[Week 1 - Kickoff Virtual Weekly MGS Forum Golf Championship]

Only round I could get in this week at home. 69.4/114, course handicap of 3. 78 gross, net 75 (+3).

Four birdies, couple other good looks, couple bad holes.

EDIT: Forgot to add, longest drive was 296 yards on No. 13.

[What/How Did You Practice Today?]

21 minutes ago, chisag said:

 

 

... You probably are aware of this but just in case and for others reading this, drills and exercises designed to address flaws will almost always cease to work and even cause problems if you stick with them. This excellent drill is designed to stop several flaws and swinging to 3 with the butt is a great start. But sooner or later a better player will start to over do it and then you may need to change to 2 and as you progress to 1 where it should end up. Eventually the goal is to stop using the drill all together and just swing but of course it is a process. I also love Monte saying it is about "feel and not real" and truthfully so is the easy majority of what we do with our game. Like Speech coming over the top with his practice swing that is feel and not real once he actually hits a shot. 

Oh most definitely. I like the feeling for now, especially on the range, because it's the polar opposite of my "stock" swing/flaw where the trail shoulder drops and I fly open, pulling the butt more toward 11 o'clock than anything else. Eventually I'll probably swing too much to the other direction and have to reign it in. 

[What/How Did You Practice Today?]

Very windy/cold but excellent range session. I think the best all season.  I saw this video from Monte Scheinblum on Instagram the other day and it really clicked for me: https://www.instagram.com/p/Ci5VWrbJ4BV/

To summarize, his suggested downswing feel is to point the butt of the club at 3 o'clock (9 o'clock for lefties) on the downswing without dropping your trail shoulder.

My No. 1 swing fault my coach has been harping on me about is that I shallow the club by dropping the trail shoulder and spinning my shoulders. This gets me coming way too inside-out, and leads to massive hooks when I'm off. I've tried several things, including feeling my hands coming more left to start the downswing, but nothing really seems to have helped. I still tend to drop the right shoulder and spin.

For whatever reason (opposing forces, perhaps), trying to feel the butt pointing at 3 o'clock got me hitting nice straight/tiny draws with the four clubs I brought to the range. Absolutely beautiful. The guy next to me even commented on me just hitting 5 iron after 5 iron straight, high and long.

Something to continue to work on as I move into the offseason. Really felt good today.

[How'd you play?]

Even 36 on the back yesterday followed by a 42 on the back this morning. Nearing end of season weather with temps in the 50s and drizzle both mornings.

Funny how just a few putts can make all the difference. Yesterday I made a few unlikely 15 footers and today I missed almost everything inside of 10 feet.

Driver was decently solid both days and I hit some really great irons and wedges. Just a couple bad doubles to get rid of and I'd be feeling so much better.

[How'd you play?]

Final before work nine of the year this morning. It is just getting too dark in the mornings to see (thankfully No. 10 goes into the sunrise so I can track the ball in a general direction):

Tough start bogeying the first four holes. Holes 10, 11 and 12 are probably the toughest three-hole stretch on the course and they always derail my rounds it seems.

Battled a bad case of the hooks, but I strung together pars on 14, 15 and 16. On 17, I hooked my drive, chunked an 8 iron to the front fringe of the green, pulled 58 to chip and dropped it in the cup for birdie. No. 18 I proceeded to hit one of my best drives all season, a beautiful draw that eeked out close to 290 yards even though the ball landed in the heavy and wet right rough (a good spot to miss on the hole). Unfortunately, I chunked my wedge to the front of the green and ended up three-putting for a bogey.

40. 

Reflecting on progress this year, for the season on my nine hole rounds, I've only shot worse than 42 twice (43 once, 44 once) and I'm averaging 39.4. That's a two stroke reduction since last year. Really happy to see that. 

[What Have You Bought Lately? (CHA - Club Ho's Anonymous)]

12 hours ago, Getoffmylawn said:

I'll post numbers and such later, but spent some coin today.  TSR2 driver and TSR2 3 wood are on the way, each with a Ventus Blue (6S and 7S respectively). Also getting my Callaway Apex Pro hybrids reshafted with a Ventus Blue HB.  

