, but putting is 50% of the game.

+1 oobgolf.com

So is it fair to say that most modern day "blades" are in fact muscle backs, due to the beefing up that manufacturers have made to them in terms of trying to put just a bit more weight under the ball without carving out a cavity?

and what is the purpose to begin with?

ahhh. So a muscleback is a cavity back + the muscle at the sweet spot?

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't a larger offset also change the trajectory? It seems to me that with less offset, in order to close the face square, while keeping the hands ahead, the club will be de-lofted more then it would be with offset. I am thinking with offset the hands don't have to be as far ahead, and thus the club is not de-lofted as much, something like that. Just thinking out loud here.

Sorry I'm still not getting it. A blade is pretty much flat on back right? A cavity back moves the mass away from the sweet spot. I thought I read that a muscle back actually puts MORE mass behind the sweet spot then a pure blade. WHY?

That article discusses blades vs cavity backs, but I could not find anything which explains the purpose of "muscle backs".

I don't accept the premise that feel is only about sound. I can DEFINITELY feel something really nice in my hands when I hit mizunos compared to other irons, off the shelf with no fancy shafts. Does the sound contribute, absolutely but its not only the sound. The vibration characteristics of the club are what influence the sound and undeniably would effect feel in your hand as well. An awful lot of people have attested for years that forged feel better then cast, there is no point in debating how or why they feel better, but countless people seem to feel they do. I suspect that the Miuras feel awesome to Danattherock because he never hit forged irons before. Some of the arrogant comments from some of the folks on this thread are astounding. Suggesting that high handicappers should find a new hobby is utter arrogance. I'm dissapointed to see that kind of suggestion here. Golf is for anyone and everyone that enjoys to wack the ball around the course, including ultra high handicappers. And ultra high handicappers can use any clubs they bloody well please for any reason they prefer.

Another question, from a results perspective, what is the difference between a blade and muscle back? Obviously the cavity back widens the sweet spot. What does adding the mass behind the sweet spot do, compared to a simple blade? Also, can someone describe to me what is the iron offset exactly and how does that effect performance. thanks

That is great advice. After reading these threads, I am more convinced then ever that I need to demo a lot of irons, on more than one occasion, before I leap to any decisions, and I need to give more time to try the player's irons. I plan on getting custom shafts regardless of which ones I get. I have a Pro I work with on a regular basis who has state of the art measuring equipment to help me figure out which shafts to go with, but he maintains an opinion that it almost doesn't matter what iron heads I get, whatever I want and feels good. He puts a lot more emphasis on the shafts and grips. He is of the opinion that iron clubheads really haven't changed that much in quite a long time, but shaft technology has. In any case, The shaft fitting process will definitely be part of it...but before I embark on that I need to kind of choose the iron heads I want to play with. Until now I've been thinking I need something like GI, and some people seem to say get the most forgiving you can. But after reading these threads, I think I need to try them all. My golf experience is more like Danattherock 's, I can have streaks of absolute brilliance where everyone around me thinks I'm a single digit golfer. Then things fall apart, mostly mentally, or I get some bad shots off the tee or some ego-crushing short game stuff around the green which brings me back to planet earth. But my iron play is generally pretty good and my swing is starting to become quite in line with what the pro is wanting to get out of me, though the consistency is not there yet, but sometimes i'm in the zone and doing it all right: Tin Man....Great thread on OOBgolf, thanks for sharing that. That makes me even more convinced that I should be open minded about all types of irons. Some particularly interesting comments in there that caught my attention. One was the idea that a mishit with a GI or SGI might put you off on the side somewhere, while a mishit with a blade would be so short that you pretty much get a do over. Either way, you're adding a stroke. A lot of people seem to feel that blades give them more accuracy when they hit it pure, in other words, their good swings produce better shots then they get from the GI irons. On the other hand the bad shots are worse with the blades. But bad shots with GI's are still bad too, maybe not as bad, but still bad. Its possibly fair to say the GI irons don't save a stroke in many cases with the bad swings, but simply perhaps save the ego a bit since the ball seems to fly further and appear to some that at least the guy can hit the ball. But the question I have is, if they aren't saving strokes, then is a GI really improving the game? On the other hand, well struck shots with the players irons are said by some to produce more consistent accurate shots...so potential for hitting near the hole and getting a few more birdies, if you're like me, able to do a few of those from time to time. I want to do them more often. I definitely saw a lot more people on that thread endorsing the idea that their game improved when they went back to their old blades instead of the new fangled game improvement irons they tried for a long time. Only a few endorsed the idea of GI irons for actual game improvement. I think its clear that I need to remain open minded about trying all sorts of irons. I haven't ever even tried a blade even once in the past 10 years. At demo days I also go straight to the cavity backs. But its clear to me that I need to consider trying some players irons, yet remain open minded about GI's too. Another factor is that for the long irons I use rescues. and I have a set of Vokey wedges up through PW. So we're really talking about only 9-5 here. For sure the 9 and 8 I should be able to handle just about any kind of blade I think, maybe the 7 too. The 6 and 5 are open for debate.

