Dan Yates

Do you think they agreed ahead of time to post -25’s? It’s absurd - so assuming it’s a standard distribution of 4 par 5’s, 4 par 3’s, and 10 par 4’s, if they eagle all of the par 5’s they’re -8, birdie the par 3’s they’re -12, so they claimed to eagle 3 par 4’s and birdied the other 7??? Stolen accolades indeed. Glad you played well and enjoyed your new putter. I’ve been loving mine lately too.

Bizarre round of golf Saturday morning at my home course Gettysburg National. Played Friday evening after work and only finished 13 holes before it got too dark to play on. Unremarkable round except that I holed out for par on #4 from short side behind the green to a hole about 12’ from the back on a downslope, and got up and down from three bunkers. Everything that got me into having to make those shots was mediocre. I had an 8:45am tee time the next day, so I treated it like a warm up/practice round. Woke up Saturday to drizzling rain and temps that tried and then failed to get out of the high 40’s. Butchered the start: double, double, par, par, bogey, bogey. The people I was paired with looked like they hoped I got lost on the way to the 7th tee. But then I hit a 5i 208 yds to 12’ and lipped out the putt but easy par. As it got colder I started playing better. Birdied #8, left birdie putt on #9 1” short, lipped out birdie on #10 after duck-hooking my tee shot into the fairway of #14, left a 38’ birdie putt on #11 6” short but dead on line, birdied the par 3 #12, up and down par on #13, birdied par 5 #14, up and down par on #15, bogeyed #16 after getting out of position off the tee, sank a tricky 5’ left to right downhill putt for par after coming up short on the par 3 #17, and birdied #18. +5 front, -2 back for a 73, and best round of the new year after a terrible start (that could have been even worse if I hadn’t gotten lucky on a couple of bounces). Really showed me the value of letting the bad shots go and telling yourself, “the next one will be a lot better”

Lots of golf and non-golf related things to do around Gettysburg! The Gettysburg Battlefield National Military Park Visitor’s Center/Museum is great - finished about 10 years ago, and the best place to start to get a sense of the sequence of events and impact from those three transformative days in July 1863, and you can pick up a copy of the self-guided auto tour from the museum gift shop and drive through the battlefield and town. The Gettysburg National Cemetery where Lincoln made his Gettysburg Address is pretty powerful. The new Beyond the Battle Museum looks at life in Adams County during the fighting from the townspeople who lived here and cared for soldiers, worked in field hospitals, had their homes raided and their lives turned upside down - voted one of the best new museums in the state/country when it opened. On the 4th of July weekend there is the Battle of Gettysburg Reenactment across the original three days (makes you appreciate cooling synthetic stretch fabrics), and there’s the Antietam National Battlefield further south and west, due south about 50 minutes is Harper’s Ferry where John Brown and his Abolitionists staged the raid on the arsenal and was captured, and in nearby Charlestown you can visit the house downtown where he was hanged for it, and in the fall there’s the Apple Harvest Festival northwest of Gettysburg… just to name a few Local golf: The Links at Gettysburg is a perennial Top 10 course you can play in PA, and a good test. The two courses at Penn National (Founders and Iron Forge) are about 25 minutes west in Fayetteville, PA, and 45 minutes south into Frederick there are a good list of great courses to play: Whiskey Creek, Maryland National, Musket Ridge, the PB Dye Course, Richlands, Worthington Manor, and believe it or not the City of Frederick municipal course Clustered Spires is a really nice track with interesting holes, usually very good greens and depending on conditions can be testy.

Hi Berg, I live in south central PA (Gettysburg) - you may not want to drive that far inland from Baltimore, but I can point you to some good courses in Frederick County, MD where I’ve played a lot over the past 18 years, and it’s pretty easy to reconnect to 95 S again from most of them. Happy to join you for a round at one of them on your way through, too, if it works out.

Got out after work last night for a quick 18 at The Links At Gettysburg. Always a tough course for me if I’m not controlling my tee shots well (my tendency is a snap hook on misses), but this round something from my months of off-season work finally started to click. My best performance in fairways hit and GIR for a round this calendar year, putting was better than 33 putts looked - I hit more greens than usual aiming for centers instead of pins, which left some harder and longer first putts. Choking up on my Driver, 3-wood about 1” made all the difference in the world for control - I found myself picking lines and hitting to them. And instead of losing yardage I gained it (probably from better ball-striking). Has anyone here tried cutting down their driver shaft to improve dispersion and not seen a loss of distance? One water-ball, but salvaged bogey with a tight gap wedge to a back pin and one putt. Sand save on 18 for par… everything was just clicking. Unlike other decent scores last year where I felt like I didn’t play as well as the score reflected (I have a pretty good short game that can pull a rabbit out of a hat when I get in trouble +1.4 SG short game and +0.6. SG putting compared to a scratch golfer), I had a lot of good looks at birdie with putts that burned the cup, a chip that lipped out, and 3 that were dead on line but 6-12” short as the sun started to go down and the greens got shaggier. They must’ve aerated a few weeks ago, but it’s obvious they haven’t recovered yet - lots of aeration holes causing jumps and bumps, and a surprising amount of dead spots on the greens - overall a little rough - that had they been rolling more smoothly I MIGHT have converted a couple more. Overall, compared to my round Saturday, this was SO much better and a lot more fun. If I can gain a little speed this spring and build on yesterday’s control and touch, I think I can qualify for the PA Senior Amateur this summer.

