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Was fortunate to go on a customer golf trip last week to Kiawah and played 4 times. Game left a bit to be desired since it was my 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th rounds of the season, but we truly had perfect weather and great company. We started with Cougar Point, then played the Ocean Course, Osprey, and finished with the Ocean course on day 3. My pitching and chipping were the stars all 3 days and kept my scores lower than they probably should have been. Cougar Point - Nice layout, good round to get us started. A bit tighter driving holes on this course than the others. Drove the ball well most of the day. Approach and putting not stellar. 80 with 3 bogeys, 3 doubles and 1 birdie. Ocean Course - This course can bring some high scores quick. I think the lure of the moment got to me a bit. Overall I think the course is actually playable and scoreable. 39 on the front with a double. 44 on the back with 4 doubles. Driving was atrocious and I was not sure where the ball was going half the time. Two way miss is not fun on this course. 5 double bogeys. Ended up with an 83. Osprey Point - Really liked this layout as well. Different from the other two and some nice holes. Driving was a little bit better. At least keeping more on the face of the earth this time. Went 38/40 for a 78. Ocean Course - Putting completely left me this day. Actually put a decent round together, but the yips were back. Scaring me for what's to come this season. A good amount of greens in regulation, but not many actual birdie chances since I was about 30 feet away on most holes. I did not track putts, but would not be surprised if I had 8 three putts. Greens were not that fast or undulating, so it was just poor efforts. Pitched and chipped the ball great and actually chipped in on 18 for a birdie from just off the right side. Ended with another 83, but felt a little better this day. Only 3 doubles this day. Hopefully I am able to go back one day. Definitely a cool place to play especially after last year's PGA Championship. I'll have to start planning the outing for next year now. Not sure where it'll take me.

1st strokeplay comp of the season on Saturday. Played pretty steady, got up and down really well so pleased with the new SM8 wedges. Also used my new putter for the 1st time on the course and it worked really well. Great feel and really good speed control on the greens that are starting to roll true and gaining some extra zip to them - 31 putts. Driver & 3W worked pretty well, some really good drives. Really enjoying the -Pro V1x for a bit of extra distance and seems a little tighter too. Ended up with a nett 71 (1 under) but had a tough break on 18 where the ball hit a stone and ended up OB so finished with a 7 Had a 0.4 cut so going in the right direction..

Tax Day today. Everyone's taxes done???

Another productive wedge practice session yesterday (indoors at a GolfTec - not my ForeSight! ) using different wedges and different trajectories to different distances from 15 to 60 yds .. working on some mechanics from recent lessons ... This isn't all the shots from the session but _is_ representative of everything I hit - happy with the progress and with seeing most of the shots going reasonably on-line. Took another lesson lesson this morning, continuing our work on what they call "wrist bends" or in my case *NOT* bending / bowing / flexing / etc the wrists going back nor into impact. I was -rolling- my wrists a lot going back and starting to reduce that, but am still rolling them a lot going into impact which (in part) causes me to close the face too much and hit the ball low-left. Then tomorrow gonna get out and play ... and see how much of all this good stuff we can actually start to bring out to the course! And then the following two days after that are bed rest

Despite my best efforts to avoid getting extremely sunburnt… I failed, miserably. SPF 1000 couldn’t save my pale northern skin from the Floridian rays… you’d think I was in Boston, I’m twins with the Lobsta right now. Good news is, I got to get a new sun hoody.

I picked up a new 6 hybrid for $60 and I love it. Still don’t have distance dialed in but it’s high and long. Tour Edge is the real deal. I hit it today on a 160 yard Par 3 and it was good height & pin high and dead straight.

Fwiw my 5H is 24 turned up +1 to 25. I hit this way better than my 6i so this club typically gets used a few times per round. Yeah you can get hung up on the loft at address but for me this club is hitting the distance I want it to .. so looks be damned

It was finally my turn…it successfully ran through the house and I get to spend the next five days with a decent head cold and some chills and aches.

And I've named the putter. As a lot of putters seem to be named after places (Newport, Toulon, Daytona etc) I've gone with my home town. Made a new name plate. The black line is a graphic of the hills where I live:

1st game with the new putter this weekend just gone. It worked really well, speed control was great, alignment was spot on - my green reading still needs to improve but hit the ball where I was aiming. Lots of positive comments on the looks & weight too from other players

"NSFW" used to mean Not Safe For Work, like someone sent you an inappropriate joke or vid. Now on here it means "Not Safe For Wife" ...

