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MaxEntropy

 
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Everything posted by MaxEntropy

  1. All good things must come to an end.... My streak of at or below my handicap golf has come to an abrupt end. I couldn't keep my drives on the planet last night and it really started the second I put on the second rain glove (it was just getting too wet not to) - 2 penalties and a few really sketchy places to try to play from. A steady rain through about half the round really didn't help and luck was not on my side either. Even the hole I had a decent drive wasn't great - I had a second shot with the pin back. Arccos claimed it was playing 166 to the back edge. For me a stock 7 iron is 160 - perfect choice that should have put me in the middle of the green. I don't know if the wind died or if I hit it so solid it ignored the wind, but I ended up 10 yards over the green. I had almost no green to work with and the green slopes pretty severely back-to-front - no chance to get it close, I just had to make sure I didn't get too cute and leave it in the rough short. Not much chance I was going to make a 30 footer for par. All told, I ended up +11 with a birdie, a par, 3 bogies, 3 doubles, and a triple. Earlier in this thread, @Sluggo42 suggested I could be at a new "plateau" with my scoring (he loves that word) and to not necessarily expect a big blow-up. In prior years, my big blow-ups were in the low 50's. With as bad as I played last night, I don't feel like it could have been much worse, so maybe (hopefully) he's right.
  2. My introduction is posted. Questions and comments are welcome!
  3. There'll be more details when we get to the intros and such, but this is what the Sub70's will be competing against: Wedge game has been pretty stout lately.
  4. Maybe I have reached a new plateau? I hit the ball pretty well tonight and once again shot my handicap (+6, 42) in league. I had 2 doubles, 2 bogies, 5 pars. The two doubles were a result of trouble off the tee. I feel like it could have been a blow-up if my short game wasn't pretty stout. I also felt like irons were pretty good, but it was very windy and swirling, so tough to pick the right club even with Arccos telling me what to do.
  5. At our league course, their rental push carts are Clicgear 4.0's. I forgot my pushcart one afternoon so rented one of theirs. I will be curious to see what you guys think. I have an opinion on one aspect, but am going to wait and see if any of you share it.
  6. Thank you Sub70 and MGS! I think this is going to be a fun test - my current wedges are Cleveland RTX Zipcores and I love them. How will the Sub70's stack up? Time will tell....
  7. Introduction First of all, a huge thanks to MyGolfSpy and Sub70. I love being a part of these tests and trying to see if the product will benefit us “average Joes”. By my count, this is the 7th test I have been a part of (the Bridgestone full bag test from a while back had 2 different write-ups, so I count it as 2) and every time I have been selected, there is still the same excitement. I tend to get wordy in these things, so I will try to keep things brief. My name is Blake. I am currently 55 years old (where has all the time gone?!?!?!) and typically play once or twice per week. I have lived in Akron, OH since 1997, so I guess I am now obligated to call it home since I have lived here longer than anywhere else (born and raised in Vancouver, WA, moved to Columbia, MO for grad school in 1991). If you are interested in more details about me or my game, my most recent review of the Callaway Epic Speed can be found here. Here is a pic of me and my wife from New Years’ Eve last year. I suck at selfies and I’m not terribly photogenic – either that or I really look that bad – hard to say. We have two daughters (22 and 24) who are both done with college. The oldest has a good job and the youngest just graduated with her masters in May and has just started the job search. We also have a "differently-abled" cat name Bennett that we adopted during the pandemic. He's a great little guy and can still be quite playful, even without front paws. We are fortunate to have no shortage of quality golf courses in the area, I just wish many of them would remove a few hundred trees (accuracy off the tee is one of my biggest problems). Short game and putting are my biggest strengths and have saved me quite a bit. When I get close to the green, I usually know I am at least going to give myself a realistic chance at a chip and a one-putt, even though it doesn’t always happen. According to Arccos, my current handicap is 9.4 (holy crap, I don’t pay much attention to it, I wasn’t aware it had me below a 10!). In our golf league, I am currently a 6 for 9 holes and have the