MaxEntropy

I took half a day vacation today to play with a friend I haven't played with in a couple years. Front 9 was pretty much garbage. Ok off the tee, but irons were a struggle. Chipping was meh, I was rarely close enough to expect to make the putt. Ended up with 49 on the front. I decided to actually play my driver on the back and work on it since the front sucked. Turned out to be a good idea. 43 on the back with a pathetic triple on a par 3 (no lost balls, so yeah, it was bad). Chipping improved so I had 4 one-putts on the back (5 total one-putts, no three-putts). +20 total on a pretty tough course that I've only played one other time. Here is a pic of their "signature" hole. Long, downhill par 3. Was playing about 190 over a ravine. Managed to par it with a 4h to just off the back, decent chip, and a putt. Beautiful hole, IMO.

I have had a lot of high slices that started right and went right-er. I played today and front 9 was bad enough that I decided to pull the driver instead of 3W and try to work on it a bit. I tried making my grip a little stronger to hopefully counteract the open face and BOOM.... I pulled it a bit but everything had been fading so it is not far from where I was trying to start it. This didn't fade, but man it felt good. Sort of a fluke, this was the next best. I wish I had the radar with me to measure a couple real swings.

Prior to the pandemic, my wife and I usually made it to the gym 2-3 times per week. I tried to find a bunch of golf-specific exercises to strengthen my core, knowing I need more core strength to help relieve my back pain, but I never really felt like I was making progress. Prior to about two weeks ago, the dull pain/tightness was almost always there, no matter what I was doing, but especially after golf. Now, I barely feel anything in random day-to-day activities and the degree of tightness after golfing is definitely improved. I hope I didn't just jinx myself. @Getoffmylawn - I aim for MWF to do the protocols, trying to be consistent and doing them around 7 PM, but have had to make a couple adjustments for weather.

I finished Week 3 on Saturday. The week started well with a personal best driver speed of 117 mph on the first day. The rest of the week, I regressed somewhat. I know some peaks and valleys are to be expected, so I don't consider it a big deal. Especially since I did my session Saturday after running a chain saw for a couple hours (I was trying to be conscious of making sure I did it while I was still somewhat fresh, so I took a break and relaxed for a while, did the protocol, and then went back to cutting). I'll just keep chugging away at it. Here is a chart tracking Driver speed (before and after): I think the trend was really nice until sessions 8 and 9 get added, but I know that kind of progress is probably not sustainable. To me, one of the most noteworthy results of the testing to-date is how good my back feels. It has been a struggle for me to find stretches that helped relieve pressure in a golf swing. It seems the combination of the dynamic warm-up and the protocols is doing exactly what I was looking for. There have been a couple times I've finished the sessions and felt some tightness, but as time goes on, I feel better and better after I'm done.

We need to play soon!

I live in northwest Akron (Fairlawn borders our property). It takes me about 45 minutes to get to Boulder Creek and about an hour to the Quarry. I've only played the Quarry once, but loved it.

Greetings from Akron! Boulder Creek is fun, but usually only play there a couple times a year.

He'll eventually see that I tagged him and chime in.

Pretty sure @MattF has one.

I feel like I am dialing it back quite a bit. I took the PRGR out to the course with me a couple weeks ago and set it up for two drives and ended up with 107 and 106. Not quite what I've been maxing out at, but not as far off as I expected. Swings felt smooth, but they were both high slices. Since they opened the range at our league course, I plan on going early this week to try to sort things out.

I'm on second season and the OW is integral to my warm-up and I have used it a ton over the winter for flexibility and tempo.

Here is my write-up from 2018: I can't seem to find the thread from the trip last fall. If I find it, I'll add it if I feel it has much useful info for you.

My friend's favorite was Wild Wing. I felt like a lot of the mounding/sculpting seemed a little contrived, but it was still a lot of fun. I think TPC is probably my favorite, but not by a lot, and that might be because it was in perfect condition for being mid March (they had overseeded for a Jr tournament so no dormant grass). I played the Barefoot courses in October of last year and really enjoyed all three, although the day we played Dye was very windy after a big storm delayed our tee time by a few hours, so it was hard, really hard. I scored best on the Love course, but Fazio was probably my favorite of those three. I honestly don't think you could really go wrong with any of them.

I've made two trips from Akron over the last few years. We've played Grande Dunes, Wild Wing, TPC Myrtle Beach, King's North, Barefoot (Dye, Fazio, and Love). On the last trip, on our way out of town, we played Diamondback, which was about 30 minutes out of town, as I recall. We found a really cheap rate on GolfNow for that one. I think all of them were a lot of fun, but Grande Dunes was probably my least favorite, but the rainy day might have contributed to that opinion. The first trip was about $500 per person (two of us) for lodging and golf and we played 6 rounds in 4 days at the first 4 courses listed.

I think some of the issues may be brand-specific. I use an old Huawei without a sim card and battery life is great. I can play 18 on a full charge and still have ~70% battery left after the round. The battery life on that phone was always outstanding, though. As @yungkory said, it's little irritating that so many apps are so bad on Android, but the reasons are somewhat understandable, but at some point consumers need to stop accepting that excuse. When I had nothing but Apple devices for my last job, I hated them, but I think most of that was company-made software that sucked, souring my overall taste of the brand. If/when my youngest daughter gets a new phone, I may steal here iPhone 8 and try it with Arccos just to see if the experience is any better.