RoverRick

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.

Actually, a 4 this week. I’ve drastically reduced the errors, but I also played 4 times a week almost every week last year, and started as a 12. I still have ten 89-91’s on my GHIN, but 6 in the 70’s. But I hope to continue to improve. @GolfSpy_BEN thanks for running this event. I appreciate the amount of work this took, even if I’ve occasionally been a pain in the butt to deal with. Okay, especially since I’ve been a pain in the butt to deal with.

So Sunday I tried a little experiment with a ChipR. (I sold it to a high handicapper on the back 9, so that kinda tells you how it went.) On the sixth green, I was telling one of my playing partners I was checking to see if it was a weapon or a crutch. By the seventh, I determined it could be a weapon if I practiced with it, but I could practice half as much with my other clubs and have much more versatility. My biggest issue was since I had a new hammer, every shot around the green looked like a nail. But I said, “Just like when I showed up with the big a$$ red LAB putter everyone thought it was a crutch…” and he interrupted me and said, “No, we saw you on the practice green with it, and nobody thought it was a crutch.” I’m still averaging 27 putts per round with the LAB.

I may try this tomorrow. Sadly, I have participated in 1-man 2-ball scrambles and often do not hit the second shot remarkably better. Last tournament I played I used my second ball only once. However, I should point out that at the time, the second shot was equally bad verses not as good. Much better ball striking now.

I have had an all Titleist Bag in 2008, a 13 Mizuno club bag in 2019, and a 13 club Taylormade (briefly) in 2024, but not the bags themselves. I will never be an all 14 clubs of one brand, unless LAB starts making things other than putters. I’m not sure how a Lie Angle Balanced driver would work out.

Missing fairways and getting into trouble are two different things. Technically, I missed just 5 fairways today. All 5 would count as “Missed Fairway” because they were not within the confines of the fairway. 4 of which were less than 2’ into the “rough” although this time of year with dormant grass, it was hard to tell. The fifth time I hit A fairway, just not THE fairway. I played it down that fairway and got up and down from 100 yards for par.

I bought a Ping ChipR last year, mainly because I placed a low bid and no one placed a higher one. I’ve practiced with it occasionally but never gamed it. Until today. My question was is this a crutch or a weapon? I was originally going to create a full review thread for this club, but after gaming it this one time, I reached a quick conclusion. My first step was to create a place in my 14 club bag to put this club. I opted to create a space by removing my 3 hybrid. I removed my 3H, 4&5 irons and added 4&5 hybrids turned down 1.5°. Did this hurt me? Not really. I can’t say it cost me anything at the top of the bag this one time. So what about the actual club. Did it help me? Unfortunately, the same answer. Not Really. The bottom line is on the course, there were a few times I tried to force a round peg in a square hole, meaning I never would have chipped it, but instead putted it. This didn’t workout too well for me. Also, I never felt as comfortable as I would have with a wedge or lofted iron. Practice may reduce this feeling of unease, but it was definitely there today. I did hit a great shot and almost chipped in from 53 yards, but my thought process was “This is a 9 iron loft, hit it just like a 9 iron chip mid-shin high and play it about 6’ left.” I did and it stopped directly behind the hole about 4’ long. No better or worse than I would expect from a 9 iron. Today, I was blessed with a high handicapper whose short game was atrocious. So to start the back 9, I took him aside and offered to let him put the club in his bag and use the rest of the round. For him it was day and night difference. He almost chipped in for bogey and had a tap in for double. He was thrilled, and I sold this club to him. So is this a crutch or a weapon? There is no doubt in my mind that with practice this could be a weapon. But I’m already pretty good using irons. I decided I would not spend the time to get good with it. I would rather practice tradition chips. However, this guy needs help. He needs a crutch that he could, perhaps someday, hone into a weapon.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery. A year ago or so, I had to wear a walking boot. We had a golf day trip scheduled for the afternoon I was prescribed it. Since I felt better with it, I decided to go anyway. Right foot and right handed golfer. I had no expectations other than to have a good time. The rounded sole on the boot really allowed me to shift the weight to mt heel in the back swing and toe during the through swing. I dominated everyone that day and played well with it for the entire time I wore it. Although after the first day it did cause soreness in the shin from the straps. Some of the guys would jokingly complain that I was using a training aid on the course. However, it only worked well on even lies. Uneven ground was simply dangerous. I too hope the surgery solves your issues.

