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Got 2 18’s in with my dad today. Playing another 18 tomorrow. Two beautiful courses 5 minutes apart. Was awesome. went 82/83. I struggled the second round after about 8 holes, was pretty gassed and I struggled on my second shots. the first round while it was an 82 I felt like it was my best ever chance at an even par round. I hit 10 greens and my approach play was A1 best I have ever played. Where I struggled? Putting!!!! I had multiple 3 putts and a 4!!!! I missed multiple birdie chances, including 10-14 where I had a chance every time. we got to see some wild life and was all in all a great day.

Thursday AM league was a rainfedt. 1sy 9 holes was the worst rain I’ve ever played in. Fairways starting go puddle. Couldn’t find my rain gloves until the 7th hole. Couldn’t keep the grips dry and both towels soaked by the 4th hole. Shot 51 on the front. But rain slowed to a steady drizzle on the back and shot a more acceptable 45 considering the conditions. I was too bundled up to get a good idea of how the irons were. But the few chances I did get a good chance to hit them from semi dry conditions they felt fantastic and held the line very well.

Haven’t really shared here but my younger sister has been fighting cancer and we got a phone call a couple days ago…she’s going to lose the fight. She’s now in hospice, weeks maybe months left. 34 years old. Not about me at all but this already a stressful time; we’re mid-move and won’t have keys to our new place until 23 July…our stuff is in storage and we’re in and out of hotels in the interim. Can’t really get a workout in, golf rounds are few and far between, no speed training…my options to deal with the stress are limited. We are actually in Cape Cod right now for a couple beach days; should be a nice distraction.

Late to the game here, but I’ll throw my two cents in. I came for the testing opportunities, like many. They’ve been lackluster of late, and as I scroll through the latest threads looking for where I might add a post I find myself not coming across anything of interest to me. I like contributing to threads where people are asking or sharing advice on the game or on equipment. Frankly, anything else is not something I’ll end up on a golf forum for. I do enjoy the community aspect. @xOldBenKenobiXis just a wonderful human. Perhaps something that can improve the forum is boosting that aspect. I liked the stuff that was started with the GRINT, and would love to become friends with more people on that app. Perhaps some just for fun formats that involve people across the country teaming up to play some golf and talk some smack? It’d lead to discussion about rounds/shots/equipment I think we’ve gotten away from. Because this is a relatively small community a lot of us have already helped one another learn a lot and without a new stimulus injected the conversation just becomes a bit flat and redundant. Without new opportunities for testing, and enough to both feed the forum faithful and the newbies, it will be tough to grow the membership to allow a crop of new golfers to benefit from the forum experience and reignite old discussions. Sorry if this comes off as a bit pessimistic, I’ve found myself logging in daily and just not getting excited about a lot of the threads. Which stinks. I miss finding reasons to talk smack with the likes of @GolfSpy_BOS, beyond his fantasy golf standings looking eerily similar to that of the Red Sox…. And to hear more club ho stories from @dlow206

June update: I ended up purchasing the clubs I was fit to during my Club Champion Fitting from Fairway Jockey at the beginning of the month. Honestly, I only gave them a shot because of @fixyurdivot's posts. Given that they're owned by True Spec, I'd figure more people on the forum would have posted about them. Guess I'll break up the monopoly on Fairway Jockey info . I reached out with my engineering specs from Club Champion and had to follow up to get any response. They gave me a 10% off coupon for sending the spec sheet from a competitor on top of being substantially cheaper in the first place. After discount, tax, and shipping, the same build from Fairway Jockey was ~22% cheaper than Club Champion. The build time was estimated at 4-5 week and we're just finishing up week 3 of waiting. I'm hoping to have the new clubs in hand sometime in July. I finally spent time making a putting baseline to track improvements from my virtual lessons. I'm practicing on a puttout mat with their pressure putt trainer, so I tracked both "perfect putts" and makes/misses: Weirdly, I was perfect through 5 feet and missed one put at 6 feet for a 59/60 made putts. At 7 feet and beyond, I consistently missed my putts with the ball being dead on the painted puttout line but veering off in the last foot to miss one cup length inside (right-to-left miss as a lefty). I'm not entirely convinced I haven't worn out a groove somewhere, but I'll take this as a baseline and spend more time practicing puts outside 6 feet. I picked up a Rapsodo personal launch monitor for use with the Sporina SPG8 net test. I'll elaborate over in the test, but the reality for me is that hitting only into the net doesn't provide the feedback I'm looking for in terms of improving my game. The launch monitor with the hitting net has been tremendously beneficial to my my hitting sessions and validated my belief that my biggest struggle is with my irons. Here's a snip of Rapsodo's analysis on a session where I hit a dozen balls with each club: I may not be the smartest guy here, but even I can see where I suck the most. I'll be spending more time with my 7i-5i to improve there as well. I've spent some time finding lessons in my Me and My Golf subscription to help with my irons and will focus on those in the coming weeks. It should also be interesting to compare this bag striking baseline with the new set of clubs once they arrive. As a data fiend, the thought pleases me greatly! There is a mud wasp that is trying to set up shop in my garage. It is apt to get smacked with a club or a fog of Raid should it invade my personal bubble. Nothing will come in the way of my indoor hitting bay.