Sounds like a fun spending spree!

[How'd you play?]

Four nines this week -> 38, 39, 41, 40. 

Consistent, but pretty poor on the greens especially this weekend. Five three-putts over the 36 holes. Swing has had its issues as well, but overall I've held it together.

Shot of the week is the closest I've been to a hole-in-one all season - on a par four, nonetheless! No. 5, 306-yarder. Hit my drive up the right side and it rolled out to the back middle of the green and within five feet of the hole. Yes, I missed the eagle putt as it broke about a cup and I under read it a bit... . Easy birdie, though.

[What equipment are you thinking about?]

6 hours ago, yungkory said:

I was consistently in the 152-155 ball speed range spinning at 2200 ish and seeing 280 on quad hitting ProVs. The best part tho was that it felt effortless. Like I didn't have to put much into it at all, and it was just being sent.

What's most interesting was it was a stock head. I remember your thread @edingc and specifically the many iterations of head weights you had to play with to get the swing weight dialed in.

Told her I'll be back when they get the Brava shaft so I can try them side by side. I could probably just slap one in and call it a day, but at that price I want to do my due diligence, and also make sure I'm in the right head, though I really like the Rogue ST LS.

I do wonder if I had gotten into the 505XX if I would have had better results.

The Brava shaft is intriguing, I wonder how it feels compared to the AF? Ian's results on TXG really have me interested.

[What equipment are you thinking about?]

3 hours ago, yungkory said:

Well, what did you think?!?

[Titleist TSR 2 Unoffiical Review]

3 hours ago, GolfSpy_BOS said:

This idea of weight being more important than flex is new to me, but on the surface is makes a lot of sense.  I've always seemed to do better with shafts in the high 60g range regardless of S vs X.  Know of any work done on that end or it is more of something you picked up from experience? 

Anecdotally, when I did my CC fitting in the spring my fitter was more concerned about weight than flex. For me personally, weight seems to help with my delivery while flex tends to lend itself more to feel. If that makes sense? My "stiff" SteelFiber i125s are heavy shafts but feel pretty active to me, while my Motore X driver shaft is heavier (69 grams) but feels more stout and less active in the X flex. 

[How'd you play?]

Sloppy 42 on the front yesterday, and that was with a warm up playing the first few holes of the back nine while I waited to slip in between an outing. Lots of pretty bad shots and just generally couldn't get into the round.

36/43 -> 79 this morning. After a flukey double to start the round (lost ball in the rough...) I put together three birdies on the front and made the turn at even par. I was only +2 through 14 when I ran into the back of a 9 AM outing that shotgun started on 15. After playing 14 holes in 1:45 it took me another hour to play the final four. 

I won't lie - my mind started to wander knowing I had chores to get done at home and I went bogey, bogey, triple (lost ball), par to close out the round. 

Driver was good for most of the day until it wasn't on 17... but I did record two drives of 298 and 299 yards, plus a couple others in the 280+ range. I have had such an amazing turnaround with the driver the past few weeks. Otherwise I hit my irons OK, chipped/pitched extremely well, and putted just OK.

[Weight Loss Thread]

4 minutes ago, dlow206 said:

Have been able to lose 90 pounds in my younger days, so i know what i need to do, just need to do it.

Ditto. I'm still hanging right around the same weight I was when I posted nearly a year ago in this thread that I needed to do it. Just need to commit to it and actually do it. 

 

[I *finally* went to Truespec]

10 hours ago, yungkory said:

Got them today! Posted in the club ho thread but figured I would round out my Truespec experience and post the eye candy. I think it was 3 weeks exactly including transit to Hawaii.

I have no clue how I missed this thread originally, but those are gorgeous. Hit 'em well! I think you'll love the SteelFibers, I sure do.

[What Equipment Have You Tested?]

53 minutes ago, GolfSpy_BOS said:

That’s great that it’s working off the turf early on in your testing too. I feel that it would be a thin machine for me being a “big” 3. Or maybe the face is still shallow enough?

