[What equipment are you thinking about?]

1 hour ago, chisag said:

 

... Always a conundrum. I love just buying clubs I am very interested in when they are a bargain and then selling if they don't work for me. Just all part of the fun. OTOH my last full bag fitting demonstrated I was ill fit for my driver. Like most, I was chasing lower spin but it turned out my performance was better with more spin. In my fitting my longest drives were with my Cobra Xtreme but it also produced all my shortest drives and it was not as accurate as the Sim Max. 1900 spin with the Xtreme and 2300 with the Sim Max and I consistently carried it a good 5-10 yds farther but mot importantly it was much straighter. I was concerned with how range balls effected performance so my fitter busted out a brand new box of TP5x balls and let me hit 2 each with both drivers and thankfully the difference was even more apparent. 

... I had been playing the Xtreme for awhile and thought it suited me well but there was an obvious difference in my fitting. I lost the ability to hit that long bomb that happens when everything comes together perfectly but my average drives are both farther and straighter with the Sim2 Max. Good luck either way you decide to go!

 

1 hour ago, myherobobhope said:

I’ve always chased low spin and finally just moved to chasing better angle of attack… I’m hitting some low spin bombs with good swings and my misses stay on the planet… 

Yeah, realistically I'm just itching to try something new, and the supply of gently used current year models is starting to increase. 

I'm working on AoA as well, now that I have a Mevo+ and access to that. On my best swings I can get upwards of +3 degrees, but I'm normally between 0-+2 on my normal swing.

[What equipment are you thinking about?]

Have the itch to try the new Callaway drivers, but am torn on whether I want to do a whole fitting or just snag an Epic Max LS and give it a go with the AutoFlex or Rogue White.

Looking at $80 to do a fitting with stock shafts plus a few of the other available in the cart at my local shop, or like $150 to do a fitting at Club Champion. $150 is a third of the way to paying for the driver if I get it used.

Not sure what a fitting is really going to tell me. Need something low-ish spin and low-mid launch. Prefer a slight draw bias. I like the Rogue White a lot and could just plug that into the Epic Max LS and hope for the best.

Partial to Callaway because of the Optifit hosel. Having the shaft graphics out of alignment drives me batty. Like my Mavrik a lot (more than the Cobra SpeedZone it replaced), but am wanting something that can offer similar forgiveness with just a bit less spin and the sliding weight.

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

30 minutes ago, rbsiedsc said:

Interesting. My New balance are hit and miss when it comes to water and it really wore on the heel for me. Shoulda used a shoe horn. 

We'll see how they hold up. Bought the three pairs so that I could rotate them and hopefully prolong their life.

I've had three pairs of Puma PWRADPTs and have not had great experiences. The sole of the first BOA pair I had literally disintegrated after about 35 rounds and the cleats came out. They were water proof for about 10 rounds. The replacement pair hasn't disintegrated, but are not waterproof at all. I wore the heel of the third, laced, pair that I won on here out after about 20 rounds.

Hoping to find something similar to an old pair of Adidas I have. Paid something like $70 for them back in 2011 and they are still going strong, and are even mostly waterproof at this point. Hoping to retire them to yard shoes with all of the new pairs.

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

On 7/3/2021 at 10:36 AM, edingc said:

It seems to be getting harder to find waterproof spiked shoes for less than $150. Snagged these a few days ago. Feel really nice. 

New Balance Striker v2

Played my first round with these and liked them so much that I ordered the red/gray color way and then the black color way in the more expensive "Fresh Foam" line. With Rock Bottom Golf's 15 percent off code I ended up getting the two pairs of shoes for just under $200 with tax and delivery.

A few weeks ago I was contemplating paying almost $200 for a pair of Adidas, so to get three pairs of water proof shoes for <$300 is huge.

 

[What/How Did You Practice Today?]

18 hours ago, Tiftaaft said:

BTW, just studied up on the 60/60/100 drill mentioned in several posts above... will be working on that tomorrow.  Thanks MGS Forum... great resource for all that ails me. 

EDIT:  Couldn't wait, had to try it out into my net.... uhhh  WOW!

Huge improvement for me when I get the feel right. 

This is the latest version of the video from Chris Ryan, for those that are interested:

I've been pounding the driver with the driver feel he has at the end of the video as well. After weeks of really awful ball striking I got a ton of distance and control back over the past few rounds.