Down in the basement hitting into the net while my son was re-gripping a couple clubs. Had a few "aha!" moments where he pointed out a couple setup flaws. Need the weather to get better so I can get in a couple range sessions and see if it all translates. My striking has always been pretty poor. Owen showed me the tee drill where you place the tee a few inches ahead of the ball and try to hit the tee. Couldn't do it for the life of me. He pointed out that I play the ball rather back in my stance and that the club is basically vertical at address. Once I adjusted and kept my hands in front of the club head I was able to clip the tee with ease. (Hopefully this isn't another workaround of some kind) Between that and him pointing out my recent lack of upper body movements, I'm excited to see how it all comes together. I'm also looking at my putting a little more critically. Been trying left hand low this season, mostly because I'm left handed but swing righty. I'm coming to realize that I'm neither holding the club properly nor setting up right. This might be the situation where I finally break down and get a lesson. I just can't get out of my own way sometimes

Another strategic maneuver. One of the family members was not ready in time. Said we will meet you there and also make sure our table is ready. (It's only 2 miles) Either I'm just that good or they knew and let me believe I was that good. Either way I got to play on a beautiful day.

Alright I was just gonna sit back and read but feel the need to post now. Swingweight and balance point are absolutely related. Your swingweight scale is using an alphanumeric scale to tell you where the balance point is for the club being measured. It uses the alphanumeric scale instead of a percentage scale to make it easier and faster to measure but it is still a percentage of the total length of the club. That number represents the balance point. While @Thin2win may have the wrong number with 29.5 (I’m assuming here as I haven’t seen that number used anywhere) his point is still valid. It’s the reason why counterbalanced shafts have a balance point of over 23” from the tip of a raw 46” shaft. The extra weight in the butt end moves the balance point closer to the grip making the head/tip end feel lighter and swing weight lower. For those reading this. From everything I have read and understand: Swingweight is used to get the balance point of all your clubs(or however many you choose to do) to the same percentage of the length. Now as far as lighter faster farther goes, it was something that oems used as marketing to try to sell distance. It is no different than jacking lofts or lengthening the club. Some guys will swing lighter clubs faster, others won’t. Nothing works for everyone and just because it didn’t work for you doesn’t make it wrong or the oems wrong for trying to market it that way. If you really want to learn, read everything you can find on a subject, get fit or experiment for yourself, and then make a decision.

Had a decent front nine on Saturday at North Bellingham. Immediately after the turn things fell apart though, and I shot an 8 on the par-4 10th. At that point I gave up hope of scoring low and just started focusing on my approach shots. It was pretty windy, which was making things difficult. Eventually though I felt like I had figured out my irons decently well, and went on a run where I made par or better on 4 of 5 holes. I hit a good drive on 13, and followed it up with an excellent 8-iron approach. I was feeling good after that, and stuffed my wedge to 4 feet on the next tee shot (2 putt thanks to atrocious green conditions). And then, after my approach on 15 found the greenside bunker and I two-putted for bogey, I was ready to go after it on a hole that I had previously never even managed to hit the green on: At the end of the day I managed to finish with an 87 (+1 net), losing out to my future brother-in-law by a single stroke in gross scoring (which I'm happy with, considering he's a single-digit handicap). Still struggling off the tee, and probably had 4 or 5 putts that were rolling in and got knocked offline by craters, so I feel like breaking 80 is definitely in the cards for this season!

Happy birthday @juspoole. Have a fantastic day!

Forgive my novice knowledge on the matter, but my understanding is that to have all of your clubs feel the same when swinging you wouldn't want them to all be the same swing weight. As I understand it you would want them MOI matched, which would lead to an lower swing weight values in the long irons and higher (heavier) swing weight values in the short irons. You find what your best MOI figure is and build your set to achieve this numbers for each club. I believe that is the idea behind the iron shafts with ascending mass technology and the like. That's also my understanding of it BNG.

Replied.......................... keep in contact! closure is magnetic as well

Monday morning Exec 9. A course I’m not crazy about but that’s the way it is. I played well and irons and Hybrids, yup Hybrids we’re really good. Managed 2 Birdies but 1 double and 2 bogies to take edge off, +2. Eight hole playing 175 yards one of the guys hit the pin. Lucky the ball only rolled 2 feet away so easy Birdie. Close to Hole in 1!!!

