The Flush

Results are here. 2019 Boys & Girls Golf State Tournaments Coverage My son's team's #1 player qualified for the Division II tournament for the second time, but didn't play his best. He shot 85-88 to finish T42 of 72. It is a tough tournament to even qualify for. The winner shot 72-78 to beat 3 others by 1. The best team had 4 players in the top 12. That's a pretty stacked team.

The top 100 fitter near me charges $100 for the (driver or irons) fitting and gives you a $25 credit if you buy from him within a week.

As a paid supporter, are we supposed to be seeing ads like this? I don't consider them obscene, but some workplaces might not like them. I assume you don't have explicit control over which ads are displayed.

High school season is over so now is the time to work on his swing. Here are a couple of his better driver swings from last night. His better drives carry over 250, but obviously his average is less than that, as per his Mevo data from last night below. Shot Ball Speed (mph) Club Speed (mph) Smash Carry (yds) Launch Angle V (°) Spin (rpm) Height Time (s) Avg 146.2 101.7 1.43 236.6 16.9 2852 120′5″ 7 He wants to make changes, but he is kind of stubborn and doesn't want to take lessons. He wants to experiment and figure it out on his own. If he won't take lessons, maybe I can offer suggestions for his experiments. So I am looking for suggestions here on what he needs to prioritize in order to be more consistent. His misses are typically a low pull hook when he either yanks his hips through too quick and/or turns his hands over too quick. He sometimes hits the power fade as well. Other times he sets up right of target for an intentional fade and hits is dead straight, which puts him way right of target.

I don't know. I am sure he would like to, but he is taking all his classes this year through the college credit plus program at a local university and has already missed 3 days for golf and another for a doctor's appointment. He will have to see if he can afford to miss more. Heck, I would like to go too.

I wasn't able to attend my son's last HS tournament of the season. He shot a 94 to tie for 30th out of 60 golfers. This was only his second time to play this course with the first time being 2 days ago. He said after the practice round that it was a harder course than the course they usually play, so shooting at or better than his average is not too bad. Unfortunately his score was the second best on the team, which finished in 8th place. Only the top team advances from each district, so the team did not qualify for the state tournament. However the #1 on his team shot a 77 to finished 2nd and qualified for state based on being the best individual not on the 1st place team. This was a good experience for him and we will see how hard he wants to work on improvement for next year.

I think I could benefit from this training aid, but they are sold out right now and it won't be available until January. That seems like a long lead time in manufacturing such a simple device. After watching all the videos I went out and tried to do the drills with an imaginary band and had positive results. Even using using a very segmented swing where I watched my hands/club until I did the relax step at the top of the backswing, I added about 10 yards to each of my short irons based on Mevo data. Everything just felt right on the good swings. Driver was more mixed bag, but even then my better ones seemed better than my usual best ones. I wasn't trying to swing hard at all. There is something about the sequencing that just works for me when I do it right. I think the relax step is key for me. I think the physical reinforcement would make it even more effective to help me not have to think about it as much. I think I could play using my imaginary band swing right now and would see an improvement. I will see how things are going and might buy one in January.

Our kids can play for free any time and get free range balls (if they go pick them up first). The home course is not too crowded (because it is not very nice), so there is not an issue with playing through. I don't think that many kids go out and play on their own anyway. My son prefers to play at another course, so we got him a membership there. Next year I will get him a membership a different (better) course that has a better deal ($150 for weekdays plus after 2 on weekdays) and is close to my office so we can play after I get off work. This course is more walkable and actually has sand and water which the home course does not have. It will be more like the competition courses.

I am pretty sure our HS golfers are paying customers. The school may be paying instead of the players and the it might be a discount rate, but the golf is paid for. I know this is true for the sectional/district/state tournaments. I am assuming it is true for the regular season. But it is all weekday golf, with the regular season being 9 holes starting at 4PM and the tournaments being 18 holes starting at 9AM. I doubt it interferes with other golfers too much, at least not anymore than any other league play.

