EnderinAZ

Cold today. When I got to the course the temperature had not even crested 60 yet. But, I didn't let THAT stop me from playing a mediocre round. 1 double with a water ball, 1 triple and a ball out of bounds, 2 birdies and a smattering of pars and bogies. Highlight of the day was this evening when the email came in that proclaims the days winners. The blind draw twosome total both net scores had me and my partner squarely in first. Earned us 54 dollars each.

The final addition to your cover is a Mr Heater! https://www.pgatoursuperstore.com/golf-cart-mr.-heater/1077172.html?country=US&currency=USD&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiA3uGqBhDdARIsAFeJ5r1gmoYmyBId79fxd0ThzWtlu_seNK5Ux7AghbDRU-D_I8qYcvY-Ic0aAv4WEALw_wcB#utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=performance+max I played for years in central Oregon - most of Oregon is a desert, and the Bend area qualifies - and because of that we could play essentially all year. But, it can and does get cold there. Bright sunny days with no snow and 26 degrees F (-3 C). The sun warms the greens just enough to make them playable. On other days where the clouds come in low and heavy and spitting snow on a good stout wind by hole number 14 you can feel the cold in your bones... That is of course unless you have Mr Heater in your cart! Point him between you and your partner in the cart and waiting on the slow group in front of you just becomes another day on the course. Much better than having the wind whistle past your ears as you slowly lose feelings in your fingers and toes...

This past week in the match play tournament one part of my game was glaringly off. Pitching and chipping out of thick deep rough (summer and winter grasses here in AZ) was completely frustrating. In the middle of my home course back nine is a fine practice area. A large slightly contoured green, a decent sand trap, grass cut to fairway length and an expanse of rough that travels away from the green in a 60 degree arc and at its deepest is about 150 yards away. I measured off 40 yards and started dumping sleeves of 20 balls into the deep grass and played every one of them from where they lie. I drove off in my cart feeling better, not great, shoot not even good about the results. But I did hit the green better and that is a good start.

Yep, use mine when I start to feel all out of sync. Heavygolfeels mentions it for putting. Smart Ball and putting...going to have to try that.

Yep I agree. Lost golf balls, whether in the bushes, trees, or water want to be lost. If not they wouldn't be in those nasty places in the first place. I don't know about anyone else, but I don't fish out too many ProVs. Top Flites, Taylormade distance, Noodles, and other less expensive balls yes I get these a lot. ProVs, ChromeSoft, ZStars, TP5s not so much. I guess spending 55 dollars+ on a dozen balls makes you much more likely to pull out your "pocket fisherman" and go fishing for that drowned ball. Anyway that was a very interesting article and says that pristine AVX I pulled out of the water yesterday will not go automatically into my junior golf donation bag.

Day three of the match play tournament and we lost again. On the last hole again. I had a chance to win the match on the second to last hole with a 60 foot chip shot that rolled up to hole bounced off the stick wobbled on the edge of the hole..... and stayed out. Oh well. Three days of really good matches, good golf, and good fun!

Played the second day of a 3 day match play tournament today and well we lost. Down 3 with 4 to go I hit it long, straight, and stayed in the fairway on my drive on 17, made the green in regulation, 2 putted for par with a stroke. The other guy who had a stroke there bogied. So going into 18 we were down 2 with 3 to go. 18, I hate the 18th hole, no place to land my driver or 3 wood. At about 200 yards the fairway turns and slopes down to a pond. Hit the drive down the left side(safe) and I am in deep burmuda that is going dormant at a little over 200 yards. Down the center left the fairway takes a sharp turn to the right at 225 and slopes 15+ degrees down to the pond. Hit it a little long there and the ball dances into the trees. Hit it a little short or with a cut and your ball will visit the water. Hit it just right and you end up sitting on a down hill side hill lie aiming at an elevated green where the entire right side is snuggled up to the pond. The left side to the course parking lot. Did I mention that I really hate this hole?? I pulled out my Ping 430 #2 hybrid and laid a fine shot out in the fairway...right into the center of a drainage trough the community uses to empty some of the streets of the monsoonal rains we get in the summer. I stomp around desperately trying to squeeze some water out of the ground. Nope, just new grass on a mud base..yuck! I am 148 yards from the back of the green looking at a back pin. I pull out my Srixon ZX4 pitching wedge and hit a sloppy shot that gets me on the green. The other three guys either hit the greenside trap or the pond. I 2 putted for par and had a stroke on the #6 handicap hole. So now we are down 1 with two to go. My partner who did a great job of keeping us in the game all day is now getting excited. My shot of the day came on hole 1 as our finishing hole was 2. I am on the green in 2 and have a 25 foot downhill side hill shot to the pin. I have not made a put over 6 feet ALL day. I made this one to put us all square going into the last hole of the day. The two guys we played were absolutely amazing inside 75 yards. Nobody hits the last green on our second shot. I am the short guy off the chips at about 6 feet and true to form the ball rolled down the edge of the cup and popped out. One of the two guys chipped his shot inside 2 feet and got a stroke on the hole. So we lost down 1 on the last hole of the day. It was a good match, good fun.

