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Testers Wanted: RUNNER Golf and Byrdie Golf Design ×

dru_

 
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dru_ last won the day on January 27 2016

dru_ had the most liked content!

About dru_

  • Birthday 11/23/1971

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Milton, GA

Player Profile

  • Swing Speed
    101-110 mph
  • Handicap
    13.1
  • Frequency of Play/Practice
    Weekly
  • Player Type
    Casual
  • Biggest Strength
    Driver/Off the Tee
  • Biggest Weakness
    Short Game
  • Fitted for Clubs
    Yes

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  1. Here is what I think is truly missing from the discussion: The typical mid-capper does not have the awareness of their strengths and weaknesses to be able to provide real, measurable feedback on what their incremental gains were, and until the do start gathering that data on the course, they will almost always revert to the same patterns that existing pre fitting, despite ‘feeling like; they are hitting it better. Watching the mid cappers that I play with regularly, I see the same core patterns. They don’t know their distances. They don’t know their trends. They over estimate their short game distances, and under estimate the range of dispersion on the mid irons. They look to the driver and putter, because ‘drive for show, putt for dough’ is such a repetitive mantra that most assume that is where they are losing strokes. We, even the mid cappers here, tend to be far more analytical in our game, and that knowledge fuels our choices. A 7 yard gain in driving distance means nothing if I’m a 9iron out of the rough as my approach, with an indeterminate lie and no ability to control the distance. This is where practice with a purpose comes in, but also, play with a plan, and most importantly, when the subject of getting fit comes up ( and I do advocate a good fit, if for no other reason than to see what your spin rates and angles really are ) quit focusing on the driver. Focus on the clubs you play on 18 holes, not the ones you play on no more than 14 ( less if you play with a plan to stay away from known problematic numbers ). That is the single biggest lesson I wish more people would embrace. Closer is better, the numbers bear that out, but if you, as a player know that 60 yards is a problem, lay back, or play a longer club to get to a number that you are mor confident in. Looking in the mirror, I know that 90-95 yards is a problem for me. I can play 105-125 with my GW, or PW. 80-90 with my SW, and 65-80 with my LW. No amount of fiddling with clubs, lofts, lies or grinds has ever made 90-95 a comfortable number, so I simply don’t play it that number, which in turn has removed 2-3 dropped shots from my rounds.
  2. This is an interesting take, and one that can have some legitimacy, but there is a LOT to unpack in it. I'm gonna be a bit of a curmudgeon here and say that tying a fit to a score is a nigh impossible thing to do, simply because the headspace part of the game can undo almost anything. Let me slip off into another sport for an example. Cycling. Anyone can buy a bike off the shelf, straddle it, adjust a seat and some handlebars and take off riding. Let's say you buy a little higher end, the shop is going to spend a little extra time to use their experience to set the bike up in a manner to make it more comfortable and faster / more stable. Now you want to really maximize your potential. You go get fit by a reputable bike fitter. Sometimes that fit will require some new hardware, most of the time it can be accomplished with adjustments. ( but there are always 'fitters' out there whose job is to upsell equipment as part of the fit process ). Each of these levels of 'fit' will bring incremental, but perhaps marginal, gains, and there is a limit to what those gains really are that is dictated by the fitness and body type of the person getting fit. The same dynamic exists within Golf, with the reality that many fitters are tied to selling equipment too. New sticks, hitting 30 shots on the range as a fit, off the shelf can provide a marginal gain. An eyeball fit by an experienced golf pro, or fitter, can again provide marginal gains. A full bag fit by a dedicated fitter can provide a player with a bag of sticks optimized for the swing the used in the fitting. But, just like that cycling fit, there are limits to the potential gains, and those limits are imposed by the player. However, unlike cycling where the geometry of the bike produces a remarkably static motion, golf engenders too much freedom in the range of motion. Meaning, that the higher the handicap, the less likely the swing motion itself is reproduced in a consistent enough manner to make a fitting a good predictor of improvement in scores, but it can and *should* certainly ensure that the sticks in your hand give a player the best chance to produce the best results for the swing they used on fit day. Which brings it full circle to the cycling fit analogy: The best fitters are ALSO listeners, observers and teachers. They not only work with the equipment, they work with the player to understand the mechanics of the swing and WHY the changes in equipment are made, as well as how to best take advantage of those changes. This is what computer modeled fitting cannot adequately accomplish. They can get a mathematically, geometrically correct fitment, but absent the listening and education, they cannot overcome the weaknesses in body mechanics. Using myself as an example. I had a couple of club fits before I landed where I am at now. I am not a single digit, but my last fit did provide measurable gains. Distance & dispersion control paired with an education and understanding of what *I* was doing to undermine the very best equipment solutions the fitter could offer for my body type. In the subsequent. months I have gone from floating between 18-20 handicap down to a 13, and trending down from there, and the clubs are NOT the roadblock to lower scores, the dumb brain farts that occur entirely too often are.
