[What/How Did You Practice Today?]

29 minutes ago, twyatt700 said:

That’s a pretty good grouping! What’s your home set up like? 

I'm lucky to have a 26'x26' attached garage with 10' ceilings. It's not finished or heated, but usually stays about 10 degrees above ambient temperature.

I bought the following this summer in preparation:

• Cimarron Sports 10'x10'x10' cage net with target and baffle
• USA Turf 4'x4' Matzilla Mat
• Fiberbuilt Flightdeck
• Flightscope Mevo+

I built three 2"X3"x8' wood "clamps" that go around the 2"x6" rafters and are secured with 10" carriage bolts. The net secures to this structure with some bungee balls along the back walls of my garage, while the inner most side has a hook where I can secure the net when in use. When not in use I unhook the net and push it into the corner.

The baffle net and target are attached to a 10' piece of EMT conduit that is secured to the wooden structure about a foot in front of the back wall of the net.

The resulting cage is about 8'x8'x10'. I hold the corners down with some Amazon sand bags filled with pea gravel.

I end up getting 13' of ball flight and 8' from hitting area to Mevo+. It took a little bit of fiddling, but I'm finding the Mevo+ to be very close to real life even with only 13' of ball flight to measure.

This is the view of the whole setup as viewed by the Mevo+:

I'll probably add a propane heater and crack a window for ventilation as we move further into winter. It was 39 degrees during my practice session today.

[What/How Did You Practice Today?]

Absolutely loving the home hitting setup (and my wife, who has been encouraging of me hitting balls whenever possible).

Feel like I've been making a ton of progress on my swing since my last lesson. I texted the below image to my coach, which was the result of four warm up swings and nothing else:

After I warmed up, I focused almost exclusively on hitting my 4 hybrid. I've always struggled with the longest clubs in my bag, so focusing on hitting my longer clubs is something I wanted to do now that I've gotten the net setup. The results were pretty good, as I was simultaneously focusing on contact and then also trying to see how fast I could swing on the Mevo+.

My gapping seems to be pretty solid. There's a touch of overlap between my 4 hybrid, 4 utility iron and 5 iron, but that's not such a bad thing.

At the end of my session I started to work on a wedge matrix, but that's going to need a lot of practice this offseason. I have a hard time getting good gapping between the half, 3/4 and full swing wedges. It seems I struggle keeping the same tempo when I change the backswing length, which leads to inconsistent distances. Something to work on!

 

[~$10 DIY Club Measuring Ruler]

On 11/24/2021 at 11:05 AM, Rtracymog said:

Do you need to change the lie angle when measuring woods or hybrids or do you stick with the consistent 60 degrees all the time? Looks like a simple, effective tool to have! Thanks!

I stick with the consistent 60 degree lie angle for all measurements. That's based on a USGA document I found for measuring club length.

From my experience measuring a small handful of OEM clubs and also custom built stuff, not everyone else follows suit. But it's a very good and useful tool!

[Dude, I'm getting a Mevo+!]

Had my first hiccup with the Mevo+ last week. I went out to the garage Wednesday night and could not get the Mevo+ to connect to my Samsung Galaxy s10e. The FS Golf for Android app had updated Tuesday night to version 3.0.44. Previously it worked great.

I ended up downgrading to version 3.0.38 this weekend and had no issues with the radar.

I filed a ticket with FS support last Thursday and after some back and forth they confirmed the issue today. They will be releasing another update to resolve the issue in the coming days.

In the meantime, a co-worker lent me an older iPhone that I'm going to use to try out the E6 Connect simulation at some point soon.

[What/How Did You Practice Today?]

6 minutes ago, fixyurdivot said:

That stow-away design is a great approach.  Do you plan to add a projector and screen?  I think that is the aspect of the indoor PLM system that intrigues me most... love watching the balls flight path.