alfriday101 I have read Atomic Habits, Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, and Badass Habits by Jen Sincero all in the search for a viable way to rid myself of an old swing habit off the tee that pushes right and fades hard, and appears in the most in-opportune times. There are several points that all of these books touch on about habit in general. The one that I found the most interesting with reference to golf is habits do not have a shelf life which at least explained why that push fade could feel so good and familiar and fly so bad as it always has even though it might be months between occurrences. The second thing they all talk about is the size of the habit you want to introduce or re-write. The smaller the better. I now know what I am doing in that push fade. I pull my hands and arms almost directly behind me while rotating my knees, hips, and torso in the same direction. I tuck my butt under my shoulders and lose all spine angle. From here I can create a ton of power but there is no way I can get the swing path back down the target line or square the club face. When looking at the controllable motions of the swing sequence I just described there is the start of my takeaway which immediately begins to pull away from the target line. My knees hips and torso rotate hard away from the target line with no coil at all. And well you get what I mean. All of those motions are habitual. Meaning they are performed the same way every time which in turn means they are very hard to change on a permanent basis. Celebration is a great way to get a dopamine rush which neuroscience says a catalyst that writes habits or enforces current habits. (I do not celebrate enough) Cortisol is another habit catalyst that is released when we are stressed or angry. So, alfriday101, your process of frustration eschewal is a good one to avoid etching in bad habits and one I employ as well. Thanks for the feedback and the Golf Sense book recommendation. I have already put it in my Kindle reader.

"You need to understand expectations and results." Cnosil, you have misinterpreted my original premise of this thread. There are amazing golfers that ply these boards who have overcome the yips and the shanks, who have figured out how to play the “I hate my ??? iron. I can never hit it” club and play it well. It is these stories that I am interested in. How did you turn that hated iron into your favorite club in the bag? Was it a series of personalized lessons? Hit 10,000 range balls until the club works for you every time? Hitting ten thousand golf balls is an example of Grit, as explained by Steven Kotler in The Art of the Impossible, A Peak Performance Primer, and is a way to completely automate the use of that iron, and for that use to be nearly perfect every time in perfect conditions and their worst, on your best days when you cannot miss a shot, and on your worst days when your focus is far afield. Most of us do not have the time, the resources, or the perseverance to work through the ‘day after day of one swing, one club, and continue on until perfect’ training regime. But, there are golfers here who figured out how with different types of “grit”, and for my research I would really like to know how. Now please don’t take this wrong. I do not know you, we have never spoken and I mean no slight, slur, or insult in my following response. Your statement; of knowing expectations and results suggests to me a laissez-faire attitude that produces neither go nor bad results, just results in moving the ball. I cannot do that. I am a type A retired engineer who is driven to expect positive results. When the results that I am getting follow the flight path of a butterfly around a hedge of flowering oleanders I gear down and grind my way through the rest of the round. I do practice meditation on a daily basis (or I drive everyone around me bonkers) and use walking mediation techniques combined with mindfulness between shots. Mindfulness keeps me present - not reliving the last hole - and focused meditation with regard to planning my next shot. I am still struggling with the focused plan (a leaves and trees thing). Anyway a fantastic resource for meditation in small bites can be found at https://www.tenpercent.com. So how do you re-write your swing habits? What are your tools?

Much easier said than done. Yes it is the repetition and conditioning, but the loss of focus swing, the one that is strictly from habit that kills my game.

Hans...not Franz what part of your physical being is effected by not staying calm? For me stress hits me in the center of my sternum with tightness and radiates outword to my lats, obliques, and abs making it hard to make a full turn. When I catch it, the stress, I focus on making a good full turn. This focus pulls the turn out of my habit stack and into my immediate attention area. If I don't catch it that tightness creates a shorter snappier swing that produces a nasty pull hook to the right. Which in turn injects a jolt of epinephrine and cortisol into my system which has the added benefit of carving deeply into my habit stack all the physical attributes and motions of that snappy hooky shot and (and this part stinks) will be the swing my brain pulls out as a habit to use as my next stressful shot. it is a vicious circle and why the shanks are so hard to get rid of!