I’ll be out tomorrow. It was just cold and wet an hour and half before tee time. I decided the weather man was wrong so stayed home. Wifey came home 30 minutes after my tee time and said, “I’m surprised you aren’t playing golf, the weather has been beautiful for the last half hour.” I’ve decided to replace all my grips with JumboMax. Swing speed is significantly higher with them on my test clubs.

I have used Best Grip Micro-perforated leather grips since 2013. Just think about the steering wheel in your car. A leather wrapped steering wheel makes the entire car feel more premium. This is true of golf grips. Plus the Best Grips Micro-Perfs have a chemical (Pro-Tac) that makes them tackier or stickier as they get wet. People are amazed when I sick it in water and say, “Now feel this”. This makes them ideal for sweat or rain. Plus they last for years. I blow them on with an air compressor and if I get rid of a club, I’ll take them off and put a cheap rubber grip on and move it to the next club. I don’t even have to wear a glove, which means ultimately they save me money. Sadly, just tonight I ordered new grips. JumboMax JMX Ultralight XS Blackouts. I had a couple of these in different sizes to test out. I noticed that part of my swing speed loss was because I didn’t have the strength in my left hand to hold on to the club with a full swing. I put them on my driver, 3w and hybrid last week, and it made huge difference. Today, I couldn’t even close my fingers enough on the mid-size grip, so I bought the JumboMax. This was not a change I wanted to make, but my swing was greatly improved with my “test grip”. Granted, the fingers have never been this bad, but the comfort and speed gains were significant. I’m still a fan of Best Grips but …. It’s time for me to make a change.

Great round. I haven’t played this week. I hope to tomorrow, but I couldn’t grip the club in my left hand today because of a sore finger. Took the day off. It was cloudy and cold when I made the decision, but of course 10 minutes after tee time it became a beautiful day. (At least from the office window.)

Spin and sugary drinks are my downfall. This conversation has paralleled a conversation I’ve been having with a buddy in a chat group. The debate is higher loft/low spin head (LST) vs lower loft/high spin head (Max 10k). Since my driver miss is low launch and lack of carry distance, this is easily taken care of with loft and shaft. His is high speed swing, but all over the face. Last night he ordered a G430 MAX 10K driver. We plan to get together at some point and test this comparison out. I think for me the LST is the better option. It should produce more ball speed. 1 mph is huge for me down at the lower speed range. He is half my age and can afford to give up ball speed for forgiveness.

I guess a 3rd option is the Ping G430 Max 10k. It’s a question of what is better, a low lofted forgiving club, or a high lofted low spin club.

It may already be locked in with TPT for the Ping, and I will have my TM also, and will discuss it with a professional whose job it is to know these things. If he says Qi10 I will pull the trigger. (I get my annual bonus on 3/11 so I won’t really have to dig in the seat cushions or sell blood.) It’s kind of funny, for some reason I really want to love Ping as a company, but their clubs for me are just lukewarm. I’m not particularly fond of Taylormade but I really hit their clubs well. The P790 irons I got in January are the most consistently gapped irons I’ve ever played. Of course, none of these have ever been professionally fit by a non-biased professional. I was fit for the SIM2 Max by TM and again later for the Stealth Plus. 2 different TM fitters and the second one said the SIM2 Max was wrong for me at the time.

I don’t think that’s advisable. I saw a video that said the weights are dependent on the shaft selected. So by changing the shaft, you basically change the balance of the putter. The weights in my DF2.1 with the Accra APPEAR to be different than the stock version. Of course that could be because of different lie angles or simply because they weight or the blank putter heads were different.

Any rationale behind this? Please, would love to hear it.

Another even par round today. Ahhh… Sorta. Sunday it was 75°, sunny, windy. Today it was 45°, wet, windy. The wind chill was 35°. I was determined to play anyway. Hole number 1, mediocre drive, poor approach, aggressive chip and tap-in. Hole 2, great irons off the tee to perfect position on the dogleg, poor approach, aggressive chip and a 2’er. Third tee directly into the 25 mph wind and the best thing about not playing golf for a living occurred to me. “I don’t HAVE to do this.” After a 30 second debate we agreed to go to the club house. It was 67°, no wind, and not muddy in the bar.

I have another, and of course it goes to pace of play. They go back to their carts and fill out the scorecard, debate everyone’s score and then move to the next tee box. Come on! Put your club in your bag, move to the next tee and write down the scores while you wait for others to tee off. Besides, it’s just a few numbers, not a dissertation.

