RoverRick

You say excellent pitching with the 58°, but define excellent. Is that hitting it in one-putt range? So you get the exact yardage to the flag? Do you just look at it and think, that’s 50 yards? The difference in being 47 and 53 is a 15’ putt. Granted few of us can routinely control our distance that well. But we can improve. The Dave Pelz Clock System works great. I see you have 4 wedges. Instead of using the clock, use your trail side: mid shin, knee, mid thigh, pocket, waist, ribs, shoulder, ear. That’s 8 different back swing lengths. Accelerate the same with all of them. Write it down on a score card or something. Practice this with one club. Then add another club. You can do this with all your wedges. Actually all your clubs. I know a waist high 6 iron is 126 yards. A 4 is 154. A 3 wood is about 175. Although with these longer clubs they are more bump and runs. But simply doing this with your 4 wedges you will have 32 different known distances. There will be some over lap. Maybe you just do knee, waist, shoulder, ribs. Perhaps you do those 3 and vary your stance or set up. Choking down on the club reduces it a couple of yards as does opening your stance, as does playing it more forward. Blah. Blah. Blah. The important thing is you have a system that you practice. You have it written down. At least initially. Let’s say you are 47 yards from the flag and your card says a knee high 50° goes 46y as a waist high 58° goes 48y. You now have 2 known options and can pick one after assessing the variables and have confidence in you choice. This can affect your course management also. Our 3rd hole is a par 5 that dog legs right. In 30 years I have 10 eagles and hundreds of doubles or worse. In addition to OB the entire way, there are 2 sand bunkers, 2 grass bunkers, 3 large moguls, and the green is long and skinny set at an angle. Yet, I still consider it a birdie hole. I make far more birdies here by hitting the wedge close from a perfect lie in the fairway than a flop shot out of the grass bunker. So I want to lay up to where I have a 50-60 pitch right down the throat of the green. I hit my 5 iron fairly well, so I just have to hit my tee shot 200 yards into the fairway. This takes discipline because everyone else wants to pound the driver. Most hit it OB, or into the 16 fairway behind a row of trees, or though the fairway, and then have a 200 yard shot to this green. I can just hit an easy hybrid, then 5 iron, and focus on my chip, either make the putt for birdie or walk off with an easy par. I may not win the hole, but I didn’t damage my score.

I’m a long time user of the rule of 12. I’ve averaged 27 putts per round for the 10 months (the amount of time I’ve been tracking it, not the amount of time I’ve been using this.) I rarely 3 putt, so that means I have 9 1-Putts per round. How? I chip it close. While the rule of 12 does actually work, I modify it a little based on the fact that I ride in a cart verses walking. So I don’t have all my clubs with me. I may just have the 54° 9 & 8 iron and putter. I park to where I have to walk past the flag to the ball. I pace it off going to the ball and decide what’s best. While the Rule of 12 says get it on the green as soon as possible, if you know a 9 iron is 3:1 and an 8 iron is 4:1, 54° is 2:1. Just pick your spot and use that club. Usually, I’m not so far from the flag that I need longer chipping clubs, but it also works. Say I am only 5 paces off the green and 30 paces from the flag. 6:1 the rule of 12 says 6 iron. If all I have is a 9 iron, I pick my landing spot 10 paces from the ball. I played Trinity Forest on Tuesday. I had many opportunities to chip with longer clubs. However, I also subscribe to “Putt when you can, chip when you can, and pitch when you have to.” Trinity Forest has perfect grass like many courses fringe from tee box to green. And it probably runs about 10-12 on the stimp. The greens are even faster and smoother, but lots of undulations. I didn’t chip 1 time Tuesday but I did have some 30-40 yard putts. The other guys were chipping and if they hit the slope wrong it ran 20 yards past the flag or in some other direction. Your specific question was are there situations where you can’t use it. Absolutely. But we are back what to your order of choices should be, Putt, Chip (Rule of 12) then Pitch. At my home course, typically unless you are very close to the green, you can only chip from one side. The smaller the swing, the smaller the error. While we all want to put the ball in the hole every time, the true secret to lowering the handicap is minimizing the errors. A bladed 30 yard pitch typically goes twice as far as desired and you, or I , often have the same shot coming the other way. A chip, even bladed still ends up on the green, just not near the hole. And a bad putt is better than a bad chip, bad chip better than bad pitch. The Importance of The Rule Of 12 is that you have a tried and true strategy. A chip with a 9 iron has 1 part fly to 2 parts roll (3:1), etc. This should give you confidence that “all I need to do is land the ball here, and it will roll to there.” Aim left or right or add or subtract a club for slope. This will reduce the stress because all you have to focus on is chipping the ball to a spot and physics will take care of the rest. And if you can putt out of a bunker, by all means putt. It may make you look brilliant.