potential to drop to a 5 this week if I’m not careful. If I filter my Arccos data as far back as it goes (50 rounds), here are my current stats. My short game has been very good over the last 5 rounds. These confirm the strength of my short game. I tend to be very much a “feel” player when it comes to partial wedges – I visualize what I want to do and go with my gut on how hard to hit it, generally with pretty good results. I have played around with trying to “clock” my wedges, but since I don’t have access to a launch monitor to get decent distances, it was taking a long time to fill in my mental spreadsheet on the course, and without a laser, I tend not to trust the distance to objects at the range, so I abandoned it. My current wedges are black satin Cleveland RTX Zipcores 54* and 58* (both mid bounce). I received these as a Christmas gift in 2020, so I am on my third season with them and really, really like them. They are still in great shape, but I can sense the grooves are starting to wear as the stopping power has begun to fade. Sub70 will have to have something special to displace the Zipcores, although going to a mixed set is not out of the question. I have chosen the Sub70 black in the same lofts but went with the low bounce 54*. I chose this option to help me out on some of tight lies we get around greens and the courses tend to get very firm in the summer months. The TAIII’s will definitely get a workout on the course and I plan do a lot of experimenting at the short game area at a local muni. I can’t wait to get this started! ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ UPDATE 8/1/23 FINAL REVIEW DISCLAIMER: I very rarely take a full swing with anything more lofted than a gap wedge. Historically, I have been more comfortable (with more consistent results) taking a partial swing with a gap wedge than a full swing with a 54* or 58*. With that in mind, there will not be much focus on full wedges, other than some simulator stats to compare distance and spin (recognizing I am more responsible for the dispersion than the clubs). Most important to me for this review are the shots that are around the green. Let’s face it, I miss too many greens and must lean on my chipping ability to help me score (or salvage a score). One thing I neglected to mention in my intro is the improvement I have seen over the last 3-ish years. At the beginning of the 2020 season, my league 9-hole handicap (not USGA compliant) was a 9. As of two weeks ago, I dropped to a 5. In my opinion, there are a few reasons for this improvement (in no particular order): 1) I started playing a lot more golf with @DiscipleofPenick – I call him my “on-course coach” and gave him permission early on to question my decisions and speak up when he sees something wonky. I have gotten much better with my decision-making when I am out of position. I am now more likely to take my medicine than attempt a miraculous shot (even though it is really fun on the odd occasion it actually works). 2) The Callaway Epic test from 2021 (LINK). Getting properly fitted for a shaft and the amount of work that went into that review forced me to more or less figure out how to hit a driver and helped mostly eliminate one side of the course. Lately, the two-way miss started rearing its ugly head on occasion, but I’m now aware it is at least partially a swing plane issue (too steep = right, too flat = left, just right = baby fade that starts on target line and comes back towards the center). 3) SuperSpeed test from 2020 (LINK). Even though my speed has regressed somewhat the past couple years, I am still hitting shorter clubs into many greens than I would have been hitting in 2019. That has to help your scores, as long as all that new-found speed doesn’t mean you just hit the ball even further into the woods. Through all of it, my short game has been very steady, with some pretty good touch around the greens. The Cleveland wedges were new as of the start of the 2021 season and took a little getting used to as I changed lofts (56* -> 54*, and 60* -> 58*) and the new grooves kind of freaked me out (my newest wedge they replaced was probably 8 years old and I used to play cheaper Surlyn balls). At any rate, let’s get to the meat of the matter…. First Impressions (500 Words) (20 out of 20) I’ll start by admitting I am a big fan of Sub70. Even though I have yet to buy anything from them, I will certainly give them a hard look as the time comes to upgrade (almost everything in my bag is 5 years old or newer thanks to MyGolfSpy). It seems they have spectacular customer service and I have seen/heard zero complaints about the performance of the products, especially given the price point. Everything from the packaging to the hand-written note that accompanied the wedges does nothing