alfriday101

Golf Goals for 2022 Be greatful Be a good friend and playing partner Enjoy Be present Be target focused and meticulous in fundamentals and routine Practice with purpose Evaluate good, better, how Play golf—emphasis on “play”

"Are you listening to me?" Such a random way for my wife to start a conversation.

Change your concept and change your result. Quit thinking/obsessing about hitting the ball. The low point of your swing doesn't change that much (if at all) from your irons, fairway woods and driver. On your irons, you are not "hitting down" on the ball. The low point of your swing is past the ball, so you are catching the ball before your swing bottoms out. On fairway woods, the low point is even with or just behind the ball, so you are catching the ball when the club is moving level through the hitting area. On the driver, your low point is still near the middle of your stance but well being the ball, so the club is moving up when you catch the ball. Place your attention on the low point of your swing (not the ball) and swing away. A few things to try on the range to help shift your focus away from the ball: 1. Instead of looking at the ball, look at a spot on the ground in the middle of your stance (low point of swing) along your swing path. Swing over that spot and catch the ball as the club starts up. Transition into doing this and hitting balls with your eyes closed. 2. Try the "clip the tee" drill. This works especially well on a range with the large, rubber tees. Don't use a ball. Set up like you would with your driver. Start swinging small, with your attention on the low point of your swing. Swing back and forth without stopping and feel the bottom of the club clip the rubber tee. Gradually lengthen your swing to your full swing. You can also do this with your eyes closed after just a little bit of practice. The full drill is as follows: 1. Set up and swing back and forth to feel the club clip the tee as above. Build up a good rhythm and balance. Stop and repeat two more times. 2. Set up and swing a full swing clipping the tee, no ball. Repeat once or twice. 3. Set up with a ball and swing the same as in step two. 4. Repeat step 1. 3. On the range, alternate driver and wedge. Hit each shot to a target. Go through full routine on all shots. Place your attention on the low point of each swing.

A game I played at dinner club: Can you tell us how old you are without stating your age? "I know all the words to the Gilligan's Island theme song."

I picked up my phone and asked Alexa a question. She said, "Don't call me Shirley." So I tried again. She said, "Don't call me Shirley." Then it dawned on me, I'd left my phone in Airplane mode.

The fundamentals are incredibly important. I know whenever something in my game starts to go sideways, I first review and check that my fundamentals are solid. Most of the time, a fundamentals check resolves the issue. But, fundamentals are not he same as having/improving skills. Solid fundamentals will set you up to make solid contact with the ball. In the shot game, for example, solid fundamentals will help with making crisp contact and to send the ball pretty much on line, but improving your skills will allow you to consistently get up and down instead of leaving a long first putt.

Our threesome came to hole number 6 yesterday full of great memories. On Monday, D got a hole in One. Our next round on Wednesday, K got a hole in one. And yesterday... none of us hit the green on our tee shots. As a group, we played the hole three over. Ah, back to normal.

What are the odds? I posted above that on Monday my playing partner got a hole in one. Well, it happened again. The same group played today and a different playing partner aced the same hole. His shot was almost identical to ace on Monday. He is 64 and this was his 6th hole in one. I hope we get to play later in the week--it's my turn for an ace. Anyone want to calculate the odds of a player in the same group acing the same hole in back to back rounds. My head hurts just thinking about it--okay, it could be the celebratory scotch.

My playing partner had a hole-in-one yesterday! 73 years old and his first ace. We've been playing together for years and he's been really close many times. It was fantastic to see the ball finally disappear into the cup. Plus it was a total bonus day. Some years the course is covered with snow by now.

We sat down for our Thanksgiving meal, and this was the view outside the dinning room window. I think they misunderstood the concept of a Turkey dinner.

Do you have a local cobbler? They are experts on leather and leather repair. It's a good time of year to take the golf shoes in for yearly maintenance. Take the cover in with you.

