We didn't have one of these yet, or so it seems from my searching, so I figured I'd make one.
Feel free to discuss any golf related stuff here: Good rounds, that 370 yard drive you smacked right at the pin but couldn't find, advice, how to improve, PGA tour events, whatever floats your boat.
I'll add more to the OP later and make it fancy, but figured I'd put something up now as any golf discussion is sorely lacking
I wanted to post in this thread but I kept forgetting.
I play screen golf 2-3 times a month (at least) here in Seoul. For those who don't know what that is: you have real clubs, real balls, and there's sensors and cameras that watch you as you swing (you have to hit the ball off a certain spot) and you hit it into a kevlar screen.
It's a ton of fun, and some friends of mine who are pretty good (can shoot 72 on a lot of courses) say it's pretty damn accurate for its realism. The major thing is if you're in a sand trap or whatever, you're still eating off a piece of astroturf, basically. But the game still accounts for everything like sand, wind, etc.
Basically my friends and I will go there on Friday night, order pizzas and bring in tons of alcohol and just shoot the shit for 18 holes. You can bring in your own food/beverages and it's not problem. Someone sometimes brings a laptop and we play music and watch youtube, too. Some of the most fun I've had in Korea!
Anyway, doing this was basically my first experience with golf. I've real golfed maybe 8 times otherwise (once in Bangkok, 3ish times in Canada where I'm from, and 4 times at an easy par 3 here in Korea, outside of Seoul.)
For a long ass time I sucked pretty badly. Recently I've been watching a lot of videos on golf swing form and I've improved drastically. From an average of ~+40 to around +15-25 so far for my best games. One night it all just clicked for me!
I'd still like to get a lot more consistent, however.
If anyone has any golf videos or instructional websites they'd recommend, please please please! For 3 years I kept coming in last place every game, and only recently I've come in 1st-2nd among my friends.
edit:
here's a video. I don't know if they have em in the west yet. But for $20 you can place on hundreds of different courses and it's fun as hell.
Wow clearly Korea is the best xD Those golf screens are normally used just in the shops that sell the golf clubs in England as they use it as a selling tool to say, come try this club its awesome it will make you shoot better etcetc. But that idea sounds awesome as you can get a group together have a laugh and play golf without the moany old members of professional golf clubs moaning at you for talking to loud on the course or smiling...heaven forbid you smile on the golf course lol. Also you don't have to dress a way you don't want too! Can wear whatever you feel comfortable swinging the club in.
Mini golf is still the best golf for me though, nothing beats trying to put the ball through the windmill at the right time!
They have simulators like that in the US, but playing on them in the manner you showed isn't especially popular. They tend to be used more for club fitting and instruction.
fuck shit fuck. Coulda beat my lousy best score of +27 tonight but I fucked up hard a lot on the back 9... finished +30. I was +7 after 8... grrr. Need better consistency.
On January 03 2014 21:02 SoleSteeler wrote: fuck shit fuck. Coulda beat my lousy best score of +27 tonight but I fucked up hard a lot on the back 9... finished +30. I was +7 after 8... grrr. Need better consistency.
Well, it's a nice front nine, but that 57 on the back is rough. I'm guessing you either got in your head about how good you were going to and started pressing aggressively/nervously, or the opposite and tried to play too safe which ironically can result in some bad swings. Rarely does your swing just totally "go" mid round when you are playing well...it can happen, but more often it's a result of mental game decisions. In my view the best way to think is "aggressive swings to conservative targets", meaning you dont try to just get it in play or club down and swing easy...same swing as normal. but if that pin is back right with bunker mid right you just play for middle of the green, or if it is a particularly narrow fairway you might take iron off the tee rather than driver.
To be honest...Just jealous you can play right now. Cold as heck here in Colorado. That and I'm poor, sucks only being able to practice or play a couple times a year .
I'm still jet-lagged which doesn't help. I had woken up around 4:45 AM that morning and golfed at night after a productive day of the gym and work. Definitely lost my concentration after 9 holes, and the last 3-4 holes I was worried I wouldn't beat my best record so I was playing nervously for sure. Got double par on the last hole when I could have gotten a par and beat my old score.
