Rudy

The 7 iron in my new set of irons is pure butter, I have yet to hit a bad shot with it (probably just cursed myself). It's also the only club I've gotten to spin back on the green from 125+. I'm not sure why I hit it so much better than every other iron, but there's definitely a difference.

Ball falls off the tee: "3." Whenever my one regular partner hits a fantastic shot: "Why don't you do that all the time?" Of course farting on the backswing of your partner occasionally is good for a few laughs. And whenever someone yells 'fore' in our general direction we make it a priority of ours to immediately start running around with our hands on our heads and then end it by diving somewhere on the ground. It usually is met with laughter by the guy who hit the shot and probably takes some stress off of his terrible shot.

I've had exactly zero. Putted for eagle twice on a driveable Par 4 but missed both putts, had one more close call when I had a 100 yard wedge shot lip out on another short Par 4.

You are my twin. I'm very interested in seeing some responses.

Driving - 239432394.8 handicap. I slice almost everything and can't figure out why, so I put the driver in the bag 2 months ago and haven't used it since. Just got a new Callaway FT iQ 11* though, opposed to the shitty Slazenger starter driver I was using, so hopefully that fixes some things because I have a good swing fundamentally. Woods/Hybrids - See driving Long Irons - 10 handicap. I'm usually money off the tee with a 4 or 5 iron, with rolls to around or over 200 yards. Short Irons - 10 handicap. Can get anything from a 7 iron in to on the green or within a few yards of the green. Wedges - 14 handicap. Pretty good with pitching and flopping, but my full shots leave a little to be desired. Putting - 8 handicap. I RARELY 3 putt anymore, and the last few times I went out I made multiple putts of over 20 feet.

Par 3 148 yards at Stone Meadows in White Haven, Pa. Pull a 7 iron and hit it perfectly straight and very high, lands about 15 feet past the pin and rolls back to 10 feet. First time I have ever made a ball spin backwards. Damn, that was a great feeling.

First shot on the course with my new Nike SQ Machspeeds. At the 150 stick I pull the 7iron (figuring I would get 135 max in the air and then it would roll to the green). I hit it flush and the ball takes off like it was shot out of a cannon, lands on the front of the green, and rolls right past the hole to the back fringe. Not a terrible great shot, but I got roughly 20 yards more carry on that shot than I used to get with my old set of irons so I got excited.

In the terms of crazy drives, I caught my drive once. Shanked the drive into a tree where it ricocheted right back at me and I caught it with my glove hand.

Some of the more old school golfers may not like these, but I absolutely love the design of my new set of irons, the Nike SQ Machspeeds.

Yeah I really can't wait for them to get here, should be today or tomorrow. Max Power, when you hit them what did you like about them? How was the overall feel compared to other sets you have used?

So I was browsing through eBay, mainly looking for a new driver (Adams Speedline 10 Fast Draw caught my eye), but in looking through some clubs I found an 8 club set of 2010 Nike SQ MachSpeed Irons that were only used a few rounds (4-AW). I know these clubs retail for 700-800$, so I was SHOCKED when I saw that the Buy It Now price was only 289.00$. After trading messages with the seller, I jumped on the opportunity before some eBay troll found and bought them and then sold them for 200$ more. I read a good deal about these clubs through GolfDigest and I was definitely looking to get these sometime in the future, I just didn't think I would have the opportunity this quickly. Has anyone else played these irons? Everything I've read says the forgiveness and contact is absolutely amazing, which is exactly what my bogey self is looking for.

On my birthday on Wednesday on the 18th hole I hit a sand wedge about 70 yards from the rough and it landed about 6 feet to the left of the pin and just stopped dead. Exactly what I was trying t do. And then today, on the 18th again, sand wedge from 100 yards landed at about the same spot, and only rolled 2 or 3 feet before stopping.