I agree with the other poster, handicap is not neccessarily (thought it might be), a good indicator of ball striking capability. Most people that watch me swing my irons think my hcp is way lower then it actually is. The reason is because my short game needs a lot of work. Also my consistency is not there, mostly due to mental issues under pressure, but this mostly shows up in my short game and sometimes off the tee. Maybe that is all justification for sticking with GI irons or maybe I need to make the leap to something on the easier end of player's irons because its time. I'm thinking along the lines of the MP-53 which is a forged cavity back and considered a players iron. When I get the SGI irons, I don't like the feel of them at all. Probably I will have some bad days and blame it all on the player's iron, but I have the bad days with my RAC's just the same, they aren't exactly saving me from my bad days. There have been some great comments on this thread, thanks everyone for your feedback. It seems like this issue is really filled with passionate opinions and its just going to come down to me trying out a bunch of irons and taking a chance perhaps on a players iron that is on the forgiving end of the spectrum.

probably not. Now what is it?

BugDude, thanks a lot for your thoughtful response. I think its safe to say that blades are out of the question at this stage, but I could see getting an older set of used ones for practicing at the range. I have been thinking about that as well. I understand the concept behind "cavity backs". What is a muscle back?

After quite a few years with my Taylor Made RAC HT's, I'm finally ready for some new irons, mainly because I want better shafts. Trying to decide whether I should get so called "Players's" irons or not. I have found that when I try some of them out, they can feel great, but I'm not sure whether or not I will be killing myself on a bad day wishing I have some kind of moderate game improvement iron. I know for sure I don't want or need extreme game improvement irons. My hc is around 15, particularly iron play (around the green is my weakness at the moment). I have spent the past few years heavily focused on trying to improve my swing, many lessons, many trips to the range. And my swing has indeed improved a lot. I'm not sure that penalizing my mis hits with harshness to my hands is going to make any difference to my improvement. I'm already obsessed with practice and improvement. Most of the time I am also not really trying to "shape" my shots, though occasionally I do attempt a draw or cut shot, most often not very successfully. Is that because my RAC's just don't respond well to that? I also rarely get the ball to roll backwards on the green. Is that where the players irons would reward me with good hits? Are player's irons more likely to have consistent distance (assuming pure shots)? I'm thinking of the Titleist AP1 or AP2, and also considering some kind of Mizuno or perhaps Taylor mades, but I don't like the Taylormade Burner frankenstein, too non-standard for my blood. I want to get straight up irons with no special secret tricks....and particularly I don't want something designed to send the ball higher then normal or further than normal. But perhaps a bit more forgiving on mishits then the full on blade. I will be customizing the shafts in any case. I would appreciate any feedback about player's irons versus GI irons, and perhaps some suggestions about specific models which are somewhat forgiving but still able to work the ball a bit.

This is basically where I am too. Recent series of lessons got me swinging inside-out quite well with good hip turn to start. Trying to keep hands cocked as long as possible. However due to many old habits, the way I swing through the ball is with the side of my left hand facing the target. Hands are ahead of the ball. There is lag. Inside-out swing, but push or push-slice. Instructor says I need to release. After reading this entire thread I still agree with my instructor, but I can also see how many people can over-do this or get obsessed over the release without first developing the other components of my swing first. My instructor was very strict about saying, don't worry about the push-slice for now, keep grooving in the hip turn and lag. Release is last thing. After much video analysis, he likes my swing, but the release is the final component I'm still missing. It doesn't just happen automatically for me. Too many bad habits from old days. In the past when I swung outside-in, I probably learned to manipulate things with my hands and arms to prevent the clubface from releasing, in order to avoid pull-hooks. Now that I'm swinging inside-out, whatever I have been doing with my hands is still stuck in there. My anti-release. There is a time and place to focus on release and work on it, and I'm here to tell you that I am one of those people that does need to work on it. I hear you that most people are slicing due to outside-in swing. But some are not. Some are doing what I am doing. So that all being said, what can be done to help me develop a better action (or lack of action?) in my wrists? I have no problem with the word "release". It means to release the wrists. Not twist them. But I have tried this every which way I can think of, and unless I start to turn the wrists SLIGHTLY right before impact, the club is not square to the path I want the ball to start flying. What I think is that when I do my backswing, I notice my forearms do naturally roll over as the arms go to the back. The wrists cock straight up, but the forearms turn back. And during a slo downswing motion, the forearms roll the other way naturally as the arms come down through. However, my tendency when I lag and all that is to not roll the forearms or whatever all the time, such that the club does not return to square. It ends up with hands ahead of the ball, lag and all, but the back of my left hand is not facing the target, its facing the direction my ball is probably sailing.