That may be on my purchase list for next fall. This cage has a target and baffle net that could be replaced by an impact screen for about $250. The projecter would have to go on the ground, which would require a $300 protective case, plus cost of the projector. Probably another $1k investment total, and it would have to be setup and torn down each time. As it is right now, I can go from cars in the garage to fully setup and hitting in about six minutes.

I currently don't have a Apple device to use the included free E6 courses. A co-worker is lending me an unused iPhone so I can try out the sim capabilities soon.

Right now I just have the FS Golf app read distances out loud and then I can check dispersion on the phone screen by walking over. I'm getting pretty good at "feeling" the shot and can guess dispersion and direction pretty accurately already just by feel.

I've been very impressed by the Mevo+ and it's accuracy indoors.

[What/How Did You Practice Today?]

Perks of having the indoor hitting net setup -- I've had three straight days of about a bucket's worth of balls working on the things from my lesson on Thursday. And, with no charge to hit the balls, I have zero issue with hitting 10-20 balls working on drills before moving into full swing practice.

Today things really started to click after focusing on getting into a better posture at setup. I tend to get too hunched over in my setup with my upper body leaning too far out, shifting pressure into my toes. Today I borrowed something from Gankas and imagined lining up an alignment stick from my armpits, across the top of the knee and down through my ankle. It really helped me stay balanced throughout the swing and got my impact location moving back in from the toe to the middle of the club face.

I have been focusing on 5 iron and 7 iron mostly, trying to get my AoA more shallow with them and also getting the height of my long irons to be better. I tend to move forward in the downswing and hit low, toe-y hooks. I'm finding I really need to have what feels like a lot of secondary axis tilt in my setup with the 5 iron. I was very happy by the end of the lesson to be seeing peak heights in the 30 yard range with the 5 iron.

Near the end of today's session I had five straight 7 irons that were tight baby draws on line with ball speeds around 127-128 MPH. I'll take that any day!

[Cold Climate Golfers...]

My wife always jokes with me because I get grumpy around mid-September when I go from playing three or four times per week to once per week if I'm lucky.

Putting mat and foam balls got me through the last few winters at home. I also setup some patio furniture cushions and could chip from the carpet into them working on low point control. Before this year, once a week I tried to get to the nearest heated range to hit a bucket or two. The simulators in my area are way too expensive to do every week, but this place only charges $12 for a large bucket with heat. Downside was the 35 minute drive.

This winter I finally got a hitting net setup so I don't need to drive anywhere. I'm lucky to have 10 foot ceilings in my garage so I can take full swings. If you don't have that, then you might be more limited. But it's better than nothing!

[edingc's Work In Progress]

8 hours ago, ncwoz said:

Dang, looking awesome!!

Is your garage setup something you've gotta put up and tear down each time you use it, or do you have the space dedicated?

Thanks! I didn't show the 7-8 shots that I shanked!  But it was a good lesson for sure.

I'm lucky to have a pretty big garage, so I have a semi-permanent net setup. I built three wood "clamps" that go around my rafters and are secured with 10" carriage bolts. I didn't want to screw into the rafters and the spacing wasnt conducive to supporting the net anyway.

That gives me an 8'x8' mounting area to hang the net off of. I bought a 10'x10'x10' cage net and just let it have a little slack. The panels facing the two walls in the corner are secured with bungee balls and are "permanent." I have a hook on the side of the support where my car parks, so I just need to use a step stool to put up that corner of the net before hitting. The corners are secured with sandbags filled with pea gravel.

The whole setup takes about 5-7 minutes to put up or take down.

So far it has worked wonderfully. I have enough room for 13' of ball flight with the Mevo+ so I can do regular indoor mode rather than short indoor.

The only downside is I don't have a way to do a face on camera view as I'm quite close to my back wall. Left-handers would likely not be able to use my net as configured, either.

[edingc's Work In Progress]

First offseason lesson of the year at lunch today. Overall, things look really positive. 

I did not play or practice much from early October to last week. After getting my hitting area in my garage setup last weekend, I'm now going to be able to practice a bit more. Honestly, I feel a bit refreshed and ready to go after the break. 