to change my thoughts. I find the wedges themselves to be very attractive and I love the black satin finish, although I will be admittedly curious to see how the finish holds up. I really don’t mind when the finish starts to wear as I like the “patina” of worn clubs. The finish on my Cleveland wedges reached a sort of equilibrium rather quickly but has not changed much since that time. So far, the Sub70 finish seems to have changed less quickly. Granted, I have not had too many bunker shots with the Sub70’s and I know from experience the sand will accelerate the wear. In general, other than some wear on the leading edges and soles, there has not been wear on these TAIII's. I also appreciate the efforts that were made to have the weights of the heads matched, presumably so the swing weights match better. One difference I noticed is the Clevelands feel heavier, which I kind of like. It allows me to have the feeling that I am just letting the club fall on the back of the ball instead of having to pull it down on delicate shots near the green. I don’t know the swing weights of the clubs, nor do I have access to a swing weight scale, but I am curious about the swing weight difference. The shaft in the Clevelands is a DG Spinner whereas the Sub70’s have DG S300’s in them. Could that be a contributing factor? Whatever the reason, it would easily be solved with some lead tape. In terms of the sound and feel, the Sub70’s are very satisfying with good contact – a solid, but muted, “click” and you can barely feel the ball, which I love. Off-center contact results in a bit more obnoxious “clang” that feels about as bad as it sounds. I think the Cleveland wedges feel a bit more solid with off-center contact. Feel and sound issues aside, less-than-perfect contact did not seem to have too much effect on where the ball ended up (except in cases where I was relying on spin to slow/stop the ball, but that happened with both brands). Aesthetics (7 out of 10) Overall, I think the Sub70 design is gorgeous – the machine marks look great and I do not find any of the features distracting. As I mentioned above, good contact sounds and feels glorious, but since I am not a pro and more often than not miss the center of the face (even with relatively small swing ), I spend a lot of time dealing with off-center strikes. The 3-point reduction in this category is purely a result of the jarring sound and feel once you get away from the center. Although a tad obnoxious, performance does not seem to suffer. I wasn’t really sure where to put this, but since it does not affect the playability, I guess it will go under aesthetics. I have midsize grip on all my clubs but the Cleveland wedges. My wife bought them for me for Christmas in 2020 and even though she knew I preferred midsize, they only had standard in stock. I did not find it that big a deal until the Sub70’s came with midsize grips, which I can feel the immediately with all the switching between clubs I have been doing. Do I think it effects performance? Not at all, but the larger grips definitely feel more comfortable to me. Obviously, I can rectify that very quickly if I feel the need. The Numbers (6 out of 10) The primary way I went about testing these wedges against my Clevelands was to spend a lot of time at the practice area of a local course. The green is very large with a small area where the fringe is extended to have a fairway lie and 6-8 hole locations to choose from (although they really discourage people from taking long enough shots to leave ball marks). Each of the three different times I went there, the grass was damp and the ground soft after having rained the night before. I cleaned and dried the face of the clubs after every shot, but the balls were left with whatever moisture was on them. The first time I went, it was all about just hitting some balls around the green to get used to the feel of the Sub70’s. As I mentioned in an earlier post, all 12 balls in my shag bag are urethane covered but are variety of brands and hardness. I think the cover material is likely the most important aspect for the types of shots I was attempting. Recall the most important part of this test for me was simulating the “just off the green” chips that I encounter way too often due to the number of greens I miss. According to Arccos, more than 2/3rds of my “short game” shots are within 25 yards of the pin. If the TAIII wedges are going to displace the RTX Zipcores, they have to be of some benefit in this distance range. With the focus on <25 yards, I decided I wanted to test each club to a 10-yard pin and a 20-yard pin from both a fairway lie and a lie in the rough. My procedure was as follows: 1) Hit a half-dozen, or so, shots to get the feel for whatever club was currently in my hands. 