Affect performance? Eventually, it could affect the performance, but it would take a lot of wear to cause that. Painted shafts have 2 coats of clear coat and then thicker coat of paint. These just have 2 coats of clear. I did have a VENTUS Blue that something fell on it and put a little scratch on it about 8-10” below the grip. A few weeks later, I hit a drive and in the follow through with my hands almost head hit it snapped into with a twang, and the head continued around and hit me in the back. It was like a paper towel core that unraveled in the middle and the two ends intact. I think his point was these are expensive shafts, and you want to protect them. He also said this is more of an issue with walkers vs riders. Walkers have the shafts more vertical. The head sticks out of the top of the bag and bounces with each step with all the weight on the end. This is an issue with any shaft. If it’s the stock shaft of a driver that you replace frequently, who cares. If it’s a high end shaft that you are likely to keep many many years and move from old head to new head , then you want to go the extra step to make it last as long as possible. I did not get the impression these were flimsier than other shafts, in fact stronger than other shafts, but also worth more effort to protect your investment.

The bonus overlap was entirely @William P’s doing. I had plans to rush home and join my regular Sunday group. Not knowing what to expect. Of course, I was in no condition to play more golf and texted Bill Monday morning asking him if he was sore and exhausted like me. Also, my limited time on Jon Sinclair’s putting green seems to have had some benefits also. Both Tuesday and today my putting has been great. The PutterView gives you a line on the green. Tuesday, we had the benefit of caddies, and they confirmed my read. So I’m seeing the line in my head like the PutterView. Maybe this is just a plug for going to see a professional to improve your game. But why do that when you can get free advice from other hacks on forums and YouTube. (The voice inside my head, sounding remarkably like Dr. Phil, just asked, “And how’s that working out for ya?”)

Not necessarily shaft related, but Jon Sinclair related. Both William and I were given some swing related areas to work on. Mine was to get my weight on my lead side and keep it there, even if I had to setup closed or open to the target line. I didn’t do this at Trinity Forest yesterday because with fairways running as fast as most greens and rough meaning a lost ball, I didn’t carry about the low carry numbers because it ran a long way. 60-70 yards. Today, on my course, I made some changes. Increased launch and carry and still had roll. I had 3 of 12 misfires, but no penalties, and probably 20 yard increase on the good ones. Since I was already getting 20+ yards with the bad swing and TPT shafts during the fitting, I’m very hopeful that the new shafts and swing combo will change my game drastically.

I do my own grips. I usually remove the factory grips and add at least one layer of one sided masking tape and blow on my grips.

I just got another one while posting and forgot to add my scorecard. Had to edit it. But tonight is alright. Morning and nights are usually busy and afternoons are generally a phone call at 2 pm that takes about 37 seconds. That happened on 11 as I was putting but played no role in the score. That 20’er with 3’ of break with the wind pushing it downhill was not likely to go in anyway. I had a 1’er for par.

Date 03/13/2024 Course Name Sulphur Springs CC Gross Score 80 Course Handicap 0 Gross Strokes over/under par 8 Net Score to Par 8 Net Score 80 Net Birdies or better 0 Longest Drive 0 SIM Round? I implemented some swing changes today that Jon Sinclair suggested on Sunday. Ball striking was great. Unfortunately, I had a bunch of phone calls and even had to type a letter and email it because it had to be done immediately. I’m in the middle of the first fairway, and I’m told that this letter I sent this morning was lacking some information including my signature. I add it, including my signature, and send it. Make a poor but decent tee shot on 4 when they call wanting to know why I signed the letter. I was so pissed, I screwed up the chip and made double. The double on 10 was all me. Then it all starts up again on 13 & 15. 14 was an outstanding bogey when you consider I never once touched the fairway or the green until the ball hit the green and rolled 6’ into the hole. Usually, I can ignore this stuff but today was time sensitive. The good news is this will be a match play with a partner score, and I finished each 9 pretty strong.

