Rippy_72

I know. Can you believe the old stuff was better than the new club. I was a little surprised myself. I am thinking maybe to reshaft the old club.

It was about 45 years ago, an older fellow recommended that I aim intently at the center of the green on par 3 holes and just two putt if outside 20 feet, never think about birdie, just two putt. He then challenged me to just try to hit the center of all greens in my next game. This thinking was a game changer for me.

With a regular group of buddies, one learns to respect other's peculiar quirks. Noise does't usually bother me but I had a buddy that would lose a shot with the slightest noise, like a squirrel running on a branch. Movement behind me on the downswing gets me. I just ask people that I play with for the first time to move aside and to please stand still explaining that I have something wrong in my brain. I apologize profusely. I tell them it was years getting banged around playing hockey. I tell them they can talk all they want but please don't go moving around. Never had anyone not respect my request. I do recall having a super round off the tips at Bethpage Black and just as I was coming down, another player drops or throws his bag and kicks it. He had 3 jacked the 15th hole. I topped it right into the fescue. I looked at him and just said, "WTF" . There is probably 20-50 msecs during the release, it doesn't take much of a flinch to mess it all up

I would never take driver, putter, or any of my wedges out of my bag simply because they account for 90% of the shots and almost all of the chance to make a birdie. If I have a 4 iron or 6 iron in my hand, anywhere on the green and 2 putt is fine. No disadvantage of losing a 5 iron. Or at least to my way of thinking. None of my par 3 holes require a 5 iron. None of the par 4 hole approaches require one. Once in a while, I need a 5 iron into a par 5 hole, So, I think I would drop the 5 iron.

Adam C. Thank you, good point. The Cobra was 10.5 degrees. That is probably it, I am not sure why that was selected. I told the fitter that I was looking for closer to 2000-2200 spin because those were the numbers I got with Jim Mclean about 12 years or so ago. This fitter likes 2600-2800 for me. I do not know a lot about this stuff. Maybe I need more spin now that I am older (61 years old) David in FL. I was consistently 1.505-1.515 smash factor with my old R11S and about 1.495-1.505 with the Cobra. That confused me. I expected the new technology to be better but my old club was better. Part of my confusion what to do. Maybe off center hits the new club heads are better.

My current driver is about 10 years old, it is a 9 degree R11S Taylormade with a blue Diamana stiff shaft. It feels a little much stiff for me but I can still hit it. I have not played in 6 years and have lost about 10 mph clubspeed, hoping to buy some distance back. I do not load the club very hard in relation to swing speed. The fitter had me hit shots with my driver to establish a baseline and then many shots with a Cobra headed driver with many different shafts of the same length as my driver. With the graphite designs tour ad di 6S (I liked this shaft), I got more 2-3 mph swing speed but a slightly lower smash factor resulting in only 2-3 more mph ball speed. I probably just needed more time to find the sweet spot on the Cobra??. 2-3 mph increase in swing speed is a lot and I was getting 4-7 more yards overall per the launch monitor IIRC, is it the aerodynamics of the Cobra head compared to my chunky looking R11S. The shaft? I wish there was a way to put the graphite designs tour ad di shaft into my R11s as a test. Maybe, I would get 5-7 yards? The monitor print out only shows carry distance. The spin with the graphite designs tour ad di was around 2700-3000, launch 15.5-16.5 degrees, 165-168 mph ball whereas my driver was 2300-2400 spin average, 12-13 launch, 163-165 ball speed. Not sure if those numbers mean much. I know I usually get a lot of run on my tee shot. My gut feeling is I am wasting my time going back to hit the 4-5 selected shafts outdoors. I should just stay with the old dog. I also lost some confidence in the fitter because the iron shaft that he put me into is totally wrong.....lousy ball flight and big hook. Any advice?

Even if you do the reshafting yourself, it is going to be 150-300 depending on the grips and shafts. If you can get "pulls" off ebay, it would be a bit easier. I have a set of these irons, they were nice back about 26 years ago. I would not spend the money to reshaft. A better idea would be to find a used set with grips and shafts that match your needs.

Any of the middle irons could be sacrificed, I rarely use them where I play. Could always choke up or get after a shorter club. Could also replace 56 and 61 LW with just a 58. I sometime play 9 holes with just 5 clubs for fun in the evening. We really do not need 14 clubs.

