[The Stack System Review and Progress Thread]

I'm getting back to a regular rhythm with my Stack workouts. Winter returned here the past couple of weeks, so I haven't been back in the garage to work on the transfer of my speed to the driver. But because winter returns, the opening of our course is at least a month away, so I still have time (and this will be an ongoing project through the summer). The goal is to close the 100-yard gap between my Stack distance potential and my Arccos on-course distance:

My goal: get comfy swinging driver on course very near 110mph. Physically, I know (from the Stack) that I'm capable of it. Right now, I'm doing a combination of:

• Weight training
• Stack
• Driver swings, no ball (measuring speed with Mevo+)
• Driver swings, with ball (measuring club speed and ball speed with Mevo+)

My ambition for the season is to get my driver ball speed in mph to a number higher than my weight in lbs. That means I need to drop about 10lbs and gain about 10mph, so that the number crosses over somewhere in the low 160s.

[Must have “knockoff” training aids?]

16 minutes ago, rgregoryb said:

There’s no spatula. Just a balloon inside to firm up the dog ball.

My version has a spatula. I think it was a buck at Walmart. My coach had the idea. I heated the handle and removed it, and what was left fits neatly into the back of the wrist strap to make the "cup" of the AmatuerSENDR

[Must have “knockoff” training aids?]

In my (only semi-serious) defense: as a general rule, I don't love buying knock-off training aids. I would make a distinction between DIY-ing a training aid that is clearly inspired by a commercial product and buying something that is commercially violating someone's IP. In general (again), I avoid the latter, while rather enthusiastically embracing the former.

I have also found that a dog ball velcroed to a wrist strap, with a spatula stuck in the back of the wrist strap makes a very useful AmateurSENDR.

[Unofficial Review: Power Shift Board]

14 minutes ago, Preeway said:

This will be interesting to follow. I’m planning to do a write up on the DownShift board I bought but I’m still looking for some videos to help me gets the most out of it. Are you finding info on YT or the website for this product? 

Happily, the seller (golftrainingaid.com) has a whole series of explanatory videos: 

 

[Unofficial Review: Power Shift Board]

This week, I should be taking delivery of a new training aid: the Power Shift Board. For those who are interested in such things, weight shift boards are nothing new. We have one thread about them here and one example of a homemade version here. I have also made a DIY board (no surprise to longtime members here); I'll try to get a picture uploaded to this thread.

But I went ahead a purchased this version of the training aid for a few reasons. It was discounted (always important). The second reason is that it is different from a basic teeter-totter; this one has a spring-loaded "foot" on the front side.

This does two things: it clicks audibly when engaged (meh; I could tell when the front of my board hit the floor), but it also supplied resistance. In general, I favor training aids that actively resist you making the correct move. Some training aids force you to make the correct move, others assist you to do some. Some are neutral, but provide feedback as to whether you have made the correct move. But trainings aids that push you in the "wrong" direction, I have found, are best for giving those lightbulb moments: "Oh, that's what I have to do to make that move!"

So I think this is an intriguing tweak on a simple concept.

The final reason that I pulled the trigger on this is that a couple of lines of evidence have convinced me that pressure shift is something I need to work on. My coach has noted my tendency to simply spin out on my front foot, instead of using the ground productively. And when I do Stack workouts, my "step" swings tend to be slower than my normal swings. At best, this suggest a profound lack of coordination; I'm not taking proper advantage of the step, which likely suggests that in my "normal" swings, I'm also not using the ground well.

So when this board arrives (midweek, I think), I'll do a little unboxing and keep everyone posted as to whether this particular board offers enough advantages to make it worth consideration.

[Any good putting analyzer apps?]

1 hour ago, Bap1130 said:

Just got this a few weeks ago - it is incredible for the price:

https://vertex-golf.com/

Just had a friend of mine bring this one to my attention and, like you said, given its price point, it looks incredibly impressive. Care to elaborate on your experience with it so far?

[Virtual Reality Golf]

It's been over a year since this thread got any activity. Yesterday, the Meta Quest 2 dropped to $200, and I had a Best Buy gift card, so I ordered one for the family. Eventually, we'll certainly end up buying Golf+. Has anyone else been playing VR golf in the last year? How's your experience been?

[2020 Official Member Review: Exputt putting simulator]

If all goes well, I will be unboxing an ExPutt in the next couple of weeks! Very excited about this, first, because I love the idea of having a way of dialing in distance control. Being winter-bound for roughly six months a year gives me a lot of time to practice 8 foot putts, but little chance to practice 30 foot putts.

