mchepp

I was having a debate last week with a fellow golfer about who from the past might have been willing join a rival golf tour like LIV from the past. We brought up the top 20 golfers in 2000 and debated on who we thought would join 'LIV' at that time. Of course there is no clear answer to this, but it was a spirited debate. I wonder what everyone he would think. 1. Tiger Woods, United States, 29.402. Ernie Els, South Africa, 11.653. David Duval, United States, 11.204. Phil Mickelson, United States, 11.075. Lee Westwood, England, 9.466. Colin Montgomerie, Scotland, 8.347. Davis Love III, United States, 7.888. Hal Sutton, United States, 7.719. Vijay Singh, Fiji, 7.1710. Tom Lehman, United States, 7.1011. Jesper Parnevik, Sweden, 6.9612. Darren Clarke, Northern Ireland, 6.7713. Nick Price, Zimbabwe, 6.2914. Michael Campbell, New Zealand, 5.8715. Jim Furyk, United States, 5.7616. Sergio Garcia, Spain, 5.6717. Stewart Cink, United States, 5.3018. Justin Leonard, United States, 5.2219. John Huston, United States, 5.0520. Thomas Bjorn, Denmark, 5.03 The one that stuck out to me was Colin Montgomerie and Vijay Singh. I am not certain Lee Westwood would have been willing to do it at the peak of his career, as he is now, but that is an interesting discussion. Nick Price, Michael Campbell and Thomas Bjorn were all in the yes column for me. Jesper is probably a strong candidate to say yes. What does everyone else think?

As someone who loves playing golf in shorts I cannot fault a golfer, professional or otherwise who wants to play in shorts. I don't think it looks any less professional, but to each his own.

While there has been a great deal of talk about Saudi money, the reality is the money is from an investment firm. Sure all the money comes from the government, but their job is to make money with it. At some point they are going to have to show how they are going to make money. Selling "franchises" is certainly a great way to make money. Each sale they'll get a cut of the sale. As to the market, I no longer have limits to understand what rich people will do with their money. Maybe the idea of owning "Phil's Team" has real value to someone. Maybe companies like Titleist want to own a team for advertising purposes. Or some Crypto company (who really wants an investment from PIF) can get them to wear their logo like European soccer teams. All sorts of ideas.

I for one appreciate you updating us. The knock on these types of products has always been it is hard to maintain it over time. I am interested in watching your progress over time (also finding out if you hit a 336 yard drive 😀)

Where can we find more information on "elephant trunk"?

I am about 6 or 7 episodes in. Random thoughts. I am a bigger fan of the style chosen by the Match Point rather than Full Swing. Match Point centers around the events (Australian Open, Indian Wells, Madrid, etc) and lets us learn about the players rather than Full Swing which does the opposite. This avoids the replaying of events over and over again. So far I think I have watched poor Mito hit it in the water on 18 of the PGA 2 or 3 times now. I would have rather they set the scene once and not made us go over it again and again. I agree with @sjduffers. Ian Poulter is not a bad guy. Selfish, yes, but after watching Match Point some of the tennis players say that if you are not selfish in an individual sport you are likely going to struggle. So I can understand his view. Brooks made the decision to join LIV based on his poor play at the moment. I think he will regret that decision. The older Europeans make sense. Get one last pay day. a. I think Brooks is a bigger jerk than Poulter.

This is a very good description of my challenge. It is a good way of saying it.

Price point is reasonable. Definitely worth giving them a try. I do feel that Titleist has so much R&D knowledge that I would find it interesting to know if PXG could do it better. I would think Titleist forgot more than PXG knows about golf balls.

Wow, I am a violator of at least half of the top 10. 1. Perpetual issue for me. Definitely a "feel is not real issue" for me. I will get myself dialed in at home in the mirror and then video my swing a few weeks later and bam, right back to the guy in the red pants in the image. 2. Leftover messiness from S&T days. 4. This and number 2 seem closely related for me. 5. I find this issue is part in parcel with not turning enough in my backswing. I start faking the backswing with overfolding. 8. I don't know that I "thrust" but certainly my hips move closer to the ball as the first move on my downswing. It is almost immediately from the start. Once my body moves closer, I have no room for my arms to swing down. It then causes my arms to stop and I flip to save it. I think this is my biggest issue.

I have a bin in the garage full of training aids. If there is sucker born every minute then I get reborn every time I watch someone swinging beautifully on youtube or instagram. That said, this aid hasn't done enough to convince me to overspend on it. I just struggle to see how with the limited time I have to practice I could get to full speed swing practice swings and not still perform my patented flip.

Okay, but my point is they could make a non-eurothane version for $0.50-$0.75 a ball and it would be targeted at 10 rounds a year golfers. Out of curiosity do you use them?

Swing looks great @phillyk. I have been watching some of Dr. Kwon’s YouTube and most of the content is about flow. The idea that you sort of take a “pre” trigger to the swing. How do you implement that into your swing when you start from a standard set up position?