[Unofficial Review: Dumina AutoFlex SF505X Driver Shaft]

19 hours ago, dlow206 said:

I think today was my 2nd round with the Autoflex (maybe 3rd, can't remember) and i finally figured it out. One of the guys that i play from time to time was like, "didn't know you had a draw" (i normally don't). Pretty much all of drives were straight or a baby draw. I really never hit a draw normally, my normal stock drive usually has a little bit of fade on it. I think that shaft works well for me because i have a smooth transition. 

Good to hear it's working out for you. The AF is still on the bench for me, and I'm contemplating selling it. The Rogue White is doing well at the moment, though I've considered going back to the AF just to see what happens for a few round again. During this morning's round I had drives 275, 289 and 296 with the Rogue White so it is making a strong case to stay in the bag.

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

It seems to be getting harder to find waterproof spiked shoes for less than $150. Snagged these a few days ago. Feel really nice. 

New Balance Striker v2

[What/How Did You Practice Today?]

More 60-60-100 work, after having a great ball striking round this morning. Really liking the feel when I get it right.

I spent about 10-12 shots going all out with the 7 iron after getting loose. Not quite to @Chip Strokes territory yet, but getting the little extra hip turn I've been working on has helped a bit:

Unfortunately tired me out a bit and the rest of the bucket wasn't as good. Should have done it at the end! Oh well.

I need to work on translating those 7 iron feels to the longer clubs next. Once I get past the 6 iron I have a much harder time getting everything squared up and I'm way less efficient.

[How'd you play?]

1 hour ago, MrBandit said:

For me I only hit about 10-15 balls just to get feel for my swing, not trying to wear myself or fix anything out before even starting.
Then just chip and putt until is time to tee off.  

 

 

36 minutes ago, Shapotomous said:

Same strategy here...I m pretty sure I only have so many swings in me per day and I don't want to run out at the end of a round by hitting too many range balls prior to playing.  Just enough to get loose and hear some bone pops then practice the first tee shot to see the flight pattern i need to play.

Yup, that's my strategy, too. 4 balls with wedge, 4 with a mid iron, 4 with my 4 hybrid (three of the first four holes are hybrids from the tee) and 4 with driver. Gives me an idea of what flight I'm going to see and also gets me just loose enough, usually. Today was just rough all around.

[What/How Did You Practice Today?]

60/60/100 drill, which I think was courtesy of @B.Boston posting something from Chris Ryan's YouTube channel on here.

I have not been hitting the ball well, and had a pretty lousy bucket at lunch. As I was walking back to my car, I saw one of our university's golfers smashing his 3 wood and it sure looked like the 60/60/100 drill. I had just enough time for another half bucket and for whatever reason tried that feeling. What a difference! I went from having zero face control to hitting most everything straight again, and with some zip as I was able to get to my front side so much easier. Actually finished in a nice looking finish position, which is a good indicator my pressure moving around correctly. 

Going to have to work some more on it, and focus more during my rounds on staying a little more into my front side throughout the swing. I tend to sway off the ball a little bit and everything becomes reliant on timing to square the face.

[How'd you play?]

5 minutes ago, CarlH said:

Looks like one of my scorecards with those doubles ruining a decent score.

Yeah, what grinds me about them is the way they happened. No. 1 was a cruddy three-putt after three pretty poor shots to open the round. Nos. 7 and 16 I smoked tree branches trying to get back out to the fairway to play to save par/bogey. Wasted shots.

At least 13 was a double because I hit the ball out of bounds off the tee. I can sort of live with that.

Beginning to realize why Scott Fawcett puts so much emphasis on the "Tiger 5" when you start out his DECADE stuff. If you par the par fives and don't make doubles anywhere, you will eventually shoot a really good score, and your OK scores are still perfectly fine.

[How'd you play?]

Just now, Getoffmylawn said:

Is a warm-up range bucket an option?  

For me, when no range option, having the Orange Whip in the bag is golden for getting loose.

I usually hit about 20 balls before the round. I also have the SKLZ Gold Flex trainer that I've been using. 

I might just need to commit 10 more minutes to warming up with the Rypstick and go through a few swings on each side. Of all of the things I've used to warm up, doing a slightly lighter volume SuperSpeed or Rypstick seems to help the most because it gets the heart rate up a bit.

Just now, Shapotomous said:

hmmmmm....  one idea is to park a mile from the course and walk the rest of the way!!   

