JMiller

No problem, as MBP named me "swing guru" which I find hilarious. I have other people that taught me to thank for my swing knowledge.

If you dig threw all Bruce's articles, you will find him talk about "verbalize your swing". If you can write down the sequence of motion that you make to hit good shots then you will have a good idea of what is going wrong or right in your swing. Knowing how to correct it is a different beast all together

"Good shots are a matter of knowing the process to make the shot. Without a process the swing is random. You can't judge random." ~ Bruce Rearick (Burnt Edges Consulting) ~ Lession 144 Golf is a repetitive game, If you don't have the same process before every putt / swing then how can you know you did everything in the same way? Here is a good article from Bruce about a consistent swing >> http://www.bargolfinstruction.blogspot.com/2011/07/finding-consistent-golf-swing.html

GHIN: 3.2 Fairway: 16.5* Tour Edge Exotics CB3 Hybrid: 19.0* Tour Edge Exotics CB2 I play a 4wood because I'm ballz-ier then the rest of the posters

I sorta of don't agree with the people here talking about how you don't really need them if you are not building them to a specification. Almost every iron I have ever seen as a stock swing-weight number attached to it. Normally it is something like D1 or D2, however because of manufacturing process there is no way they will be EXACT, the head weight has built in tolerances. For the most part heads will likely come in on the LIGHT side of things on error more often then heavy side, assuming the stock says D2 you are likely to find heads / swing weights that range from C9 to D2. Really, even if you are looking to keep them at manufactures specs exactly you will likely need the tip weights. The exception MIGHT be if you are getting the heads off a tour van where they are already pre-weighed and designated to a swing-weight at a given length. You can do a calculation of what the swing weight will be based on the clubs components. Here is a document on calculations >> http://advancedballstriking.com/Swing_weights.pdf No you don't absolutely have to have them but in a stock off the self pre-assembled set like you find in a golf store the swing weights 99.9% of the time will be all over the place. If you are doing the assembly yourself from scratch, you might as well get them right the first time instead of having to pull the shafts again later and re-do it. If you are going to buy tip weights go with brass don't use the lead tips. Lead is cheaper and works fine but brass is nicer to work with and probably would last longer. You are likely to trash or sell the clubs before either would go bad though.

Sorry OT Interesting that local areas would have a senior age rule of 55, The USGA / PGA Consider "Senior" tournaments to be 50, all of the Mid-AM are 25 and older. USGA Am Championships --> https://champs.usga.org/index.html I think I would complain to the people running it in FL and tell them their rules don't match the USGA standards of 50 rather then 55

Well, I have not played much lately, played once on Sunday at a new course the day before an AGJA event was scheduled to be held for 4 days on the course. The greens were in great condition, the fairways were tight not real wide, a lot of tee shots were blind. I only had 1 PS on a blind Tee Shot That I thought I had hit perfectly, it was a par 5 slight dog leg left I started it up the left edge with a cut, it hit and saw it bounce straight, little did i know a straight bounce was a bad thing as it caught a massive slope left of the fairway and went into a lateral hazard left that I didn't have a clue was their I ended up making double bogey Had a bad case of the hooks right when we first started, sort of go their late and came out cold, not really a hook a duck hook. Grinned the front 9 for a 41, grinned the back 9 for a 40, it really probably should have been a 38 or 39 on the back but a couple sloppy bogey later oh well. At least I had 3 birdies in the round to help offset a few of the mistakes I made from never playing the course before, It was a good track next time I play it I would have to expect that I could crack 80. The thing that sort of screwed me up for awhile was the feel of what my wedges were doing, I felt like I made a 3/4 swing with a 60* it went 105 yards, I felt like I made a 3/4 smooth swing with a 56* it went 115 yards. Normally they would go 10 yards shorter, I don't know I finally made the adjustment after 7 holes. Made Birdie on 8 with a wedge to 5 feet from 91yards. Short game didn't do that bad either, mostly just issue off the tee and missing a green in the wrong spots not having played the course ever and going in blind completely you have to expect that a little.

Finally had a huge break through in my 9 hole round today... I came out after work like any other day and knew going in "well not sure how this will turn out but I'm gonna try something"... The thing that I wanted to try was keep the shorter backswing rotation I had and just get a touch extra lift with the arms... WOW it paid off big time, tempo was perfect, shots were in control and the shots i missed turned out very well. Not to mention I got it done a lot with the flat stick... So here it is ladies and gentlemen my low nine hole of my career thus far. A bogey free 9 hole round of 3 under par 33!!! I hit 8 of 9 GIR, 6 of 7 FIR, 14 total putts. The sick part is my 3 birdies were 2 par 4s and a par 3 I made par on both par 5s. The one hole where I missed the fairway and green was the first hole i played, missed the fairway by 3 yards bad lie, left it short on purpose, only real good bail out spot. Not too shabby for coming out cold and experimenting with something, I think my experiment panned out pretty dang well.