  3. And how exactly did THIS happen?
  4. count me in the visual category. That said, for me, minimalist logos and designs, and minimalist alignment. Bonus points for vendors that make an effort to align the alignment marks to the hemispherical seam on the ball ( Vice, Snell, Titleist ). That said, I absolutely LOATHE the Callaway's with the 3 lines on them, and though I tried to like the soccer balls from Callaway and TaylorMade both, I just find them distracting standing over the ball.
  5. FWIW, Buy Maxfli at maxfli.com ( a redirect to DSG online ), get discount on multiple boxes. Vice, Snell, Cut, etc. Same thing. At this point they really are essentially the same. The core difference is that Maxfli prices have to cover for the retail overhead that the others do not.
  6. This is an advertiser problem. A couple of the ads link to a server resource that is very slow, and blocking. If you are using an aggressive ad blocker, you won’t see the issue, but mags gets no revenue from the ads….. catch 22
  7. I am heavily involved in another sport where this same discussion and model exist, and honestly, I think using it as an example works better than what they are. Let's take a step away from Golf and TXG as specifics and abstract a bit. Let's talk about a completely different sport with many of the same dynamics. Cycling. High price tag, consumer goods products. Big box retailers, small retailers, broad internet offerings, paid and free fitters. Much like golf, anyone can walk into a store, throw a leg over a bike, pedal around the parking lot to see If it fits and how it feels, purchase it and go for a bike ride on. Maybe adjust a saddle, or handlebars, but really that's all you need right? But. There is a quick upper limit to what you can achieve in the process, just like golf, and if you hit that upper limit too quickly, you will never progress from that truly casual use / play, because your success has an upper limit based upon your equipment, and its setup. From there, you get to the 'fit' process. You went to a big box retailer an bought what you thought you wanted. You can ride it 8-10 miles at 12 mph, and it's great, but at the end of the ride, your genitalia is numb, raw, and your back and shoulders are killing you. This is your upper limit, and online forums tell you that you need a softer saddle, or some spandex padded shorts. Now you can go 12-15 miles at 13mph. But, you have hit your upper limit, and you will likely never progress further than that because your bike/skill/tolerance for discomfort 'is not good enough to warrant paying a $50 entry fee for a fitting'. However, a bike fit, can change that upper limit dramatically. The seat is too low. The saddle is too padded. The handlebars are too high. The seat and handlebars are probably too close together. The gearing might be wrong. These are all things a fitter can correct, much like a fitter can correct a hook or a slice by addressing lie, grip selection, shaft length or shaft selection, increasing the upper limit, increasing the likelihood of retention, and the likelihood of buying bikes, and consumables, for the rest of a person active life. Which has more value? $50 today. or, $50 every year for a lifetime? Well, it depends right? If you do NOTHING but fit bikes or golf clubs, then that $50 today matters more, because that is your only stream of revenue. However, if you are a store, a golf course, a mechanic, and you have revenue streams other than fitting, then that today money has a lesser value against opportunity cost. And this becomes the conundrum. For a company like TXG, GolfTec, Club Champion, etc, the fit *is* the revenue stream, even if it drives the purchase of custom clubs, it remains the primary *filter* point of contact, therefore, the other revenue streams have little value. However, for a company that derives it's revenue from all of the ancillary services, (gloves, balls, grips, tees, head covers, clothing, bags, and services like replacing grips), the fit is a loss leader that pays for itself multiple times over ( assuming a vendor does not foul up the relationship subsequently ). In the bike world, this is why more and more shops have brought in professional bike fitters, often with electronic measuring tools to get people into bikes with much higher initial upper limits. Those fitters are also coaches, and they now tend to get people into the right bikes initially, and then once they discover the difference in those upper limits, they come back in for the coaching and consumables that lead to even higher upper limits, with 40-60 miles at 15-16 mph become the new norm for an upper limit. In golf, a properly fit bag of clubs is easily 3-4 strokes for most 'off the rack' buyers, but that isn't even the tangible. For the average new golfer, getting through a round without losing a ball is a major milestone, and improperly fit clubs and ball choices are major factors in that. Being close to both sports, the similarities are a lot, but the biggest takeaway is that in both, there is the idea of needing to be 'better' to justify a fit, and that self defeating attitude absolutely kills both progression **and** growth of the sport.
