rogerw

Definitely 3 Iron. I resolve to someday have confidence in hitting this club.

I'm sure others have also had to go through something similar to this, but I can say it feels great to be able to swing a club again after an injury. Today was the first time I tried swinging a club since Feb. of 2012 and I can't express in words how good it felt to be able to do so again. I somehow pinched a nerve in my upper back, not really sure how, and then aggravated it playing 18 holes about four days later in Feb. of 2012 during an unusually warm weekend in PA. By aggravating I mean I noticed a slight pain in my shoulder while swinging but nothing that I couldn't deal with at the time. The next day I had pain radiating down my left arm that was so servere I was concerned I had a blood clot or something similar. Went to my G.P. and he had me go to physical therapy for about two months after determining it wasn't something more. Two months of therapy reduced the pain to the point where I could function and think again, but certainly was not gone. That didn't occur for at least another two to three months afterwards. By far some of the most extreme pain I've ever experienced and to be honest I really didn't think I would be able to swing a club again. At its worst, the pain felt exactly like hitting one's funny bone on the elbow, not just a little where you feel a tingle, but where there is a lot of pain and you lose your breath. I had that feeling continually for three days. So today it was so beautiful here and I walked downstairs to the basement and saw my bag sitting there. I said to myself I need to try this again just to see if I can play, or if I'm done. So I went to the range and hit a bucket, very cautiously. I was obviously rusty and it took about 5-10 swings to begin to hit things close to normal again. Amazingly enough I didn't really have any pain and the bonus was I still hit a lot of really nice 5 yard draws, which became my normal shot shape before the injury, all the way down to my 3 iron. Don't get me wrong there were some real clunkers in there as well, but I honestly don't care at this point, I'm just happy to be able to play again. So my goal this season isn't to improve my handicap as much as it is just to be able to play golf again and enjoy my time on the course.

Good luck Ben!

Agreed, it is all perception but people want to feel like they are saving money, not being charged more for something especially when that something could be spun as a positve as in this case. Its just human nature. The initial price increase may cause some negative complaints, however that will subside pretty quickly as most folks have really short memories these days

I like the idea of #1 although the description makes it seem like a penalty to play from the tips given the provided normal round price. Instread of making the tips a penalty, it may be more easily adopted by people if the shorter tees were an incentive. Therefore #5 would be 50, #1 could be 40, with the others gradually getting closer to the 50 mark. #2 is a bit more difficult because there are many factors that could change the pace of play. The group size, a slow group ahead of you, etc. The time would have to be somewhat liberal in order to compensate for the various scenarios that can occur which are out of the individual's control.

I think you'll love the Mizuno's, I got a set of MP-58's this year and they are really sweet. I didn't get a chance to hit the 63's but I did try out the 68's and they were very cool also. All of the Mizuno's that I tried have great feel.

The 712 CB & MB both look pretty sweet, but the AP1 & AP2, not so much. The 710s are are nicer looking in the AP1 and AP2.

I'm not brand dependent, but I do have a favorite. I really like the shirts and pants/shorts that Dunning makes. They are really comfortable and also great at wicking away moisture.

I quit cold turkey during Desert Storm and haven't looked back. When you are ready to quit, you will quit, that is how I have always seen it. Those that failed aren't really ready. You have to tell yourself that no one is forcing you to light up and can you let that stupid cigarette win. That is what I used and it worked really well. It's just a case of will and when you look at it from that point, you can beat it. We all play arguably one of the most difficult games in the world. The fortitude required to do well in this sport is the same fortitude it takes to quit smoking. You can do this, you just have to tell yourself that you "know" you can.

Agreed, congrats on getting to show #3 Russell! I would be willing to bet that almost everyone in this forum has had a meltdown like Floyd did at some point but we didn't do it on tv. I can't imagine how that must have felt for him.

Anyone using macports out there? If not I definitely recommend them for folks wanting to dig into the unix side of macs. Many apps are in the ports that wouldn't normally be available to you.

This is raw squid with frozen squid stomach in the middle of it. The middle had the consistency of a snow cone.

Good decision, it probably fell out of someones bag/cart without their knowing and they are trying to figure out where they lost it. What comes around goes around, hopefully someone will be as considerate as you were if you leave a club somewhere on the course.