Process, not results. Hmmm I have tried that, but never pushed it into my shot routine consistently through all 18 holes. It would certainly mitigate the ups and downs of good shots versus bad shots and limit the re-injection of the negative brain hormone cortisol into your system as a stress response. Note: cortisol like all brain hormones are fully used up and out of your system after 90 seconds. Going over your bad putt or shot re-injects cortisol into your system thus keeping your stress response active well into your next shot routine. Focusing on the process strikes me as an excellent way to not relive the missed 4 foot putt and move onto the next shot. Thanks!

I have been studying habits for some time now, mostly golf habits – trying to get rid of my bad ones and nail down my good ones. In order to further my research I thought I would ask ‘What is the one golf habit you would get rid of, tweak, overwrite’ that would make your golf day more enjoyable? How would you do it? First let me explain a little about the human brain and habits in general. Your brain is an amazing memory device. It remembers everything, and I mean everything. It does this and stores it for future use in pattern recognition and energy conservation. Pattern recognition is first and foremost for your personal safety. Your hand is heading for your golf ball in through the low hanging branches of a Palo Verde tree. Your eyes see the 1 inch long unbending thorns, and you stop your hand. There is no internal debate, you don’t reach out and test the thorn to see if it is pointy, no, your brain has seen the pattern that matches some time in your past that equates to pointy thorns and your arm equals pain and bleeding, so no. Energy conservation is all about thinking and control every motion it would take to bend over, begin to reach for the ball, stop and stand back up. All of those body movements are done by habit, and so is 95 to 100 percent of your golf swing. Not sure if you believe me? Think about the last time you saw a non-athletic absolute beginner swing a golf club. It was almost painful to watch. I digress. Your brain conserves energy by controlling voluntary repetitive body movements by writing those movements into your basel ganglea – the home of your habits. Do those movements a lot and those movements – all of them; how much grip pressure in each hand, where your knees are relative to the start of your swing at mid back swing…etc – are written into that “memory stack” every time you swing a club. A swing that produces a strong emotion will write that swing, again all of that swing, harder into your memory stack. Oh and your brain does not differentiate between positive and negative emotions. Stripe a nice drive down the center of the fairway and walk away satisfied. Loop a ball into a pond for the third lost ball of the day and you are ready to bite the steel shaft of your 7 iron in half. Which one of those scenarios do you think writes an exact copy of the swing that produced the ball flight into your habit stack with a jackhammer? Mildly satisfied or seething with anger. I am truly interested. What do you do to push past that horrible shot results that came out of no where and just won’t go away?

Yeah me too! Today I boomed one down the side of the 504 yard par 5 over in the dry hard desert grass left over from this summer - if you miss the scattered trees you can get some huge distance gains - and watched the ball disappear behind a small hill and a couple of trees, but it looked promising. Found the ball on hard packed, concrete like dirt under some tree limbs at 206 yards from the center of the green. I was pretty jazzed. 300 yard drives are 3 shoulder surgeries and a great number of years behind me. Anyway I pull out my Ping G430 #4 hybrid out and aim at the east side of this long kidney shaped green. The west side of the green and the flag was guarded by some fairly tall trees and a nasty greenside bunker. I picked the ball cleanly off the dirt and dropped it inside of 5 feet just short of the green in fairly deep grass. Pulled out my trusty Taylormade Hi-Toe 58 degree wedge and plopped the ball down about 4 feet from the pin. The ball dropped on my first putt for a nice birdie. But, I stroke on that hole so it left me a net eagle which should hold up for the skins game. Some of the guys curse the heat and well, most of the rest just leave. I love the heat and the bloody hard ground is a huge ego booster! Almost like hitting the ball down the frozen fairways in Central Oregon over the winter only with out the winter part!

Jim Shaw, a 70 eh? A fine round and that's a fact! Mine was crap. Spent the first 7 or 8 holes swinging tooooooooo damn hard and over the 18 holes I had 5 yes 5 miserable 3 putts. I did get two birdies - both on holes that should stand up for skins. My playing partners played poorly as well so no money back in the game. Oh well Friday is another day.

That and after you hit your second ball into the pond on the right of the green and instead of throwing your putter into the pond you tell your playing partners just give me a 7, that is what I would get anyway from here.

Yeah, the thing does not stand up in the garage by itself at all. I always prop it up, so no I don't really have any tips other than do not bother trying to stand it up alone. I just lay it down or prop it up.