2) Hit a full dozen shots, step off, and record the distance to the hole (for the record, my feet in shoes are almost exactly a foot long). 3) Thins, chilly-dips, fats not included! When these things would inevitably happen, I considered it a “me” problem which warranted a do-over. 4) Switch clubs and repeat. This process was done for all 4 clubs and all 4 distance/lie combinations and I repeated the full process a second time – the first time with the Sub70’s being hit first, the second with the Cleveland’s being hit first (I wanted to try to eliminate any potential bias since I was likely getting more dialed in the longer I hit) – and tabulated the 24 shots with each club. I mentioned earlier in the thread one of the shocking conclusions I came to – no matter which brand I was using, my average distance to the hole and “dispersion” were better when I was hitting from the rough! While somewhat shocking, more than a couple minutes of thought allowed me to come to the following conclusion: a fairway lie (with complete access to the back of the ball) may result in more or less spin if the contact is not perfect whereas the rough is the rough – you’re not going to get as much spin since there is almost always at least a few blades of grass between the club and the ball. Keep in mind that at this practice area (and most of the courses I play on a regular basis) the rough is not terribly penal. It’s pretty rare to end up with a thick, juicy lie where the results can be more unpredictable resulting in having no clue how the ball will come out. At any rate, here are some of the charts: Fairway Lies Rough Lies I put both of them on the same vertical scale to really illustrate how much better I was from the rough. The errors bars represent the 95% confidence interval, so if the error bars overlap at all, the differences are NOT statistically significant (at 95% level) so there is, realistically, no difference in the data. The only significant differences between any of the relevant comparisons in these charts are for the 54* wedges from 20 yards in the fairway (Sub70 significantly worse) and 58* wedges from 10 yards in the rough (Sub70 significantly better). If I were to guess, given the soft conditions during testing, the low bounce could have been hurting me a bit from the fairway lie. The image above was for the TAIII 58* from the rough to a 10-yard pin. Those all look like gimme’s to me. I'd take that shot pattern all day long. Simulator Data All the simulator data I have was obtained at @MattF's house on his new Skytrak using the wedge matrix protocol - 5 shots each of a pitch, ½ swing, ¾ swing, and full swing. Since we were setting up the Skytrak to test 4 clubs, we had to give them unique identifiers. The naming we used is as follows: 54 = Sub70 54* 58 = Sub70 58* GW = Cleveland 54* SW = Cleveland 58* The order used to test was Sub70 54*, Sub70 58*, Cleveland 54*, Cleveland 58*. The balls used were all ProV1’s. (I have been playing either TP5x’s or AVX’s most of this season but have managed to lose them all and have been playing my backups for the last week or so.) Although I made the comment earlier that my perception of a ¾ swing sucks, it looks like my ½ swing is probably closer to ¾ so it was not so great either. At any rate, it at least appears I was somewhat consistent. Here is the summary table of distances: One concern I have is that the Sub70’s are the same at a full swing. These should not be the same. There is more discussion on this point later. The gapping of the Clevelands appears to be more normal. Looking at each of them in more detail: (The Skytrak registered a shank for the Sub70 54* Pitch shot, so its data can be taken with a grain of salt). I see the following tendencies in this information: with the Sub70’s, shots tend to go more right as distance increases, whereas the Cleveland 54* tends left until I get to full swings and the Cleveland 58* is overall pretty straight until I get to full swings. I should mention that I don’t give too much credence to anything involving the target. Matt’s setup is not hitting into a screen, so picking a “target” is not trivial. Below is the summary table from the Skytrak. Here I am only showing the averages for each club so it is a bit more digestible than the full tables. The main observations I take away from this table are: 1) the Sub70’s generally have higher spin (perhaps not as much more as I was expecting) and 2) I tended to hit the Clevelands a little more solidly (higher smash factor). 1) is a no-brainer. 