With the layoff a couple things had started to slip - my grip had gotten too weak again, but I had compensated for that with a really strong bowing of the lead wrist on the downswing. Not a bad move, but my face control was terrible because of the constant hand manipulation. I also started to slide forward on the downswing again. My angle of attack was pretty steep even with long irons and I had to flip a bit at the ball to get it in the air.

We strengthened up my left hand grip and worked on a drill where I made half swings with a 9 iron, but with my right hand only touching the grip with my palm and not using my fingers. This forced me to feel my right hand driving the club through the hitting zone. By the end of the lesson I moved back to full swings and had some really solid results.

I went through the head moving forward/body slide stage last year as well, and it's a tough habit to break. I'm thankful I now have a practice space at home where balls are unlimited and free! Results are fantastic when I get it right. My last swing of the day was an easy 5 iron, not full swing but just smooth.

I cut together a crude swing sequence of what my coach said was the best swing of the day. It's a huge improvement from where I was in mid-summer.

[Mizuno Pro 221/223/225]

11 minutes ago, ejgaudette said:

Should and won't are too very different words

Story of my golf bag. 

I really like the looks of these. I was hoping to get a new iron fit late summer 2022 and will have to add these to the list.

[How would you play this hole?]

This one is a little more "cut and dry" than the others, but I've never had the guts to go for it with driver. Curious to see what people would do here:

No. 15, Diamond Springs Golf Course

Par 4, tee locations marked. 245 yards to carry the ravine/hazard to front of green from whites, about 270-275 from blue. There's a decent backstop to the green so you can drive and stop it. 

There's all kinds of bail out room in the fairway, but there's a huge ridge that runs the length of the fairway and funnels balls left or right. Balls hit left of the ridge have a completely blind shot into the green with no view of anything. They often put the pin on the left most part of the green, too, so the chance of stopping the ball close to the hole is next to nothing.

The Fried Egg has a good drone shot of this hole:

Me personally, the last three times I've played here I've laid up well short (something like a six iron, I think), from both white and blue tees. Twice I stayed right of the ridge and had a good look at the pin with a wedge but ball below my feet. One other time I was left of the ridge and had no view of the green at all. I hit a decent pitch but still didn't come close to the hole as it rolled down the backstop and well out onto the green.

Last time I played with @ncwoz he hooked his first drive out of bounds, but landed his second drive from the blue tees past the green onto the backstop and it trickled down onto the green perfectly. Still one of the best shots I've ever seen in person, and it ended up with him halving the hole with me with bogey.

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

1 hour ago, golfish! said:

Funny I also ordered a dozen ProV1 RCT on the day you posted this lol...there is a possibility we were looking at the webpage at the same time...great minds think alike...maybe we should follow up and create an unofficial testing page for these...I will be using a Garmin R10 and comparing to non RCT Pro V1's

I'd be all for the joint unofficial review! We'll see how long they take to arrive. Titleist's timeline puts them here sometime in early or mid-December.

I haven't been overly impressed with the metallic dots with the Mevo+ so far. They seem finicky, and I also don't love the idea of hitting the same area of the ball too often - less than 200 shots in and I already cracked an MTB-X with my 5 iron:

In fairness to Snell, this was a shag bag ball that I found among the yellow range balls at my practice facility. So I have no idea of it's former life, other than that I played a handful of holes with it during some practice rounds this summer.

For now, I'm probably going to stick to some of the other urethane balls I found around the course.

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

11 minutes ago, Nolan220 said:

Do they work with any indoor unit ? 

I'm going in kind of blind. One brief test on Twitter reported success. FlightScope responded to a question about it on Twitter and said they provided Titleist "good feedback" about the ball. 

It's going to be a few weeks until they show up. I'll have to do an unofficial review.

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

Pulled the trigger on a dozen ProV1x RCT balls for indoor practice with the Mevo+.