What was the saying, "if you can't play good, at least you gott look good" or something ike that..ha

Owen and I played the front nine at River Heights yesterday. Gorgeous day and the course was nearly empty. We finished in 70 minutes. Really thought about calling in to work and continuing the round. Best part was playing around the sprinkler system on 8. We hit our drives, waited for the sprinkler to pass, then rushed up and hit our approaches and darted away before we got wet. Fun mini game! Overall we played great; 43 for Owen and 44 for me. I duffed one chip, topped one drive, but otherwise my striking was pretty clean.

PNW Spy Meet-up | Round 4 | Appletree GC | Yakima, WA Appletree is really gorgeous - a must play if you're in the area. Unfortunately, Chris made the often fatal mistake of trying to fit work into golf getaways and was unable to getaway. So Kenny, Martha, Gavin, his brother Kiren, and I played as a fivesome before the shotgun start Fireman's Youth Charity event forced us to split 3 and 2. But, the marshal did have us rejoin at #17. Can you correctly pick which red dot belongs to who? True to its namesake One day you could be taking a bite out of this Red Delicious. Today is Canyon Lakes... stay tuned

Ok they were in the background of my MGS Hat picture. But they deserve to be front and center in their own post! Gen 5 0311 XP 6-G with Steelfiber I70

Nice sticks. Wonder if I will get to see them in August or will there be another set in the bag

Stop it with the logic and common sense. This is the internet. There’s no place for that here.

... Marketing is no more BS than any other product under Capitalism. The purpose of Marketing/Advertising is to get your attention. It is then up to you, the prospective buyer to do their own research whether that is demoing products or looking online for reviews. I believe this is true for all levels. The Cobra LTDx Max may produce longer and more accurate drives for a high index player that tends to slice more than fade and the LTDx LS may produce less spin and faster ball speeds for the low index player. Then again, they may not. I just don't read or see any adds I find misleading or BS. Hyped up? Absolutely. That said, whether or not it will improve your game or if it does, by how much is certainly open for skepticism. Say the new, better, most awesome, best yet driver increases forgiveness by 4%. Is that even noticeable for the majority of people that play golf? Same for distance and accuracy, how much is improvement enough over your club to actually buy the product? ... Fwiw lets break down this marketing from Cobra: "The LTDx driver is the ultimate distance machine. Using PWR-COR Technology we were able to achieve zero CG and 5200 MOI for the first time to create a driver unlike any other. One that combines low spin, fast ball speed, and extreme forgiveness to deliver the Longest Total Distance." The LTDx driver is the ultimate distance machine. A bunch of nothing that sounds good. "Ultimate distance" doesn't even claim longest. Using PWR-COR Technology we were able to achieve zero CG and 5200 MOI for the first time to create a driver unlike any other. Zero CG/5200 MOI are technically true so no fault with this as it doesn't even say how it will effect you let alone if it will improve your driving. And of course it is a driver "unlike any other" but so is every driver every oem sells. One that combines low spin, fast ball speed, and extreme forgiveness to deliver the Longest Total Distance. Statistically it does produce low spin, fast ball speed and extreme forgiveness. Now Longest Total Distance is really pushing the envelope imo as compared to what? Their own previous drivers? Other Oem drivers? But since most every driver sold makes a similar claim you can't call out Cobra on this one point. ... I get many think tricking consumers with BS is the bailiwick of the evil golf companies but I have talked to many engineers for most every OEM and they are very serious about producing an improved product that helps golfers of all levels. Sales of course are a different animal and to say they care more about money than golfers would not get an argument from me. But most OEMs have demo days at clubs, ranges and golf stores to try their clubs and compare to what you are playing and if anyone chooses not take advantage of these or most golf stores that have launch monitors and buy a club based on Marketing, they deserve whatever they get.