Since I went home to Canada for Christmas, it was my first game in about a month so that might have affected me slightly (maybe not...).
The annoying thing is... if you read my first post in this thread, I say I can shoot +15-25 around (down from my old scores of 40+.) There was a stretch of several weeks where we only played 15ish holes and I think my best was actually +15 at the time of quitting. But we got too drunk and we'd been playing for like 6 hours (one night we had 6 players - takes a fuck load of time since only one person can swing on the machine). So anyway, I had several nights where I should have crushed +27, but didn't actually finish the game. Even if I got double par on the last 3 holes or whatever I still would have beat it.
Oh well. I'll get it next time. And I understand the jealousy. I'll definitely miss screen golf when I move back to Canada in a couple years.
6 players? Takes a long time simulator or no...just hope you don't do that on a regular course if it is busy. I'd probably try and kill you by about the 3rd hole
Does sound like you are improving pretty darn well man. Going from 110's+ down to 90's is some big time improvement, and hopefully you'll keep progressing like a boss and be down in the 80s regularly in no time.
I'm really curious about exactly what it feels like to play simulator golf haha, might have to see if there is one of those in my area. My swing might be rusty as hell right now since I've maybe hit 200-300 shots at best over the last few years...but at least I can chip and putt for free so my short game is still acceptably intact.
Yeah usually if we have more than 3 players we book a double room, but we needed a left handed tee for my brother, and that's only in one room at this particular location. Strangely, it seems 95% or more of Korean golfers shoot right... never met any Koreans that shoot left, in fact. We play at a tournament for foreigners at a par 3 course every year, and I remember the first year there were problems since, well, some foreigners shoot left. The golf course only had one bag of left handed clubs to rent. :/
6 players in one room, two of them were brand new, too. It was frustrating! I would take my drive and then wait for 25 minutes while 3-4 of the newer players would be trying to hit it well enough to go past me.
Screen golf... man, my friends say it's a really good idea to start some up in the west. They're everywhere here. It's a lot of fun to play, as you say, when it's cold out. Or in the case of Seoul, the closest golf courses are more than 50 km away, and a lot of courses require you to get a caddy. It gets pricey. Screen golf is $20 for 18 holes here in Seoul. Comes with clubs, a glove, and shoes if you need em, too. I bet people in the west could charge double that and they'd still get a ton of customers, especially in the city.
As for the game itself... as I mentioned, there's hundreds of courses you can play on, which is nice. Some aren't even real. One we play on often if we bring in someone new is a course with no OBs. There's canyon walls everywhere and you'll always bounce back. It's a super easy course but it's fun! Another thing is if you get a hole in one, your game is free. On the canyon course, the 18th hole is uphill but it's a smallish bowl, so if you can aim it right it'll be a hole in one. Surprisingly hard to do, though. The hole is maybe... 10 yards across (diameter or whatever you'd say) from maybe 140 yards out. Only seen one hole in one on it, but we're usually too drunk anyway.
There's lots of settings, too. You can set a handicap for your player, change it to beginner (gives you a boost when you hit, or will straighten you out some), amateur (what we all play on, normal mostly but I guess it might be a touch forgiving) and pro (as close to 100% accurate as possible, I guess). You can turn wind on/off, turn on a grid system so you can see if it's rolling up/down hill, set a concede between 1-3 meters, and other stuff we don't touch. The tee platform also shifts up and down based on your terrain (tilts sideways, etc.) but you can turn that off.
In that sense, it's obviously not a substitute for real golf if you take it really seriously. But the club/ball is real, and as I mentioned in my first post, I have friends who do take golf seriously and they always say it's pretty damn accurate. Sometimes I actually find real golf easier. Sometimes. -_-;. Sometimes a room's censor might fuck up (or so we say... probably just our excuse )
There's a virtual driving range before you begin that you can fuck around on too which is fun. If you are waiting for friends to show up, it's pretty handy having 20 mins to warm up.
It's fun to play in a big group (as long as you have a lot of time to kill, or a double room), or last night I played with just one friend and it's fast and fun. Some guys play alone, even. Crank out 18 holes in an hour or less.
