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Just wanted to give this a bump, in case others missed it when it was first posted. Because the thread is locked, it would be easy for it to get buried. We still don't want to open a discussion here, but wanted to support a Forum member trying to do good.

We're still buried under snow here, but I feel more prepared for the beginning of a golf season than I ever have before: 20220331_143820.mp4

Kirke came with me to the church today. He's getting in some foam ball practice. This move is absolutely bonkers: 20220329_084557.mp4

Duration: 00:51:09 Chris and Tony discuss their favorite new clubs of 2022 and our ideal sponsors.Listen Here

Moderators' Note: The humanitarian aims of this post are not political. Any Forum members who wish to aid Kanoito in his work of helping the Ukranian refugees can send him a PM as he asked. But in the interest of not wanting to open a thread for a discussion of the war itself and the surrounding political issues, we are locking this thread to further posts.

It's related, but in some sense, even more extreme. The claw works by reducing the influence that the trail hand has on the stroke. End-of-range-of-movement would mean that you take your trail arm, turn it as far as possible in one direction, and then take your grip. For instance, this image from golf.com shows how Bryson turns his lead arm as counterclockwise as possible and his trail arm as clockwise as possible: If you try this, you'll see that your ability to rotate the face of the putter at becomes very restricted, which is the point. It's also why I get how someone like @jlukes would quickly find it intolerable. It's very mechanical.

I suspect some of you are already familiar with this concept. It's most notable proponent is Bryson, who has been one of the very best putters on Tour the past couple of years. And it's not limited to arm lock putting. The basic idea is related to our normal understanding of strong and weak grips. A strong grip typically encourages the face to close through impact; a weak grip the opposite. What Bryson does is turn his lead arm as weak as possible and his trail arm as strong as possible. If you try this, you'll see that it makes it really hard to move the face around. Most of us have a predominant miss when putting. For me, it's a pull. And so this morning, I experimenting with turning my lead hand (I putt slightly left-hand low) very, very weak. The immediate results were quite promising. I felt like I could make a very free stroke without any fear of a left, pull miss. Has anyone else experimented with this?

That is precisely my issue. I don't have a lot of classic early extension, but my entire body (from the DTL view) sways toward to ball as I get to the top of my swing.

Really, really helpful. This concept has been big for me this offseason. Like many of you, I've done a ton of work over the past couple of (off)seasons to try to get the club to shallow through transition. This off-season, more than any other, I've begun to understand how much that move also depends on swing sequence and what the lower body is doing. Short version: if you can't clear the space between you and the ball, you have to come into impact steep and from the outside. There's literally no way to get the club there if your body is there. So just reinforcing what @RickyBobby_PR's post of Monty's post said, maybe a slightly different way that helped me get it: he talked about what moves, and I've found it helpful to think about what's stationary. On the backswing, the lead hip is the pivot point for the hip turn. The lead hip stays where it is: the trail hip gets deeper. On the downswing, it is reversed: the trail hip is now the pivot point, and the lead hip moves deeper.

You know the feeling of reaching into your pocket and finding cash there that you didn't remember? I had the golf version of that this morning, recalling that I had unspent credit at 2nd Swing. I now have a new 3 wood headed my way.

What's interesting is that my process isn't much different from what it has been in years past. The swing differences are mostly the product of daily rehearsals (mostly in the empty church building) without a ball. But making the entire swing work together (instead of only focusing on shallowing or wrist angles) has allowed the shallowing to transfer much more than previously when it was time to hit balls again.

So much of the progress I've made in shallowing this offseason is rooted in a better understanding of how the swing relates to the lower body.

Checked off a couple more Break 30s, including a clean Break 30 on Island Beach (where I had previously only shot 30): Desert Canyon remains a challenge, even from these short tees (1,883 for nine). It is mostly playing in 15–20mph winds. I also did a Skills Challenge on Awesome Golf on Saturday, recording the whole session to send to my coach (Jayson Nickol) for feedback. Here's a nice indication of the changes we've made over the winter: the first frame is from the first video I sent him at the end of last August; the second frame is from Saturday; both are 8 irons: Path is much closer to neutral, and hitting a small draw on most shots. Also, we're getting 3–6" of snow tomorrow.