I have such a deep inferiority complex that bad shots do not bother me although an OB tee ball hurts. I rarely lose a ball but I'd say a lost ball or OB hurts the most. Water is just one shot and you can make it up, but a lost ball leaves a mark.

I have skimmed LSW a second time. A truly great book. One thing that has helped me in the past was realizing that wedge shot patterns are very narrow and long ellipsoids as shown on page 155 (mostly due to spin dynamics). So, great care is needed when the angle is into a green with little depth. Very risky angle. Many greens are kidney shaped sort of like the diagram on page 194. Hitting a wedge from the right side of the fairway gives you a completely different chance at birdie or bogie compared to an approach from the left rough or left fairway edge where one can target 10-20 foot short of the pin with almost no risk. If it comes out hot, you are stiff. It comes out normal, you have a nice chance a birdie. If it comes out heavy, it will land in the middle of the green and probably release still giving a birdie chance. Those two misses (hot or heavy) from the right side of the fairway or rough are going to make par tough. I think these ideas are implicit but maybe subtle in the text. Some courses are so penal off tee that such positioning or the thought of positioning is moot. This type of positioning is often even more important for the 3rd shot into some pins on par 5 holes where a hole could be located on a small plateau on the back right. Laying up to 90 yards and it is a very hard shot but laying up on the left to 30-40 yards and it is a low risk pitch to the pin. I never understood laying up on par 5 holes but now that I am older and not as long, positioning of the little pitch is probably going to go into my game plan. Did I say? Great book.

I started with golf as an 8 year old caddying at the local country club where I learned that the rich and powerful were no different than the other cry babies on the playing ground. It was educational and entertaining to see judges, lawyers, priests and others in high esteem swear, throw clubs, and cheat. I almost mastered picking up spit. Later in life when playing famous courses, I always let my caddy know that I was a looper, too. I'd get the juice on famous people who played there. Such interesting stories. On one trip to Ireland, it seemed I was one day behind former President Clinton and the stories were precious. Trump and Tiger stories were also fun. Golf teaches you humility. Unlike baseball, we have to play our foul balls and if one does not quickly get over their misses, they are going to suck at golf or at least under perform. So, I suppose learning to play golf is like having a built-in therapist. At least it let me earn enough to play hockey, which gave me the core to hit it a mile.

Do any golf courses in the USA play like true links as in Scotland or Ireland? I played 36 there in the middle of the summer some years ago, and it very clearly did not feel like a links course to me. Aside from the first two very short driveable par 4 holes, I recall most of holes to not support a ground game on the approach, which to me is the hallmark of a links course. More parkland than links from my memory. Besides not being treeless, some of the elevated greens are not what one would see on a seaside links course. The soil conditions also seemed more park-like. Many links courses tend to go outward in proximity to the coast/ocean and then turn inward back home. It was a very enjoyable course but it was also very easy at least in benign summer conditions, a course ready made for that the new short distance ball.

I did that once at an especially long course somewhere in Arizona when on a business trip. I gave the starter a nice tip and asked if he could pair me with a decent group playing the tips. On the first hole, this guy Jason clears the dogleg bunker with a three wood. So, my driver ends up right into the bunker (I made par anyway). Next hole is 235 par 3 to a front pin, it was probably a 4 iron but being conservative I hit 3 iron to the middle. This Jason dude asks me if I hit 5 or 6 iron? I am like, ya right. What did you hit. He shows me the 6 iron. Then, I noticed around 6 drivers in his bag and I ask why? He says, I usually break a shaft or a couple faces in a round. He was actually a pretty good player as were the other two. He snapped one on a 595 yard par 5 and I actually outdrove him, he needed 5 iron from 260 and I also hit 5 iron but from 225. A blue moon event, usually you get a 12 Hcp thinking they can handle 7400 and 140 slope from the tips. One of the players was a professional bowler (one of the top in the world), he hit ok but putting was lights out. I forgot how hard the Cashen course was in a freshening rainy gale, not quite the eviscerating experience as The Prince but a serious wake up call. I also played in an open competition in Connemara North of Galway in Gale Force 9, I could hardly walk. On a 400 yard par 4, I hit driver, driver, 8 iron. On the 394 yard hole coming back the other way, I flew the green with a 3 wood and hit 9 iron back into the breeze for a par. Insane. About 45 mph wind, around 8 clubs.

