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I watched a BUNCH of Mike Malaska videos that are on YouTube, and I did some of the drills. With my back disease that I deal with, I’m going to look at transitioning to what he teaches. It seems like it will help save my back in the long run. The other two guys I’ve done lessons with, Bryan Pate, and Mike Bender, have so much body movement/rotation/extension that I actually HURT after doing their drills, or hitting balls, or playing 18. This is a big change, but for the sake of reducing pain, I gotta do it. Plus, having played tennis year round until I was 14, I really see his swing philosophy of hand action being pretty easy to mimic since it’s very similar to the old forehand I hit!!! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

After a disappointing season on the final weekend I hit some form. Hit a scratch 75 net 66 and hopefully win the monthly medal then played at Castle Stuart yesterday in great autumn conditions. I'd played there before but in 30mph winds and overcast conditions. Yesterday was stunning. For those who have read my post on course management, I started well lipping out my par putt on 1 and birdie on 2, feeling good on 3 until I pulled my approach left. The ball is sitting in a small gorse bush root, there is no way you can get the club onto the back of the ball and I try the Seve shot 4 shots later I'm on the green and the mist has descended. Apart from that I was pretty steady. Some pictures below and one of Elgin Cathedral just to show I don't always play golf

I have always known what I was doing wrong, even after my lesson program last year, and I still couldn't get the proper thoughts'feels to correct. I decided to go back to my instructor, Jason, who worked with in 2013 and 2014. He's really the only instructor I have had that has been able to drastically transform my swing. Before going to Jason in 2013, my driver spin was around 3500 and my launch was around 7 degrees. I was hitting so far down with my driver that it was robbing me of distance. Jason helped me hit up on the ball and turn my high cut into a draw. The new swing is all about control with the scoring clubs. He loves my driver swing and there are only a few tweaks we are going to make there, but he doesn't want to rob me of any speed. We are focusing on getting wider/deeper in the backswing (bringing my hands less inside) and then pivoting through the downswing and keeping my hands much lower. In just one lesson yesterday, we were already able to see very promising results on hitting knockdown shots with the PW and 8i. As I get more comfortable with the concepts and the move, I will be ramping up the speed and eventually translating it to full swings with the scoring clubs and then transitioning to the longer irons, hybrids and woods. Really excited to be working with Jason again.

From the Definitions: So you certainly could have cleared away all the snow, both on the green and in the General Area, treating the snow as a loose impediment. You could also have taken relief from the snow, treating it as Temporary Water, so dropping it within 1 clublength of the nearest point of complete relief. Since your ball was on the apron, you wouldn't get "line of play" relief from Temporary Water on the green, but once you took relief for stance and swing you may have not needed it.

... The only thing I dislike more than hitting wedge into every green, is hitting 3 and 4 iron into every green. Somewhere in the middle is the sweet spot. I like having wedge into several holes as well as having a long iron or two and maybe even a 5 wood into one difficult par 4. I think the best layouts give you and opportunity to use those two clubs but the majority of the par 4's should have mid iron approaches. ... The game is best played and enjoyed using your entire bag, which challenges you the entire round.

B4 my fitting this morning I stopped at the closet course warmer up in the net, chipped and putted for 45min as the sun came up. Sent from my iPhone using MyGolfSpy

Walking day with the guys today. ABSOLUTELY beautiful morning!! Sunny and 58º with no wind. The course had a little tournament today, so the course was open on the back nine. We only played nine holes like most weeks, but we always play the front nine. Nice to get out on the back for a change... it's a much flatter walk. Shot 38 (+3) and had a career long drive on #13. My buddy is always longer off the tee than I am, and he hit a great drive. When i hit mine, I knew it was good. Both of us in the middle of the fairway and I was 25 yards past him!! 253 yards!! Huuuuuge for me. Love fall golf!! The geese are flying through now and crapping up the place. Here is my tee shot on the short par 4 #14 just in the rough next to the geese on the right...

Snow is considered casual water - free relief, nearest point no closer to the hole.

Special thanks goes out to @TSauer for leaving Diggs on the bench this week.

My simple build. Old TM driver shaft, 4mm phillips screws (to match the number of washers) 16 , 21, and 26 washers for 253g, 295g, and 336g total club weight of the shaft and washers . Used a small lock washer at the head of the screw, small fender washers at the top and bottom (1/16" hole x 5/16" dia), and big (3/16" hole x 1 1/4"dia) for the weight. 8g each. TM Fujikura XLR8 Reg flx from M2 driver. Might switch to Senior flex.

