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On March 14 2014 13:11 supernovamaniac wrote:
I wish I can participate in such tournaments
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
My thought would be to make it accessible. In other words it might be something like a 4 round tournament with a week in which to play each round.
I'd probably do something like length has to be between X and Y yards, and then from their score is adjusted using CR/Slope in a manner similar to handicap. We've got a few months before summer gets into full swing, but I could see this being fun. I'll continue to think about it and read about similar ideas and maybe propose something more serious in May, with the event starting in June.
Didn't know you played golf, thats awesome!
BTW: If anyone is from, or will be in, Colorado LET ME KNOW so we can play a round while you are here!
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On March 14 2014 13:26 L_Master wrote:Show nested quote +On March 14 2014 13:11 supernovamaniac wrote:
I wish I can participate in such tournaments
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 My thought would be to make it accessible. In other words it might be something like a 4 round tournament with a week in which to play each round. I'd probably do something like length has to be between X and Y yards, and then from their score is adjusted using CR/Slope in a manner similar to handicap. We've got a few months before summer gets into full swing, but I could see this being fun. I'll continue to think about it and read about similar ideas and maybe propose something more serious in May, with the event starting in June. Didn't know you played golf, thats awesome! BTW: If anyone is from, or will be in, Colorado LET ME KNOW so we can play a round while you are here!
Being part of high school golf team, I played tons.
I was always good at shots but my mental game was weak, thus I never scored well. To date, I think my lowest was +8 for 18, never broke into 70's. Maybe I did once, but not sure.
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On March 14 2014 14:00 supernovamaniac wrote:Show nested quote +On March 14 2014 13:26 L_Master wrote:On March 14 2014 13:11 supernovamaniac wrote:
I wish I can participate in such tournaments
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 My thought would be to make it accessible. In other words it might be something like a 4 round tournament with a week in which to play each round. I'd probably do something like length has to be between X and Y yards, and then from their score is adjusted using CR/Slope in a manner similar to handicap. We've got a few months before summer gets into full swing, but I could see this being fun. I'll continue to think about it and read about similar ideas and maybe propose something more serious in May, with the event starting in June. Didn't know you played golf, thats awesome! BTW: If anyone is from, or will be in, Colorado LET ME KNOW so we can play a round while you are here! Being part of high school golf team, I played tons. I was always good at shots but my mental game was weak, thus I never scored well. To date, I think my lowest was +8 for 18, never broke into 70's. Maybe I did once, but not sure.
When you say mental game was weak, do you mean that once things went south you tended to start struggling? Or that you just took way too many risks/low percentage shots?
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28077 Posts
Great, I always wished there was an active golf thread on TL 
I started playing seriously 4 years ago. I played a bit when I was younger, but no more than 4-5 rounds a year, but 4 years ago I decided to really start dedicating myself to the game during summers since I am a uni student and I have 4 months off every summer. This upcoming season will be my 5th in a row with a full membership, so I'm hoping to get down to scratch this year and play almost everyday. I didn't keep track of my handicap last season but I was averaging around 76-80ish, so I don't know if scratch is a realistic goal or not, lol.
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On March 14 2014 16:50 TheEmulator wrote:Great, I always wished there was an active golf thread on TL I started playing seriously 4 years ago. I played a bit when I was younger, but no more than 4-5 rounds a year, but 4 years ago I decided to really start dedicating myself to the game during summers since I am a uni student and I have 4 months off every summer. This upcoming season will be my 5th in a row with a full membership, so I'm hoping to get down to scratch this year and play almost everyday. I didn't keep track of my handicap last season but I was averaging around 76-80ish, so I don't know if scratch is a realistic goal or not, lol.
Averaging 78 means likely your good rounds are in neighborhood of 72-75, let's call it 74 (handicap calculated using best 10 rounds of 20).
If you are playing back tees chances are CR is typically 69-74 depending (if you tell me your home club I can know exactly), so basically worst case scenario would have you in the vicinity of 5 handicap, and best case would have you around scratch.
So yes, the goal is definitely a possibility for you. Assuming worst case of around 5 to scratch, that is a pretty big jump but with focus on keeping ball in play off tee (if that is an issue), chipping, and putting (esp inside 6' and lag putts) it's a do able jump.
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28077 Posts
I'm from Saskatchewan and I play here http://www.willowsgolf.com/golf-course/course-information
I think my best round last year was 74. btw I made a ton of improvements last year, so at the start of the year I was shooting more mid 80's with a few low 80's. So it was more the last month I was shooting consistently around 76-80 with a few higher/lower.
I think putting is my main issue for this season, and maybe a bit of my chipping. I 3 putt a ton, and I don't really make clutch birdie putts ever (literally ever). I spent way too much time developing my irons and tee shots/drivers.
edit: oh and I play the black tees.
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You're somewhere in the range of 3-4 handicap then. Your course has some pretty tough ratings for being really short.
Not having those three putts would be huge, and if you are three putting it usually means your lag putting is poor. Try to get those suckers within 3 feet everytime, as the difference between 3 and 6 feet is huge. For the tour guys they are about 99% from inside 3 feet. Move back to 6 feet and it drops to barely 50%.