On a Par 64 course Still, that is my best score to date and I was really striking the ball well. On the front 9, I was all over the place with my driver, with not one drive landing in the fairway. So, on the back 9, I decided to keep the driver in the bag and I only teed off with a 4 iron for the rest of the Par 4s. Results? 5/5 FIR's. By far my best ball striking of my short career. For some reason I'm really smooth with the longer irons, and I was getting ~200 yards with the 4 iron. This was a shorter course as well (longest hole is only a little over 400 yards) so I wasn't giving up a whole lot of ground by not using the driver. I was still hitting a short iron or even a wedge to the green on my second shot. If my putting was better today I would've shot very close to even or maybe under par. I'm going to use this as my new strategy whenever I'm on a course that isn't overly long. The added accuracy without much distance lost can spell a huge gain in scoring for my game. I know there has been a lot of discussion on this board about leaving the driver in the bag, but I never tried it until today, and I'm just sorry I didn't try it earlier.

These are about an hour from my house, as well, maybe less. They're called The Crossings and you're really missing out and huge deals on just about everything if you don't at least check it out. Puma, Nike, Adidas, etc for ridiculous prices. I think I'm making a trip there in a few weeks.

Perfect response.

Yeah, I meant starting from the first year you really dedicated yourself to improving at golf. I played once or twice a few years ago, but it was just for fun and I was whacking balls aimlessly.

After 1 year of playing? After 5 years? 10? I'm 18 years old, turning 19 in two weeks, and just picked up the game last summer. What I'm interested in is seeing where some of you guys were in the level of your golf game after a certain time of playing. About a year in to my golf career I think I'm progressing fairly nicely. I just recently corrected a nasty slice with my driver and woods which straightened my drives out to around 225, and I'm decently happy with my iron play, I don't completely shank any balls (except for the occasional brain lapse) and my putting is improving vastly. I used to 3 putt on nearly every hole, but on my most recent 9 hole round I recorded only 12 putts! A huge improvement for me. My one area I need to improve on most is probably my game from 100 yards in. I feel this is where I lose the most strokes. I shot an 89 on a Par 70 course a few weeks ago, which is by far my best round. The handicap I have on this profile probably isn't even close to being accurate, as it was more of a ballpark estimate rather than a calculation, mainly due to the fact that I don't have enough rounds recorded to have an accurate handicap. If I had to take a guess I would say that my handicap is significantly lower than 30.0. I'm going out to an extremely nice and well received course tomorrow morning, so we'll see how I fare on new ground.

Yup, I'm from Kingston, right across the river. Going to college at Seton Hall University but I'm back for the summer now. Planning on playing Blue Ridge a few times in the coming weeks.

Shot an 89 today, first time breaking 90. Odd part was, no birdies, just a lot of bogeys and a few pars mixed in. Had a lot of shots around the green that cost me strokes, probably could have shot closer to the low 80's today.

I see you're from Pennsylvania, was this at Blue Ridge by any chance?

Shot a +14 (78) on my local short course, which stands as my best 18 on that course. It's a 9 hole course that consists of four Par 3's and five Par 4's.

I don't think a pro golfer has to be an athlete . I sure as hell don't think John Daly is an athlete, and I doubt many people do. In fact, I don't think golf requires much athletic ability at all. I see golf as more of a skill that is acquired by a combination of natural talent and repetition. You can't seriously say that some pros aren't 'freaks' of nature. Look at Tiger, sure he practiced his ass off, but he had a natural ability as soon as he picked up a club. Or, take a look at Pele, you can't tell me he wasn't given the gift of ridiculous soccer skills right from birth. I think a good deal of the success that these pros enjoy can be attributed to their 'freakness'. And, I also don't buy that if anyone puts in 10,000 hours of practice into any sport that they could become a pro in said sport. I, for one, could practice my entire life at soccer and still not even make a college team. That's because I don't have the natural foot-eye coordination that all soccer players do have. I have fantastic hand-eye coordination, and I'm athletic, so I would agree that I could become a pro at certain sports from decades of practice. But there are some sports that certain people will never be extraordinary at, no matter how hard or long they practice.

+7 39 on a 9 hole course, today. The course has no Par 5's, and has four Par 3's. This was my best round ever on this course, my game is finally starting to come together, if I putted better I would've shot even or under par.