2.5-year-old versus brand new grooves. The only thing I can think of to explain the slightly higher smash factor for the Cleveland wedges is related to the shaft and/or swing weight. As I mentioned above, I prefer the head-heavy feel of the Cleveland wedges and it appears this data at least supports the preference. As far as why the Sub70 wedges ended up with the same distance with full swings, there are a couple things I see that might address this: the launch angle is 34 degrees for the 54* wedge versus 31 degrees for the 58* degree wedge and the face to path (face to target - path) is wide open with the 54* at 7.6*. Clearly I was doing something weird with these swings and delofting the 54*. The Sub70 54* was the first club hit, so even though I warmed up, was I not completely warmed up? The progression of launch angle for the Cleveland wedges seems perfectly appropriate and the face to path measures are closer. Skytrak does not report face to path, but if you subtract path from FTT (face to target), you can calculate it. On-Course (20 out of 20) All the data in the world is great, but if it doesn’t translate on the course, what good is it? Recall from my intro, my short game has been in very good shape over the last couple months, and I have had the best round of my life in that time span (77) thanks in large part to my short game, so expecting a new club to come in and be even better was not realistic. In my view, if a new wedge could come in and the results I see on the course stay near the same, that says something about the new wedges. After all, I am on my third season with the RTX Zipcores and am very comfortable with them. In that regard, I have not missed a step since switching to the Sub70’s. In fact, I had the second-best round of my life (79) with the Sub70’s in the bag. Again, they played a large part in my ability to scramble for that score. I have filtered my Arccos data for each set of wedges to just the dates those clubs were in use: 3/21/23 – 6/13/23 for the RTX Zipcore’s (198 holes) and 6/22/23 – present for the Sub70’s (126 holes). Unfortunately, the data in these images is all shots taken with each club, not just the “less than 50 short game” facet that I am more interested in. (ASIDE: I could have sworn Arccos used to have the ability to filter more than just individual clubs by date range instead of number of rounds). At any rate, let’s get to some comparisons…. Cleveland 54* Sub70 54* OK, so I hit more thin shots with the RTX Zipcore and more fat shots with the TAIII. Is that a bounce issue? Regardless, I would call them nearly even. The difference in the chip/pitch down percentage has to be a result of me making more putts while I have been playing the Sub70’s since the average distance to the pin is pretty much the same. I do not discount the GIR numbers for these club as they are mostly real – the 1st, 10th, 16th, and 18th holes at our league course can be about a ¾ 54* second shot with a good drive and I frequently use the 54* for the third shot on par 5’s when I am less than about 80 yards to the green. Cleveland 58* Sub70 58* I tend not to pay attention to the GIR number with 58*’s as the only time I use them where a GIR is in play is the third shot on short-ish par 5’s when I am near the green. GIR should be 100% if I didn’t periodically run a pitch through the green or try to get cute and leave it short. Otherwise, there is no huge difference in the on-course performance since switching to the Sub70’s. As I alluded to, my game has not really changed with the introduction of the new wedges and I consider that a very positive thing. It means Sub70 has designed something that can be a plug-in replacement in my bag. The Good, the bad, the inbetween (18 out of 20) I find it very impressive how a new club from a smaller DTC manufacturer can slot right into my bag with no obvious change in my performance. I did not expect my performance to improve with new wedges, I was just hoping things would stay the same since I have been on a hot streak around the greens. Considering I am very much of a “feel” type player, this is no small task – it took me a long time to get used to the Clevelands just because of needing to “recalibrate” my brain to the slightly lower lofts and the increased spin from the new grooves. Do I have any concerns? The only thing I can think if is related to the full swings ending up the same. What if I were to check the lofts and find out they pretty close to the same? I don't actually think that is the case, but you never know. Play it or Trade it? (10 out of 20) In all the other tests I have been fortunate enough to take part in, the decision has been super easy – the clubs being tested were either much newer or properly fitted so my performance on the course improved with the item being tested, with the exception being the StrokeLab putter from a few years ago. The honeymoon phase ended about a year and a half ago and my old Ping has been back in the bag since I hit a slump and has remained since. In this case, there was nothing