Draining putts for birdie feel good, but aren't that crucial to getting to scratch. What I'd do is keep track of stats your first 10 rounds or so: fairway %, green in regulation %, number of putts, and % of up and downs.
Usually for scratch you are looking for 10-12 GIR per round, with putts in the low 30s, assuming those GIR numbers, and approaching 50% for up and downs. Use that to find what is weak and shore up the vulnerabilities. Putting a bunch of work into driving 10 yards further won't have a major impact on your score. Reducing 3 putts from 2 per round to 0...well that gets you down to a 1 or 2 handicap already.
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How do you guys deal with slumps?
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United States24513 Posts
I have a separate question from ReignSupreme: how do you improve? We have definitely discussed this topic on tl before but it has been a few years... if you are pretty good (say, single digit handicap) then I think it becomes fairly easy to identify your mistakes and work on improving yourself. If you are worse than that (ie me) then it becomes more difficult to identify your mistakes (ie omg I just shanked that I dunno why) and often need help from someone else. To what extent is it necessary to work with a pro (and lay out mad money) to get to a skill and knowledge level where you can improve steadily through practice alone, and what are the alternatives? I find reading books, discussing this online, etc, are of extremely limited utility.
I'm toying with bringing my clubs when I move Sunday even though I won't really have any room for them LOL... just gonna leave them in the trunk or something...
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On March 14 2014 14:14 L_Master wrote:Show nested quote +On March 14 2014 14:00 supernovamaniac wrote:On March 14 2014 13:26 L_Master wrote:On March 14 2014 13:11 supernovamaniac wrote:
I wish I can participate in such tournaments
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 My thought would be to make it accessible. In other words it might be something like a 4 round tournament with a week in which to play each round. I'd probably do something like length has to be between X and Y yards, and then from their score is adjusted using CR/Slope in a manner similar to handicap. We've got a few months before summer gets into full swing, but I could see this being fun. I'll continue to think about it and read about similar ideas and maybe propose something more serious in May, with the event starting in June. Didn't know you played golf, thats awesome! BTW: If anyone is from, or will be in, Colorado LET ME KNOW so we can play a round while you are here! Being part of high school golf team, I played tons. I was always good at shots but my mental game was weak, thus I never scored well. To date, I think my lowest was +8 for 18, never broke into 70's. Maybe I did once, but not sure. When you say mental game was weak, do you mean that once things went south you tended to start struggling? Or that you just took way too many risks/low percentage shots?
First
I have no problem taking risk shots. It's just that I make bad judgments once I start having a bad hole, and I seem to have hard time recovering from them.
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On March 14 2014 21:15 ReignSupreme. wrote:
How do you guys deal with slumps?
Pretty much practice more and just work through it.
Usually slumps come about for a couple of reasons, namely: equipment change, working on new swing change, something has changed in your swing that really doesn't suit you.
Practice is pretty much the answer for all of those. In the case of the latter, sometimes it can be good to look at your swing and see what's going on and if there are any obvious issues. If it's anything less than a month I wouldn't call it a slump, sometimes you just get a string of bad rounds.
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28077 Posts
I had a slump with my driver last year, and being a really long hitter it was pretty terrible. Sometimes I would be two fairways over, lol 
The good thing is my 3 wood never has issues so I just switched to that for a couple weeks, and I still out drive everyone I play with anyways.
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On March 14 2014 21:25 micronesia wrote:
To what extent is it necessary to work with a pro (and lay out mad money) to get to a skill and knowledge level where you can improve steadily through practice alone, and what are the alternatives? I find reading books, discussing this online, etc, are of extremely limited utility.
I'm toying with bringing my clubs when I move Sunday even though I won't really have any room for them LOL... just gonna leave them in the trunk or something...
In my case absolutely unnecessary. I've had one golf lesson in my entire life.
When I was playing alot in late HS/first year of college I would bounce around between 1 and +2 handicap. Anybody will steadily improve through practice, especially if it is good short game practice. It's hard to go wrong there, esp if you take a little bit of time to read and understand the few basic fundamentals of good chipping and putting (i.e. for chipping: slight downward strike, controlled by the chest, acceleration through the ball (backswing not too big), hands lead clubhead into strike, etc)
For short game stuff if you are ever in doubt just video yourself or even look in a mirror and mimic the action of Tiger, or Rory, or whoever. Putting fundamentals are pretty much just put from the shoulders. The wrists should remain set the entire struck and in no way should the hands or arms influence the putt.
Full swing gets a little more complicated, because you can't just go say "copy Tiger" or "copy Adam" or whatever. Swings are built around ones body, and unless you are Adam Scott you can't swing like Adam Scott. But in general the best thing you could probably do is get an idea for what a "classical" good swing looks like. Which for me would be something like this
- spine slightly tilted back at address
- turn around spine on swing, position of the chest relative to the ball should not change drastically
- club plane on backswing should remain on a similar plane to the club at address
- start of takeaway is initiated by rotation of the upper body, with the hands and arms quite
- good full shoulder turn at top, right elbow tucked in, arms extended well away from head and chest
- downswing is led by the hips, NOT shoulders. hands and arms should remain passive until near impact
- bodyweight should shift forward, but spine tilt will remain
- good complete follow through with arms fully extended away and a full rotation into a finish position with weight on front foot, and shoulders rotated at least 90 from address position.