Sunday morning, I had the opportunity to test the LINK1 with the TPT Shaft. OMG! It has been 10 months since I have hit the LINK1, and it was the stock version. I thought it was very “Meh” at the time. I think I liked the concept more than the feel. This was different. I haven’t wrapped my head around paying $1000 for a putter, but now I know what a $1000 putter feels like. I may soon sell all my other putters (not my LAB putter) on eBay and get one. Jon Sinclair had the huge PutterView putting green in his shop, (the place where the TPT shaft for LAB was developed.) I drained the first 3 dead center. Jon said, “This is too easy for you let me crank this to Jon Rahm mode.” Which turned it into down hill with a 4.7° slope. I put it dead center into the hole at the top of the picture and looked at him. He had an astonished look on his face. But then I told him I was aiming at the middle hole. I didn’t make one of those putts. If I were to do a review on it, it would take me considerable amount of time to come up with more than “Wow!” While he was telling me all the details about the development I was thinking “No way this is worth $300 more than my Accra.” Now I don’t know.

While he was saying this about the longer head cover, I remembered that I had an ER5B Evnroll putter with a black painted shaft. It started to have bag wear really quickly, so I put a rag for additional padding. Of course my next bag purchase was with that in mind.

Do you want this limited to the 5 sets I still own? Tony Penna Blades Ping Eye2 Hogan FTX Hogan CFT Ping ISI BeCu Titleist ZB Forged Titleist AP2 Mizuno MP34* stripped of chrome and dyed gun metal blue Mizuno MP33 Callaway X Tour Forged Mizuno JPX Ez Forged Mizuno MP5 Hogan Ft Worth 15 * Ping i500 Cobra ForgedTec Black* Ping i525* Taylormade P790*

Another tidbit of wisdom from Jon Sinclair. I told you these things would continue to come to mind. There was simply too many pearls of wisdom to string together into a cohesive necklace the first time. I said that all my shots were to the left side of the fairway or the left side of the green. I rarely missed right. He said let me show you something. Then proceeded to drop a net that covered from “the center of the fairway” which was directly over the line of baskets left. You can’t really see because of my big butt in the way, but from my point of view, in order to hit one down the line and not hit the net, I have to aim to the trees on the right. I have noticed when watching the pros on tv with the camera directly behind the player, the ball usually seems to take off to the right. It’s really a perception thing. The ball appears to start right but goes straight. When the ball appears to go straight, it goes left. When it starts left, it usually goes right. I should look for a thread here from 10 years ago where I wrote about 7 o’clock is the perfect time to hit the golf ball. In it, I didn’t really reference time at all, just that if 12 o’clock was towards the target, 6 o’clock was directly away from the target, then striking the ball in the 7 o’clock position with the club face towards 12 o’clock would produce a slight draw to the target.

Jon is not “just a fitter” he is an integral member of the design team for TPT. One fascinating bit he said was that the shafts are made, and then the profile is machined into them. Because they are not painted they can add 20% more material into the shaft, and then there is sufficient material to machine. All shafts are exactly the same so that if I order another 18 Hi shaft, it will be the same feel. This is not a big deal to me, at this point, but he said pros typically have the same swing within 1/10th of an inch, but a different feel in the shaft can have them move 2” off of normal, he demonstrated at the top when he said this. My thought was, “Dang, I wish I could get just 2” variation in my swing.” Im sure different tidbits of information will occur to me for days. I’m sure @William P will have more stuff. I intentionally left out some stuff because he had a better angle plus his daughter to video it all.