When I play with just one other person, it's addicting since you fly through it fast. Easy to play another 18 holes but the money would add up pretty fast.
Hmm yea that is definitely something that would be cool to try, even if it can't compare to the real thing it would be a pretty cool thing to have experienced and the group atmosphere could be fun!
Lefty is really rare in general btw, 5% sounds about right here stateside as well.
Not entirely sure I can make it happen, but my goals for this season are roughly:
Practice 3-4 times a week at least Get in at least 10 rounds, but ideally 20 if possible to re-establish handicap
Not really going to set performance goal till I know where I am at. In the meantime just for fun here is me getting in some balls on the first 70+ degree of the year!
Couple thing I want to work on:
Elbows are a bit flying, esp in follow through. Want to get that left elbow pointing more downward and connected on the backswing, and marry it up a little better to right arm on follow through
Shorten slightly, tend to play a little worse when swing gets too long
Getting a little steep sometimes coming down with the plane of the clubshaft
Looks a little cramped right at impact, need a little more extension there
I really enjoy the game and I actually spent this last summer working as grounds crew on a private 9 hole course, interesting experience.
The only story I can share is that one summer me and a bunch of friends all went to the same golf camp. Nothing serious, just to have fun and play the game. Long story short we were always grouped up with this one pretentious, douchebag, weiner type of kid who thought that he was the shit. Some of my friends were playing ahead of us and as soon as they cleared out of the way, I destroyed probably the best drive of my life right down the middle, but it was up an over a hill such that I couldnt see where it ended up. My friends in the group ahead, thinking that the annoying kid must have been the one to hit the drive, picked up the ball and chucked it, leaving me baffled when I got over the hill and my ball was nowhere to be found. In passing conversation later in the day they found out that it was actually my ball they threw into the woods. assholes.
Edit: this thread has been around for longer than I realized
I was super hyped for the final round of the Bridgestone last week cuz Tiger was actually in contention on Sunday. Sadly he failed again though...his back is definitely still giving him issues. I always get the itch to get out and golf around this time of the year. Masters just a month away too.
On March 13 2014 14:57 LuckyFool wrote: Wow a golf thread. Sick.
I was super hyped for the final round of the Bridgestone last week cuz Tiger was actually in contention on Sunday. Sadly he failed again though...his back is definitely still giving him issues. I always get the itch to get out and golf around this time of the year. Masters just a month away too.
Masters always gets my golf jones going. Bigtime.
Tiger for me is interesting. I both root for him actively and against him aggressively. What I mean is that I enjoy Tiger being in contention because I like his creativity, swing, and approach to shot shaping. That said, I never want him to win because he isn't much of a person, and gives possibly the worlds lamest, non-answer interviews.
That said, if Tiger came back to insane dominance, like his 2000 skill, I'd probably be pulling for him because I absolutely love seeing things being elevated to a new level. It may be predictable when that happens, but for me the dominance itself is fun to watch.
Man, ever since this round almost two years ago I just haven't been motivated to play! Now I'm moving into an apartment I probably can't even fit my clubs in... to live in a place with no nearby golf courses. Things just don't work out sometimes...
On March 13 2014 19:31 micronesia wrote: Man, ever since this round almost two years ago I just haven't been motivated to play! Now I'm moving into an apartment I probably can't even fit my clubs in... to live in a place with no nearby golf courses. Things just don't work out sometimes...
I didn't know you've had a hole in one! Thats dope!!
I'm still missing that one from my collection, but I've born witness to 4...including one for albatross on a par 4, that was sick!
For some reason I don't hate Tiger at all for his personal life failures. It's weird because he's the only sports figure I can think of that I feel that way. All other sports figures that have fail personal lives, or cheated somehow, or give shitty impersonal interviews, I root against. Like I hate Bill Belichick for example and he's sort of like the Tiger Woods of the past decade of the NFL.
Maybe Tiger is just so enjoyable for me to watch play golf it transcends everything else for me.
Also I've been playing golf since I was 7 years old and I've never even come close to a hole in a one. Super jealous.
But traveling around and being @ college... not ideal for playing golf nowadays. For some reason my iron shots were still straight few days ago, after not grabbing any club for almost 2 years