Yeah, I did watch some reviews and certain folks (Michael Newton, I think) preferred the regular fairway to the Big Tour off of the deck. The sole is still pretty flat, but the face appears to be a little deeper. Overall the size of the Big Tour isn't all that "big," however.

That being said, I think the selling point of the RadSpeed Big Tour for me (versus the previous SpeedZone iteration) is the stock 14.5* loft, and I've immediately gone and put it to 16. It launches easy enough in this setting and should still give me plenty of distance. 

My range has some pretty tight lies and I was impressed with the performance. On course I'm probably not one to play a wood from such a tight lie - the length of our older bluegrass fairways means that I'm most likely pulling a wood when I get a nice fluffed up lie.

There is definitely more potential as a tee club, but I'm usually one to go full send with the driver. There might be only one or two other holes that would benefit from more than 4 hybrid but less than driver. We'll see what I choose to use as I get more experience with it.

[What Equipment Have You Tested?]

7 hours ago, GolfSpy_BOS said:

The big tour! 

So is this a tee-alternative club for you?  I still feel like I could fit something in between driver and my 5-wood.  I'm just not sure It will be worth it in the end.

Yes and no. That slot in my bag is the only remaining "single purpose" slot that is geared toward where I play the most. There is a short par 4 where driver would be too much but 4 hybrid would leave a tough shot into the green. You're best whacking it up as far as you can without going over.

That being said, as I've gotten better I've gone for a couple of the par 5s in two this year with mixed success. I struggled to get the Super Hybrid to launch high enough consistently. The Big Tour seems much easier to launch even from the turf. 

And to top it off it has the Motore X F1 in it.

[What Equipment Have You Tested?]

1 hour ago, THEZIPR23 said:

I bought a used G425 3H to try to dial in a club from 230ish. It had just a stock shaft in it and I hit it well, liked the way it set up and while it does at time fly farther than I wanted (I know tough problem to have) I thought it was overall something that I could play long term, however I wasn't getting the height I wanted out of it. So I purchased a Raijin hybrid shaft to go in it and BINGO we have a perfect match. Last round with it I hit 2 par 5's in two. 1 from 234 and the other from 221. Exactly what I was looking for, so exact in fact that today a 4H was delievered.

Been looking at these. Like the idea of having a flat setting. That or PXG.

[What Equipment Have You Tested?]

My new-to-me Cobra RadSpeed Big Tour 3 wood came yesterday. First thing I did was loft it up to 16 degrees. First and only shot on course this morning was a high right miss but it had plenty of pop and height. Ended up hitting an excellent bump and run under some trees and made my birdie.

Went to the range at lunch and wow is this thing easier to hit than the Super Hybrid was. I'm able to get a lot more height so much easier, and it's incredibly forgiving on even bad strikes. Excited for me to get more comfortable with it - it's the first three wood I've had since #CobraConnect 2020. 

Cobra makes such great clubs and are seriously underrated. 

I do need to swap out the grip though. After playing undersized grips all year the standard Crossline feels huge!

[What/How Did You Practice Today?]

Just a really good range session at lunch today. Continuing to find out that I really have been far too much in my heels during my swing for years. I turn better and can actually stop my shoulders from ripping open on the downswing when I setup more toward my toes. Honestly, my best shots came when I felt like I was barely touching my heels to the ground.

(The caveat is that I can't go too much toward the toes because I need to stay in balance.)

I ended the session going all out with some 6 irons and found that emphasizing arm structure in my setup (firm but not stiff) keeps my from getting to armsy and helps me stay in sync, especially when I'm taking huge backswings and throwing everything I have at the ball.

[How low can you go?]

3 hours ago, ncwoz said:

Over the last 10 rounds in Arccos, my best SG relative to 6 hcp are +3.9 Driving, +1.4 Approach, +4.1 SG, +4 Putting. So on an "average" difficulty course, that might result in something like 8ish strokes? Not totally sure the translation, but on a course where I get 6 strokes to shoot 2 under seems somewhat in the range of "everything's on fire" territory I suppose  

With your putting ability, I'd say 70 wouldn't be out of the question on your best days when everything else is working. And that's a 70 on 6,400+ with real greens running at respectable speeds.