Pricey, but if it removes the need for a metallic dot indoors, it'll be worth it. My initial testing today with the Mevo+ indoors resulted in several estimated spin reads, even with the metallic dot.

[What/How Did You Practice Today?]

Not only is it a what did I practice today, but it's a what did I build today...

We got our first snow of the season last night and so that meant today was spent getting the indoor net setup for the FlightScope Mevo+. I ended up building three 2"x3"x8ft lumber "clamps" that went around the rafters in our garage to hang the cage netting. I had to make some small adjustments to how I envisioned it along the way, but all in all it turned out perfectly. It tucks away a bit so that I can still pull my car in the garage.

I broke it in with about 50 7 irons and some wedges. It took all the balls without issue. So excited to have an indoor space to hit that doesn't require a 40 minute drive.

Still struggling with my swing, and thankfully have a lesson scheduled for Thursday. Lots of blocks and fades. I did get at least a couple nice looking wedges in today, though:

 

[What/How Did You Practice Today?]

52 minutes ago, fozcycle said:

When you hit balls to warm up before a round, what clubs do you practice with?

I take turns with a wedge(45/49/53/57), then a 7/8/9 iron, then 5W or 4Hybrid followed by my driver.  Just a few balls with each. At 70 yrs old I don’t want to wear out before the first tee….Lol

I used to hit 20-25 to get loose. 5-6 wedges, 5-6 mid/long irons, 5-6 hybrids, 5-6 drivers.

I've found I have better results from doing a modified speed workout with Rypstick/SuperSpeed sticks and then only hitting 8-10 balls total, four each of wedge, iron, hybrid and maybe four drivers.

It may be slightly more swings due to the speed stick warmup, but it gets me a lot more loose than just hitting balls.

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

1 hour ago, ejgaudette said:

As mentioned before I was look for new irons and the just arrived. Found a great deal on a set of Mizuno JPX 919 Hot Metal Pro irons that I had re-shafted by @dlow206 and Bort Golf with Fuji Pro Tour Spec 115 Stiff graphite irons, thanks to a virtual fit with TXG. Oh boy do these look great. I love the just slightly larger head of the HMP than my i500s in the 5 and 6, but are about the same in the short irons, plus the offset is very minimal which is great. If anyone wants some more forgiveness with less offset, then you need to give these a serious look. Also great to work with @dlow206 getting a great price of the shafts in doing quick quality work.

Hit them in the net straight away and love the feel of the shafts, though the 4 iron is not one I will be using, bit otherwise very pleased. Hoping to get the spin down a bit with this move as well, so will be sure to share GC Quad numbers when I get on one next.

I haven't been as active around here as much as I'd like recently, so maybe I missed this...

Did you detail your virtual fit with TXG anywhere? Curious what led you to the Fuji Pros? When I started looking at graphite in early 2019 they were one of my first stops. The weight range is about perfect for me, as is bend profile. I think I ultimately went with MMTs because they are .355 and I didn't want to bother with tip trimming...

[edingc's Work In Progress]

So far, this offseason is shaping up very differently from last. I've quickly settled into a nice workout routine, and this time I'm trying my best to keep my diet in check so that I can hit my goals.

The last two offseasons I've been stuck in a bad loop. After the 2019 season, I hit the gym pretty hard with light weights and explosive exercises up until Christmas. Combined with not eating a lot, I actually dropped down to the lowest weight I've been in my adult life, around 157 pounds at 5'11".

Black Friday 2019 saw me get a full squat cage in my basement, but I kind of half-heartedly committed to lifting until COVID lockdowns hit in mid-March. I didn't eat enough to support my goals, and I didn't push myself very hard. I made some progress though. Last offseason I again didn't eat enough to support my goals and didn't push myself very hard. I had gained some noticeable muscle mass, but really poor eating/drinking during summer 2020 ended up with me being about 25 pounds heavier than the Christmas prior and not a lot of strength to show for it.