  8. So, listening to the podcast, and it was interesting to hear Ryan's defense of TXG's business model, however, at no time does he ever really address the core issue in Adam's statement. They are both right, but they are discussing completely different arguments. Essentially, you have the 'you get what you pay for' argument, against the 'volume generates revenue to offset the cost' argument. What both manage to miss in their arguments is this: ( remember your basic economics, there is no such thing as a free lunch ) Regardless of if the fit is free or not, the consumer is still paying for the fit. It is either embedded into the cost of the clubs built and purchased, or it an upfront fee. The cost of the fit is still coming out of the consumer pocket, and even the best fitters, are limited to the products and brands they have ( and as I witnessed personally while trying a couple of different fitters in the area, often tend to drift towards higher margin products ). And therein lies the problem with Ryan's argument, that an upfront fee for a fit automatically means a better result. I had two fits at the bigger 'national' fitter companies, and bluntly, walked out unimpressed. They went through the motions. Ran a LOT of numbers. Both ended up pushing high margin builds, yet arguably neither offered enough gain to justify the cost. Both were upfront paid options. Meanwhile, what Adam correctly points out is this. The average handicap in golf is in 16.4. That means that amongst the golfers serious enough to maintain a handicap are are out there playing to 17-20 over on most courses, and that is the average. That puts the majority of golfers out there in then 12 or higher category, thinking that their game is not good enough warrant the cost of a TXG level fitting. To the point where a good friend of mine who plays to a 3 on his home course ( a Pete Dye track that is notoriously tricky ) frequently notes that even his game really cannot justify a fit, though 'if I was gonna be fit, I'd fly to Canada and have TXG do it.' is his exact phrasing. Meaning, that much as Ryan did, so does this friend. In arguing TXG's business model is the answer, they make Adam's case. Only already good, and serious golfers are going to embrace the paid fit, and this in turn limits the both the market for, and the potential of the professional golf fit as a consistent and viable tool to expand the game of golf by producing more, better golfers quicker that might become serious golfers who end up spending more on the and in the game.
  9. I read that too, but after about 20 rounds with them, my 7i distances continued to reflect it's use for the little half swing punches...
  10. Sorry, posted this, and then got sucked into a honeydo project that has eaten my life for the last month or so. The problem for me and the Arccos system is not any one thing, but death by a hundred cuts. Must carry the phone in the front pocket ( the newer device that removes this requirement wasn't available yet ) Because the phone uses the microphone you cannot use headphones while the app is active The Apple Watch app was prone to crash/disconnection ( other apps do not suffer this, Golfshot, GolfGameBuddy, The Grint, etc ) The screw in sensors had an odd fitment with the midsize Lamkin grips I used that led them to backing out over time and creating a pinch point gap Putting required frequent adjustments. Managing penalty strokes is a bit painful. The system always assumes full swings, and thus distance data is skewed, rendering many of its tools ineffective. The system is, sadly, tied to GPS data and suffers for accuracy in heavy canopy areas ( ALL of north GA ). Ultimately, what broke the camels back for me was the the mix of trying to deal with the myriad of quirks in the system. Knowing what I do now, I realize that many of the quirks can be solved by using the combination of the Caddie Link and the Smart Grips, a $300 investment, with a $100 recurring subscription is a pretty stout cost of entry for something that still requires a good bit of babysitting if you want to realize the benefit of the analytics behind the system.
  11. .. to like the Arccos Golf system. It is such a great idea in theory. It sounds amazing, but it just isn't quite there yet, and that is coming from a tech-nerd that is perfectly willing to deal with some of the things....
  12. So, oddly, swing speed, and nature of impact with my swing. I don't have an ego on this, I just want to play golf and keep the ball in the fairway. The problem for me is launch angle. No matter what shaft, or SGI I've tried, we cannot get the launch angle down to even remotely reasonable numbers. For example, right now, I am playing a blade ( Hogan Ft Worth's ). My 4i is a 210yd club, that launches high enough, and with high enough spin rates, that my carry is 195+, and unless it is landing on a hard green it's just not going to roll out, and that's with a setup that was tweaked to try and get launch angles down, and a swing rebuild to get to a point where I hit down on the ball, but still... I'll keep trying, because I could really use the forgiveness, particularly when I start to fatigue.
  13. Dude, you spelled that wrong. It's DREADmill. Not Treadmill. I have no idea where the word treadmill came from but it is a bald faced lie along the lines of the check is in the mail.\ and I'm from the government and I'm here to help
  14. IIRC, with Fitbit, you have to connect it manually on the Strava side. https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/216918087-Syncing-between-Strava-and-Fitbit ( note it does not go back in history though ) History can be done by exporting the files as .tcx files though.
  15. I hate running. I do it. But I'm not a fan :). But the bike... I have a a serious N+1 problem :).
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