Looks like a slightly better version of the Greg Norman Secret. I got the Secret from a teaching pro in the early 2000's. It was really only good for chipping.

My Game Golf hasn't worked in years, so I bought my H4 today and will join the group once I get everything set up. I am looking forward to getting stats again. Plus this has some nice feature upgrades like the GPS. Thanks everyone especially @boogielicious, @Darkfrog, and @billchao for sharing your thoughts.

I notice that you have taken lessons from MANY different teachers. Do you find you are able to take the good bits from each of them, or you need to buy into each for wholly to maximize your performance?

That was a pretty lousy trailer. Was it cut short?

Dr Kay delivers a ton of technical "stuff" in his videos for you. I would need some decoder ring to understand everything he is saying. I do like the changes he's made in your swing.

I am worried he is just doing some grandstanding at the expense of your thoughtful and clear argument. The car analogy is bullsh*t. The 20 pack lesson, is awfully rare in the coaching industry anymore. If you ever run into a coach trying to sell that we have all been trained to avoid it. It is the old used car salesman trope. My feeling is that he isn't responding to a thoughtful argument, but just saying things people want to hear or old-timey tropes that are not really indicative of the industry any more. Personally, I really like the direction coaching has gone. It is probably one of the few places where social media (specifically video) has really improved an industry. The challenge now is finding meaningful information for the you as an individual. There is SO much information now, much of it will lead you down the wrong path. Best to find someone who can help you deifier the important bits for you, and even better if they live near you so they can put you in the right positions to "feel" the change.

Less hyped. They have a large number of characters in this. I would rather go deep on a few rather than light on many. Maybe the show will do that, but the trailer made me think they are going to have too many characters to dive deeply.

@phillyk this is a great question. The best drill I've seen is from Josh Koch on Instagram. He shows a video from Jason Zuback doing a step drill I've not seen before. Josh Koch I have hit balls on the balance board but never felt comfortable on them to be able to go "full" speed on them. I think they could be used in some training exercises but not hitting balls at full speed.

I basically keep the "old" set at the vacation house. It does mean I occasionally need to ship some irons to the house, or a wood, but that isn't that big of a deal. Rich people problems. I change and tinker with my main set. I could never have a plan to have 2 of the same sets.

This paragraph about Norman is a stinging review of him. It absolutely wins the article for me.

Certainly a lot of buzz. It is interesting to think where they fit in the market. I have yet to see any wedges or putters in the bags of serious golfers. The ball occasionally, but most golfers I've played with have tried multiple golf balls. But I have yet to play with a golfer "loyal" to their brand of ball. I never understood why they make a "high-end" Pro-V1 type ball. Why not make a cheaper cheap ball. Go for volume. There is certainly a group of >10 rounds a year who this iron seems like a good solution for. But then why not a super game improvement cavity back iron. Why the blade look? Or if they were going for the blade look why not just copy somebody like they did with the ball and the Pro-V1. Lots of questions I probably won't get answers for.

I heard an intriguing theory that Elon owes roughly $13B and he is making the company look bad on purpose so that we can offer the banks $0.30 on the dollar for the debt. He would then own the debt and the company without having to pay the interest. There are already offers for $0.60 on the dollar, if he purposely makes things worse that could get closer to his target. Then once he owns the debt he can rebuild the company to be a profitable (or nearly profitable) and go IPO and getting very rich in the process. Intriguing idea.

If I got this email I would check with HR that it wasn't spam. I mean we are all taught to avoid clicking stuff like google forms in an email. So I would be hesitant to click it. Going hardcore is what has brought Elon success at Tesla. They were able to hire brilliant people and let them tackle hard problems. Thus you have one of the best cars are on the market for wealthy people. I think the model of Tesla could work even better at Twitter. Essentially he brought a software approach to a hardware company at Tesla, there is no reason he can't make that model work at Twitter. It will just likely need to be with different people than work there now. For starters, I think, the subscription model is going to work. I think he should have driven it to be connected to the number of followers you had, like charging one of the Kardashians $1,000 a month is probably nothing versus the money they get for being an influencer. They'd pay. Reporters, less followers but still love the platform might get charged $100, and on down to us pee-ons can be charged $8.99. Make the people making money on Twitter pay to use it. Interestingly it is not all that far from Tesla's original business plan. Make a super expensive car, make enough money from it to make a cheaper one, and on and on. BTW, I know @iacas said no politics, but I am make a financial argument. Trump makes sense for Twitter. Stock price tracking of Twitter: Trump drives a ton of traffic to Twitter. It was an easy decision for Elon. Elon overpaid for Twitter. It was a bad business deal. But he is so rich, (probably aloof also) that he doesn't care. I think he is going to make it work in the end. Disclosures: I don't use Twitter, and I made a nice amount of money when Elon overpaid on my Twitter stock that I had almost given up on.