beung

I agree that , it's not Tiger's fault so you really can't blame him for the press coverage, but I hate the "over exposure" that most would agree is happening as well. The only thing I can say about that is that as the media are you going to cover someone else? If there was some one who could take the spotlight away from him, he would gladly welcome it, he wants to leave no doubt and willing to take on anyone. The media would be more then happy if each weekend was a 3, 4, 5 heck even a 2 man race but until some other tour players start stepping it up there will be no end to the media coverage. There are other tour players I "hate" more then Tiger by a long shot. But Tiger wouldn't be my first pick to play a round with, if I had the chance of course I would but there are other tour players I would rather play a round with then Tiger.

Define "pro", there are many different levels of "pro". You lose amateur status if recieve a prize larger then like $1k, say a car as a hole in one prize or something. You don't become pro but you can no longer enter amateur events. You are also a pro if you get paid to teach golf. There are many pro tours besides the PGA tour, it just so happens that it is the top tour. Even Canada has it's own tour but the top money winner from last year only made about $90K in 12 events and the lowest made $271.00 in 14 events. I am sure you make more for making a cut on the PGA tour then finishing first on the money list on the Canadian tour :P

Does that mean the golf gods will award me -2 strokes just by leaving a club out of my bag

Lol, I wish my swing sucked as bad as Tiger's '97 swing :P

I am a cheater, I carry more the 14 clubs :) Driver 3w 5w 3-PW 51, bent to 52 56 60 Putter I only have one set, no replacements, I can hit a good 4i and 3i but the I seem to have a big gap between my 5w distance and 3i distance. I think that 5w goes too far (if that is possible) I am thinking of dropping both the 5w and 3w and getting a 4w to be legal. I also think that the your index should have a modifier reletive to how long the golf season is where you live. The people down south get to play all year round, us Canadians only get to play for 6 months or so, half as long as the people in Florida or Cali :P

I don't think this has anything to do with the OPs question, no one would disagree with you that getting fitted will benefit everyone but to use your analogy, would the 6'4" guy be a better 2 stepper if he wore Wranglers and the 5'4" guy wore Levis?

Handicap does have something to do with it but quite frankly it has more to do with your swing and your ball flight characteristics. If you don't fighting a huge slice, don't have trouble getting the ball up in the air or have a lot of really bad misses, there isn't really much reason you couldn't hit a more forgiving CB/MB. If you have hook or a draw, there is no need to play a "Game Improvement" iron, it's only going to make it harder to correct that draw/hook. I still think a nice control fade is the best ball flight and if you can hit that with a nice CB/MB iron you're golden! A blade or a club with a small CB/MB would be a stretch but I know plenty of golfers with pretty good swings and they would shoot the same score regarless of what clubs they use, they just have too many blowup holes or they are just too crazy off the tee.

I used to play the LTs but switched out of them at the begining of last season or so. I really liked them but I naturally have a draw and they still had too much offset for me and so I went to the MP67s. I almost went with the Nike Procombo Tour but fell in love with the feel of the MP67s. If I were you I would skip the LTs and go for a CB or MB instead. Have you looked at the X-forged or last years Titleists or even this years?

Here is my take on equipment: It does make a difference, more specifically technology, but not as much at the beginning when you are just starting and learning to play golf. It starts to play a bigger role and prrobably the most benefit when you have a swing somewhat established and can make relaible contact on the ball. But when you get good enough you have less requirement for the technology as you will have less mishits and more repeatible swing and don't need as much help. I would say go get yourself a good "Game Improvement" set, with all the technology to help you get the ball in the air and are less penalizing on mishits because truely the very large majority of the golfers will probably never outgrow the need for the technology in these clubs. When you can get yourself near 10 handicap or so, you are looking for ways to work the ball a little better and you are hitting draws and fades because you are trying to rather then they be as a result of a mishit then you can start looking for replacements for "Game Improvement" sets.