Congratulations!! It will be easy to know who to cheer for this year.

That's just depressing to me. It reminds me of the 50" of snow that we got last year from two storms all in one week. The drifting lowed the depth in our yard to about 36".

No hybrid here, I have 3W, 5W, 3i. I tried a couple of hybrids and I just don't like them at this point. This is all subject to change in the future however.

I looked at this from a different perspective I guess. I would have to say it will always be the one you just made

Not yet, but its getting close here. I plan on going out tomorrow, but temps expected to be mid 40's with probably light rain. Give it a month, and I think it will be unplayable here until at least late March. I've started searching for that software engineering job in the south, I'm done with this

I concur with this comment. It takes time to adjust to a new set of irons and it just isn't going to happen overnight. It took me a couple of months to adjust to my X-forged from a set of Big Bertha's, but I could never go back now that I have made the transition. On the positive side, you could probably sell them on here in a matter of days based upon the comments in this thread

Best of luck Ben!

Today it was approx. 65* when I started playing and I had all of my distance back as I remember it from a month or so ago. What was interesting is that as the day progressed, the temperatures began to drop and I would estimate it in the high 40s or low 50s by the end of the day. I noticed a definite distance loss in the driver by that time. Not so much in the irons, but probably 10% in the driver/woods. These crazy temp swings in the fall certainly add in a new variable to deal with. I noticed someone commenting on using harder than normal balls this time of the year and noting that their distance was retained somewhat. I've always heard of using softer than normal balls. Has anyone else had success using the harder ones? It seems the colder temps would actually increase the compression of the ball which I would think would cause harder balls to go even shorter than the softer ones, but I've never tried it.

Agreed, the restrictive clothing is also another point. I normally layer in the fall/winter and once I hit three layers, the movement is certainly more restrictive than it would be in a polo.

Searched the forum and found a few posts on this, but nothing that seemed to summarize the topic so I thought I would post this as it is that time of the year again for a lot of us. Yesterday was the first day of the season that I played in sub 50* weather (it was probably 45* and a solid 10MPH wind all day). I noticed a drastic decrease in distance across all of my clubs, but it certainly was more noticeable in the longer clubs. Having played less than a week earlier in low 50* weather I was a bit shocked to see such a drastic change, so I started to research the topic a bit. I found that there are multiple posts on the net stating that once the temperature drops below 50* there are several factors that start to play effect in the loss of distance. 1. The compression of the ball is greatly effected 2. The density of the air changes and becomes heavier reducing the ball flight distance. 3. While agreeing whole-heartedly with these two factors, I would also add that the cold, at least for me, reduces my swing speed. I just don't seem to feel as "loosened up" in 45* weather as I normally do in 60* weather. Unfortunately, I don't have any way of testing this scientifically, and at this point can only call it "a feel". To counteract the effects of #1 above, I first tried switching to a softer ball that I had in my shag bag. It felt much softer off the club, but added little if any distance. I then tried keeping a ball in my pocket and rotating the two balls every other hole. This seemed to help enough to be noticeable, but certainly didn't recover all of the lost distance. Regarding #2, there is nothing that can be done, this we have to live with Regarding #3, I tried hitting a bucket of balls before playing and then walked the course (I normally do this anyway) in an attempt to keep my muscles loose, and I did notice that after 4-5 holes some distance did come back as I began to warm up and adjust to the colder temperatures better. If I was going to rate the above factors by how much distance was lost due to them, from highest to lowest, I would say 2, 3, 1. Warming up certainly helped more than keeping the balls warm or switching to a lower compression rated ball, but as a whole only improved my distances by maybe 20-25%. I'm left with assuming that the higher density air is the largest contributor, which unfortunately is the one that can't be controlled. I'm sure that someone on here probably has researched this in depth much more than I have so I'm interested in hearing if there are other factors that I missed or maybe someone has some additional data that they could put forth. One thing I would like to see is an air density graph that shows how temperature variation changes the density? I would be curious to see if there is a huge difference below 50* as that would reinforce what I noticed.

Congrats on qualifying Ben! Best of luck in the Cal State Open!

This is very cool, good luck! Looking forward to reading your future posts on the whole process.