MasterP

That would be my guess. Hit enough balls and your mind knows what positions you need to be in to create the desired ball flight. So if you set up with a face that's closed, but your target is straight down the line your mind is going to force you to open that face at contact. Subconsiously you know the real laws of physics, you've hit a ton of balls in your life. Your brain sees that shut clubface and goes, "I've hit a shot like this before, and hooked the snot out of it, let's not do that this time" so you open the clubface on the downswing. For the better player, who knows how to control his swing and clubface these laws just validate what they've found out on their own. For beginners and high cap guys these laws become invaluable tools that allow them to diagnose their swing. Pull slice? - The face isn't the problem, it's the path Straight push? - Gotta close up the face a little to draw it Overdraw? - Open the face, swinging out more will just turn that into a bigger draw or duckhook

If you hit your current irons that well, then I'd keep them and work on your short game. Changing to a players iron or a blade isn't something that you ever "need" to do. There are tour players hitting g15 irons. If you want to, then go right ahead. But I'd hold on to those shovels for those days where your swing is out of whack.

The Burner TP is my main ball usually. I love it, and it's a great ball for the price. I usually get mine used in bulk from lostgolfballs.com, but you can still find them new at some stores. It's about on par with the NXT Tour as far as spin goes, and a tad longer. It's got good spin around the greens, not ProV1 spin, but good enough to hop and stop. I've haven't tried the Burner Tour yet, but from what I've heard it's different from the now discontinued Burner TP.

Outside your front foot? Like ahead of it? Where do you play your irons? Here's what I think might be happening, now take this with a grain of salt because I haven't seen your swing. Putting the ball that far forward allows you too really swing up on the ball, which can be good, but has some drawbacks. It all boils down to the path of the club when contact with the ball is made. You can have a perfectly on plane inside-out or square swing with an iron, and a ball placed in the middle of your stance. But with a ball placed in front of your left foot that nice on plane swing puts the club on a outside-in path (clubhead moving to the left) when the head of the driver hits the ball. It's hard to visualize, but think of the lowpoint of your swing as being square to your target. At that point the path of the club (not the clubface necessarily) is pointing directly down the fairway. After the lowpoint in your swing the club starts back up, but it also starts moving to the left. And a club head moving left with a face square to the target is going to slice the ball. This video explains club path and clubface relationship, it's very technical and a lot to digest, but gives you an idea of what might be going on with you. The quick fix might just be to move your ball back a bit in your stance with the driver. But it's probably best to see a good instructor.

Baseball is a sport too, and it follows the same general ball flight laws as golf. In fact most sports with a stick (or racket) and a ball follow the same laws, they aren't special to golf. Physics is pretty universal...which is nice

Those are the sticks I use. I picked them up a couple years ago because they were cheap, and I hit them well. The draw in their name would imply that they are easier to hit draws with, and while that may be true for some, the actual science behind it has some drawbacks. For 1 it moves the center of gravity closer to the hosel, which in rality makes them a little harder to hit than the regular R7's. I think they offset that by making the sole larger, and giving them more offset. If you are just learning your swing you probably don't want all those compensations built into a club, it could cause bad habits. I already had bad habits so i figured maybe a club to fix them would be nice. I would recommend the standard R7's or something like a Callaway X20 or x22. You can find those around pretty cheap, and they should last you a long time.

As one of the longtime high handicappers the old ball flight laws, and how they were (are) taught really held me back from improving. For me it wasn't so much that I needed to know how to hit a fade effectively or how to draw around a tree it was more "How the hell do I fix this horrible shot I always hit?" Slicers really suffer. All you hear when you slice is that you need to square the clubface, roll the hands over, release those hands! Which is good advice for guys who push slice, but horrible for guys like me that pull slice the ball. When I did release the club I'd end up with at best a straight pull, which usually put me into trouble since I was set up to compensate for a slice. And at worst I ended up with a duck hook, and confused on why exactly that happened. When I heard of the new ball flight laws everything sort of clicked for me. I finally had a tool to correctly diagnose errant shots. And while my swing didn't magically get any better, at least I knew what I needed to concentrate on to fix things. That's the crux of the problem with instructors and players teaching the ball flight laws the way they do. Good players generally have a feel for how to draw a ball, or fade it, or how to fix a bad shot next time around. Bad players don't. They hit bad shot after bad shot, and then follow a tip from one of these highly regarded instructors on how to fix a flaw and get nothing out of it. Or end up with a bigger problem than when they started. I think if more people just knew the basic physics involved, ball starts on clubface direction and curves away from path, they'd at least be able to figure out what their swing flaw actually is. They might not be able to correct it on their own, but at least they'd know what part of the swing (path or clubface) they needed to work on.

Have you considered the Ping g15's? Every time I demo them it's nothing but long and straight.

I usually just lose the one I throw into the crowd after the round

I went from mid 90's to mid 80's in a year by focusing on my approach shots. I was losing a lot of shots per round to mishit approach shots. If you can hit your 7-pw where you want to most of the time you'll get your GIR up. This will also help your recovery since you'll be closer to the green and out of trouble. A chip from just off the green is much easier than a 30 yard pitch over a bunker.