Not being snotty here but some questions/answers to the questions: 1) Why add 8 grams? you are getting light weight shafts for some reason, the club is going to be light. Yes you can add weight to get to a particular SW however it will be "feel" the same. since you are tinkering, tinker without the weight first. Then add some lead tape to the head until you get a good feel, measure it and re assemble the heads with the same amount of weight. That's the whole idea of tinkering. 2) The club doesn't care what the material of the tip weight is. the installer might. Brass is popular because lead is baaaaddddd (yes this is sarcastic). Like most things its the amount of exposure and time exposed. Although not an expert, the amount of time handling the lead would be minimal or you could wear a glove and use it just the same. Yes, drilling the of the tip to make it fit is not the best result however it works. The aero tech and other makes of shafts that use lots of layers will have small tip IDs. IMO Its a result of trying to reduce torque and making the tip stiffer. You may also find that as the weight gets lighter the tip ID gets bigger. 3) When dealing with graphite shafts, tip weighting can be a day long discussion, tungsten and cork are always part of the conversation. This method was developed for the steel shaft and not recommended for graphite for fear of creating a shear point inside the shaft and adding some gross amount of weight thus totally wrecking the profile of the shaft. I know as I am about to send this that another reader will add in and say "but I used the tungsten and cork without an issue" and that is ok. I'm just telling you that method wasn't for graphite. 4) Welcome to clubmaking and the several different ways to get to the same place. Wait until we start talking about trimming coke cans for shims. :)

Tuesdays are among my normal get out on the course days but several inches of snow in Syracuse kindly put a stop to that. Looks like I’ll be cleaning grips.

Was going to go to the range today to hit some golf balls but it’s been super windy. Wind gusts over 40 means not good practice weather as I won’t be able to tell if I’m doing something wrong or it was the wind.

Coming to a course near you.......

Just think, when you sell that club or clubs you will most likely get a 1099.

If you haven't already, check out the Orange Whip line .. from the full size Trainer to the Mid to the Compact. Note they also have a speed trainer, along with a wedge and putter. I get a lotta use out of mine!

So I had bought a GolfLogix printed book last year - we'd joined a new course that has 3 x 9s and I felt like it helped me 'learn my way around', check distances off the tee and to hazards, etc. The greens side of the pages offer two views - both overlaid atop topo contours and using 5 yd gridlines - one's a heat map and the other is white with smaller, closer arrows to show you the direction of the slope at all points on the green. A lot of useful info but me being me used it less and less over time... I'd also look at the PuttView books .. similar but a little different .. to see which presentation you prefer. Oh, PS: We're at a different course this year but didn't buy a book for it; have been looking at both Google Earth and provisualizer.com (thx @cnosil!) to look at lines and distances off the tee - but, of course, neither of those otherwise excellent tools has golf course green mappings.

I like the new position at the top. Keep it up! Slow swings work. My one comment is to focus on starting the downswing by moving the arms first; they should start before your body rotates. I see your arms and body turning turning as one. When you speed up your swing, the arms will lag behind, causing early extension and OTT. I fully expect you will be breaking 90 routinely by mid-summer; that's assuming your short game is solid.

Visited the range for a small bucket today, only brought my 6i-8i-PW ... and mainly focused on my 'back like Finau, thru like Fleetwood' swing thought. This was something I've touched on several times last year on this thread and it really has been successful for me. It's not yet an ingrained, natural swing and other times, I'm getting too wristy & handsy and has lead to a few messy results out on course play. But today was a good range sesh and just much more confidence inspiring. New grips and extended lengths are positives as well, especially when I feel like I'm coming up out of the swing too early, I'm still making flushed/solid contact.

Well that didn't take long! The new putter sensor is included as well as the first year of membership.

My understanding as well. I don’t think that having two clubs at the same swingweight means they feel the same. Extreme example would be a 10 pound and a 1 pound club with the same swingweight. Even without swinging them I know they not would feel the same when swung them. My uneducated mind then brings it back to balance and the feel that the weight that is placed above and below the swingweight scale fulcrum point; which is influenced by the weight above and below the balance point of the clubs. All this stuff is interrelated and I don’t think you can just pull one aspect and say this is what you need to focus on.

Looks great - love the name plate. Sole engraving is fantastic, but I much prefer when it is flipped and is right-side-up when the the back of the putter is on the ground. Just amazing talent to create such a refined look.