I bought the Rypstick this year, but after 3+ seasons of speed training, it's more for speed maintaining than anything else.

This offseason I've committed to doing a 5x5 program with good results so far. And, most importantly, I'm eating enough to support my goals, hopefully. Once I get my indoor setup finished in my garage, my offseason programming should look like the following:

• Sunday - 5x5 Routine
• Monday - Couch-to-5k Running session, Medicine Ball and Explosive Work
• Tuesday - 5x5 Routine
• Wednesday - Couch-to-5k Running session, Medicine Ball and Explosive Work, Indoor Range Session + Rypstick
• Thursday - 5x5 Routine
• Friday - Couch-to-5k Running session, Medicine Ball and Explosive Work
• Saturday - Indoor Range Session + Rypstick

I know from previous experience with the WHOOP band and now with my Garmin watch that I burn roughly 2,500 calories a day. My dinner is typically small (some sort of protein and vegetable), shooting for around 800 calories total. On lifting days I'm shooting for close to 3,000 calories, on cardio days closer to 2,000. With those goals I'm hoping to have enough energy intake to actually gain this time around and hit some new personal bests.

I have been eating roughly the same thing every day with exception to dinner to facilitate this: 

Lifting Days

• 8 oz hard cheese
• 8 oz salami
• 1.5 oz peanut butter

That yields just around 2,000 calories for non-dinner food, leaving me some wiggle room on dinner/drinks or whatever.

Cardio Days

• 24 oz Daisy brand Cottage Cheese
• Quest Cookies and Cream Bar
• 1.5 oz peanut butter

That yields around 1,100 calories, which again, leaves some wiggle room for dinner/drinks.

Three weeks in, so far, so good. I've held right around 180 pounds throughout, plus or minus 2-3 pounds of water fluctuation. My lifts are going up and my last two range sessions have shown promising results with ball speeds.

[Dude, I'm getting a Mevo+!]

6 minutes ago, BMart519 said:

The Titleist RCT balls already look like a worthwhile investment to avoid aligning the metal dot with the target on every swing. 

These have been on my list of things to buy as well.

I'm hoping to get my indoor setup finished in the next two weeks or so. Life has been getting in the way, but with the weather turning I'm not going to be able to hit outside for much longer.

I've have not had the same battery issues you have had. I'll be curious to see how spin compares once I get indoors with good balls. The last two times out of the range my irons have recorded ridiculously low spin (4,000 RPM 9 irons), but on the range it's tough to know if that's on the radar unit or the balls. 

One plus side - the range I visited the last two times out has an extremely elevated tee box. With the original Mevo the height measurements were all incorrect as the unit would record the huge elevation change. No issue with the Mevo+ with peak heights across the bag in the 90-110 feet range.

[What/How Did You Practice Today?]

Back to the range yesterday on a beautiful fall afternoon. Went to a different range much closer to me and with better balls this time around.

One of the things I've been working on with my coach over the last few sessions I've had with him is getting "more left" or steeper on the downswing with my irons. I've been making a lot of progress with that, but now that I'm going longer between range sessions/touching a club, I'm finding some other old habits are coming back into my swing. Yesterday, it was me rolling the face open on the backswing. I hit a bunch of fades that started at my target early on in my session and it took a concerted effort to get them sorted out. By the end of my time things had gotten so much better. I left feeling like I could have gone out and played a really solid round.

I've been hitting the weights a little harder than usual to start the off season and I'm excited by the results I'm seeing at the range. This time out I brought my gamer AutoFlex/Epic Max LS combo and finally hit two benchmarks I've not seen before on my Mevo+:

I have some work to do on face contact as I was not finding the middle very often, but even with that being the case, my dispersion was not worse than what I'd expect at those distances/speed:

The red line is 60 yards of dispersion.

The session gives me some crazy motivation to keep pushing myself this winter. Going to be a long off season waiting to get back out on the course!