Very true!

[How'd you play?]

- 42/42 = 84 (+12)
- 2/15 FIR
- 7/18 GIR (1 birdies)
- 33 Putts (2 3-putts, 11 2-putts, 5 1-putts)

Too many double bogies and really just not a great swinging day in general. My chipping was really good and that saved me on several holes.

Need to figure out how to relax a bit more and be loose in the morning. I get so tight, in my lower body especially, that my swing is not very free flowing and smooth until I get more loose from walking. I started to hit the ball a lot better toward the middle-end of the round, despite the scores.

[Cobra Connect Five-Pre Challenge Chatter-Testers Announced.]

Those copper finished irons are .

So glad orders are showing up! 

[How'd you play?]

- 39/43 = 82 (+10)
- 5/15 FIR
- 9/18 GIR (2 birdies)
- 35 Putts (1 3-putt, 15 2-putts, 2 1-putts)

Soggy and sloppy round after 6.25" of rain since Thursday afternoon. Short game let me down a bit, but not as much as my driver. Just a bunch of terrible swings and playing from adjacent holes. 

I did birdie No. 4 for the first time in the past two years after sticking my 58 degree wedge from 108 out to about five feet!

Hoping the rain holds off and Thursday's round will be more dry!

[edingc's Work In Progress]

Nothing too much new to report, other than the acquisition of a Mevo+ for winter work. Looks like I might be forced to take about a week off of outside practice and play due to the massive amounts of rain in the forecast.

I shot a 73 the day after my last lesson that I posted about on here, and since then have been pretty consistently in the upper 70s-low 80s. That's a lot of progress and I'm happy with that. More importantly, I'm having a ton fun playing golf right now. It's still a grind at times trying to improve, but I'm beginning to see myself hit better shots more often. Scores don't always follow, but I'm finally moving forward in the right direction.

My tee game still continues to be my biggest weakness, and that's solely because of penalties off the tee:

I grabbed three more holes worth of footage during yesterday morning's round. No shot tracers this time around, it seems they "fixed" the app and it's no longer working for free... bummer!

 

[Weather in your neck of the woods?]

On 6/3/2021 at 2:08 PM, M. Parsons said:

Just wanted to leave this here.

 

Wow, that makes me miss ABQ so much. I'm glad I got to spend a few years there.

I think my favorite view was merging onto I-40 eastbound off southbound Coors and being able to see the whole city and the Sandias from there.

[How'd you play?]

- 42/36 = 78 (+6)
- 1/15 FIR
- 9/18 GIR (2 birdies)
- 32 Putts (14 2-putts, 4 1-putts)

Best morning of the summer so far for golf. High 60s, and an overnight wind kept the grass dry. So much nicer to play when everything isn't sopping wet.

My swing felt so good today, and I hit a number of great shots. Unfortunately, I just had a case of the hooks on the whole front nine, which I traced back to my grip getting a little too strong. Made a few adjustments on the back nine and played really well. Such a great feeling round this morning.

Only one shot I wish I could have back: After scrambling from underneath two trees, I had a two footer for par on No. 11. For whatever reason I got tense, barely tapped the ball and ended up short... .

[What/How Did You Practice Today?]

Really need to get to the short game area, but that's no where near as fun as hitting balls with the Mevo+ running. I'm enjoying the additional information about dispersion as it's helping to focus my range sessions quite a bit.

Working on more rotation in the backswing and am realizing that while my flexibility is lacking, I have enough to get a full backswing. I just struggle with allowing my left side to turn in concert with my right. My bad shots and short backswings happen when I try to do everything with my right side. My left side never moves inward toward the ball and I end up swaying instead of rotating.

My scores at this point are almost entirely dependent on how well I drive the ball, and fixing my rotation helps me be much more consistent off the tee, so this is something I want to get working better ASAP.

[How'd you play?]

- 41/42 = 83 (+11)
- 3/15 FIR
- 9/18 GIR
- 34 Putts (1 3-putt, 14 2-putts, 3 1-putts)

Almost unbelievable how cold it was this morning for late June. Something like 42 degrees when I teed off. Felt like I played a little better than the score, but I was pretty poor around the greens today and it led to a couple doubles that should have been avoided. Had another double after losing my ball in the rough off the fairway. That one was harder to swallow!

I started to find something with my driver and overall swing near the end of the round though. Last three holes were all tap-in pars after good drives and approach shots. Going to ride that confidence into the next round.