Cool, I'm looking forward to swinging the 6i they sent me. Also, the lofts between the burners are only lofted 1 degree stronger in the long irons and the same when you get to the 9i compared to the JPX-800's. This whole stronger loft thing isn't a big deal if you know going in that the 7i is really closer to a 6i

Close of competition for that day, or close of competition as in after the final round completes?

I voted no, mainly for the fact that the punishment of these rules infractions does not match the crime. Case in point, the ball oscillates after picking up a marker. The player thought it returned to the same position, but under closer HD slow-mo scrutiny it actually didn't. Fine, 2 stroke penalty. But no, because the player turned in and signed the scorecard it's now a DQ. By the letter of the DQ rule it's correct, the player did sign an incorrect scorecard, but I don't think the intent of the rule was to punish players who were unaware that a infraction took place. And I'm not talking about just being ignorant of the rules, but legitimately not seeing the infraction in the first place. What if in this case the ball was placed on the green, and the marker lifted, At that point nothing unusual happened to the ball as viewed with the naked eye. But in HD conditions, under slow-mo it's perceived that the ball moved a millimeter. At real speed it looks like nothing out of the ordinary happened, and that player proceeded to putt the ball and finish up his round, sign his card and head to the locker room. Joe Golfer at home is pouring over footage in slow-mo at home on his nice HD TV (2 hours later, or a day later) and sees the ball move and calls in the infraction. The PGA looks at the tape and sure enough, at 1 fps the ball does move. The PGA pro is now called to the trailer and DQ'ed. How is that fair to the player, or the integrity of the game? In this situation does a DQ fit the crime committed (if you can consider that a crime), or should it just be a simple 2 stroke penalty? How long after the fact can these infractions be called in? Can I call in a week later? A month? What if I find an infraction from the 1997 Masters 4th round? Can Tom Watson be DQ'ed and his money taken away?

A chronic banana slice can make any head look open It's most likely something in your swing. Slice usually means that you are coming over the top on the downswing. Probably from trying to generate more power. With that move you either get a big banana slice, or if your lucky and square up the club face, a straight pull. Get a lesson, a pro should be able to spot the fault right away.

I agree, for club champ it should be straight up, best player that day wins. But if I'm in a head to head, or group pot match with money on the line I'll take my handicap strokes. Otherwise an 8 is usually just throwing money away playing a 0 straight up.

The whole delofting of GI trend isn't merely for the sake of added distance, but also to keep the trajectory of the ball down some. Some GI clubs have real low COG, combined with shafts that help guys get the ball in the air. Not to mention that some high cappers are terrible flippers, you'd actually see most new GI clubs being shorter than previous generations, and shorter than players clubs. And honestly it would be a pretty hard sale if you told people "Yeah these new SGI clubs are 5 yards shorter than last years, but man do they hit the ball high!" So they deloft them to keep the trajectory close to what a 7i should be, and the added distance just helps them sell clubs.

Self taught for 20 years got me to the mid to high 90's. And really I shot those scores for 15 of the 20 years. 5 lessons this year and I'm mid to low 80's on average and have broken 80 twice, once with a 72. So yeah, plenty of years wasted.

170 is usually a 6i or 7i depending on the condition and whether or not I need to hit a small target or not. I'm one of those guys that gets to the top of my backswing and thinks "murder this ball!" so I usually go 7i from that distance. 7i aren't all lofted the same either, mine is pretty strong as 7i go.

G15 As forgiving as anything I've hit, and long

What about bowling? At a high level the bowling motion exhibits some some similarities. Backswing, swing plane, hand/wrist/forearm manipulation at the bottom of the swing, follow-thru and balance. I'm not talking about glow bowling with house balls, but if you watch professionals or higher level amateur bowlers you can spot each of their individual styles, but they all have a few things in common - consistancy of the swing, balance, and effortless power.

I carry 11 clubs including my putter, and could really do without my 4i since I rarely hit it. So no, I wouldn't score worse.

I had a drive hit a yardage marker in the fairway once. I saw it hit the marker and ricochet to the right. Never found it. I usually have my partner watch my tee shots just in case I lose sight of it in the sky, which happens at certain times of the day. Polarized sunglasses help, but sometimes you still don't catch sight of it when you look up.

$30 twilight w/cart, hard to beat in the Chicago area. It's honestly pretty easy, and short, but for $30 I can't complain

Last year a 150 yard approach shot was pretty much a hit and pray for me. If you think about it, it's one of the hardest regularly performed shots in the game of golf. You're hitting off the ground from a distance that may or may not be your exact club yardage to a target 10-20 yards across and the same deep. Lots can go wrong even if you hit the ball decent. Compared to the drive which is normally just directional control and up on a tee, and the putt where as long as you have some sense of feel you should leave it close. Sure there are harder shots, but not ones that you'd encounter 14 times during a round.

Gleneagles in Lemont. Red course