Well another week of golf and it was a windy and rainy one..... This realy showed the weakness of the shaft IMO. For me the ball had too much spin and I was hitting into any sort of headwind the ball would just balloon up or get knocked down. The best combo I have hit was an FT5 with an Xcon5 in it and it was longer by 20yrds over any other head/shaft combo available to me when I went to the launch monitor. But that shaft is like $300 and I didn't really want to sink that kind of money into a shaft when I have a driver that is over 3 years old - I like new gear :) For right now the shaft/club isn't costing me strokes anymore so I am going to keep it for now and maybe hand it down to one of my freinds next year, they love me because I switch gear so often they practically get their gear for free :) It's the shortgame that is killing me these days. 10/14 faireways hit and 9 GIRs but with 34 (19/15) putts leads to 44 in the front and 38 in the back last Sunday :(

That is not a bad swing at all, a few little thing would really improve your consistency. A little bit too collapsed at the top not too bad, little too much hip rotation on the back swing which is causing you to straighten your right knee. This usually does one of two things, make you hook the ball because then you go to bend your knee again it really drops your hand and you come way from the inside or it makes you release early and you come over the top making you slice , and did you play baseball? I ask because if you watch your front foot, the heel lifts up and then you rotate it inwards making your front foot basically toe out at impact, do you hit a fade/slice mostly? The one main thing I would work on is keeping your right knee bend during the whole backswing. Imagine that you are trying to hold a basket ball between your knees during your backswing. It’s going to shorten your swing a little bit and you may lose some distance at first but when you learn how to use more of your legs you will get the distance back. You may also want to try and take an 8i or even a small block of wood shaped like a doorstop and put it under your right foot so the outside part of your right foot is higher then the inside. Take some swings with it under your foot and pay close attention to what your leg and knee feel like when it is flexed at the top of your swing. Also how you can feel the weight and pressure on the ball of your right foot instead of it on the outside of your foot with a straight right leg and how much more power you can get because you have something to push against during your downswing. These 2 tips should get you to rotate more at the waist and less at the hips, use your hips to pull your waist, which will pull your chest and finally your arms through the impact zone instead of the other way around.

This is good in theory but all I will say is that the ball position is relative to how wide your stance is and if you don't know or if you just haven't noticed your stance widens as your clubs get longer. So the ball is porbably almost the same distance away from your front foot regardless of club, it's just that your back foot is further back...with the execption probably for woods with you are hitting the ball while the club is going up instead of down like with irons.

I am in the belief that fundimentally and structurally you have "one" swing as a base. But even your stock swing of your PW and your drivers looks different and probably feel different because the measurements of the club are different and thus it chances the geometry of how your body is in relation to the ball. When working the ball, the swing base is the same, you just change say the clubface at address, shorter backswing, ball position or even follow through. Your swing isn't really all that different, just how your body interacts with the ball is different. But specialty shots require you to break aways from your base and manipulate your swing the get the ball to do what you want it to do. I don't think anyone is going to say a greenside bunker shot is the same as a stock 8i approach shot or a running pitch shot from the fringe.

80% of the time from the tee box, when there is trouble anywhere near 270 off the tee box I know that driver is too long and if it is anywhere 250 the 3w is too long, 230 and I hit 3i or 4i because the 5w isn't worth the risk just to gain 20 yrds. On the fairway, it depends on what my landing area looks like, what kind of trouble can I get into if I miss it left, right, long or short. I never hit into a situation where I have to hit a perfect shot. If I am hitting into a green with a 3w my miss forgiveness better be as big as a football field :P But truely all you need to do is be smart but don't be affraid to hit the woods, swing with confidence and the results will reflect that.

Only 2 reasons to replace wedges... 1) They don't suite you and don't feel good to you 2) You have worn the club out, you migh tbe losing some control if your grooves are worn too low but then again you have porbably go used to them and getting new grooves may reduce your accuracy at first.

I have ProjectX 5.5 on my MP67s and I used to have the DG s300 in my TM V-steel 3w. Now granted one are irons and the other is a wood but I also have the DG s300 in my wedges and for me the DG are a bit too head heavy feeling and make it feel like the club is a but too tip active for me. The ProjectX is a very nice shaft, solid and balanced with good feedback, I would pick them again over the DG. Low irons don't feel whippy and the high irons don't feel too stiff - 5i or 8i they both feel the same.

Most PW from a set are made like irons, where as "aftermarket" 47deg wedges are built like wedges. If you have a set that is CB/MB and the PW is not a forged blade type like when you buy a 52/56/60 then you don't get quite as good "feel" and consitancy from a wedge with any sort of cavity in the club. Some also prefer a different bounce on the PW then what the stock PW comes with. Also depending on the set some PW are 47, some are 48 or even some other loft. If your next wedge after that is 52, 56, 60 and your PW is say 47, that leaves a weird gap in terms of loft and thus you may have to get that 47 bent to be 48 instead so you have 4 deg of loft difference between each wedge.