Thanks everyone. And thanks MGS crew for selecting me. Obviously, there is some coordination behind the scenes before this is posted. This is my weakest area and given an opportunity for just a fitting with someone the quality of Jon Sinclair is a huge benefit, before we even get to the shafts. I had these Pings that I wasn’t hitting well. I had a Taylormade SIM TI 3 wood, GAPR Mid 3i that I did hit well. Did I want to have the Pings fit, or the Taylormades fit, or did I want to get a new driver head fit? I seriously considered rounding up my old clubs, checking the couch cushions, perhaps even “take in some laundry” or, heaven forbid, ask my wife, and getting a Qi10. That would be sweet. Qi10 on a TPT shaft! Or would it? Would it really be any better or sweeter than a Ping G430 LST on a TPT shaft? A year from now the Ping, which is already almost a year old, will look pretty much like it does now. The Qi10 with the shiny paint will not. I had a Stealth Plus but after a year it looked like hell and broke. It was replaced, and I traded the new one for a Ping G430 LST. So I lofted up the Ping and swapped to a mid-launch mid-spin shaft. It was suddenly a solid performer. I did the same to the 3 wood and hybrid. Fortunately, I had these in my stash. Changed the grips to JumboMax and went out and played my best round ever. (Based on the conditions.) What would you do? My decision is made unless Jon Sinclair tells me differently. But it would be a nice discussion point while we all wait (breathlessly in my case) for the fittings and initial impressions to come out.

I should have mentioned he had an iron in his hand waiting for the green to clear 300 yards away.

While I agree this is bad, watching that same foursome waiting for the green to clear that’s 300 yards away, after one guy hit his tee shot 50 yards is the worst. And he still had 130 yards after his second shot. Honestly, we were used to them looking for balls by the time this happened on the 12th hole.