Worst round in a long while today! I hurt my back about a month or so ago and as it has healed it has really tightened up. Experiencing a lot of lower back pain, tightness that just won’t let up. I’ve been stretching a lot to try to help and it does alleviate the pain for a bit. But today when I tried to play I could just not get loosened up. So stiff. Couldn’t sequence. I duffed 2 shots on the first hole. Opened with 5 bogeys in a row. But I still had fun! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Played a new course today - Lake Hefner North in OKC. Was a beautiful day - 70's with winds 15-20. Played with 2 of my two eldest boys and had a really great day. Was the first time I used Arrcos and it was great - no problems at all. FIR 9/14 GIR 13/18 Putts 29 Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Well it was an incredibly warm, clear day (gonna be the last one of those for a while....) but started off kinda poorly... ..to where my score to par after the first 3 holes matched my previous whole 9 hole round there! Picked it up after that with bogeys and pars, tho I did add another double on my nemesis hole at this course (#7) - tee shot left, punch out, chunked the approach, chip on but ran out too much, misread the first putt..... Finished well with an almost birdie (Par 5) - I actually missed a straight-in level 3 footer - and a solid birdie (uphill Par 3). .. And speaking of Canadian Geese .. typically this course, especially #7 thru #9 by the water, are thick with geese and geese poop (walkers tip: put cheap plastic shower caps on your cart wheels) .. but today was strangely, weirdly clean! Not one goose in sight .. Hey @Kenny B maybe they all went to Washington?!?!

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When we hired a Greenskeeper back in CT one of the questions asked in the interview was do you have a dog? Sent from my iPhone using MyGolfSpy

Greens keeper needs a dog! Sent from my iPhone using MyGolfSpy

Swing Overhaul Part 2 has commenced

Played another course I had never played before in Quitman, Georgia. It’s a short course where some of you bombers could reach half the par 4s from the tee box. But it has an interesting mix of holes and is pretty tight with very small greens. But because I had a lot of wedges into greens I was stiffing them to within 10 feet all day long. Sadly, two of those bogies on the back nine were three putts from within 6 feet of the hole both times. That’s what happens when you blow your first putt by and it’s longer then your first putt. Oh well, another day on the golf course is still better then any day at work. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So my brother sends me a gift card from GoPlayGolf.com for my birthday, and it's supposed to be something you can use to pay for rounds of golf or whatever at any one of 5,000 golf courses. So I was up in NC, and I figured I'd use it for one of my rounds of golf while I am up there. Well, to save you some time, their system for redeeming this gift card for rounds of golf is so complicated and convoluted that I would steer clear of trying to use it towards greens fees or whatever. Essentially how it is supposed to work is that you fill out this long, complicated form online ONCE you have made a tee time, and then this company is supposed to call the golf course, and pay for your greens fees BEFORE you come to play your round. Well, not really knowing this, I called the golf course a few days before I wanted to play and made a tee time, and asked them if I could use this card towards my round, and the guy on the phone at the course said, "sure, we can use it." Well, I showed up the morning of, and it didn't work. My failure was the fill out the online redemption form, and submit it to this company so that they could pay the golf course. But seriously, who does golf like this? If you're like me, I rarely plan that far ahead with tee times, especially as a single. Normally it's either the day of, or the day before that I decide to play somewhere, mostly because I am always worried about the weather, and don't want to book a tee time if it's going to suck outside. The good news, if you want to call it that, is that you can redeem these gift cards for merchandise or Top Golf, or lessons, or whatever. So I explored the merchandise options online, and they take you to Worldwidegolf.com where you can enter the gift card to pay for whatever they have online. Not a total loss overall, but the card definitely is next to impossible to use towards a round of golf. Just thought I'd share my experience with the group here.

Went back to the same course I'd played yesterday, in an attempt to seek some redemption on the first three holes that I had played poorly - and, well, that didn't work out...... Just one stroke better on #1 but then just as bad on #2 and #3. Scratched out three ok bogeys to follow but then yet another blow-up on the #7 hole. And the last two holes that I'd almost-birdied and birdied yesterday? Well today was the polar opposite.... Man this game can be hard sometimes, and I'm not really liking the way I'm closing out the season here. Gotta turn it around!!!