My wife and I watched our son play in his high school sectional tournament yesterday, which is my first time to watch him play in any competition. It was a great day for golf at the Portsmouth Elks CC, a nice Donald Ross design that is probably the best course in SE Ohio. Sunny with a high of about 79. I don't know how many spectators there were, but the course said they were sold out of carts for spectators, so it must have been a decent number. They were spread out enough that they were not too noticeable. I think I would have walked if I was by myself, but my wife wanted to ride. The groups were by position within the team, although it was decided by the tournament director, not the team coach. My son played as the #4 of 5, but there is not much difference between the 2-5 players. Son started great (for him) and then played bad, and then played great again to finish with a 95. He had two 8s on par 4s in that bad stretch that if they were even double bogeys would have given him his best competition round. No birdies, 6 pars, 1 OB drive, 1 in the water, 1 fried egg sand save. I was glad to see him finish strong after clearly being frustrated during the middle holes. My son was the best player in his 3-some and usually out drove the others by 20 yards. Son's team finished 4th with a 357 for the top 4 (75-94-95-95-98) to advance to the district tournament next week at a course he has never played. The #1 on my son's team tied for individual best with the 75. The #3 player had an 11 on a par 4 to finish with a 98. The #5 player hit a drive that landed in the cart we were driving, so we had to wait on an official to come make a ruling. We probably robbed him of 5 yards by being there. 7 out of 65 players shot under 80, 2 seniors, 3 juniors, 1 sophomore, and 1 freshman. 13 players broke 90, 19 broke 100 with 26 shooting over 100. The best was a 75 and worst was a 198, although the second worst was a 149. The best team shot 75-79-87-88. The worst shot 90-105-109-109. Clearly there is a wide range of skill in southeastern Ohio golf. Pace of play was slow at times, due to the extra stokes and lost balls caused by the lower end of the skill range. On one hole in the middle of the second 9 my son was waiting in the fairway while another group was waiting on the tees, yet there was a full open hole behind my son's group by the time they finished. We heard a lot of balls hitting trees throughout the day. I appreciate that there is a high school golf tournament webpage to track results. https://www.baumspage.com/golf/index.php The district tournament next week will probably be my son's last of the season as there is little to no chance that they will be the 1 team to advance to the state tournament. The #1 player on the team has a chance to make it as an individual. I know my son has had a lot of fun and has definitely improved. He has never had lessons and has probably only been hampered by me. His coach said there would be a weekly unofficial fall HS golf outing available for free, so maybe he will continue to play in that if doesn't go to football practice on those days. If he can eliminate the really bad holes he can move from average to decent, but I will probably need to get him to take lessons to move into the good category. The HS team is supposed to get a simulator as part of some facilities improvements, so that will be cool and could help lead to some off-season improvements. Hopefully I get to use it too. His coach has already said he will be the #1 next year, so he will need to step it up some. The best part of HS golf is that my son and I played a lot together this summer to help prepare him. If he wasn't playing golf, I probably wouldn't be playing golf.

Eliminate caddies too and make them carry their own bag.

Jumping here for grass advice as well. I have some areas of what I think is a creeping red fescue in my "lawn" of K31 fescue and a lot of other greenish stuff. It is much finer and tends to lay down. I think it looks better than the rest of my lawn. I think it may be slowly spreading. Any thoughts on trying to get this creeping fescue to take over my whole lawn in southern Ohio? Just let it creep or should I overseed the lawn?

I just received my Mevo and have a couple questions. I haven't read all 17 pages of this thread yet, so I apologize if these have been answered. I will mostly be using this outdoors into a net. Do I set it as indoors or outdoors? I got the impression that the outdoor setting is more for the driving range than into a net. If I set the distance from ball to Mevo at 6 feet and leave it there, what effect does it have if I move the Mevo up or back a foot for wedges vs driver? Do I really need to change this setting each time I change this distance? My son and I will both be using this. Is there a convenient way to track our data separately without having to log in/out of separate accounts each time we switch who is hitting? I assume I am best off to use the same ball that I use on the course instead of the hodge podge of balls in my shag bag, many of which are cheap distance balls. I am trying to use a little higher quality ball. And then I just have to figure out how to make up some of the 10 mph club head speed and 30 yard carry distance advantage that my son has on me.

I'm in.

I don't think the presence of absence of a dress code is good or bad for the game. The large amount of time and money required for golf keeps more people from the game than anything related to dress code. Slow play and rude behavior (being loud, damaging course, not repairing ball marks, etc) are also a bigger problem. I have worn a collared shirt the majority of my days on earth because of general expectations at work if not actual requirements. I will meet the expectations of wherever I am. I play mostly dog tracks and usually wear a golf shirt and golf shorts, but not always. The last time I played I wore cargo shorts and a t-shirt because that is what I had on when my son asked to go play and I thought it was silly to change clothes just to play. My son actually dresses nicer than me, but he won't be caught dead in a golf shirt when off the course. I can understand people not liking tank tops/wife beaters because nobody really wants to see anyone's sweaty armpits. I don't understand the disdain for cargo shorts, although I admit some are better than others. If they are not in your group, how do they really affect your enjoyment of the game. I also don't understand what difference the collar on a shirt makes, while I can understand some people not liking certain logos/slogan on a t-shirt. I will continue to meet expectations, but I don't know that I will understand why those expectations exist.