I have a tripod that holds either an iPod or IPad. It has a bluetooth remote for starting and stopping the video. A nice touch so you don’t have to watch yourself walking back and forth to the phone every time. Put “iPhone tripod stand for video recording” into the search bar and a number of options will come up. It also works for zoom meetings.

I would be interested in how practicing the opposite shot affects the results of you sock shot over time. I think it was Adam Young who has players drill hitting a stock shot, a draw and then a fade to a target. According to him, it was one of the fastest was to improve the stock shot results—or at least much more effective than just hitting stock shot after stock shot.

Almonds or mixed nuts, bananas or an apple are my go to snacks. I alternate a plain bottle of water with water plus electrolyte tablet.

I have room for an additional wedge after putting a 7 wood in the bag. It replaced 2 clubs. I hit it 185 to 210 depending on how far I grip down. It took one range session and a couple of rounds to figure out how far down to grip to achieve the different distances.

I approach it this way: The clubs that came with my set are my irons. Wedges are separate, specially designed short game clubs. I don't really care that the two highest lofted clubs that came with my set are labeled PW and GW. I am currently playing 2 "real wedges." So I go set GW, specialty SW and LW. This set up has 5 degree loft gaps. I am transitioning to 4 "real wedges." I drop the set GW and add wedges in 4 degree loft gaps. I prefer to have tighter yardage gaps at the bottom of my bag. I bought the wedges months ago, but haven't taken the time to get them dialed in. Now that the main golf season is over (the course plugged greens yesterday and pulled tee markers) I'll quit worrying about shooting my best score and start working on my building my game for winter in Florida. I'll end up with 5 clubs labeled as wedges, but the PW doesn't occupy space in my brain as a wedge, but as my highest lofted iron.

I think we are living in a golden age of iron/club design. I've been playing golf on and off for over 50 years. There is more variety, options and choices today than anytime in the last 50 years. A player should be able to find clubs that match their game. I got a set of Ping Eye2s when they first came out. They were pretty radical clubs at the time. I had a friend on my university golf team refer to them as "hacker clubs." Today, they would be pretty standard cavity back clubs. Today we can still get full on muscle backs if we want. At the opposite end of the spectrum, there are sets that are basically a full set of hybrids. One can get almost anything in between. When I started playing, everyone played steel shafts. I remember when graphite first came on the scene--and all the early problems associated with them. (I also remember the short lived aluminum shaft.) I'm not sure which has had a greater impact on performance, club head design or shaft technology. Looking back on the changes, it seems to me that each "advancement" follows a similar, perhaps natural, pattern. A manufacturer will come out with a major design change that improves some players performance or enjoyment in the game. Other manufacturers will come out with similar designs, but tweak it. The manufactures experiment with variations to eliminate issues with the clubs until they all reach pretty much the same place. They end up with very similar performing clubs and the differences really come down to minor preferences, which may or may not be performance related. The Ping Eye led to the Ping Eye2. Searching for more forgiveness, Ping eventually moved on to the Ping Zing--really ugly but very forgiving. Ping then started working backward to smaller, more traditional heads that provided the forgiveness of the Zing. The manufacturers have been balancing feel with forgiveness for a long time. When thin faced irons first came out, they definitely performed differently, but some had hot spots (A hum, Rocketblades). Later versions tamed the hot spot issue and led to more consistency. The thin face later morphed into hollow, foam filled clubs. Drivers used to be wood. Anyone else remember those days? The Ping Eye 2 driver was wood, but the head was massive compared to other drivers of the day. When the first metal drivers came out, they were basically the same design and shape as the wooden versions and didn't really have any performance advantage. (The Pittsburg Persimmon) The big change came with the move to titanium. Drivers got bigger, shafts got longer and lighter and balls went farther. The manufacturers maxed out distance, but then turned to consistency across the face. They continue to play around with MOI, different face metals, carbon fiber, etc., but the changes in the last ten years or so have been minor compared to the changes that occurred in the 1990s when titanium completely replaced wood. So, how does all that fit with the OP? Some iron tech pretty much maxed out decades ago. The changes to muscle backed blades are subtle as best. To me, the biggest difference here is in shafts. Just about all manufactures offer a Ping Eye2 type cavity back. I don't see a lot of difference between a basic cavity back from ten years ago and one bought new. The changes are more tweaks than breakthroughs. Super game improvement irons have been refined and again not much real change year to year. Where I do see more significant change is in the "newer" categories of irons, albeit I haven't paid super close attention to some of them, such as the hybrid-like irons (Cleveland Launcher). The players distance irons seem to be moving from initial introduction to the tweaking stage. Single length irons and two or three length iron sets are early in development, so I expect some big changes here. Though, the move to two or three length sets seems to be flowing out of the single length concept. And non traditional club lengths (1/4 or 1/8 progression in shaft length) seems to be gaining traction. The progressive set and the combination sets are still being explored and it seems like more manufactures are offering combo sets so the player doesn't have to cobble together their own by combing two partial sets from the same manufacturer. If someone is comparing a cavity back form 5 or 10 years ago to new ones, I don't see major changes in performance.