cut and dry and making the ultimate decision has been tough and I still have not 100% decided on how I will proceed. As of right now, I am leaning towards a mixed set with the Cleveland 54* and the Sub70 58*. Recall from my intro that I ordered the low bounce 54* from Sub70. Our mid-summer has been very damp so I have yet to have the firm conditions and tight lies that would call for the lower bounce, so that may be partially why I saw such a huge difference from the longer fairway shots? The good news is, at least I have the wedge as a backup for when the ground does get really firm later in August. Ultimately, I feel like I could flip a coin, grab a set of wedges, and not worry about how things will go on the course. That’s a very good position to be in! Conclusion This has been a fascinating test. I know Cleveland does not really set the “gold standard” for wedges or at least get the hype that some of the others do, but they are a well-respected company and have been making good wedges for a long time. The fact that a relative newcomer like Sub70 can design and build wedges that appear to perform just as well as one of the “big boys” speaks volumes about the company and confirms that I need to give Sub70 a serious look when the time comes to upgrade other parts of my bag. I am very happy with the TAIII wedges and really like the product. They may not have earned an exclusive place in my bag just yet, but I will be keeping them and will continue to do some periodic side-by-side comparisons. To anybody considering new wedges, I don’t think you can really go wrong with the Sub70’s as long as you know exactly what you want/need in terms of specs since there are no places outside of Chicago I am aware of that will allow you swing some. Are these wedges for everybody? Not necessarily. I consider myself very proficient with a wedge in my hand, but there are times that the off-center strikes come back to haunt me. For example, needing some spin to help slow/stop the ball on a down-hill pitch that does not come due to not being a perfect strike. Could a game improvement wedge help me with that? Probably, but I really like the choices in have in the RTX Zipcores and the TAIII’s. Final Score (89 out of 100)
  8. Yes, yes it does. It would be fantastic if somehow I made a leap and could consistently shoot in the high 70's or low 80's, but I understand the statistics. I've been at or below my handicap for three weeks now - a serious blow-up round is likely right around the corner. I'm mostly just hoping I can minimize the damage when it comes.
  9. It's "volunteer week" at work so I spent 4 hours repairing/refurbishing bikes for needy before the round. I was afraid throwing bikes around would have a similar effect and I'd be lying if I said my back wasn't getting tight the last few holes.
  10. I. DID. NOT. CHOKE. Yes, I'm quoting my post from Tuesday. I played a new-to-me course this afternoon and shot a 40/37 = 77 (+6). Not that it really matters, they had everyone going off the back today, so the front was actually the better 9. MILESTONE ALERT - first time I've broken 80 ( @GolfSpy_APH, can I get that Broke 80 badge please?). I've had a few 80's and 81's. I putted out of my mind on the second 9. I had 12 putts even with a 3-putt on the last hole. A chip in par helped and five 8-10 footers made for pars. I also made ~25 footer for birdie. Driver was mostly steady all day long. A couple bad swings but the holes I did it on were not terribly penal to do that. Our area is in dire need of some rain and many of the mid-tier munis are really dry - mid-August bounces and rolls. It is really good for the ego, though, especially when I am hitting driver well. I had 4 drives that were in the 284 - 296 range. Most importantly, the last hole was great. I stood there knowing I could have a bit of a blow-up and still break 80, but there were still some nerves - my big miss is right and there was OB right. Focused on positive thoughts and piped it 285 up the hill to the right center of the fairway. Tale of the tape, according to Arccos.
  11. I'm expecting him to "deflate" @sirchunksalot's irons. Even if he doesn't, he did, IYKWIM. It's taken me a while catch up on this (currently up to page 46) - lots to read. This is going to be fun!
  12. Absolutely! Our league allows gimmes at the discretion of only the opposing player. There are some very good putters in our league that I will be more generous with my gimmes and some that terrible putters who will have a shorter range in my mind. I also do the math on where our scores stand - tight match or I need the hole/point, gimmes just got shorter. If it's a blow-out either way, more generous. I don't know why, but I'm a little surprised that there are so many very strong opinions on the topic.
