ohiolefty

One way to tell is if you look at manufacturers' websites, virtually all of them list TGW as a certified online retailer. TGW is great. Globalgolf is awesome too. If you can ever catch an "Open Box Return" you can get an awesome deal on something that has never been used, often still with headcovers etc.

Skip Shale Creek. Overrated and overpriced. If you're going to be in Medina county - Pine Hills and Pleasant Valley are better options IMO. Fowlers Mill and Sand Ridge (if you can get on) are nice. I'm not sure how far West you'll go...but 3 other great options are Manakiki (Donald Ross), Sleepy Hollow and Grey Hawk. Also, since you've got country clubs listed, Lakewood CC is a great place, too.

I have a pretty acute disc issue in my back...and I play 4 or 5 times a week. In fact, staying active HELPS me. If I sit around and do nothing, I'm tighter, have more back spasms associated with the disc issue...etc. Your buddy needs to go to a recommended orthopedist and (possibly) a back specialist recommended by the orthopedist. Get it looked at, an MRI, the whole bit and really figure out what's going on. There are about a hundred diffferent medical conditions that AREN'T spinal that can manifest themselves as back pain, so your buddy needs to figure out what the hell is going on before he does something irrational like quitting golf.

Urrgh. Thanks for all your comments so far.

The chrome is going to last a little longer...but the others are going to have a little better feel. Once the chrome gets beat up, it'll feel fine...and it'll still have some grooves left. By the time the oil can or the dark finish wedges get nice and beat up, they'll have no grooves left.

I'm leery of this. It looks, in the pictures, like some of TMs newer players irons, but all the performance seems to be along the line of their GI stuff. I'd think that, in person, these aren't going to look as 'playersish' as they do in pictures. Besides that, the only visual that seems less GI is from the topline...the rest of the club is still clunky and fugly.

Looking for stuff about burnout vs. improvement arc. I dunno.

I am a teacher and I play a lot in the summer (4-6 rounds, or about 72+ holes, per week). Once I'm in school, I usually play 3 or 4 times a week, some weeks a touch less, until the snow hits. After a 10 year layoff, I started playing golf again in the summer of 2009. I went from a guy who was happy to shoot in the mid 80's when I played as a kid, to a hacker for a brief minute when I picked the game back up, to a respectable mid-handicap by the end of my first year, to now - right around a scratch. It's been a lot of golf. A lot of sweaty nights on the range. A lot of evenings spent around the practice green hitting endless chips and pitches. A lot of fun. This year's been a tough year. We had horrendous rain in the spring and as a result, I wasn't able to start practicing off grass in the spring like I normally would. In fact, when most courses opened and when my season started, I hadn't practiced off grass. As a result, I got out of my normal range routine and just played a lot of rounds of golf. I'm back playing as much as always and practicing, but not nearly as much as the schedule I had the last 2 years. While this year's been good, score-wise, I've hit a mental wall and I'm not enjoying the game that much. I see myself not able to improve on things I know are fixable, including some swing issues. I find myself getting angry at myself on the golf course in a way I don't like, and I also find myself needlessly and sometimes irrationally irritated by poor behavior (etiquitte, speed of their play) from fellow players. I've generally become a bit of an insolent prick on the golf course, at least it feels that way. Golf hasn't been fun, and I think (with many exceptions) I often haven't been a fun person to play a round of golf with this year. Think some crazy hybrid of Ben Hogan and Pat Perez - with way less game, and that'd put you about where I am. I feel burned out. In the last month, I've had about 4 rounds where I kind of "lost my sh*t" (sorry, but that's the most apt description) and shot rounds in the high 80s or in the 90s. I shot 89 (+19) yesterday after a 50 on a par 35 front 9 - mainly because of just taking drops, crazy sh*t. Some of it was bad breaks, most of it was me reacting badly to bad breaks and throwing up on myself. Increasingly, I just flame out fantastically during bad rounds...and a lot of club slamming, f-word, and cold atitude (not mean, but not friendly) with playing partners. All of which are really despicable behaviors, as is not composing yourself and making a bad round respectable. ... My question to all of you, especially the better players and/or the ones that have really worked hard to get better at the game, is this: Have you ever 'burned out'? Felt like you've hit a wall or a plateau based on mental stuff and not physical? If so, what did you do? Share your story. I feel like I could have written a book on the topic, and almost did...just feeling bad about my game and, in some respects, myself and my own actions since I've become such a mope about a game that should be fun.