I'm also excited about this because, as a man with six children, it's the perfect mini-simulator for games with my family.

[Evnroll Midlock?]

1 hour ago, StrokerAce said:

Thanks Michael. Great advice. I always seem to get excited and jump at things too quickly. Sounds like something I should try out at the store first but it does seem promising. (confirmation bias is soooooo hard to ignore!)

You probably already saw this, but speaking of confirmation bias and trying putters in the store:

That said, it is worth trying out. In fact, you're forcing me to get out my HackMotion again and see my current MidLock numbers to see how they compare right now to how I'm stroking my Edel...

[Evnroll Midlock?]

5 hours ago, StrokerAce said:

reviving this... as @GolfSpy MPR I need to improve my 3-6 feet range and am considering a MIDlock.

I've tried an ARMlock and that put my wrists in all sorts of weird positions and I'm intrigued by the midlock; seems the transition is much easier and your stroke is much more connected.

Anyone have any recent thoughts on the midlock? Tried it and gave up? Still sticking with it?

Short answer: it isn't currently my starter, and I can't say it solved all my short putting woes (or else it would still be my starter). I'm using the Edel that I was fitted for for a test here a few years ago.

That said, I still use the MidLock for a lot of my practice. It's the putter I have in my office, and I use it to help engrain a very stable lead wrist through the stroke. When I'm using my Edel, I'm actually trying to recreate that same feel.

The MidLock is also my first putter off the bench if my Edel misbehaves when this season begins.

[Golf and wearing eyeglasses. Single vision, progressive lenes, contacts or other?]

Gonna revive this thread because, as I'm typing this, I'm within two hours of having received my first pair of progressive bifocals. And so far, I'm not sure that this is going to be a good fit for me.

Touch of background: I'm quite nearsighted. I would have been way more nearsighted had I not had corrective laser surgery when I was in my early 20s, but while that gave me about 8 years or so without glasses, it appears that my eyes are just going to continue to degrade.

In recent years, I'd noticed some of the telltale signs of the impending bifocal prescription: detail work or close reading had me looking over the tops of my lenses or removing my glasses altogether. So the bifocals were not a shock.

I'm obviously going to give these a few days, but my initial impression is that these are very, very annoying. Things below shoulder height are not in focus unless I intentionally tip my head down and look through the tops of the lenses. A test golf stance confirmed what was always like: the ball is a fuzzy mess looking through the bottom of the glasses.

So again, I'm going to give these a few days, but I'm almost certainly going to be buying a pair of distance-only glasses—at least for golf, but maybe for daily wear as well, going back to removing my glasses when I need to do up-close things.

[When Does Your Course Open?]

Here in the UP, our course reliably opens in May. April golf is considered a bonus (and looks like a real possibility this year). A June opening is not unheard of, if we get lots of May snow and the course is still waterlogged.

[What is the most under appreciated brand in golf?]

Some really good answers already on this thread. I want to echo the nominations for Srixon, Cleveland (I honestly don't get why none of the Cleveland/Srixon guys on Tour use their putters), and Tour Edge (love their FW and hybrids, especially).

Cobra drivers likely belong on this list.

I'm going to zag a bit here: I could almost make the case that both PING and Titleist are underrated, just from the perspective that TaylorMade and Callaway are both so flashy that PING and Titleist seem almost staid and pedestrian by comparison. So while it seems weird to say to two of the behemoth OEMs are in any way underrated, I'm willing to be a little weird.

[Use a Glove or not?]

I'll echo a phrase @cnosilused: "properly fitted glove." When I was able to talk with the Red Rooster guys for the Sussex and Range Rooster glove test, their clear judgment was that most golfers use a glove that is too large. A golf glove should, especially out of the package, be quite tight; it should make the Velcro work a bit. I suspect that at least some of the "twisting" effect of wearing a glove would be minimized if the glove were properly tight.

As for my own practice: I wear a glove for all full swings. That means my glove comes off for everything inside 100 yards. I don't think it's necessary, but for me, it's part of the ritual/custom that indicates to my brain that I'm in partial wedge mode.

I cannot putt with a glove on. I mean, I can, but I hate it. My grip feels a certain way, and with a glove on, it doesn't feel that way any more.

[Grinding on approach play - what's your... approach?]

Since you have access to a range with launch monitor feedback, I would encourage a lot of randomized distance shots. It sound like, since you're using the DivotBoard, you're already aware of the critical importance of strike. Keep monitoring that.