  13. I. CHOKED. Now that I've given away the result.... It was a very good night in league last night - everything was working pretty well and I even had a little luck on my side. I did hit a couple irons a little thin that resulted in being long, but thankfully they were straight and not in any trouble. You ever hit a drive that was so bad it ended up being "good"? That happened too. Two birdies (nearly chipped in for eagle on one of them), three bogies, three pars as I stepped to the 9th tee (that's +1 for those not counting). The 9th hole on our league course isn't particularly hard. It's a par 3 that can play anywhere from 140 to 180 depending on tee and pin. Last night they had the tees back, middle pin, and it was dead into the wind. Arccos said it was playing around 185 (up to 190 with gusts). That is an awkward distance for me that I have needed to address for a couple years so doubt started to creep in. I have had some success at that distance gripping down a couple inches on my 4H and making a smooth swing, so that was my choice. As I was standing over the ball, a terrible thought crept in: "DON'T DO ANYTHING STUPID". So what happens? I tried to guide the ball rather than hitting it. Here is a satellite view of the hole: Normally, I don't even give the ponds any thought as they are short enough and left enough to not be a concern to me (especially with my typical left-to-right ball flight), but a less-than-committed swing with contact high on the face and out towards the toe brought them into play. The trees obscured our view, but to me it looked like it was on line with the cart path intersection near the upper left of the pond on the right (or maybe the rocks surrounding that pond?). We saw no splash, but we also never found the ball. We assumed it ended up in a pond, but I suppose hitting the rocks could have resulted in a god-only-knows-where-it-went bounce. I walked off with a double. In hindsight, I should have gone with a 6i requiring a full, aggressive swing and accepted being either a little short or perhaps creeping on to the front, taking anything worse than bogey almost entirely out of the equation, but I'm apparently not smart enough to do something like that. I was texting with @DiscipleofPenick after and explained what happened. His response? "Were you thinking about it?" Hell yes I was thinking about it and I choked.... I am still very happy with a +3, 38 (net -3). I was also leading my match at the time, although not by a lot. The guy I was playing is quite a bit older than me and hits the ball dead straight, just short. I was giving him 5 strokes. My little blow-up (and his up and down for par) meant we tied on strokes and tied on holes.
  14. I was decent left handed but never tried in a game, mostly just having fun in practice. Since doing superspeed and getting more comfortable with it, I'd love to play with a lefty and try one of their clubs just to see what would happen.
  15. Re: the non-dominant swings. I know there has been debate on this all over the innerwebs, but, as I recall superspeed made the point you always want to balance your workout (e.g. you'd never just do curls for your right arm) as part of the reason for doing them. This argument makes a lot of sense to me. Personally, I liked the non-dom swings and I got the point that it was very nearly as fast as my dominant side even though it feels awkward as all get out.
  16. Driver has been a struggle for me most of this season - there has been a lot of high flares to the right or dead-pulls left without a lot in between. I thought I had it figured out last night in league. First hole was a bit of a pull but no real trouble (par). Second hole was a high flare OB, resulting in a triple (3-putt to add insult to injury) . I knew exactly what I did and the next two driving hole were great (resulting in par, birdie). Then the pulls started and I was in scramble mode the rest of the night. Fortunately, the scrambling was pretty good - 3 bogies and a par the rest of the way in. Ended up with a +5 41 which is one under my handicap. Overall, pretty happy with the round - approach saved me, for a change. Shot of the night was 2nd shot on the 16th hole. After pulling drive into penalty area, the place I dropped had trees blocking me with about 130 to the middle and I had to aim to the right side of the green to catch the fairway, otherwise relying on good bounces in the rough. Punched a 6 iron with almost perfect pace - first bounce was in the rough then caught the fairway and rolled nicely onto the green, at least giving me a chance to save par. Didn't happen, but I gave myself a chance. The only real problem was the pace of play. The league in front of us (one group in particular) is slow and completely oblivious. On our 15th hole, we were standing in the fairway for easily 10-15 minutes waiting for the green to clear. They finish up and one of the guys drops his ball in the rough near the green to practice the chip he just messed up. About as loud as I could, I yelled "Hey, what are you doing?" They all glanced back at us and finally moved on. They ended up over a hole behind the group in front and our round was nearly 2.5 hours. I HATE WAITING ON EVERY SHOT!