I would most likely play the "Sand" tees at 415 in. Depending on the width of the fairway and if my playing partner answers the "Now what?" question with " I donno" I would want to just blast a driver shot straight down the middle. But, you run out of fairway pretty fast with not much rough to stop the ball. First time on this course and an I donno answer I pull out my 2 hybrid for the tee shot and my 4 for the shot into the green if that looks doable. I cannot tell the landing area other than don't go right so there is a good chance I would go sand wedge for my second shot and pin seek with a 80 yard pitch in. Try for the one put but most likely walk away happy with a bogie.

Interesting conversation on CI. As I see it CI breaks you out of the swing habit mode. Once out of he habit mode you move the swing process into the front of your brain and that swing has your full attention. That full attention does a pretty good job of writing the successful swing into your habit stack. Which is exactly what I was doing at the range and putting green today. Hit balls 'til they feel right - celebrate a little - habit stack writing, then move to another club. Putting was all about angles and speed and they associated reads of the surface.

LAB Mezz 1 Max putter, blue, with the 42 inch armlock shaft with the Press II armlock grip.

A couple of weeks ago I traveled around Mesa playing courses just before overseeding and the annual price gouging, er... I mean seasonal price increase, and played with a couple of young guys. Nice boys, in their 20s and listening to gangsta rap, loudly. Odd rhythms, booming base, and lots and lots of F bombs. If you want to test your ability to stay focused on the course try concentrating not hitting your ball into the water on your approach shot with that pish blasting just behind your stance. I couldn't do it. By the time I finished the round I was down 4 golf balls and had a raging headache.

I have bounced a ball or two into people and Always Always go, hat in hand, and apologize. That said if a ball comes into my group and I look back and those who are following are a good long ways back I just wave. The second time I find the tallest tee in my bag and put the offenders ball on that tee. The third time I make a very showy approach to the ball that flew into us, I wave at the offender, point at his(her) ball. bend over and pick it up and wave it at them, then very visibly put the ball in my pocket and walk off. Some time later in the round I will leave the ball in the hole or on a tee box.

Starters and rangers can be effective in pace of play only if course management stands behind them. If the marshal knows there is no way the guy in charge will back his actions to move slow players along or kick off that foursome of drunks clogging up the back nine early Saturday afternoon the marshal will not do anything. If the marshal is seen to be useless management will stop using them. It is a vicious circle. There are so many other ways management can keep the pace of play up. Advertise in the pro shop right at the cash register the expected pace of play. Encourage ready golf in the pro shop, on the tee boxes (all of them), and in the golf carts. Get rid of that one foot wide eight inch high strip of grass around the ponds. Guys will search for twenty minutes in that strip of grass for the ball the they are sure didn't reach the water. Don't get me wrong I would much rather play a fast green but, the 8 round a year foursome will add 30 minutes to their round four and five putting on 10 or 11 Stimpmeter greens, so slow them down at least on the weekends. Make sure the beer cart girl stops at tee boxes only! Make the fairways wide, trim the trees up ten to twelve feet, in other words make golf fun to play quickly.

Like Gingerbeast87 above I have wanted one of these putting matts for a while. But, it wasn't until my (hopefully ) last shoulder surgery, recoup, and re-learn how to swing that I found out things in there are not really stable anymore. I bought the Perfect Putter to help my putting only to find out my backstroke could wobble a half to three quarters of an inch either side of my target line. Turning around and trying to putt left handed ... well that was going to take a LONG time to figure out. I had to do something. Out of 10 three foot puts I missed eight. I couldn't get the putter head back on line. I was not a popular partner in my men's club team games. I was getting pretty desperate. Starting visiting PGA Superstores and Vans golf shops on a near daily basis combed the internet and settled in on ArmLock putters. Weird feeling putting with an Armlock putter. But the wobble in my right shoulder settled down to maybe a quarter of an inch if the putter shaft was locked hard onto my left arm. A little more experimentation showed my right arm is least stable traveling left to right and back again across my torso. If I turn to face the hole and push the club away from me my right arm is quite stable and the odd armlock of the shaft to my left forearm gives me the latitude to aim the putter head confidently and run the ball to where I want it to go. Makes putting fun again. I would suggest if you are having stability issues on the putting surface to go try an ArmLock style putter. The armlock pretty much locks my entire left side in place (don't ask me how, I don't have a clue) which in turn stabilizes my right side enough to make me an effective putter again.

That is a great shaft. I have 3 of them in my Ping Hybrids.