Having played out of private golf clubs as well as public courses, I always found a regular foursome. Eventually. We all have different criteria for what makes good playing buddies. Being a decent player I would try to play very early and eventually I would meet a good group. You have to play pretty regularly at a public course. If someone wants to play regularly with low or scratch players, be quick, don't step in their putting or thru line, and never move around making all kinds of noise when they are teeing off. All of those transgressions are much worse than political discussions.

I have played most of the top 20......Shinnecock, Cypress and County Down can't hold a candle to Pine Valley in my mind although I love them dearly. Pine Valley isn't penal. It is a mind f***. It scares the living daylights out of you visually. I have played 15 rounds there and have never lost a ball. Not one. I am lucky to play a round at any Tom Fazio course without a lost ball. If someone isn't a low HcP player, I can understand the aversion to Pine Valley. Most courses are like playing checkers, Pine Valley is three dimensional chess on one hand and like hitting into a Monet painting on the other. If you put the ball in the wrong place, you have every opportunity of returning to play. You miss once and you are just in purgatory. Miss again? Straight right to hell. I have seen one of the two par 5 holes hit in two shots....once. They are not easy to make par let alone birdie. The one course in the top 20 that I would still love to play is Royal Melbourne. Personal preferences come into play, I don't like either of the Winged Foot courses or Somerset Hills but I like the Black course. Go figure.

13th hole at Salem Country Club. A driveable par 4 in my youth although you'd be a damned fool to try and probably the finest green I have ever played, bar none.

Would not have mattered. Slope was consistently hard on all tees. Have you played it? In 30 mph wind? The slope rating from the red tees probably wasn't much lower than the tips. It was more than hard, it was impossible. I have played many of the top courses in UK and Ireland in wind and rain, my day at the Prince just eviscerating. I had a 20 foot birdie putt on a par three that was downwind and downhill; and, no matter how easily I stroked it, the ball rolled and rolled down a cliff. I was running out of balls reloading. Thank you, equitable stroke control. I just gave up. How does one determine the correct tees? And, how much does that matter for a scratch golfer? Honestly? Driver ball speed 190-195 mph at the time but now only 165-170 (I am old). At the time I could easily fly a driver 310. Course was around 7200 yards. Hitting driver lob wedge gets boring. I do not have the card, so, I cannot say what the rating or scope was. It was a very penal course. Played a lot of top 100 courses, this one got me like no tomorrow. Maybe if there was no wind??? Even still, just off the fairway and lost ball. On one hole, the tee was like 150 feet elevated to a 25 yard wide fairway and a 30 mph gusting crosswind. I lost maybe 5 balls trying to hit it inside of the jungle. When a half decent golfer hits 5 good tee shots and all are lost balls, one would have been better taking an unplayable on the first tee.

Any hosting course with a few weeks of USGA Championship like the US Open or Amateur. Merion, Winged Foot, Shinnecock, Bethpage Black from the tips with firm greens, narrow fairways, and 6-10 inches of rough should get anyone's attention. A scratch would have a difficult time breaking 80. One may as well paint a black strip down the left and right rough-miss the fairway, GL advancing let alone making par. On a normal day (no huge wind, no rain), Pine Valley would be the hardest for me simply because the green complexes are so challenging. I played the Prince course from the tips in 30+ wind. Stupid waste of money. As a scratch, I did not break 90 and would have been better just declaring the ball unplayable on the first tee and went drinking.

I just purchased and read Lowest Score Wins in part of my attempt to start playing again after a 6 year hiatus due to chronic injury. I also recently went to a comprehensive fitting. Great book. As someone who was always very long and straight off the tee, I instinctively knew the Drive for Show, putt for dough was hogwash. This book proves it. I found the SV aspect very interesting because the 14% figure for putting was exactly what I saw from improvement in 2013-2014 when utilizing a program called shotbyshot. Lowering my shotbyshot "putting handicap" from an 18 down to a 4 "only" brought my overall Index down from a 2 to zero, despite a massive improvement in putting. I am going to read the book again, it makes a ton of sense. My old shafts 7.8 are getting yanked for something more like 6.1 flex and the shaft for most important club in the bag remains unresolved. What I think is going to most help me to play decently again is to focus on the shots with the highest separation value first. Tee shot, GIR approach shots, 30-50 yard short shots, long putts to avoid 3 putting, and center of the clubface. Great book.