DISCLAIMER for those who don't know: although I'm a mod, I have nothing to do with the testing facility, Most Wanted Testing, etc. These are my thoughts, not those of MGS, etc.: A bit of philosophy and then relating it to Most Wanted Testing: There are two related problems of philosophy that have bearing on the value of something like Most Wanted Testing: the problem of induction and the problem of the one and the many. The basic issue is that, the closer you examine the question, the harder it is to define why groups of things belong together. Making generalizations from particulars is something that we all do naturally and intuitively, but it is extraordinarily difficult to justify and give account for. So many discussions go around in circles because of these problems. Consider the always entertaining "swing your swing" vs "model swing" debate. Intuitively, again, I think most people understand the core point each side is making. In general, swings within certain parameters have greater expectations of acceptable results. But there are outliers that are very effective. Most people with unorthodox swings would be improved if they moved more toward the middle of the bell curve. Some people with orthodox swings should not change, because they would get worse. Because there is no way to make a single universal statement here, we end up going round and round. We always will on topics that involve making generalizations from whatever volume of specific data. I think it's possible to believe two things: You should seek to find the best club setup that produces the best results for you as a particular individual. If a bunch of people hit lots and lots of shots, patterns emerge that suggest that different clubs have different tendencies, and some of those tendencies produce good results for a broad range of golfers. The truth of the second observation does not preclude the importance of the first. The "Most Wanted" club might be awful for you. So why do Most Wanted at all? I would again liken it to swing instruction. Can you get better following generic swing instruction online? Yeah, you likely can, if you know how to listen and implement what's being said. But most people would get better faster if they got individual lessons. But there will always be way more people reading golf tips in magazines and watching YouTube videos than there will be getting lessons. Most Wanted (and other ways of giving "overall" club ratings) have real usefulness. They are not a replacement for individual fitting. But for a lot of people who won't be fitted, they remain a way to maximize chances of finding something that is likely to work for a lot of people (hopefully, including the purchaser).

I know how that goes. The iPhone I use for Mevo (and Arccos) has no SIM; it's basically a tiny tablet. When I set up for play, I have to connect the wifi on the iPhone 8 I use to the Mevo+. Then I have to turn off wifi on my Galaxy phone. Then I connect the iPhone by Bluetooth to the Galaxy, so that it uses Bluetooth tethering to get internet.

I gotta load up E6 and give that a try. Does E6 allow for two players to play against each other online?

The key is that you have to have at least one club that is a real outlier. If all your clubs are equally bad, that's no bueno. There has to be one that you can point to and say, "See, this is the one that's clearly holding my game back!"

You guys are missing the most important part of the new update: objective, measured data that justifies to your wife why you have to replace your three wood.

Checked off one more course, or maybe two, in my quest to Break 30 at each course from each set of tees in Awesome Golf. I shot a 10-under par 26 at 1,753 yards at Spring Park Hills. The par on the last hole will haunt me. And then Kirke and I played Island Beach. The final hole there is a replica of Pebble's famed 7th hole. I hit a wedge which landed in the gimme ring and then backed up to (likely) an inch or two outside it for a par, leaving me with a 30 for the round. For now, I'm planning to count that. I know the series is titled "Break 30," but it's based off the attempt to break 60 on 18. I'm going to argue that 30 counts because I shot a 26 in the same session. Right now, I'm really happy with the way I'm hitting the ball. Temps are slowly rising here; we touched 50 today, which should help melt snow. It's a balancing act; obviously, I want the snow to melt, but it needs to melt slowly or else flooding is a very big problem. But temps in the high 40s/low 50s are perfect for a steady melt while also making the garage really comfortable for hitting balls. I want to continue playing these rounds, getting my focus on scoring. I also need to complete a bag gapping (though I have a pretty good idea, just from playing) and the wedge matrix (that I've been talking about for the past few posts but still haven't done). I continue to putt daily. Pretty sure I said this somewhere in this thread, but I'm going all in on heads up putting this season. The Edel is likely my forever putter. My practice right now, when I want to work on technique, is getting better at a more stable stroke while looking at the hole. I believe looking that the hole will make my putting better on the whole, but I also know that when I do, my stroke and strike are objectively worse than when I'm looking down. So I'm trying to marry the best of both as much as possible.

So I'm willing to acknowledge that I'm just transitioning into curmudgeonly old guy who grumbles about how, back in my day, you could get a reasonable hat for $10.