My Background: I think the first time I played golf was around 1978. My dad took me as a fourth during one of his monthly rounds with friends. Throughout high school I would occasionally go with them, but I had other interests. I took golf as my PE courses in college. Then played a few times a year until 1997. That year, I moved to Greenville TX, and there is a 9-hole municipal course that I could go to after work and play for $8. I enjoyed it but I was never particularly good at golf. I moved from there in 1998 and joined my current club. In 2002, I became self employed and started traveling around the country and decided I would stop in every state and play golf. Maine is the only state I have never been or played golf in. Although Alaska was an island with no golf course, so I took a wedge and practiced pitches. So, I have now played in 49 states, 9 countries, 4 continents, and Puerto Rico. (Not sure of that classification.) In 2008, I changed my focus to Europe and began working on projects there. In 2009, it occurred to me that at 2pm my time, it was 9-10pm there. That meant any questions that came up could be answered hours later and no one would care. At this point in my life, I doubt I could break 100 without mulligans and moving the ball and gimme putts. My 50th birthday was 5 years away, and I was going to be a scratch golfer by my 50th birthday. I set aside 3 hours a day to practice and focus on different parts of my game. Spoiler Alert! On my 50th birthday my handicap index was 0.2. That was short lived, but I maintained a 2-4 handicap for about 5 years. My long game was never great, very steep and a ton of spin, but at my peak, I averaged 8.75’ from the hole inside 100 yards and made 90% of my putts inside 8’. At this point, I took about a year off from golf because of an injury. Then a few weeks after I came back to golf, another injury, then another ….. the past 4 years have not been kind to me. My handicap has ballooned as high as 15.7. These injuries progressed into osteoarthritis in both knees, right ankle, and left hand. For the last year, I’ve been participating in the MGS Virtual Golf Tour. This has really provided me with the focus to get back. Particularly towards the end of the year. It’s been frustrating because if I can keep the ball in play, I can score well. But my lower body doesn’t want to behave like I want it. I can start out playing well, and then suddenly I can’t make the same swing as I did at the start of the round. Or shoot 76 one day and 91 the next. Usually, it is 35 to 39 on one side and 46-51 on the other and the front or back doesn’t matter. I’ve chronicled this journey in another thread trying various swing techniques, and finally have a shallow, in-to-out swing that gives me low spin. Too low for my Ping LST clubs. My long game is still my weakness. The lower spin with the wedges is currently hurting me, but I’m adjusting to that. The long game stats have been as bad as -6 . Approach shots fluctuate between + and - 2. My short game has been as good as +3 and -1. But my putting is +3 to +5 I’ll be tracking the stats on these clubs in the intervening days and hope to have a good comparison of before and after. I plan on playing at least 7 times before then. My fitting is the first on the agenda. March 10th in the morning. I’ll be taking the Pings (although I’ll have the TM’s in the car in case he suggests a different route.) I briefly considered trading the Pings for a Qi10 variation, but I elected to take the Pings because it will be easier to increase ball speed, consistency, launch AND SPIN. Rather than increase all that and decrease spin. I recently had to change to mid-launch, mid-spin shafts for these Ping LST driver, 3 wood and hybrid. Testing Mechanism. I setup a different club in my GolfShot App and will have approximately 8 rounds with these head and shaft combinations before my fitting. Once I have the TPT Shafts, I’ll compare the stats. I will also pay for some time on the launch monitor because “on course” data can be deceiving. Sunday alone, I had a 258-yard drive on 5 with the wind and a 168-yard drive on 15. One with the wind and one into the wind and uphill. I feel like they are both equally well struck. I’m very excited about this opportunity and look forward to informing you of the fitting as soon as possible after the 9th. Clubs to test: Ping G430 LST 10.5° Ping G425 LST 14.5° Ping G425 3H 19° sections to be completed Fitting with Jon Sinclair After trying 3 times to add my fitting to this only to have the whole thing crash, I’ve posted elsewhere and added the link. First Impressions (20 of 20) (added 3/31/24) Initial Impression (20 of 20): Today marks the completion with my first weekend with these new shafts, so I thought I would write out my initial impressions. I do not have the weights that were recommended for my 3 wood and hybrid, yet. First, the looks. These shafts are not painted, just 2 coats of clear coat. The carbon is visible and they are a black smoky look with a bright yellow sticker in the upper portion of the shaft. While I am generally conservative in my likes, I wouldn’t mind if they were totally yellow because I love the flash on golf shafts. But they are not painted. Overall, they look awesome. These shafts are much different than the Graphite Design Tour AD DI 6S than I was playing before in the driver and variations in the fm and hybrid. The very scientific waggle test made me question the wisdom of the shafts selected for me by Jon Sinclair. We sort of “eased into” this shaft and in the intervening 18 days between fitting and delivery I had forgotten how they felt. It should be noted that this lead time was solely because of this review. If we would have paid cash money for these shafts we would have left with them in the bag that day. Originally, the factory was going to ship them direct to us, and not deplete Jon’s inventory, but then it was determined they would ship them to Jon, and he would build them. I’m certain that the adjustment to these would have been more seamless if I would have had them immediately. Even so it was more me than the shafts. The first day, Friday, was not very good. On the front 9, I used the driver 5 times, the 3 wood 3 times, and the hybrid 3 times. Absolutely terrible results. On the 10th hole, I remembered Jon chastised me for not swing hard with them, so I decided that after a 48 on the front, it was not like I as going to ruin a good round so I started swinging more aggressively. These became totally different shafts. While they feel “loose” with a waggle, they feel “stable and powerful” with a full swing. My swing is a work in progress but has improved all weekend. Also, my irons and wedges were simply atrocious today. My putting was good as usual. This is the strokes gained stats from March 13th when I shot an 80. This is typical of my rounds. I have 7 rounds with a score of 80 in GolfShots. My Strokes Gained off the tee all range from -2.89 to -6.95. Approach shots range from +0.54 to -5.8. Short Game from +2.8 to -2.8 and Putting ranges from +3 to +5.4. Obviously the long game is the worst part of my game. Here is today’s 80 stats. As I said, today the irons were not good at all. I actually bladed two shots that skipped a couple of times across water hazards and still got on the green. One which I holed out a 45’ birdie putt, causing my competitor who had a 3’ birdie putt to call me bad names. Wedges were disappointing also. The driver came around on the back 9 on Friday. I would say the 3 wood began to show drastic improvement on Saturday and hybrid today. After the round my competitors brought up how much my long game has improved with these shafts. Although the guy I covered up his birdie was still unhappy about that. Based on the reduction in the strokes gained I give these shafts a 20 of 20 on initial impressions. sections to be completed On-Course ( out of 20) tbd The Good, the bad, the in-between (out of 20) tbd Play it or Trade it? (out of 20) tbd Conclusion

I was certain a month ago, I was going to fall into second place and Javs was going to take it. Physically, I was struggling and thought it was all downhill. Remarkably, I began drinking only water, and it has been a miracle drug. I have steadily improved physically and golf-wise. Sunday was crazy good. I dropped 2 strokes and hope to drop 2 more on Wednesday. I may even go play tomorrow. Congrats @Javs. Those 2 weeks in December may have done you in.