Well I don't think it is JUST the fact of a harder course, they are the best in the world at the sport after all. I think it has to do mostly with the rules of golf. It is not like in a tour event they can bend the rules a little at all for the reason of peace of play. You can't just proceed under the assumption that you know the rules, if you get them wrong in a situation it could be a penalty of 2 strokes or worse, maybe even a DQ from the tournament in some cases of rules violations. When you have to worry about a single stroke then you are going to a lot more time more often in picking shots and in situations call a rules official over to make a ruling so that you know that you don't get dinged, take Dustin Johnson at the PGA Championship grounding his club in a bunker and 2 strokes cost him a spot in the playoff. But that is why I don't really agree that peace of play being 5 hours in a tournament of 75+ golfers is really that slow. I would be shocked to see it even get down to 4:30 hours of play it would be great if they could do that but with the way the rules are in golf and with the huge prizes and stuff that can be made on tour it's probably not going to happen. Sorry for getting OT for a second their back to how'd you play

Well shaving even one stroke playing a tee that has a high course and slope rating translates almost into I handicap point per stroke. At my home course the par is 72 and the course rating is a 73.9 with a slope of 141. I have set some goals for myself this season, and I was just venting at how poorly I played. Remove the Penalty Stroke and 4 three putts, you get my round at a 78 rather then a 84. I'll be honest with my objective, I want to shoot 20 rounds in a row that break 80. That sounds like a tail order but it's really not that bad. I know with my full swing coming around (evidence of 11 of 14 fairways and on a shitty day 8 GIR), I need to keep working hard on putting and short game. Here is the list of differentials for my course from the tips, when we sit here and talk about lowering a handicap espesually as a single digit it comes down to 1 or 2 strokes off the round on average. I tossed in sub-70 rounds for the heck of it so you can see what a tour pro might shot and the best scores recorded on tour. 79 (4.1), 78 (3.3), 77 (2.5), 76 (1.7), 75 (0.9), 74 (0.1), 73 (-0.7), 72 (-1.5) 71 (-2.3), 70 (-3.1), 69 (-3.9), 68 (-4.7), 67 (-5.5), 66 (-6.3), 65 (-7.1) 64 (-7.9), 63 (-8.7), 62 (-9.5), 61 (-10.3), 60 (-11.1), 59 (-11.9), 58 (-12.7) You can only imagine that the PGA Tour probably has an average of a 75.0 rating / 145 slope from the tournament tee... I know that the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, this years host to the PGA Champ Major, has a slope of 77.2 / 144 on a normal day. I'm pretty sure it is a par 72 course, to shoot a par round on the course would be 72 (-4.1). It would be interesting to see what the handicaps of tour players actually were, I have the guess that most of them are +3 to +5 roughly others have said +2 to +4, others +4 to +6

I am about to depress everyone that is above a 10 handicap, I shot a score yesterday that was horrid for my standards. It was an 83 after handicap reduction (84 in reality). That was a 7.1 differential from the tees that I played, so that is sort of why I say that. First off I had about 3 or 4 holes where I had iron swings that resembled a 30 handicap I topped them to be exact knee high to a midget or even ankle high on one it was pathetic. My short game didn't do so hot and putting just sucked. Let me just dive into the stats and why I wanted to shoot myself after the round. Fairways Hit ~ 11 of 14 GIRs ~ 8 of 18 Up/Down Saves ~ 3 of 7 Sand Saves ~ 0 of 2 Putts ~ 36 total, four 3 putts (two lipped out), I played 19 different green speeds yesterday (practice green and 18 holes), each green with the same amount of slope and break with the exact same length of stroke resulted in 19 different distances, impossible to get in a groove. Penalty Strokes ~ 1 (the only tee shot that really got away from me, big push fade) In short all my full swing mistakes came from a fast transition / poor tempo. My short game shots that were not converted were mostly putting errors. The Penalty Stroke cost me Double Bogey (3 from the tee lost ball). I made my Triple from the f***ing center of the fairway on 16. Great drive, terrible 2nd into a bunker, left it short in another bunker, left that short of the green, pitched on and two putts later walked of the hole. Sorry just had to vent this one out, it just totally pissed me off to not break 80 when I drove the ball as well as I did there is no excuse for that at all.