[How low can you go?]

At my home course, realistically, perfect day, I could shoot 69. That would be hitting 40-50 percent of putts inside of 10 feet, which is no small accomplishment. It would take a lot of luck due to the green conditions and pin placement. 

I've done even par 72 twice this year I believe, and have recently done 76 with a triple and double bogey in that round. 

Anywhere else and that would probably translate to somewhere around 73-75 if everything is working really well.

 

[edingc's Work In Progress]

Last update before the offseason as the days here are getting shorter and the weather will soon turn cooler.

After a brief stint of "lost golf swing" following my last lesson resulting in five-straight rounds at about 10 strokes worse than my handicap, things have settled back down and I've been playing some very good golf.

The biggest change that has led to strokes gained improvement is finally taming the penalties that plagued my driver all season up to late August. I may not be hitting the ball the furthest I ever have, but more shots are in play than before.

I listened to a podcast a few weeks back that I credit to a major change in how I've approached my rounds/swing. The guest was Kent Osborne, author of an e-book called Scratch Attitude. He talked about how being negative/frustrated can effect decision making, and for whatever reason it really resonated with me.

I've always wanted to play golf on "autopilot," meaning I'd just show up and have a decent swing and play well without a lot of thought. I don't know why that's been a goal, but what ended up happening this year is that I was ignoring the feedback from my shots and just getting frustrated when things were going poorly. I never actually stepped back and asked myself why a shot did what it did or how I could improve what I'm doing.

For this past stretch of good play I've just been taking shots as they come and being mostly neutral or positive in my reactions - and most importantly, evaluating what might have caused a shot to do whatever it did. This led me to finding out that all season I've been way too in my heels at setup, which caused my shoulders to spin out prematurely and led to the big hooks/penalties off the tee. With my changed focus I found that if I get more on my toes/balls of my feet (a big feel difference), I can make a better turn and stay more behind the ball. My swing has improved tremendously over the past few weeks as a result.

I'm hoping for another five or six weeks of sporadic play before the official end of the season for me.

[How'd you play?]

Really consistent holiday weekend of golf for me.

• 37 (back nine)
• 39/37 -> 76 (with a triple and double bogey... )
• 39 (front nine)
• 37 (back nine)

Driver has started to cooperate toward the end of the season and that's the reason for the solid scores. Much easier to score well when you're not taking penalties off the tee. I nearly drove No. 13 green twice over the weekend, ending up on the fringe each time and walking away with easy birdies. 

Not the best weather Sunday-Tuesday (cloudy and gray), but Saturday was a beautiful morning for golf:

 

[What Have You Bought Lately? (CHA - Club Ho's Anonymous)]

57 minutes ago, Golfspy_TCB said:

I'm not sure what "in a while" translates to... but if it is over a week or two... that has to be a record!!!  

Hahaha. I guess I should qualify that this was my first club purchase in a while. Hadn't bought anything since the season started. I did buy the Stack and some mobility sticks a few weeks ago...

[What equipment are you thinking about?]

Hybrids and shafts for one and my Cobra Utility.

Thinking about a PXG Proto with a Motore XB shaft. Or really any hybrid that I can get flatter and/or weight in toe.

Leaning toward SteelFiber i110 for my Utility to match my iron feel. The Recoil I have in it currently is fine but it's a little dead feeling to me.

Probably a winter project.

[What Have You Bought Lately? (CHA - Club Ho's Anonymous)]

Haven't bought anything in a while so had to scratch the itch...

Cobra RadSpeed Big Tour 3 wood is on the way from Global Golf.

I've had enough of the Super Hybrid. A lot of inconsistency which I think stems from me playing it too much like a fairway wood. It's been hook city lately. 

And the RadSpeed comes with a Motore X F1 7X shaft, which I know I get along with well.