 

[Share your Shot/Hole Of The Day!]

First swing of Sunday's round was probably the best of the entire day. Beautiful push draw right over the tree on the right side. Ended up perfectly in the middle of the fairway.

This is a fun hole for me to look back on. When I first joined MGS I hit driver on this hole and usually didn't hit it as far as this hybrid yesterday. Sometimes I tend to get too wrapped up into scores and miss all of the other progress I've made over the past two seasons.

[How'd you play?]

- 40/41 = 81 (+9)
- 6/15 FIR
- 11/18 GIR (2 birdies)
- 34 Putts (4 3-putts, 8 2-putts, 6 1-putts)

OK round overall. Had one awful tee shot that cost me two penalty strokes. Too many three-putts. We got a lot of rain yesterday and the greens were soaked and bumpy. I had a lot of trouble gauging distances, especially since I couldn't get the ball to roll very nicely.

Still, if an 81 in my upper ceiling when I don't play particularly well, I'll take it!

Rogue White was definitely feeling better than the AutoFlex did my last time out. Didn't drive the ball well overall, but I hit a few range balls at the end of the round and still am liking the Rogue White right now. Definitely feels like I can go a little harder at it and not lose track of the head.

[Unofficial Review: Dumina AutoFlex SF505X Driver Shaft]

10 minutes ago, BMart519 said:

My opinion is you would see these on the Champions Tour or LPGA (relative to PGA or KFT with longer hitters) if there was a noticeable gain in distance without offsetting accuracy. Players at that level should have the best chance of handling the shaft given their skill levels as well as benefitting more from added distance. Adam Scott was hitting it all over the park when he tried it. It could be the softer flex smooths tempo when beginning to use it and as you adjust, you revert back to your previous swing and the misses are amplified. 

Yeah, there is still something to the AutoFlex that I can't put my finger on. When I do center one up the ball flies. I'm not ready to give up on it, and I may switch back to it within a few rounds. Who knows...

Part of what I said earlier in this thread is trying to figure out if it's worth my money to hang onto it. A few weeks ago I felt like it was giving me something the Rogue White wasn't. Now, I'm not so sure I feel the same way.

We'll see how my next 3-5 rounds go.

[What/How Did You Practice Today?]

Took the Mevo+ out for a spin again this afternoon with a medium bucket. I'm still working on getting my hip turn better, as per my last lesson's homework. What I've realized is that I need to not just focus on my right side, and that in order to pivot correctly, I need to allow my left side to "release" and turn as well. Making way better turn and contact with that thought.

And, with @Chip Strokes's posts in mind, I also was working on width in my backswing and getting through the ball with my right shoulder on the downswing. Really great results with my longer clubs that I brought.

I hit four drives. The tees are moved up a bit, and I flew one over the fence and bounced two over, so I quit. Talk about throwing a blanket over where they landed!

I switched back to the Aldila Rogue White 60X from the AutoFlex and immediately have started to stripe it again. Hopefully it carries over to the course.

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

I can chime in some more after two full range sessions (probably about 100 balls):

• Mevo+ has recorded probably 97 percent of the shots I've taken. I had a few misses here or there, especially when I started letting the ball get too close to the unit due to my divot pattern.
• Like @GolfSpy MPR mentioned, the feedback is nearly instantaneous. 
• The FS Golf App on Androids runs really smoothly. Ball flight tracer seems extremely accurate.
• As expected with awful range balls and no dots, spin readings are all over the place. (No fault of the Mevo+.)
• Club head speed measurement seems very accurate, probably more accurate than the regular Mevo, especially with driver. 
• As can be expected with range balls, the carry distance and ball speeds are a little off. It's more noticeable once you get to the longer clubs, of course. As such, my smash factor is never that high. This, again, is no fault of the Mevo. The end of our range from where the tees are at is about 265 yards. Yesterday I hit the fence on the fly with a driver and Mevo recorded something in the high 250s. So pretty accurate.

And, here is why I'm so excited about having the Mevo+ ... having directional feedback saved in the app is a great "gamification" of my range sessions. I've always been guilty of just mindlessly hitting range balls, or trying to hit balls as hard as possible with no real regard to direction (Sure, you remember your club and ball speed but don't remember it was 40 yards offline!). Having the dispersion tracking has already made a big difference in my focus while on the range.