Distance Strokes gained GIR Absolutely not true that you can't get there after playing for a long time. I got there at the age of 42 after playing for 24 years.

Same course the last three days... subbed in the Wednesday night league for my.partner on Thuraday, shot 37 and helped extend the lead he has in that league, played in my Thursday night league, shot 39 and got waxed on the handicap system. Played a captain and crew today, shot 60 with a bogey, finished second and won 25 bucks. In all, interesting three days.

4 months old and barely used.....Li-Ion. I couldn't refuse my wife's insistence that we should get it.

I’ve played that game a few times. It’s more of a challenge when the sprinklers come on unexpectedly.

Bonus 18. Since I got stuck working all day and missed on apple tree I met up with Gavin and Kiran (sp?). We were going to play at the short par 3 course, but upon arrival found they were doing a league night. So we regrouped at Sun Willows and got 18 actual holes in. The sun was set by 17 and 18 played out with fading light, but definitely enough to watch our tee shots take unexpected routes to our targets. Lots of fun

Putting practice tonight resulted in a major overhaul, will it stick....maybe, maybe not. 5, 10, 15 & 20 footers working on my stroke which has been neglected badly since winter practice in the basement. I started by benching the heppler fetch and getting out the classic 70's Anser. Then I have settled on a cross handed grip and have my eyes over the ball. This seems to get the putts on line which has been a problem in league play. I have been hitting what I think are good putts but I have been consistently missing to the left of the hole. To complete the overhaul I am picking a spot about 1 - 2 feet in front of the ball for the line and looking at that spot rather than the ball during the stroke. I couldn't think of anything else to change so after hitting about 100 putts and liking the results I quit for the night. The challenge will be remembering all the changes tomorrow!

Club twirls. When the moment hits I want to be prepared. FullSizeRender.MOV

A little foggy and cool this morning…

I wouldn’t take that bet

Those putt make rates are great, not for your level but for ANY level of golfer. I understand they are indoors so some of the variables have been removed but still very good. How is your distance control? If you are not 3 putting often, more than twice per round, I would say focus on other parts of your game. Keep putting refined of course but if you are putting this well use your time wisely on other facets of your game.

39/46 for an 85 yesterday. Round was a bit of a mixed bag. I only hit 6 fairways and 6 GIR with 34 putts. Not sure if that says more about the state of my game for the positives or things that need to be cleaned up. Pleased with my scoring but not pleased with the mistakes I’m making off the tee and with my irons. Really hard time making quality iron shots and on the back 9 lately I’ve lost my driver frequently. Gonna need to take a step back and re evaluate as these are typically my strong points

Couple of days post lesson and I have gotten a practice session and a 9 hole league match under my belt. Practice session didn’t go well with lots of fat shots so I was worried going into my league round. Had hoped to hit a bucket prior to the round but due to all day rain the short game and driving range we’re closed so it was going to be a commit and hope kind of round How did it go? Score was terrible due to 2 triples on par 5s that were the result of tee shots that went OB so I finished 7 over. Iron and hybrids were solid; the changes seem to be producing better ball flight and more solid shots and reduced toe strikes. Driver is going to need a little tweak to get ball position correct; I moved it back based on the discussion with my instructor and ended up pushing and push fading almost all my tee shots. it will be a topic of conversation at my next lesson. Will have to see how it goes Sunday during my next round but looks like lesson 2 may be driver setup and then spending time on short game.