Fitting with Jon Sinclair I’ve been to multiple fitting. There may be 3 heads and 3 shaft options, 4 swings with each, 24 swats with the clubs, and 30 minutes, and you are done. This was not that at all. Jon has more knowledge of the golf swing, mechanics, and shafts than everyone I have ever met, combined. I arrived at Jon’s lair on the back side of the range about 8:45. Morning pleasantries and a brief tour of the of the facility. A small waiting room, public area, a club building and storage room, a hitting bay with club measuring and Trackman, and 3D analysis equipment. Then the bay next to it was turned into a putting analysis room with a huge looked to be 10’x20’ PuttView green with an absolutely beautiful wall covering showing the TPT factory and Swiss Alps. Sorry, I have a video of the entire room, but can’t upload. We first talked about putting and the TPT putter shaft. He, of course, had seen my LAB DF2.1 with the Accra shaft. He extolled the virtues of the TPT shaft and promised an opportunity to putt after the fitting. I told him I was an excellent putter but sucked in the long game. I naturally was hitting down on the ball too much and had been making some swing changes, but I was concerned if I thought about swing changes, I would be changing my swing every time, and he would not be able to fit a moving target. (I should have had more faith in him.) He said, just swing, and I’ll tell you when to change. I chose the Moe Norman set up because while I currently have faults, it is very repeatable. I also explained that since October my right leg very weak with Osteoarthritis in the knee and ankle and quadricep tendinitis. This meant that when I shifted my weight to the right, it stayed there. Also, arthritis in my left hand kept me from swinging as fast because if grip pressure. That I changed to JumboMax JMX Ultralight XS grips last Wednesday, but have not hit a ball with them yet, because of the weather. Additionally, I had a question about if the Ping G430LST 10.5° was right for me. Should I go to a Max 10K head. At that point, I began to warm up, and mercifully, I had a pretty good iron swing. High and straight and what I have come to think of as my new distance. (1 club less than last summer.) Then it was my driver time. Ping G430 LST 10.5° +1.5° on a Tour AD DI 6S. I knew I was hitting down on it but not that much. 8.5° is too much for a wedge, yet I was doing it with the driver. But I have seen enough videos to know that fitters can work with a repetitive swing with solid middle-ish face contact. First, my “normal-bad” driver swing is generally 175-180 carry and 30-50 yards roll, but down the middle. When I start adjusting it, then it’s 200 carry with 20-30 yards roll, but can go any direction. I have a wealth of experience playing with this ball flight. What followed was a multitude of shaft changes, 3-5 hits, change the shaft, repeat. TPT has Nitro and Power Ranges, 8 weight, flex, and torque profiles, and high and low kick points. That’s 32 different shafts. I didn’t hit all of them, but it seemed like half of them. I didn’t count them. I didn’t pay attention. Jon was the expert, and I was the dummy. He would ask my thoughts on the feel. Since the number system on TPT shafts meant nothing to me, I didn’t pay attention. A quick aside on the Nitro and Power Range shafts. They are basically the same thing, but the Nitro is a lighter weight material, more expensive. This is only for the driver. Fairway and Hybrids are the Power Range. The only visible difference is the word “DRIVER” on the Nitro is yellow and red on the Power. After 2 1/2 hours of driver swings, Jon selected the Power Driver 18 Hi for my driver. Apparently, I needed the heavier shaft. We then moved on to the Ping G430 MAX 15° +1.5° on Tour AD DJ 7S. I purchased this head on Thursday, and because of the rain, the first time I hit this was in the bay Sunday morning. The shaft was from my G425 LST 3w (RIP). Once again, there were 3-5 hits, shaft change, 3-5 hits, “How did that feel?”, repeat. Eventually, he chose the Power Fairway 18 Hi. The only real variation was we went outside and confirmed hitting that one off the grass. Unsurprisingly, the hybrid, Ping G425 19° Flat +1°, was a copy and paste of the others. And also, the shaft he picked was the Power 18Hi Hybrid. He later told William P. and I that it was unusual that a player ends up in the same shaft for all 3 clubs. I should have asked if the fact that both had the same brand of heads. Did I mention William came early and joined us after I had been hitting for an hour? (William took these wonderful videos that will not upload.) At some point, I asked about the G430 LST 10.5° being the right one for me. He said yes and we discussed the future adjustments that it offered and some swing changes I need to make and how the head is ideal for that. He also said the MAX 10K offered more forgiveness, but this wasn’t something I needed. I needed spin reduction and better angle of attack. While watching William P. I became completely at ease with this head. William had some difficulty, and Jon, who up until then hadn’t even hinted that there were other heads than the ones we brought, opened a drawer with all the latest heads and had William try them. This left no doubt that if Jon didn’t believe that was the best head for me, he would have pulled one out and tried it. After my fitting and before William’s, he explained how the shafts were made and the features, advantages, and benefits of TPT. And then we went into the putting room. I am thoroughly satisfied with my LAB DF2.1 with the Accra shaft. But he had a LINK1 with the TPT. 10 months ago, I tried the LINK with the standard shaft. Granted it was for 10 minutes, and the first LAB I had ever hit. This was an incredible putter. I sank the first three 18’ers on the flat level surface. He said, “You make this look too easy, let me turn this to the “Jon Rahm” setting. The green bent and flexed to where it was a double breaker rolling 15 stimp with 4.7° slope near the hole. I drained it dead center. He looked at me astonished until I admitted I was aiming at the center hole, and it went in the top hole. I never made that putt. But the shaft felt so good. This was an incredible opportunity, I feel I learned so much from Jon. He has over 200 pros captured on 3D video. He said there are only 3 common movements to all good golfers. 1. The hips have to move towards the lead side first. 2. The hips have to rotate as they shift. 3. The trail foot moves towards the target through impact. Everything else is just matching up the face to path. He said what I needed to do was stack up on my left side, and stay there. I said, “Like Stack and Tilt?” He said “Stack and Tilt is great for teaching new golfers fast. In your case, any bad stuff it teaches you will not affect you adversely because you have decades of doing it a different way. “ At this point I would include information on how the shafts are made, but I’ve seen a multitude of posts in this thread already that have it. As I was typing this, I received a text from Matt at TPT saying they were assembling my shafts and asked if I wanted the standard grip or to have it sent without a grip. I said no grip, and he said “Done”. I expect the shafts to ship shortly.