This is one of the reasons that I despise the entire swing weight measurement on golf clubs. It's a static measurement that claims to correlate to the feeling of swinging the club. I come from a tennis background where swing weight is a dynamic measurement that measures the effective resistance of the racquet moving around an axis. In golf terminology, this correlates pretty well to MOI (moment of inertia). As @Bobbers said, other things being equal, longer clubs will have higher swing weight because the weight of the club head is farther from the fulcrum where the club is balanced for swing weight measurement. The same weight on a longer lever will feel heavier. All other things being equal, that 20 gram heavier head is going to contribute to about a full letter SW difference (10 points). In a typical set, the club head weights adjust corresponding to the change in length for clubs, 1/2" shorter going from the 7 to 8 iron for example is approximately 3 SW points, so the 8 iron club head is usually around 6-7 grams heavier to keep the swing weight consistent. Things can get a little funny down in the wedges because sometimes the head weights will keep the weight gapping, but the length gapping doesn't stay at a consistent 1/2", so it's not uncommon to see increasing swing weight as you move down the wedges. I don't like the static swing weight measurement because of the entire counter balance concept. In theory I can make a club weigh 6 pounds and still be a D3 swing weight as long as the weight is balanced properly. It would be an absolute beast to swing and entirely impractical, but it would balance at a D3. Measure that same club for MOI and it wouldn't even be close to a normal D3 club. I'm more sensitive to the feel of the weight in movement, so I went with more of an MOI match. In order to do that my irons actually increase in SW by 1/2 a point as I go down the set. Alright, I'm good with my rant for day.

For some guys it's putters, others wedges, others irons - for me it's drivers - when I feel like it which is about twice a year.

Hopefully this won't involve getting bowled over by a Tupperware avalanche

Time for a a long overdue update. I have been struggling for a while with my swing, no rhythm, bad take away, sliding instead of turning, leading to fats, thins and shanks . To go with all of that my chipping yips raised their head again. So my scores have suffered and my enjoyment has gone down. Queue a little video by James Robinson where he had a lesson from Pete Cowan. Cowan spoke about your fingers working against each other to stabilize the club head and deliver it back to the ball properly. Well, I thought it's worth a try, so I strengthened my grip and got my weight a little further back in my feet and woah the ball started coming out of the middle of the clubface!! I thought maybe it was a fluke but again yesterday I Played beautifully and was only two over par for the 9 I played . My chipping has vastly improved as well. I am feeling confidant that I have turned a corner and will be back to playing great golf again soon....

I just purchased new irons, and my first brand new golf equipment in over 10 years. I've consistently purchased used mainly because I haven't been in a place financially to buy new. After last season I knew I wanted to get custom fit for irons so I saved throughout the year. So for me it was a money thing. I was pretty sure I could upgrade anything in my bag and see some sort of gain if I went with new custom fit, but if the money wasn't there I just didn't do it. That said I did gain about a club of distance throughout the set. So that was nice.

I must agree with you; for me consistency is of prime importance.

But if he sells them for less than he paid for them, will he be able to claim the loss too? What about depreciation? Surely there must some way around the government grabbing more of our money.

I ended up selling it a while ago. Currently rocking a Diamana ZF

Driver & Woods Try for every 4 yrs. Irons every 5 yrs. Wedges every 3 yrs. , Putter lasts longer than Wife!! Probably, should cut a year off each. Kind of got Mindset to keep around as long as Buddies whine!! But, know requires a year to Warm-up, another to play Good & by 3rd year have stopped listening.!!

I just replaced a 10 year old Nike VR Pro. For me it was as many have stated "just time". In 10 years the technology has improved. I have gained some yards, and it has a better feel. That being said I personally don't believe all the hype of driver "technology" year to year. I will likely hit this one for another 7-10 years until I decide that perhaps the technology "really" may have improved, and at that time I will do what I did this time, purchase a 1-2 year old model for half the price of this years model.

Whenever I have the itch for something new or something different. It’s most just about distance but how is that distance being achieved. And it’s not total distance I look at because the varies too much from course to course and weather. I look at carry distance because that travels to every course. Am I getting more launch and less spin. If so is the spin too low thus possibly being unplayable on The course or i mishit the ball. Is spin and launch causing the ball to fly lower and shorter but giving me more roll out. As mentioned above that’s going to be a no go. Is it coming from more ball speed while spin, launch and other characteristics are remaining relatively the same. If I’m getting a couple miles more ball speed and not affecting launch characteristics and the driver both looks and sounds good then it’s an easy buy.

St. Augustine is not my style… at least during spring break. Place is a zoo.

How did I play? How did I play??? I believe this picture says it all.......<sigh>

It looks like a piece of art work. I might have to switch over to those plastic tees so I don't get white paint marks all over it. I probably should have thought of that before I purchased a new bag of tees at the same time I picked up the driver!

Yup, that the only thing I miss about work, my double secret work address!