I would not consider myself a great ball striker however I hit my irons pretty consistent. I too am looking hard at a few things: 1) ball flight 2) forgiveness 3) spin I get fitted Sunday for mine so we shall see what they put me in. Years ago I had the PING G10's in red dot with stiff tru temper shafts. Lets see how things have changed.

I hear ya. That 2014 PV1 I was playing Sunday didn't feel that good on the last two holes. The freshness date must have expired on the 17th tee. LOL

Really appreciate you posting these videos, @jlukes. Not only is it fascinating watching your work and progress, but there's hardly been one that you've put up that hasn't given me something to think about in my own swing.

This Lefty’s 4U then. I call it the refined gentleman Lefty look

They're cute at that age [emoji12] Sent from my iPad using MyGolfSpy

Today was my first round with Arrcos - it was relatively painless. I had to change two scores where it gave me an extra putt but it was easy to to do. Here are my stats:

Boy that’s a lot of shots at that hole for 1 person...

Would love to have a dog!! But first, we would need 18 of them; they like the pond areas, but they will also wander all over the course eating grass/weeds or whatever. And second, our course is an Audubon International golf course, so we can't harass the birds. The most we can do is drive carts up to them and herd them off the fairway. I did that twice yesterday for my wife. I just hit away. Today my ball landed right in the middle of the flock and they didn't even move!! Walla Walla CC has a collie and he/she is very good at keeping the geese off!!

2019 Season: The Year in Review Post It has snowed here. There is likely some golf yet to be played in the next couple of weeks, but this season is drawing to its close, and it's time to look back at my progress this year. Let's start with some big picture numbers: I isolate my July/August numbers, because that tends to be when the weather and my golf game both peak. On the whole, there's a lot of progress in this chart: I gained about a stroke off the tee, almost two strokes in my approach game, and about a half stroke putting. I got about a half stroke worse in my short game. My GIRs went up by over a third. Putting (in raw numbers) has been a pretty constant part of my game. During the peak months, I gained nearly 30 yards off the tee. 221 is still not impressive and I'm still convinced it is far below my potential, but it's a sizable improvement over the previous year. Not on the chart: my scrambling numbers improved incrementally, from 19% to 22% (in July/August). I began this project with a Game Golf handicap of 15.8. As I detailed in some previous posts, I found that GG's course rating information was incorrect for my home course, and remains so. The upshot is that my starting handicap was likely inflated a bit by GG. My current number is 12.8, but a bit of that is entering the last few rounds with the (now too high) course rating. All in all, I'm thinking that the 12.8 is probably pretty accurate, but that I didn't drop a full three strokes from my handicap this season. Nonetheless, I think I made real progress, and the prospect of dropping from 12.8 to something sub-10 next season is not terribly far-fetched. I'm anticipating, then, continuing this thread for Season 2. So where can more work be done? There remains for me a strong correlation between the aspects of the game I practice most and the parts of the game I'm best at (shocker!). I putt regularly on my practice green in my basement. That will continue, and I'll be doing my offseason tradition of pitting my stable of putters against each other for the starting gig in my bag next year. New this year: I'm going to be using my PuttOUT gate for the testing this year, to narrow down which putter I'm most effective with in starting the ball on my intended line. I'm finding that I have a regular tendency to pull putts. Iron play also remains a strength relative to handicap, and it got even better this year. In July/August, Game Golf would put my ball-striking on the level of a 7 handicap. Two plans here. The first is that I just bought a used DST Compressor 8 iron. My hope is that it will continue to sharpen my impact position with my irons. The second is that (for me) I've learned not to practice on my fluffy garage turf. Instead, I stand on the fluffy turf and hit balls off a tight lie turf (the same stuff I used on my putting green). The fluffy turf lets me get away with fat contact far too easily, and I noticed it immediately when I began this season on the squishy, snow-melted course. Practicing on the tighter lie this winter should allow me to come out of the gates better next spring. The short game remains the biggest and most place for improvement. My season-long comp (2018 vs. 2019) is not good here: My dispersion pattern this season was (oddly) more symmetrical, with an almost even spread left and right of the green. But hitting the green 50% of the time from inside 100 yards is just brutal. How is this going to improve? One factor might be that I had to give up my @PrecisionProGolf NX9 HD in mid-August. The main MGS office needed it for a video shoot. I can't prove that this created my problem, but from July 1–August 14, I hit 57% of greens inside 100 yards. From August 15 (when I sent my NX9 away)–September 30, that number plummeted to 39%, with 52%(!) of my shots ending up short of my target. With the rangefinder, I hit 31% of GIR; after I sent it away, the number dropped to 23%. I'm frankly just not good at estimating yardage inside 100 yards. Nearly all my practice is done on my SkyTrak, and I don't have a projector for the SkyTrak; I'm using a TV screen on the side of my setup. That means the I don't visually connect distances to swings in my practice; instead, I'm attaching specific yardage numbers to specific backswing lengths and feels. Not having my rangefinder, then, quite plausibly could have contributed to the decline of my short game down the stretch of the season. (The July 1–August 14 strokes lost number for my short game was 4.61, which is better than my numbers from 2018.) So my improvement plan with my wedges includes, first, using my NX9 consistently within 100 yards next season. Second, I again believe that practice from the tight lie mat will help here: a lot of those 35% of short game shots that come up short are because of fat contact. Third, I'm full-on committing to a three-wedge clock setup this winter. I replaced all of my wedges with more friendly Cleveland wedges this season: the CBX in 50° and the RTX-3 CB in 54° and 60°. I plan to work heavily with SkyTrak this off-season to establish consistent 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, and full swing distances with each of those clubs. This aspect of my game is so poor right now that any dedicated work is bound to improve my scoring significantly. Off the tee, I got better, but I'm still underachieving. This remains for me the hardest part of my game to practice. There are no ranges near me, and my garage ceiling is not high enough to allow me to practice on the SkyTrak. I'm looking at the possibility of removing a small portion of my garage ceiling (it is just a layer of insulation) and swinging between the rafters, but even that is pretty dodgy. I do intend to take my SkyTrak to my parents' house, where their garage has very high ceilings and would allow me to get a least a couple of driver sessions in. I will also be resuming a fitness plan for the off-season. I'm giving real consideration to jumping in on the Fit For Golf Superspeed plan while the sale is going on. But I also might just do the SuperSpeed training along with regular workouts on my BowFlex-like home gym. It's also my intention, next season, to get my first driver fitting ever. That's always a challenge; I don't have fitters local to me. But I have a few times a year when I have reasons to get to the Twin Cities, and should be able to arrange something like that next season. I've appreciated all of you who have followed along on my journey this year, who added your encouragement and tips along the way. Thank you for that!