If the TopTracer software will spit out random distances, ask it to do so. Otherise, put a random number generator app on your phone and keep asking it to give you numbers in your weak range. When you hit a shot, immediate guess how close you are to your target number, and especially whether you think you went long or short. You'll find that, after a bit of practice, you really begin to dial in a feel for those yardages.

[The Good Morning Thread]

By our standards here in the UP, we've had an incredibly mild winter. As of yesterday, there was no snow on the ground except for a couple of stubborn piles. Typically, the snow would still be at least a couple of feet tall. So this, while not unusual for us this time of year, feels extra wintery:

[What/How Did You Practice Today?]

Playing in the SkyTrak sim with my boys this afternoon, and we played a game we hadn't before. In Creative Golf's Golfissimo app, there is a "Tennis" game. It's played like this:

• In setting up the game, you decide on the size of the "court." For instance, the shortest court begins 20 yards away and extends to 50 yards. Not exactly sure how wide.
• The "server" hits his first shot anywhere over in the field (the other side of the court). Any shot hit out of the boundaries (or short of the net/fence) is a fault and gives a point to the other player.
• But if he hits it in play, that sets where the "hole" is for the round. So say he hits the ball 45 yards to the right corner of the court; a flagstick gets planted at that point (carry distance).
• Then the server hits a second shot, trying to carry the ball as close as possible to his first shot. The distance between his first and second shots establishes a radius of a green.
• The second player then "returns" by having to hit a shot that carries inside the green set by the first player's shots.

I hope I explained that clearly enough. Playing it was pretty straightforward, even with my 9 and 11 year old sons.

But it was an awesome game for really dialing in wedge precision.

[MPR: The Single Digit Project]

Um, I did it. Ish.

This was my Arccos handicap at the end of last year. I've posed this before as a Twitter poll: there are disagreements as to how high your handicap can be to count as single figure. Some allow 9.9, others insist 9.4, and still others nothing higher than 9.

So I'm at least lurking. There is a small asterisk: the Michigan State Police Chaplains held our conference last fall at TreeTops resort in Gaylord, MI. I took the opportunity to play the well-regarded ThreeTops par 3 course and played it very well (by my standards):

Where do we stand right now? First, I'm cautiously optimistic that we're going to have a long golf season up here. For reference: last winter, we had well over 250 inches of snow. This winter: so far, not even 40. That is a shockingly scant amount of snow for our area. It should mean that our course opens as early as it has since I've lived here (now 12 years).

The other big news: this past winter, my dad came over and altered a single truss of my garage. Why does this matter? I can swing a driver. Anyone following this thread has seen that one of the things I've struggled with most is driver, and the chief reason is that I (almost literally) never, ever practice it. We have no range within an hour, and my garage ceilings were always too low to swing driver.

So on that front, I'm making progress. The big work right now is turning my physical speed into practical driver speed. On Stack, I can swing the 195g still upwards of 110mph, which would translate to a 120mph, Tour-speed driver swing. Put a ball on a tee, and my swing can easily drop south of 100mph.

Now that I can swing driver, when I do Stack sessions, I'll then do swings on my Mevo+ with my own driver and no ball. So far, I've seen those getting up into the upper 110s. Then I'll put a ball down and work on swing speed and ball speed. I'm not up comfortably over 105mph swing speed with ball. My goal for this year: 110 swing speed with ball, and 160+ ball speed. Overall, one of my goals for the year is to get my ball speed to be a higher number than my weight.

[Worst Feeling Putter you have used?]

Played for a while with this Odyssey R-Ball:

Loved it for alignment. It had a version of the White Hot face, which I don't always dislike. But the hollow body resulted in a putter that sometimes would sound just fine, and other times would create a ringing ping at impact. If sound is a part of feel, this is the one I just couldn't deal with.

[Happy Accident Wedge Discovery]

Welcome back to the game! And, for better and worse, welcome to the deep rabbit hole of gear discussion

There's a lot to unpack here, but I'll start with this: in the past couple of decades, lofts on irons have gotten stronger and stronger. Not sure exactly what model iron you're using, but pulling up the specs for the Titleist DCI-962 irons, the 9 iron is 44°. As a point of comparison, I play a pretty modest cavity back set of irons, the Sub70 639CBs. In that set, my PW is 44°.