Just continuing to think about this.... I think we should make a distinction between merch/swag that advertises the real product a brand is known for (like Edel or Sub 70) and merch that is what the brand is known for (like the examples @bens197 mentioned, at least until there actually is a Buck Club). In between would be things like smaller podcasts or YouTube channels: for them, while merch/swag isn't their product, it probably is a really important revenue stream. It likely should be thought of, as @MattWillGolfsuggested, as something you get in exchange for a donation to the channel. The reason for making these distinctions is that I think a case could be made for (for instance) club manufacturers that having golfers wear their logo to the golf course where other golfers hang out might be justifiably understood as advertising. It might be advantageous to take less of a revenue stream from a hat directly, with the hope that having several more hats on the course might sell another putter. But again, I'd be interested in people with more of a marketing or business mind than I have chiming in.

An upfront confession: I'm a bargain basement guy. I almost never buy a new club; if it's still "new," it's almost always last year's model—or earlier—that went unsold. The same is true for the rest of my non-golf purchases. If you have resources to unload on purchases and don't mind doing so, I've got no issues with that at all. I'm honestly happy for you. It's just not me (and I'll buy your used sticks later). But am I the only one that wishes that swag items (hats, shirts, headcovers, etc.) from smaller brands that I want to support are often so pricey? (I'll get this disclaimer out of the way: this would also apply to MGS swag, which at the moment, is mostly sold out.) Here, I'm not talking about items that are intentionally limited, collector editions (like some of MGS's ball markers, or perhaps an major-specific headcover). Rather, I'm talking ordinary stuff. Take two examples of OEMs that I really like: Sub 70 and Edel. These are both companies that I'd genuinely be happy to pay for the privilege of advertising for them when I go to the course by wearing their logos. But again, in the main, I'm just not a $30 for a hat kind of guy. (And I need to give props to Sub 70 because I own two of their hats that they've added to boxes of gear that I've received from them.) I've never had a brand, so I've never looked at the cost of getting custom gear made for selling. I'm assuming that if $30 is the going rate for a hat, maybe that's what's needed to cover the expenses. But if you're selling branded swag, is it chiefly because it's a revenue stream or as a source of advertising? If anyone has more knowledge than I do of the nuts and bolts here, how off-base am I?

I would work under the assumption that most of these 15 putters will never see a golf course and probably aren't intended to.

Broadly, I suspect that in robot testing, a lot of clubs are very similar. The differences get bigger, I think, because people are different. The feel of the club, the sound, even the look can not only give different golfers different subjective opinions, but can subtly change how different golfers deliver the club. Could the look of a club give a player confidence to swing just a touch faster? I don't think that's an outlandish idea. Is that club "performing" better than another club? Well, for that guy it is, even if the two clubs are (from the perspective of the USGA) essentially the same.

Yesterday afternoon, I got back to the garage for more Break 30 work. Here are the yardages from the most forward tees for the four courses in Awesome Golf: Spring Hill: 1358 Island Beach: 1485 Desert Canyon: 1510 Valley Pines: 1417 While I think the idea is that each course is progressively more difficult, so far I've found Desert Canyon to be the most challenging, because it combines high winds and then the desert area off the rough is OB. Having already broken 30 from the front tees at Spring Hill, Kirke and I took on the next three courses: So the thing to notice is that, while I did break 30 one each course, Kirke shot a mind-numbing 26(!) at Valley Pines. He was 10 under on nine holes. To put it a different way: my home course is about 6,000 yards total, so nine holes is about 3,000 for me. Kirke's course, based on his age, is typically about 1,800 yards. So on a 1,400 yard course, which for me should be a par 3 course but for Kirke isn't terribly shorter than a course he'd actually play in a tournament, he went 10 under. After completing my Break 30 goal from all the front tees, Kirke and I returned to Spring Hill at the second tee length, about 1,750 yards. I shot a 31 there (Kirke shot a 32). So that was a bit of a bummer, but I think I've learned two things: I must get my wedge matrix built again. I just don't have reference points for partial wedge shots established right now, and it's really hurting my scoring. When I get more tired, I get snap hookier. That closing nine was poor off the tee (I'm only using my driving iron off the tee in the garage). In hindsight, I made my typical (wrong) adjustment: when shots start going low and left for me, I tend to react by getting steer-y with my swing. Inevitably, that produces a slower pivot and a downswing dominated by my arms and hands, which tends to produce even more low hooks. So I need to learn from that, file that information away to make a better adjustment in the future (especially on the course).