Picked this up yesterday from a FB Marketplace ad! Thing looks brand new and got it for $60. Couldn’t pass it up! Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Been looking for a new bag and had some PGASS credit and I was getting a wedge reshafted when I saw this little number on clearance... I try to walk whenever I can and use a push cart and have heard loads of great things about the C130 and I just had to do it. BONUS: the color scheme will match the badges on my Ping g410s

I will say the increased offset is a little bit of a concern for me. Having looked at a full set on the rack the offset is more pronounced in the long irons than it is at the 7 iron and down. The 7 iron ball flight was really close to my current gamers, just with 8 extra yards. It will take some time during the testing to see what the long irons play like for me with the greater offset. Ping is offering these up as compatible for the low 2-digit handicap to the 20+. As a player near the lower end of that wanting to improve my GIR stats, I was mostly attracted to the forgiveness side of these irons. It may wind up being a focus area of my write up that the better ball striking players may want to look at the hybrid or crossover options in the 4/5 iron.

I certainly don't want to undermine the message of the main blog, but I'd add one qualification (that I think they'd agree with): be your own brand if your primary goal in golf is shooting the lowest score you possibly can. The reality is that golf can be enjoyed in a lot of ways for a lot of reasons. The guy who plays hickories isn't playing golf wrong; his enjoyment of the game comes from a different place. The guy who plays for ego (think the "Ace" character from the YouTube channel Fried Eggs Golf), with XX Stiff shafts, a 6° driver, and the thinnest blades he can find: he probably gets his satisfaction from golf from another place. If you goal (as a TOUR player) is a guarantee a base salary, and some OEM is willing to do that if you'll play 14 clubs, that's a reasonable reason to play 14 of their clubs. But with my qualification, I totally agree: if your chief reason for playing is scoring, being totally brand agnostic is the best approach. If you end up with 14 clubs from the same OEM, great! But being open to putting the 14 clubs that are the very best for you is the best strategy for playing your best golf.

Here's one that you don't see everyday. https://www.golf.com/instruction/rules/2019/10/14/jesper-parnevik-mulligan-rules-loophole/ TLDR Jesper hit a putt that lipped out and hit his foot. By rule the stroke is cancelled and must be replayed from the original spot.