There is no right or wrong answer about what loft a specific club should be. The number on the bottom of the club (or, in the case of a PW, the letters) don't matter. What's going to matter is whether the different clubs in your bag properly cover reasonable increments of yardages.

With wedges, things can get a little interesting, because (for many of us), different wedges aren't just about hitting certain yardage gaps, but about hitting different kinds of shots. For instance, for me, my LW is almost exclusively used when I need to hit a very short, very lofted shot around the green. While I could use it for a full swing to hit a number under my SW, I instead tend to hit my SW for everything from a chip on the fringe out to 100 yards, unless the shot demands something unique.

So, quick recap: you have a good sense for how far your 9 iron goes. Know that if you walked into a golf store today to buy a PW off the rack, you would very likely be buying a club that goes exactly the same distance as your 9 iron. So pay attention to the actual lofts of your current set. A general rule of thumb: start buying wedges in increments of 4° down from your 9 iron. So you might want to consider wedges at 48°, 52°, 56°, and 60°.

[Ping ProdiG junior clubs]

21 hours ago, GolfSpy_APH said:

I think MyGolfSpy did an article on these, but not 100% sure. The other person I know may have the answer is @GolfSpy MPR

My son is now 11 and plays avidly; we have not yet, to date, owned the PINGs. I have zero doubt, given PING's reputation, that they are very good. Currently, my son plays with US Kids Tour Series line.

If your child is seriously into golf and the PINGs work well for him (I think I'd definitely want to go in for a demo before dropping that kind of money), I think that's awesome. The free size upgrade is a very nice bonus form PING.

If you child is uncertain about whether golf is going to be a main thing, there are a couple of inexpensive options that we've liked. The first is the components from Diamond Tour Golf (a sister company of Sub70). My children have played dozens of their junior clubs, and if you have even the remotest of club-building skills, being able to (relatively cheaply) build sets that fit your child as he grows is an enormous plus.

The second brand worth considering if you're trying to save money is Lynx. My older son plays their wedges, and my younger son now has a set of their irons. So far, we've found nothing to complain about.

[Would you rather... Masters edition]

Given the unanimity so far, I think we need to say that if you choose to play, you can't set foot on the grounds again.

[Enter To Win a 2018 Odyssey O-Works Putter]

Legendary. Simply amazing.

[Taking The Range To The Course]

Short and (seemingly too obvious) answer: we need to either make our on course approach more like our range approach, or make our range approach more like our on course approach.

I suspect most people would do better with one rather than the other of these.

Make on course more like range: others have suggested as much earlier in the thread. Play mental tricks with yourself on course so that you don't get mentally tied up in the "importance" of the shot you're hitting. Having the idea that I can just hit another (even if you don't), or just thinking about making a good swing (rather than hitting a certain level of shot), etc., are ways of trying to move in this direction.

Make the range more like on course: for me, this is going to be more likely the winning move. I don't find myself able to "trick" myself (setting my clocks ahead so I'm not late, for instance). And when I play in a league or tournament, the more "important" the event, the less likely I expect that I'd be able to pretend I don't care so much. So I would rather play games on the range that apply "on course" pressure to my range game, ideally to the point that my bad on course shots start showing up at the range. This gives me a better idea of the actual state of my game, and the kinds of things I might need to work on on my game to have a swing that holds up when I believe a shot matters to me.

Again, I suspect that people are different, so that some of us will gravitate toward one, some of us toward the other, of these answers.

[Any good putting analyzer apps?]

Let me echo @cnosil here: given what you're describing, Blast is your best option.

Here was my setup for putting practice this morning:

This is a combo of three apps/gadgets: Hackmotion, Focusband, and Blast. Hackmotion, at least in my experience, is incredibly useful for learning how the wrists need to work (or, to be more accurate, not work) in the putting stroke. My biggest complaint, other than cost, is that it tends to have a pretty high number of "ghost" reads, where it registers a putt when you're just moving or setting the putter on the green. That's annoying. It's a very small sample size, but I think they recently updated the app, and I had fewer of them this morning than in the past. So maybe it's getting better.

The Focusband is a gadget for measuring brainwave frequency. I like this feedback; I'm learning to quiet my mind while putting, focusing on images rather than technical thoughts.

But again, the Blast is going to do the most for you, based on what you're describing and price point. It has a variety of data points, including the length of your stroke (in both distance and time), tempo, how much you're twisting the face open/closed, how much you're changing your lie and loft during your stroke, and how fast you're swinging the putter.

I picked mine up used; they're common enough that it's not hard to get a good deal on them.