I once got a lesson from a guy that played on tour who said if you hit balls or play once a month or so, you won’t get markedly better. You need to commit to practicing intently on all aspects of the game to improve. Pay attention to weaknesses and work on making them strengths. I play with a guy who is a club champ, and if you watched him swing you’d have no idea how he shoots low. His biggest advice is to learn how to manage the game within what you can do. Par is a great score, and bogeys aren’t bad. Doubles are killer. Getting out of position is based on a desire for birdie that you just aren’t getting, or trying to save par when that ship has sailed (we were talking about high school golfers who can keep the ball from slicing like a banana). I find I’ve gotten down to an 11, then stagnate because I don’t keep practicing during the offseason. I’ll climb back up to 13, then get down to 10 or so by the end of season. Dedicated practice will be the only thing that gets you to the finish line.

Thanks for the post and comments. I see from your join date of July last year, you probably aren't aware of this. Just about every test we do, we get a wide mix of handicaps from scratch to 20+ (unless the OEM specifically puts something out there that is designed for the better player--like with the PING Blueprint that @Shankster tested a few years ago, PING specifically wanted a low single digit player. It wouldn't have served anyone's purpose to have those in the hand of a 20 handicap. I do like the ideas of different gadgets to see if they improve, and we have done that as well, looked for testers that had never used a GPS system before and had them test one to see how it changed affected their games. Shoes, we did that with SQAIRZ last year and put their claims of improved clubhead speed to test. Check out those reviews, Tom did a particually fantastic job backing up his findings with data. We have also discussed the hope/need to get soem training aids in that can be used year round. Again, did that with ExPutt two years ago that was a huge hit. Hopefully our testing opportunties will improve and get back to what they once were, if not this year then perhaps next year.

I had to have a tooth pulled yesterday. I had an abscess on a tooth that already had a root canal & crown, so I didn't see the point in going back through a reconstruction of that, probably not much tooth left to save anyways. Plus it was a 3 week wait and quite a bit more money to redo the root canal than to just have it pulled. I'm a bit sore and swollen today but feeling better and the pain is no where near what it was the last few days. Unfortunately I was also told to take the next 3 days off activity which means I also had to turn down an invite from @RollingGreens to play at his club on Saturday morning. Always stinks missing an opportunity to play a really nice course. Hopefully I'm feeling ok and I can give it a go on Sunday afternoon.

Looked back at an online lesson video and went to the range to do the drills. Minimalist approach hitting just the PW and 7 iron and it went great!!! Set-up my swing station to work on the club exiting on a similar plane as on the downswing, put balls in sets of five, and then proceeded to hit the first 3 in the station, the 4th outside of the station but still a practice shot, then the 5th was hit by emulating a shot on-course. Ahhh. So good!

Totes agree...the course we play Monday has a 11/10 terrace overlooking 18. I plan to toss a dart and I can't be fumbling around in the fairway with an audience

Played with my Grandson-in-law and his Dad today at Silverado in Zephyrhills, FL……We played the White tees at 5,827 yards. I shot 39/40:79 with 2 birdies, #1 336 yd Par 4 & # 16 381 yd Par 4. Great day even with heat index over 100*.

Presumably for the role of Exec. VP of Media Consumption and Pain Management, respectively.

Played in our Club's singles match play event today. On the front I shot a crazy 39 won 5 holes tied 3 and lost 1. AND then we Played the back. I though I was off to another crazy 9 after a birdie on #10 a Par 5 and then we came to a stop with 3 4somes a head of us. I guess the waiting got to me and ended up with a 50 WTH?????? And it seems like my opponent stroked on every hole. I still ended up winning the match 7/5

Fun fact: I generally play matte finish balls and the dry erase marker ends up being absorbed into the ball cover and not imprint on the club. On a related note, I have a single golf ball with a big black cross on it that will not scrub off . I may switch from matte balls to gloss specifically for this reason, despite how much more I like the look of the matte finish.

Not going to lie, had to look this word up. Remind me to never play scrabble with you. Heck of a post, and can't say I disagree with any of it particularly as someone who has LTDx clubs being built for them now. Marketing and PR crafts their words very carefully. So long as the engineers are doing their best on the back-end, I don't care what color lipstick the pig has.

Keep it up! It sounds like you've got a pretty good plan going and it'll be fun reading about your progress. I'll make sure to give this thread a follow just to keep up with it. Another thing I would suggest is getting a can of foot spray and working on contact, or at least using it to track where your tendencies are and seeing if you can change them. It's the one thing I like to do when using the net since I can't see full ball flight and don't have a launch monitor when hitting into the net.