Hey Al_Mack, I had surgery about 16 months ago after a complete rupture of my superspinatus, a three quarter circumference labrum tear, and a full tear of the long head of my biceps (which had to be shortened and reattached to my humerus), and I had my acromion shaved to create more tendon mobility through the shoulder joint. Mine was climbing and weightlifting related, but I found my golf swing speed suffered due to reduced rotational mobility and a shortening of my swing width. Before I started speed training, well after the surgical recovery and PT (which took almost 1 year) I started on a shoulder strengthening and stretching program called Crossover Symmetry, and started doing it 1-2x a day. It was designed to build shoulder resilience, be used as a warm up and maintenance program, and to help rehab non-surgical injuries. I can’t recommend it enough. Once I started feeling strong enough to give the Stack program a start, I started the baseline protocol and realized I wasn’t quite ready and just continued to build strength and mobility. Now I’m ready and starting the Stack program didn’t cause any problems.

I started on the Stack system about a month ago, and even though it hasn’t been much time, I’m already seeing improvement: both average speed per club, but also better consistency in speed over a practice session. The fact that you have to put maximum effort into your swing has helped me refine my timing and sequencing. I noticed I had a tendency to slow down over a round, and that it would throw off my timing. That has definitely improved. I really like the app too - it keeps me motivated and on track. I was a little worried about some feedback I read that some users with back issues exacerbated them while doing Stack training, but if anything I feel like my core is getting stronger.

I’ve been playing since I was 14 - so about 41 years. At my best I was a +2, now playing around a 6 (but lately feeling like I’m playing worse than that - I just manage to score better). Last year I set a crazy goal to qualify for and play in the PA Senior Amateur this summer (2024), so I’ve started training more methodically - something everyday. I’ve had two big injuries (4 herniated discs in lower back) and surgery (right rotator cuff, labrum, bicep) that really slowed my golf game for the last 4-5 years. I am also a very avid rock climber and on top of my real job (fundraising) I am the head routesetter of our local college climbing walls. So I’m in decent shape for my age, but I’ve seen a huge drop in my swing speed since the injuries. I used to be between 112-118 mph club head speed - I’m around 97-101 now. Really working to get speed back up. Fun fact: I grew up in Latrobe, PA, as did my extended family. My great-uncle was Arnold Palmer’s high school golf coach when he was at Latrobe, and they stayed friends their whole lives. Arnie would often watch the HS golf team coming up 18 and comment on our play, give us encouragement, and sometimes join us for a few holes (or the mind-blowing day I played 18 with him as a HS junior while he was still playing on the Senior PGA Tour). He was a great supporter of the team, allowing us all to play at Latrobe CC as our home course and showing up out of the blue for a wink and thumbs up. As an adult I saw how much the community mean to him, stopping by every table, buying drinks for players, telling stories and jokes, and always grateful to the people who helped him get started. I played Ben Hogan Apex PC blades for the first 20 years of my golf, persimmon Titleist woods, and an old Titleist Acushnet Bullseye putter until they were stolen. For the next 10 years I played a mix of strays and oddballs, but generally always had an older TaylorMade driver, 3 wood and 5 wood, and Odyssey putters. First good full set of fitted irons were Mizuno JPX 919s, and Vokey wedges, but as I’ve aged and my eyesight has gotten worse, and my distance shrinking I started looking for advantages in equipment. Over the past three years I’ve built my bag into what I game now: Driver: TaylorMade Stealth 2 9.0, Mitsubishi Tensei White X-Stiff 75g shaft 3-wood: TaylorMade Stealth 2 Plus 15 degree, Mitsubishi Tensei Blue X-stiff 75 shaft (Sometimes): PXG Gen 5 0311X Driving iron KBS TGI 80 shaft Hybrid: TaylorMade Stealth 2 19 degree Hzrdus Black 6.0 80g shaft Hybrid: PXG Gen 4 22 degree Hzrdus Smoke 6.0 80g shaft Irons: PXG Gen 5 0311 P 4-PW, 2 degree strong, 1 degree flat, True Temper Dynamic Gold 105 S300 Wedges: PXG Sugar Daddy 2 50 degree with 13 degree bounce BP Grind, 56 degree 10 degree bounce C Grind, with True Temper Dynamic Gold 105 S300 shaft in the 50 and Elevate Tour S in the 56 Putter: 34.5” LAB Mezz Max 68 degree lie angle, with 2 degree press grip, ACCRA black shaft I was fitted for all of the clubs (a first for me), and so I was a little surprised that I was put into Stiff and X-Stiff shafts, but they seem to work for me (most of the time). I’m kind of curious to see if they still will if I get my swing speed up to 105-110 where I’d like to be. Still not having consistency with the driver I want, but it’s definitely me and not the club - when I swing well I hit it 265-280 with a slight draw. Looking forward to learning and getting smarter with my equipment here.