  17. We are looking at a kitchen remodel and a bunch of landscaping/hardscaping, both of which are due.
  18. It's been a very busy week for me, so just getting around to posting this.... Our youngest daughter graduated with her Master's degree last weekend. The insane thing to me was she was able to get her Bachelor's in 3 years and only took an additional year for her Master's, which she accomplished while working part time and playing club volleyball. She's a hard worker and a bright girl. Her degree is an MPA and her focus was urban development/planning, if I recall correctly. No real job prospects right now, but she waits tables at a decent restaurant and makes a livable amount of money, especially if she starts picking up more shifts. The perfect job will come. With that, our tuition payments are done. We were able to get both daughters through debt-free, which was our goal. Now I feel like I need to join a fancy country club with our newly-available disposable income. Would be nice, but we have a couple remodeling projects in mind that will take priority over my golf.
  19. I used to be a big, big F1 fan in the early-to-mid 2000's. After talking to @GolfSpy_APH a bit last fall about how he got into F1, I watched Drive to Survive. It was good for me since so many of the drivers/teams/principals have changed since I was into it. For example Williams was a very good team back then with Ralf Schumacher (Michael's brother/Mick's uncle) and Juan Pablo Montoya. The two top teams were Ferrari and McLaren/Mercedes. One thing I really miss is the sound of that era - V10's turning nearly 20000 rpms was ridiculous. I remember being on the front straight at Indy for the start and thinking my ears were going to bleed as the 20 cars launched. If you've never seen it, there was a fun show on the old Speed channel were Jeff Gordon and Juan Montoya traded cars on the Indy road course. There was also one where Lewis Hamilton and Tony Stewart did the same thing at Watkins Glen. Lewis seemed to really enjoy driving a car that wasn't planted by aerodynamics.
  20. Here is a before and after picture
  21. Happy Mt St Helens day! I grew up in SW Washington, in the shadow of Mt St Helens. Google Earth says our house was 38 miles (as the crow flies) from the mountain. I was in 6th grade at the time. A friend had stayed over the night before and we were outside playing catch with a football. On one throw, the ball appeared to shake in the air and I let it drop on the ground being very confused by what I saw. Obviously the ball did not shake, it was the ground I was standing on that shook. Very shortly after, a neighbor stuck her head outside and told us to go inside, the mountain had erupted. As I recall, the first activity really started on March 27 (I remember because it was my mom's birthday) and activity on the mountain continued past May 18. In fact, even though the typical winds blew all the ash away from us, occasionally the wind would shift and we would get some. My last day of the 6th grade was cancelled due to having 6" of ash on the ground. That was a weird time - people were discouraged from driving because a) standard air filters would not capture the fine ash particles (state patrol had these huge external air filters mounted on their cruisers), and b) when the ash get wet (hey it rains in SW Washington in the spring), it was slick as snot - not quite as bad as ice, but close to it (at least according to my dad). We would put masks on and make the couple mile walk to the grocery store to get necessities. The ash was also really heavy when it got wet. People had roofs cave in and gutters ripped off their houses, so my dad and I had to deal with it. I was on a ladder with a garden trowel scooping it out of the gutters and he was on the roof with a shovel. Anyway, that was my experience. Anyone else in the area have any recollections of the time? Especially anyone who may have been east of the mountain and got the brunt of the ash? Edited to add a gif of the north side of the mountain collapsing, triggering the eruption
  22. Pretty good night in last yesterday, although the way things started, it could have gotten ugly very fast if short game didn't save my a$$. Instead of potentially starting bogey, bogey, double, I started par, bogey, bogey. Everything was right the first three holes, and not by just a little bit. Finally, at the 4th hole, piped one down the middle (good for long drive). The rest of the night, everything was a pull (!?!?!?). Normally par 5's are a strength, but I bogied both of them (a penalty on one and a 3-putt on the other). I ended up +5 40 and, for the first time in a long time, nothing worse than bogey on the card.
  23. It worked great. The nice thing was I discovered the alignment was off on a couple while playing a few days after I put them on. No problem - just burst some air and rotate a bit.
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