Syks7

Date 04/22/2024 Course Name Soule Park Gross Score 86 Course Handicap 11 Gross Strokes over/under par 14 Net Score to Par 3 Net Score 75 Net Birdies or better 0 Longest Drive 0 Throwing my hat in there with @GolfSpy SAM. Like he said, Soule Park is a great course that really prioritizes angles. If you're in the wrong place relative to the green and pin you're in real trouble.... as in short sided chipping out of rough over a steep 3 foot tall berm onto a 4% downslope that's going to shoot your ball 20 feet by the hole unless you can nail a pinpoint flop. (And if you fail the flop you either get to try it again or watch it sail into the river.) See the attached diagram. FYI Blue is 2% downslope Can't wait to play it again. 71.6/125 from the Orange. Like Sam said it's gettable so I think the 71.6 is accurate. The 125? Probably not, there's a lot of trouble and trickiness that could destroy a bogey golfer. Slopes that funnel into hazards and such. I should add that the cup absolutely robbed Sam on his putt. More than 90º lip out.

Exactly this. There's a lot of tests I don't apply for for a variety of reasons. Three of them being time constraints, lack of interest in the product, and something that's outside my wheelhouse. For instance of two recent tests posted (Smoke AI Drivers & Autoflex shafts) I only applied to one. I have a driver head I like, don't necessarily get along with callaway product (for whatever reason), and am more interested in how driver shafts can affect the head performance. Kind of made which one to apply for a no brainer. Being a reviewer isn't about getting free product, it can be shockingly large amount of work to write a good review. Being actively involved in the forum helps show the mods what you're interested in and what kind of product might be a good fit for you to test.

Congrats Testers. Have fun!

Another great day out with @GolfSpy SAM. Played Soule Park for the first time and had a pretty off the wall card. 45/41 86 w/ two birdies, 5 doubles, 5 Pars, 11/14 Fairways hit, and 32 Putts. Highlights include driving the green on a shortened hole 2, leaving the eagle putt 1 foot short and getting to two putt for birdie, a 35 foot putt for par, and an uphill 175 yard 5 iron over a bunker to 3' for birdie. I found a whole bunch of places not to be at Soule Park -- all five of those doubles are three putts from greenside locations where there was zero chance of staying within 30 feet of the pin. The greens at Soule are incredible, lots of undulation, very fast, and just flat out interesting. You can get incredibly creative with your short game. Angles are incredibly important on approach and I think the next time I'm there the knowledge I gained from playing out of the no bueno zones is going to be incredibly helpful.

Two pretty solid days on the golf course in a row, both with a little bit of bogey + troubles. Balboa yesterday 42/38 80. One very silly double on the front from pin hunting and two silly three putts on the back from trying to get birdies instead of focusing on the lag putt. New record for pars in a round at 11. Not quite as good today at Rustic Canyon w/ @GolfSpy SAM but I had a much better back 9. I was undone by a couple triples and the inability to drop a 5 foot putt for the first 4 holes. Still, 45/42 87 isn't too bad. I hit some very good shots and only a couple truly terrible ones. Hopefully round 3 on Monday at Soule Park goes as well as these two.

I've been playing well lately so I've been focusing on really building muscle memory from repetition. Really focusing on feel to work on chest rotation, connection, and clearing the hips. Almost all of it into my garage net. Over the weekend the feel just went away and all of my bad habits bubbled up -- heavy contact, standing up in the swing, getting stuck, etc. It felt fully unfolded and I mentally prepped myself for some pain in my game while I re-found my feel. Yesterday I ran through a lot of drills throughout the course of the day and while things improved it just wasn't right. The feel wasn't there and correspondingly the contact was pretty poor. I decided to give it a rest of the day and while I was laying in bed last night I was watching some instagram swing videos my instructor posted of a high school player he coaches (kid is headed to a decent D1 school next year). It was pretty handy because he's much better at doing what the instructor tells him to do with his change in direction and transitional move. I compared it to a video I (fortunately) took of my swing a week ago, identified something that I was doing that was missing from the last few days, and walked out to the garage to try the same move. SMH!!! Problem solved. Feel is still back today and according to the foot spray so is the contact. The golf swing is wild and so unbelievably subtle. I'd been working on all the parts and pieces I needed, but was missing this tiny almost imperceptable move with my hips and torso. A move that looks nothing like it feels -- like I'm dipping my trail shoulder to skip a rock (Obligatory MAROOCH!!!!). That move simultaneously shallows the club, starts clearing the lead hip, maintains spine angle, and frees my torso to rotate rapidly through impact. All I have to do is let the club release. Simple right.

Woke up at 5AM because apparently that's what happens when you're in your 40s. Rain had let up and the forecast showed a 3 hour rain free window. Checked the reservation list and found that it was wide open after the first group and I could get out on the back 9 solo. Spoiler... The weather didn't hold but it was a great start to the day. Played through the first group by the second hole and had the back 9 all to myself. Played 9 in 1:20. It wasn't a good ball striking day and I was wild off the tee, but I still shot 41 with a couple good birdie looks on the pars. Short game was really good today and I almost holed out for par (less than 6" cleanup) 4 out of 5 bogeys. It was encouraging to be able to limit the damage when I didn't have my best stuff. I'm looking forward to my more favored scoring conditions (hot and dry) once this El Nino decides to call it a year.

Thanks for that link. New favorite website!

Lot of pin hunting today with some great up and downs. Can't wait to see the sunday pins.

Tomorrow is going to be fun. Max is due for some putts to start dropping, Bryson is capable of fireworks, Scotty is Scotty, Morikawa looks like the Morikawa of a couple years ago. There's plenty of talent lurking back there too, beyond the obvious guys that are closer -- Cam Smith and Cam Young both made up more strokes than the current masters lead at the Open a couple years back. I still put money on Colin or Scotty and the final pairing (Iron striking shootout anyone!). Should be a hell of Sunday to watch some golf.

That was brutal. Remind me to decline the invite to play if its going to be that windy. Who am I kidding. I'd play if there was an active tornado in the patron parking area...

Team no glove here. It wasn't always that way, but I started playing no glove on my touch shots inside 100 yards and gradually progressed to no glove at all. Particularly after I started taking lessons. I found that it was easier for me to complete drills and find feel sans glove. . It also makes it very easy for me to feel feedback from the club face. I find that it causes me to be very deliberate about my grip, grip pressure, and tempo. Eventually I played a full round without and never looked back. Now that I've been playing without a glove for a couple years (fully formed calluses at the grip points) I don't really have any issues with grip even in the heat of summer or the rain.

It's more about feel for me than stability. The Link I got during the test was built with an Accra and I love the feedback I get from it. No knock on the standard steel shaft of the DF2.1 I picked up but it just doesn't seem to have the feedback I want. I wouldn't re-shaft myself, I'd send it back to LAB.

Precisely why I abstained, I'm more than halfway home to re-shafting the DF2.1 with that.