1) I think your driver stance it too wide 2) Your hands start too far behind the ball at address, might be camera angle 3) I think your wrist cock is too late and not complete 4) Too much hip rotation on your back swing, twist more at the waist and less at the hip If you haven't seen the Tiger swing portrait you should....it is amazing. He how still everything is and how simple and robotic it looks. Go to this site, then to Experience and then Swing Portrait http://www.nike.com/nikegolf/index.htm Or view it here

Where are your misses, left or right - or are you just coming up short?

The only thing I don't like all that much about the tips they give are that they don't tell you why. When they tell you to do this, that and the other, they rarely tell you what the purpose of the tips is and what is it that the tip is trying to correct. They generally do a good job of giving a tip to correct a sympton but aren't very good at telling what is causing the outcome. It's as though they don't want to teach you the theory or the mechanics behind the swing. I kind of compare it to math, some one can tell you 2+2=4 without telling you why it equals 4 and the only reason you know it equal 4 is because you memorized it. Where as if you teach you why it equals 4 then the person will also know why 3+4=7. It's the whole idea behind, "give a man a fish, you have fed him for a day, teach a man how to fish and you have fed him for a lifetime" When you teach someone the golf swing I think it is very important to teach the why and the theory behind the swing. There is not a great golfer out there who don't understand the swing and how it related to them. The swing of one person can be completely different but if they both understand the fundimentals the results will be very similar.

My understanding was that the heavier shaft will give you more feel because you can feel more of the weight during the swing. I am not sure if the the ball flight is going to be any difference considering the stiffness profiles are identical between the 2 different weights. Product Code Flex Weight Torque Launch Butt OD Butt Mid Tip Parallel Tip OD Length 6700 S 65 g 3.7 High 0.600 " 270 7.1 26 4.0" 0.335 " 46 " 7600 S 75 g 2.8 High 0.605 " 272 7.1 26 4.0" 0.335 " 46 "

The only thing that is going to make any difference is probably going to be shutter speed. If you can find one that you can set manually and if not then one that has a sport modes (which is usually the fastest for that camera). With the super fast shutter speed you need lots of light, because the shutter opens and closes so quickly there is not a lot of time for light exposure. One other thing of note, you are probably going to want to get some software that will allow you to advance through the video frame by frame. Most are only like 30fps, I use one that does the raw video @ 60fps and even then the club moves pretty far between frames. Unless you go commercial you are not going to be able to get the kind of quality or amount of frames that you see on TV with those ballistic camera - they can capture something like 3k fps.

The only thing I am going to throw out there is that I think you your feet are lined up to the right from the camera angle, which usually good player do to hit a draw and I think maybe you aren't extending your right arm enough at impact - might be because you are affraid of hitting a block out to the right. Do you hit a lot of ball of the toe of the club? If you take look at the comparison and even when you watch on TV, when the pros hit the ball it goes off to the right where as your balls go off to the left. That might be camera angle but it looks like you might be hitting a pull hook or sometimes a slice?

Don't give up on the "it", take "it" to the range and engrain the "it", assuming "it" is good. You need some time to get the muscle memory to repeat that "it". Once you have mastered that "it" remember to revisit "it" again later on because your body/brain is lazy and only has room for only so many things. You need to remind then about the "it" I don't think you can expect to have a break through one week and then expect your body/brain to remember what you did if you haven't practised and refined it since discovering it.

Ok, it just kind of threw me off a little. Anyways, besides the obvious tips like practise, preshot routine and such, it looks like you keep some data about your game since you know your fairways, GIRs and Putts. The only other thing might be how you approach each shot and the game as a whole. I am not sure how you are in terms of the mental aspect but for me my big scores always come with a lack of focus and not playing the smart shot. Play for your misses not your good shots. Going for shots that require me to hit near perfect shots usually result in extra strokes. If you play a draw/fade play shots where a straight shot is ok and enough draw/fade would result in a great shot, not the other way around. Don't play to the final score, or even to the hole. Play each shot seperately, don't let the score effect how you play your current shot. Don't use your current shot to make up for a bad previous shot. Countless times have I seen my playing partners try and hit a 3w out of the rough because they shanked or duffed their drive - don't let the one bad shot lead to 2-3 additional strokes on that hole.