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

10 hours ago, Getoffmylawn said:

I slide too much instead of posting up and turning in the downswing; instructor confirmed as much this morning.  Hoping this helps ingrain the right feels a bit…

I've gotten so close to pulling the trigger on these multiple times. Like you, I'm a slider, especially when my pivot gets a little too much sway and not enough turn in it.

I'd be curious to hear your feedback on whether you think it would help prevent too much lateral pressure shift to the backside in the backswing. I would assume if you do that, you can't put pressure on the force pedal under your back heel.

[Waste of Money]

Tough call. I did, for a while, carry around a lot of non-versatile clubs that might get used only once a round. I still have a few clubs that are not used often (2 hybrid, namely), but everything in the bag is something I can hit and can be used in multiple situations.

Even my training aids have a purpose, but there are plenty that can be had for cheaper if you DIY or find used. The DownUnder Board comes to mind. Very useful for me, but realistically a baking pan would provide the same feedback at 1/6th of the cost.

[time to get strong and fast again]

3 minutes ago, Chip Strokes said:

i'm 5'9" (or 5'10" if you go by my driver's license)

120 is movin it! you've made a ton of progress in your game and your swing.  it's really impressive.

i'm sure your lifting numbers are above average.  where did your bench, squat and deadlift end up after 5/3/1?

Yeah, your speeds are even more impressive at that height. Very Rory like! I'm at 5'11" with slightly longer than average arms (usually about +2" on a dress shirt), so that helps a little bit with speed. Currently sitting at 180 pounds.

I don't remember the exact numbers, but bench was ~145, squat ~215 and deadlift ~265 for reps. My goal this offseason was to max out my available plates (305lbs) on the deadlift and then move back 70 pounds for squat to 235 and bench to 165.

I have a balky right knee from being overweight as a kid and made worse by a baseball injury in high school. I have the leg strength to push myself on squats, but it's usually a matter of needing to trust that my knee isn't going to give on me.

[time to get strong and fast again]

Definitely interested in following along. 

Curious how tall you are? Always trying to get a feel for potential. I'm a long ways from your lifting totals, I'm sure, but I'm realistically 3-4 MPH away from breaking into the 120s on my best swings. I think I've pretty much exhausted the gains to be had on overspeed training after 3+ years of training, but I'm still relatively weak even after committing to a 5/3/1 setup last winter. Especially in bench and squat, which both have a lot of practical application to the golf swing.

I started a 5x5 linear progression program a few weeks back and this time around I am eating enough to make some gains over the winter. Just hoping to come into next season not quite as fluffy as Bryson was.

[edingc's Work In Progress]

Top 3 Best/Favorite Holes of 2021

One of my favorite things to do each year is to pick my favorite holes from the season. As I've added more rounds each year I've done this, it has become a lot harder! 

#3 - Birdie, Oct. 9, Hole No. 8, Diamond Springs Golf Course

I got to play with @ncwoz at one of my favorite courses I've ever been on. The fairway on this par 5 is massive, so standing on the tee I just told myself to let loose and accelerate through the ball. I ended up lacing my 5 iron shot into the back bunker behind the green, but hit my best sand shot of the season. The ball splashed out and ran down the sloped green to about five feet. I hit the birdie putt.

#2 - Driving the Green, Sept. 18, Hole No. 13, Western Greens Country Club

The Arccos image is actually from the week before when I came up just short of the green. Unfortunately, the day I did this Arcoss was not working correctly. I absolutely middled one, and combined with my Rypstick work that I did at the end of the season, I successfully drove over the green for the first time in my life. I figure it was close to 320 yards, on a slightly wet and flat hole. (Image for proof!)

#1 - Eagle from the fairway, July 15, Hole No. 16, Western Greens Country Club

Long story short - I hit a bad drive that got knocked down by trees a long ways from the green. I hit a knockdown 6 iron up a hill to a blind green. When I got up to the green I found my ball in the hole! This may be even better than getting a hole in one. The eagle also saved my round and led to a solid 78.