I'd say the order I would work on things is body mechanics first (shoulder turn, proper sequencing, etc), and then from there you can work on specifics if you know what works or doesn't work from you. By specifics I mean things like "club comes a little inside at the start, swing path coming down is too steep", etc. Generally, if the actions of the body are good, and the sequencing is solid as well you will be largely in good positions as well.
Pretty much the way I learned is by watching tons of golf, and trying to incorporate the concepts of the good swings into my own swing. I used plenty of mirror work and video for this. For a while I was probably too mechanical and position obsessed, but it certainly helped me develop a good swing with fairly solid good mechanics. Of course, you have to pare that with plenty of practice so you learn coordination, timing, etc. You can have a really pretty swing but still hit tons of awful shots if your timing is poor or you just don't consistently bring the sweet spot of the club back to the ball.
I'd also strongly recommend at least a 50/50, or if you can bare it, 66/33 division of time on short game v irons/driver. I made the mistake in HS of being about 5/95. I could have been a much better player than I was with smarter allocation of practice.
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On March 15 2014 04:07 TheEmulator wrote:I had a slump with my driver last year, and being a really long hitter it was pretty terrible. Sometimes I would be two fairways over, lol The good thing is my 3 wood never has issues so I just switched to that for a couple weeks, and I still out drive everyone I play with anyways.
Haha, I'm the opposite. I have as much confidence with the driver as I do with a 3 wood.
Time for the e-peen contest , what's your typical driving distance?
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28077 Posts
I usually hit around 290. Over 300 a few times in a round when I go full out on par 5's. I don't really keep track of my distance, but when I do it's rarely under 275. But distance has always come naturally to me since I'm 6'4 and have long arms. Also been an athlete my whole life.
I think I swing around 110-120 mph whenever I go to Golf Town and use their monitors. My favourite thing about being a long hitter is that I can use my PW from like 150-160 yards, lol. Makes approach shots so easy.
edit: I hit it extremely high though, I think I might get more distance with better trajectory. But hitting it high looks super cool.
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United States24513 Posts
L_Master other than the general advice about how to hit the golf ball, it seems like your main answer as to how to improve in golf (long game, let's say) is to watch lots of sound swings and compare them to your own swing by using video and/or mirrors. In the past I have not had much luck with that... (A) because I did not have a spot to do this 'mirror work' and (B) because I did not have the ability to record quality video at a time when I was actually hitting golf balls... doing it in your backyard without hitting a ball of course isn't as useful since you don't know how effective a swing you are analyzing was at hitting the ball well. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why working with a pro seemed so necessary to me. Overall, I've found it very difficult to identify what I did wrong much of the time (of course, sometimes it's obvious what you did wrong, or at least one of the things you did wrong).
The advice I have heard pretty much non-stop since I started playing golf was to spend the majority of your time focusing on and practicing short game. Apparently focusing too much on long game is a common beginner's mistake which costs strokes. This is something I still have trouble fully buying into even many years later... if I have to choose between not suddenly pushing/slicing my drive on #2 in to the woods OB, or, after missing the green, two putting for bogie on hole 3 when I probably could have gone up and down for par, I will honestly choose the former.
Short game question: two different pros I spoke to seemed to have different philosophies about chipping... one suggested treating it like a putt and keeping the arms more or less stiff... the other advocated using the wrists (not completely, but not locking them either) in tandem with a small upper body rotation... are both valid? Is one ridiculous? The latter seems to have more potential for shots that don't run much when they land, but seem to be trickier to learn.
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Driving and long iron hitting (practicing for distance) is so overrated.... Nothing is more frustrating than playing with a partner who has utter sh*t distance, but good short game... Practicing your putting and approach game is probably the best advice you can give to anyone... I mean, lets be serious, putting is essentially where you carve off your score...
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setting your putts up with good approach shots is also really important, 3 or 4 feet closer on the approach is often the difference between 1 or 2 putts for me
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28077 Posts
On another note, how many of you have seen pro golfers IRL? I have yet to see a real pro, but one of the guys I play with occasionally is in the NCAA and it's pretty insane to watch. He comes back to Saskatoon during the summers, and he plays really early in the mornings like myself so we end up going out on the course together quite often. Needless to say I feel quite terrible playing with him
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United States24513 Posts
I have. I was a standard bearer at a senior tour event in the late 90s, so I actually got to hang out with some of the pros, including Lee Trevino who is hilarious. More recently I was a volunteer at the Barclays so I was marking the ball position of every pro in the tournament (including Woods, Michelson, etc... all the big names). Each walked right past my station to get to the next hole. I think I mentioned this in an earlier thread but I shot Tiger Woods... with a laser! Take that.
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EPT