I had an interesting 9 holes yesterday after work. Let me rant a little before I talk about my round, the course on Monday punched the greens for a 5th time since Me becoming a member in Mid March, some greens are on their 7th or 8th punch this season, now I know that these are bent grass greens but I have NEVER in my life have heard of a course punching greens this much, bent in the south is normally 4 times a year with top dressing and werti-cutting them aggressively with a lot of watering and fans to keep them cool in hot months. Anyways, with that said you can probably see where this story might be heading. I pared 1 - 3 pretty what seemed like routine pars, I get to Hole 4 a par 3 have 8 feet and burnt the lip high side break left myself a 1.5 foot clean up might have been a hair firm on the line but I have a guess that punch holes kept the ball from breaking a few inches that would have resulted in a holed putt. I get onto the 5th tee box and have to wait on the group of 3 in front of me. I got cold and hit my Drive TERRIBLE, ended up with 210 into the pin up hill into the wind,came up short but in a good spot so i thought, made a bad pitch and ended up with bogey. Next hole had to wait on the group ahead of me again, I just started to assume that they were playing for big money or something with how they acted because they were going at a snails pace and didn't appear to be playing poorly 2 of them were playing the tips. Anyways, hit my drive low snap hook that turned out in my favor into the wind, found the left fairway, hit a little punch 9 into the green from 125 into the wind up hill to 6 feet, made putt for birdie. Next hole hit a great drive, hit a great lay-up on the par 5, hit a great low PW into the green that was hole high right about 10 feet (pin was tucked left edge was aimed where i putt the shot), I hit the putt perfect line, perfect speed I see it bounce about 1/2 way to the hole off a punch spike to the right and ball sits dead center of the cup on the right lip 1/2 ball right of falling in. Robbed for birdie by punch marks 100% positive on that hole. Next hole I hit a piss poor tee shot into the par 3, left myself a tricky up and down, gave myself a 6 foot putt to clean up, hit put speed I wanted and line I wanted, ball looks like it is going in until 3" in front of the cup when it make a 90* turn and picks up 3 feet of speed like a poltergeist came out of the cup and back handed it away. I had a 4 foot clean up for bogey and made it, I sat there for awhile putting that thing 7 times lipped it 2 or 3 times low and made it one time, putt was just a weird hole location I guess. So 1 over going into number 9, hit a good drive, hit a decent 2nd shot going for the green in two, left myself a 8 footer for birdie (hard to get close to the pin from my angle where I missed the green), I miss read the putt and made par matched my personal best of 37 on that course front 9 but with how I was playing it was kind of disappointing, felt I left 3 or 4 strokes out on the course, maybe even 5 if I felt like being greedy. As it turns out that slow group in front of me had been playing for a chunk of change at least the two guys from the tips were... $25 trash, $25 birdies or better, $50 a side. I guess for some people that is reason enough to play at a snail pace and be super methodical about your golf game.

Thanks Richard, that is a great complement I try to base what I am writing especially when it comes to swing advise on what someone currently has to offer so to speak. If I were in the golf industry which I am not, I just have too much time on my hands i would not be a "method" type of teacher. As for "methods" like "hinge and hold" or S&T, I try to steer people away from them as it has bad distance and control issues in longer clubs. If they want to do that then I'll roll with it but I will make a comment here and there saying it might not be correct for them. Out of all the "methods" that I have looked at and tried messing around a little rotaryswing.com and there RST model (one I did a big review on) seemed to be hte most logical in terms of bio-mechanics. Am I trying to just implement one or two things in the swing as I am pretty happy with the rest of my swing. Small tweaks are always better and easier to make then tearing down the entire swing and rebuilding it from the ground up. This is why I can't believe Tiger Woods has now done that twice in his professional career. No one else in History as successful as him or famous in golf has done that, they all just tried to keep their swings and make minor adjustments here and there.

Majority of the time I am playing by myself, I try to get the most out of my game work work on improving my swing something along those lines where focus matters. If I am not working on something playing with friends a lot of times it's for money so that kind of kills the drink and screw off mode. Obviously. I'm not going to be drinking in a tournament. I tend to like to "practice like i would play", even if the round doesn't mean much I try to do well. In this case I'm cool with getting beer after the round. Only time I drink is during the 4 person scrambles where one team rides together as a group. Meaning the team of 4 can cheat left and right and no one can say any different. I don't mind 2 person best ball type of tournaments as another team is paired with them and keeps them honest. So if it is a charity event or they sell "mulligans, kicks, throws, tosses, etc" then you might as well crack a beer as a serious golfer and go into knowing you won't win without cheating and deep pockets.

Golf is not one fit all you have to know your swing sequence to match it with advice. The number one thing that hurts a lot of golfers is that they don't know what advice to take and what advice to leave on the table based on their swing. One-plane swingers, it is all rotation to get back to impact no lateral hip slide. Hybrid swingers, it is a slight lateral hip slide and then rotation to get into impact properly. Two-planners, it is pretty much all lateral hip slide to get back into impact. If you are a two-plane swinger at the top and use all rotation on the down swing it will turn very ugly, you can not mix and match a backswing sequence wit ha different down swing sequence and be successful. All swing types have some sort of lag built into them for the proper downswing sequence. What you think you are doing is more then likely not what you are really doing, video and instructors can help you through which type of swing and sequence you fall into. David Toms = Two-plane Tiger Woods = Hybrid Jonathan Byrd = One-plane

I found a newsletter from Trackman dating back to Jan 2010 might be slightly outdated by now --> http://www.trackman.dk/download/newsletter/newsletter6.pdf Driver is the only club I think that should have a positive angle of attack with the exception of specialty shots. By "specialty" I mean driver off the deck and very low bullets like you would see in The Open Championship in high winds. Everything else is some degree of a negative angle of attack, if you hitting driver off the deck it should be just a longer fairway metal swing type of angle of attack. With that said "hinge and hold" or "stack and tilt" pre-set the weight forward on the front leg and doesn't get much weight back onto the rear leg in the backswing the weight stays mostly forward. This will result into of a lower trajectory because of a steeper angle of attack. I use the method on 1/2 and 3/4 shots a lot of times in wedges and short irons into greens and into the wind shots that I want to make sure go very low in terms of trajectory.