Crap! I just spent 2 hours typing my fitting experience. While trying to upload the videos I lost it all. Even the original I typed in Word. I’ll try again tomorrow, but I’m pretty busy until Wednesday night. Sorry.

I advise getting rest. I spent last night climbing 40’ of stairs 8 times, plus walking a mile across parking lots. I’m just thankful that I stayed in a motel 6 miles away instead of driving 150 miles back and forth.

We do not know simply because he does not know. They may assemble the in Switzerland to may ship him the shafts to assemble. He will let us know.

It was a great experience, if you consider 140 driver swings fun. Actually, it was very very fun. Jon Sinclair is knowledgeable and helpful. TPT between the Nitro and Power Range, Hi and Lo, and 8 different shaft profiles…. That’s 32 different shafts. I honestly lost track of what was what, and since he is the expert I trusted him. Since the TPT nomenclature is different from all others, knowing what I was swinging meant nothing to me. I don’t even know what he ultimately selected for me. I do know that the Power Range line fit me better than the Nitro Line Nitro being a slightly lighter and different material than Power. I’ll do an official write up, but it suffices to say, I’m tired.

My fitting is done. Details to follow. Now watching William P.

I installed JumboMax Ultralight JMX XS Blackouts on all my clubs this week because arthritis in my left hand. I also have an S that I can put on my driver if needed. Unfortunately, because of the rain, I’ve not played with them yet but did practice with them, and I’m loving them so far. I’ve increased my clubhead speed because the weak fingers on the left hand forced me to swing easy so that I didn’t pull my hand off the club.

Everyone breakout your Annie soundtracks and sing along. The shafts will be fit, Tomorrow Bet your bottom dollar That tomorrow Will be fun! Just thinkin' about Tomorrow Makes me all excited, And the sorrow There’ll be none! When I'm swinging those clubs, With Jon Sinclair, at T-P-T And he fits me for shafts And then, those of William P. The shafts will be fit, Tomorrow So I gotta hang on 'Til tomorrow Come what may Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I get fit, Tomorrow! I’m only just A day A way!

My mistake. Should have clarified that my driver accident was an employee (truck driver) accident. It was clear in my mind, but I forget not everyone has 25+ drivers. 24 that drive trucks and 1 or more that drive golf balls. My golf ball driver is still the Ping G430 LST. Now I have the G430 MAX 3w. I stuck with the G425 3 hybrid because I don’t think there is enough difference to justify that upgrade. If the 3 wood would have been the MAX, I wouldn’t have made the change.

As luck (unluck) would have it, one of my drivers was in an accident last night so sleep was not really an option. Then the mad dash (150 mile round trip) to 2nd Swing, pretty much will ensure I’ll sleep tonight. Oops, today is Thursday, not Friday. So it is 3 more wake-ups. That’s how tired I am right now. I forgot what day it is.

Two more wake-ups before my fitting and there has been a slight modification to the chosen clubs. Gone is the Ping G425LST 3 wood. She has been replaced with the Ping G430MAX 3w. I rounded up some old clubs and went to 2nd Swing in Dallas (Area). Rhett fixed me up and after some haggling we reached an affordable agreement.

My plan to play this today was upended by a storm at 4 am. It’s cart path only so I’ll pass on walking to 2 balls.