Tommy Gainey

Let's start by saying that, for high-handicappers, rounds are destroyed exponentially more often by awful ball-striking and putrid short games. Further...it's easy to sit up here as a single digit and forget when you really didn't know how far you hit each club. Or, when you weren't as sure of your misses and faults as you are now. .... Much of this thread is self-congratulatory masturbation. A convenient excuse for people who claim (online) to be good players to bag on players they perceive to be poorer. In my emphatic opinion, the reality is this... Better players (mid handicaps and better) have INFINITELY more problems with course management than poor players. Better players go at pins they shouldn't, they make poor layup decisions or layup to the wrong yardages, they don't play the hole in reverse, they pick the wrong tee-shot shapes or clubs or both, they don't manage the wind properly, they can't adjust when they don't have their game to make a 82 day into a 76 or, better yet, a 72. Etc. Etc. They struggle with a laundry-list of management problems. A lot of better players have so much invested in their ego as a player that they can't recognize their limitations (absolute or dynamic) and respond to them appropriately. Plus, golf is f*****g hard. You have to adjust your strategy on the fly based on conditions and the game you brought to the course that day which, for everyone in the world, varies greatly from round-to-round. Guys, a high handicapper is trying to figure out a way to play the game...not a way to play each hole. What's the difference between a duffed 5 iron on a par 4 with a "tight fairway" that goes 75 yards and a bannana slice that's on the next fairway? They're 200+ to the green anyway with little realistic chance to put it on the green. What's the difference? I don't see it. If you want to help a friend, the way to do it isn't to make them feel like an idiot, or to think of them as an idiot, because they don't play a hole in the way that you suggest or advise. The better way to do it is to encourage them, point out whatever they're doing right , and (with restraint and empathy) address the fundamentals of the swing (grip, stance, posture, alignment, club path basics ) and little else. Once your buddy can play bogey golf, then you might talk to them about when to dial back. Only, by that time, they'll already be figuring out on their own when to do it.

I'd take them out to the range or course with me...and ask them to show ME how easy this 'game' is to play.

Most pros can reallty carve it.

I saw this lady get hooked in a Swedish film once. It was pretty extraordinary. The man doing the hooking was very talented.

I won Russia.

I am glad I read this thread. I always thought being 'horned' was when a unicorn, rhinoceros or bull violates your safety circle. You learn something every day.

70 (-2), 31 putts at Skyland Golf Course, Ohio -Pretty unremarkable except for an eagle on the par 5th 10th (chip-in from 50 feet or so), a beautiful cut 5 iron from a long way out on 18 to make a par where, based on my drive, bogey or worse was much more likely, and solidly unspectacular play otherwise. I'll take that. The even keel.

Amazing putter on fast greens.

I try to think as little as possible and make the 'obvious' choice. I draw the ball into draw pins or go at the center. I cut the ball into cut pins or go at the center. If there's water or out of bounds or whatever kind of trouble off the tee or an approach, I generally start the ball at the trouble and work the ball away from it. I manage wind based on how it changes the number. If a green has tiers I try to hit my ball onto the tier where the pin is. Etc. To me, the practice tee is the time for elaborate analysis. On the course, I try to pick targets and hit them without nebulous thoughts. I hit the ball far enough so that most places I play I can afford to 'gear down' a lot, and will do so when needed. For me, I get a number. I get a shape. I pull a club. I hit the shot. Simple. If I think about too much, I get in trouble. Practicing and playing a lot, both of which I do, enables me to play this way. When I didn't practice as much I had to think more. The only time I take longer than my normal routine over a shot is if I have to hit some exotic shot I haven't practiced or hit before.

Some of the older putters have amazing feel. The old school blade putters that look like someone's melted down doorknob actually are amazing if you get the right one in your hands.

I wish long, downhill iron shot would have been on there. That's the hardest shot for me to hit.

I voted for buried lie in the rough. I hate having so little control over the ball, and I LOATHE having to make decisions about shots based on 'negatives', meaning all the bad things that could happen.

2 rounds to catch up here... Monday: 74 (+2) with 31 putts, Spring Valley Country Club, Ohio Tuesday: +1 on 13 or 14 holes, Skyland Golf Course, Ohio - had to leave early due to an obligation

Not to get all Harvey Penick, but.... 1 golf ball. 1 iron...generally something like a 7 or 9 iron that is cut down so that he/she can swing it. 1 putter cut down that they can use. one practice green. Make a game of it...make it fun. But, keep the kid with a club and a putter and have them learn to get up and down. Starting a kid around the green and teaching them that golf is about feel, being lined up right, and getting that white ball in the hole in as few shots as possible is a lot better than having a kid standing in the middle of a driving range trying to hit full shots, falling down, and wondering why they can't do what everyone around them is doing.

These messages couldn't have been NEARLY as good as the ones he sent to some of his "ladies" ('loose' application of the term) that I heard on Howard Stern.

This is so silly. I walk. I love walking. I can play a faster round of golf, playing by myself, on a cart. It's simply a matter of miles per hour. I do tend to think that 2 men to a cart can actually slow down a group. I KNOW it slows down groups playing badly for about 15 different reasons. Good players in carts will play similar to or faster than good players walking. Good players, however, will play pretty acceptably most of the time. A slow good player will most often still move more briskly than someone shooting 120. I don't get the whole "self-righteous walker" phenomenon. I think guys should walk, particularly when they're young and learning the game. If you're 45 with bad knees and 50 pounds overweight, or if you're 35 and in great shape, but you prefer to walk - great. As long as cart riders don't play 'expedition' golf and don't turf the course...fine. Anything that keeps fellow players happy, courteous and moving briskly through the course makes me happy. I am 30. I have a disc in my back that's shot. Sometime in the next decade or two I may be forced to become a golfer who primarily rides. I'll still fix my ball marks. I'll still play as quickly as I can and still shoot my best score. And, I'll still say "Sh*t" rather loudly when I block a draw into the next fairway. What I won't do is think every walker is a 'true' golfer, or that every rider is a douche.