Chipping and putting yesterday Full shots today Sent from my iPhone using MyGolfSpy

They were done by a professional in Georgia...not sure how he does it but his work is perfect. I had a set of the coppers done and when he was done they looked like gold. Sold those as both sets were to nice for my crummy swing

With the latest revision, my handicap has dropped a full point to 14.3.

Honestly, I'm insane, but doing this so that I could swing a driver in my garage would take it to another level

Yup. We have some courses in the area that have a mixed set of tees rated so one could do this easily on those courses. The scorecard shows what tees to play for the particular hole. if not rated then not really able to enter for hdcp

I don't believe I did. I think I ordered a 200 and a 175 tee. I use the 175 for my driver, a 100 for 3 wood and I actually just bought a pack of 50 short plastic tees for my irons and hybrids. I think the 175 is the tee to use with a driver unless you tee the ball really high. The 175 will put my M5 head about level with the middle of the ball.

Not sure how this will affect drug tests. Our office has been warned not to take it. For us, one failed drug test means being fired. Not worth the chance to me.

2 of the hardest courses I have ever played! But fair and always in perfect condition.

This does make it impossible for you to post your score for handicap.

Been trying a lot of drivers lately, since that's the biggest current gap in my bag. Candidates are: - Ping G410 (Max, LFT, SFT) - Cobra F9 - TM M5/6 & also a buddies M2 tour spec he no longer uses - Callaway Epic's Right now the Cobra F9 is the leader with 280yd+ carry #'s, however I went to the new Top Golf in Richmond on Saturday - side note, place was a ghost town on Sat AM for others in the area - and tried out my buddies M2 Tour Spec (apparently he somehow got it off the tour truck last year...I didn't ask to many questions) w/ a Speeder 65g S-flex shaft. Based on the trackers at Top Golf, I was getting carry distances in the 255-265yd range and most hits went where I wanted them to go. Also beat my other buddies in their regular scoring game since my wedges were rock-steady

Shot a weird 85 at Windmill yesterday. 47 front and 38 back. Hit the best drive I've ever hit on #13...almost ran out of fairway.

Here'a a little more detail on my fitting for the G410 Irons. After warming up with my current 7 iron (photo on the left is the Hogan, right G410) I had a good baseline of numbers to compare . For looks, the toplines are very similar, but the G410 is visibly a little larger with slightly more offset. Feel-wise it took some time to work through some shaft options to get something that felt good to me. For the feel of the club anyway, my Hogans feel very balanced when I hold the club up parallel in front. At least with the first couple of shaft options in the Ping they felt very club-head heavy to me. Started out with a shaft similar to my current KBS Tour V stiff, and the results were ugly, couldn't find the swing and ball flights were all over the place. We tried a couple more and results were the same. We got to the Ping AWT 2.0 stiff and the dispersal started to come around, but the ball flight wasn't ideal and didn't see much distance change. Finally we tried the AWT Regular and got what we were looking for. Similar launch with better ball speed, consistent ball flight, and a little more carry distance. To boot, we got the more balanced feel that I seem to like. Final Result - Ping G410 Irons with Ping's True Temper AWT 2.0 shaft in R flex (I knew that was coming eventually since my next birthday comes with a colonoscopy appointment). I also know and chatted with my fitter that not all shaft flex designations are the same. I'll have to have them check on the freq machine but it could be with the heavier weighted shaft these are pretty close to what I've been swinging. I feel fairly confident I'll be able to determine distance gains and accuracy without using the Arccos system, so I've opted not to select the incorporated grips. By the numbers: Hogan PTx - Ball Speed 105 mph, BackSpin 6335, Launch Angle 22.25*, Offline 4.8 yds, Descent angle 48*, carry 143.8 yds Ping G410 - Ball Speed 106 mph, BackSpin 4791, Launch Angle 22.5*, Offline 11.5 yds, Descent angle 47.25*, carry 151.5 I feel confident some more practice to dial in feel will bring the offline number for the Pings in a little closer, and we also had to keep a couple of more errant shots in the count that skewed the number a bit. The final 4 swings were all tightly grouped, just a bit more left of line than the Hogans. Looking forward to arrival day and getting to work.

Not trying that again, the number 2 doesn't call me anymore

How do you date them? Flatter them, find out what you have in common, and eventually ask them out for coffee or drinks?