Then he would not be "Phil The Thrill" as we know him. He is exciting to me in as how in the heck is he going to get out of this? And the worse he scores then the crazier the shots he tries to pull off and yes he is a showman.

Practice swings I am trying to keep my weight on front leg. The reason was due to leaning backwards on my follow through. In doing this I have created a fade. it isn't bad just new ball flight I am not used to. I need to really concentrate/focus on clearing my right hip to get the lag for a straighter ball flight. With this, it seems to be easier to work the ball both left and right. Still working on the control of how far it turns but it's kind cool to be able to do this almost at will. I'm hoping I can get it to transfer to the course. Good luck fellas and ladies.

Bought a Diamana TB 50s shaft a couple days ago. Don’t need it and quite frankly already have buyers remorse. Hasn’t even arrived yet lol. Oh well such is the life of a club ho.

First let me say welcome aboard. In my case it took me 32 years to get to a .6 although not quite scratch it will probably be as close as I ever will get as I didn't start playing golf until I was 30 years old. I started playing because I was tired of having to work late to cover for everyone on the golf league at work. Golfers got to leave after lunch and non golfers had to cover for the others. So I took up golf. After some lessons and club purchases I joined the league the next season. From that point on I was hooked. But obviously it was a slow process every year I would knock a few strokes off the handicap. It wasn't until I really focused on the short game that the big drops happened. I built my own practice facility at the house with putting green, sand trap and nets for full swings. Then I relocated 10 years later and made a bigger practice facility with 100 yard tee box and a 50 yard tee box with a green that would accept 150 yard shots, a bigger sand trap and put a simulator in one of the bays of my garage. This allowed me to practice all year. What was lacking was a bit more focus. It was like going to a driving range and smacking balls just at home. Then a few years ago I got involved with MGS and was able to do some testing on equipment and balls. So now with the desire to do quality testing and write-ups I increased my focus. Then the 4 or 5 handicap dropped to the .6 I was at last year. The lower you get the harder it is to lower the handicap even more. Plus it is all dependent on where you play, the course rating and slope. I'm a .6 at my home course but don't post rounds from other courses as much as I should so it is not what I would call a traveling handicap. But in your case, for someone that only started playing 18 months ago and your down to a 13 already, is very impressive.

I came here when I was just starting to learn about the idea of not simply buying used clubs on ebay without fitting or even verifying any specs; while it was too late for a mulligan on my Ping iE1s that were 3 degrees too upright, half an inch too short and ~5 points light on the swing weight scale despite being billed as standard length and lie , I learned so much on here that has only deepened my golf addiction over the years. Posters here are nice, helpful, and generous with their time which is truly an outlier when it comes to online forums. I will still be a regular lurker and sometime poster in the forum regardless of testing opportunities in the future. That said, it is completely baffling to see HQ focus only on sponsors after bashing other websites for doing the same thing. That hypocrisy combined with what seems like an antagonistic attitude towards "big OEM" and click-bait social media has been a major turn off for me, and as a result I do not visit the HQ website anymore, unfollowed MGS on all social platforms, and absent the ability to direct future donations to the forum only, will no longer be making an annual donation to MGS. While I think it is extremely cool to see emerging brands like Sub70 and others find their groove with the help of forums like MGS, and the stated goal of helping golfers make objectively better purchasing decisions given ability & budget is very admirable, the fact is that most golfers are still more interested in what the big OEMs come out with that they see on TV every week; it only takes a cursory look through historical tests to see that the big OEM tests that happen right around a product's release drive engagement that is exponentially higher and stickier than gadgets or single club tests from DTC/emerging brands. The big one that came up when I was still pretty new here was the Ping i210/i500 test and I came back to that thread every day for months to see what members (from official testers, inquisitive would-be buyers, and knowledgeable regulars) were saying about those new and exciting product lines; it is probably the single thread that contributed the most to my golf equipment education over the years and I can honestly say that I would not have engaged with the forum nearly as much since then if it had never come about. I'm glad to hear that the mods are pushing HQ on this front and really appreciate all that you all do on a daily basis; I can only hope that continued feedback eventually moves the needle.