I cheer for three college teams: Iowa, Iowa State (when they are not playing Iowa) and whoever is playing Nebraska.

Oh Happy Day. I'm a grandfather. My first grandchild, a boy, was born last night. Mom, dad and baby are doing well. We can't see the baby for a few days--no visitors in the hospital due to Covid. But we'll be making a road trip in a few days to hold the little bundle. It's even better than I imagined.

https://www.instagram.com/wheelhouse_golf/ There are other black golf balls as well. Just google "black golf balls." Vo9lvic, snell, blackswing...

First, I think scooterhd2's post above is brilliant. I was going to comment about using baseball imagery to help with your golf, but my post could never be as helpful as the one above. Second, you need to work on your awareness. As you state in your post, you go weeks or months with no problem, and then the issue shows up-- "but they always return and I don’t recognize what I am doing that causes the return." You need to dig down and find out what you are doing differently, and that starts with having awareness of what you are doing right most of the time. Most of us don't really change our swings that much day to day or week to week. Chances are you are setting up differently, but your perception is just enough off you are not aware of it. Check the basics: grip, alignment, posture, ball position.

My warm up for a round or practice session starts with feet together drills, then left foot only and right foot only. Then I move on to hitting 5 shots with the same club--a chip, a short pitch, a long pitch, 3/4 shot and full shot. I vary the iron each day. All shots to a target and with easy tempo.

Try varying your right hand grip to take pressure off your elbow. It's worth a try on the range to see if your present grip contributes to the problem. I had to move my right hand grip farther into my fingers to take pressure off the elbow. (I also picked up some yardage with the change.) Compression sleves, elbow braces etc. can help, but they don't fix the underlying problem. Strengthen and stretch your muscles. Google "Thera-Band". They are exercise bars that you twist--they are especially designed to help with golf/tennis elbow.

Thanks for the info. On my "to play" list.

I find two aspects of this situation interesting. 1. Cobra's response. I cannot remember a sponsor ever calling one of their fold "an eight year old" and stating he said something "so stupid." 2. Bryson has talked about his "brand" and how he has to protect his brand. What kind of a brand is he cultivating with his ridiculous feud with Brooks and lashing out at Cobra-- bitting the hand that feeds him. I'm glad Bryson is in the game. I tried single length irons a few years before I had ever heard of BAD. I liked the concept but hated the heads of the ones I tried. I hoped that some day a company would offer more of a players iron in single length. Cobra, Stirling and Edel, plus others, now offer much better single length irons, in large part, because of BAD. (I play Edel and played Cobra for a couple of years.) I would love to read BAD's contract with Cobra and see what provisions are in there regarding BAD's behavior.