[edingc's 2022 WITB]

Clubs needed some updating. There will be some other updates (bag, shoes, shot tracker, etc.) to add in a later post as well . Hopefully set until spring! Probably still three months away from my first round of the 2020 season.

• Driver: Callaway Epic Flash 10.5, turned to 9.5, weight in draw position. HZRDUS Yellow 6.0 with Golf Pride Yellow NDMC grip.
• 3 Wood: Mizuno GT 180, turned to 16 degrees, weight in back. MRC Tensei White Stiff, Stock Mizuno/Golf Pride Tour Velvet
• Irons (4-GW): Maltby PTM Chrome, KBS C-Taper Lite 110 Stiff, Red Star Sidewinder grips 
• 52/56/60 Degree Wedges: Custom Tempered DTG Inazone CNC Spin, Apollo Standard Stepless Stiff (soft-stepped), Black Star Sidewinder grips
• Putter: TaylorMade Spider Tour Red with Sightline, 33", Stock TM/SuperStroke Pistol GTR 1.0

Looking back to my original post from early this year, nearly everything has changed. Only the putter remains (and I have not intention of changing it, at least, not right now ).

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

48 minutes ago, JohnSmalls said:

I've got smaller wrists, too.  You shouldn't have any problem with the watch.  It took me playing of playing the first two holes before I forgot it was there.

Good to know. Thanks.

I can vouch for their support already. They added my irons and wedges to their equipment list in less than two hours.

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

ShotScope. I wasn't going to switch from GAME Golf Live for one more year, but at $119 the "PinCollect" feature and the integrated GPS distances made it a no brainer. Looks like the analytics and web interface is better than GAME Golf as well. 

My only concern is the size as I have pretty small wrists, but I'll learn to deal with it, I'm sure. 

I'm now having to make promises to myself that I'm about done buying stuff because I want to put more money into lessons before next season. I will be getting new golf shoes this month as well (likely the Adidas Tour360 XTs), but I really hope to be done until spring when I can try out a few different hybrids. Currently eyeing the Titleist 818 H1 23 degree with the Tensei White shaft. Really enjoy that profile in the 3 wood and it's similar to the C-Taper Lites in my iron (tip stiff, butt soft). 

[What/How Did You Practice Today?]

3 hours ago, golfertrb said:

Solid. What was your ball flight like? Are you seeing what you want?

Mostly. I added a ton of height when I switched to the C-Taper Lites and slightly weaker lofts on these new irons, but my distance is already better than it ever was this season. 

When I get it all put together correctly, I am hitting nice little push draws that end up right on my original target line. My miss right now is a pull draw, I definitely overcooked a few that would have cost me on the course. Just a matter of more practice, I think, because I'm seeing a lot of really great results when I get it right.

 

[edingc's Work In Progress]

Focused a little more on getting up to that position today. Definitely helped increase my swing speed a little bit, and I also found it was easier to get my weight moving into my left front-and-mid foot to start the downswing, something my instructor has me trying to do. When I get too into my left heel at the start of the downswing, I tend to come across just a bit and end up hitting pull draws instead of push draws.

The new grip still feels a little foreign to me, but I'm not arguing with the results! I've hit more balls out of the center of the club face on my last two trips to the range than I did all season! Seeing some really great distance, ball flight and swing speed as well. I'm planning on going for a Trackman gapping session in a few weeks, and I'm excited to see what it records when I'm using my MTB-Xs instead of these awful range balls.

I did more reading on the butterfly grip, and came across the "Bio-K grip," and a few blog posts about it. I took a bit of inspiration from there and have settled on something that's becoming less foreign with all of these swings. I end up with about two knuckles on my left hand showing, with my heel pad on my hand on top of the grip, so slightly strong. My right hand is very weak, as far as I can go while maintaining contact to the grip with my right ring, middle and pointer fingers. The pointer finger is in a trigger position, and my pinky is overlapping in a Vardon grip. 

This is a drastic departure from my weak/weak baseball grip I used all season.

 

[What/How Did You Practice Today?]

I hit far too many balls this morning at the range, really should have taken more half swings to ingrain the changes my coach is wanting, but I really wanted to see how far I could ramp it up.

This is the impact pattern of 10 6-irons. Couple were a touch fat, but overall really pleased with my ball striking today.

[What equipment are you thinking about?]

1 hour ago, Shankster said:

In 52° and 57°...

I have the 56 that I won in the MGS donor giveaway. I don't think it's going to make my bag, but it's a nice looking wedge for sure.

[edingc's Work In Progress]

I've been thinking a lot about my lesson last week, and specifically how I really enjoyed the conversation I had with my coach about the many different swings that are out there, and how people can find success with any number of them. He is a big fan of finding a person's natural swing and making it efficient, rather than trying to fit everyone into a perfect swing (we both agreed Adam Scott would be the gold standard here).

The conversation got me thinking about what type of swing I want based on what I'm working with. Two of my favorites are Anne Van Dam and Matt Blois from TXG:

Personally, I love the hand depth and height they both have in their backswings. It's something I personally am pretty good at as well. During my range session last weekend I got reasonably close (this is a short iron vs. longer irons above).

I'm still futzing around with grip per my coach's changes, but I'm finding it to feel less and less foreign each time I pick up a club. This particular screen grab was one of my best swings of the day, but I'm still working on getting a little higher with the hands at the top of the backswing. That height, for me, is primarily driven by my takeaway and making sure I don't roll my forearms inside right away.

[What/How Did You Practice Today?]

I got to the range this morning to work on what my coach gave me during my lesson yesterday. Spent a large bucket practicing a combination of 1/2, 3/4 and full swings with my new grip and pressure shift. 

Was a great bucket! I lost a little club head speed because I was more focused on getting the grip and shift right, but I didn't really lose any distance at all. By far the most shots hit out of the center of the face in my life, and I bet I'll have gained at least a club's length once I start ramping the speed back up.

Amazing how two small changes can have such a huge impact on the swing!

[edingc's Work In Progress]

Well, I took a big step today!

I had been going back and forth about whether I wanted to take lessons this winter. Two weeks ago, I had a really good range session and felt like I was making progress on my own, but last weekend I struggled a lot. I finally decided if I really want to get better, lessons would be required.

In my area there are only two instructors who use Trackman for lessons, something I’ve considered a necessity since I’d be hitting indoors into a net. The first option charges $210 for the initial lesson and something like $115/hour if you buy three lessons upfront. The second charges $90. I did my research on both and decided I could stomach the $90 for a lesson at least once a month through the winter. And, to my surprise, after I called the teacher I found out he only charges $60/lesson in the winter months, so that was a nice bonus.

I really enjoyed my time working with the coach this afternoon. I was happy to find out he was very impressed with my swing given that I had not taken lessons ever before in my life and pieced it together from basically just YouTube and experimentation.

I started with a 5-6 degree outside-in swing path, and by the end of the lesson I was able to hit quite a few shots with -1 outside-in or even a bit inside-out club path. 

Three changes I am working on to correct my club path:

1) Switching to a butterfly grip, with a strong left hand (2 knuckles) and a neutral to weak right hand. My tendency had been to have a weak grip with both hands, which made me really need to manipulate the club face.

2) 9-to-3 clock drill focusing on weight shift and finishing with my hands and club down the target line instead of pulling down hard left.

3) Feeling my weight transfer start to move more in the front-middle of my front foot and not immediately in the heel. 

My hope is to work on these swing changes and drills over the next two or three weeks and then go back for another lesson to look at my progress.

[Got Problems?]

4 minutes ago, dhartmann34 said:

Yeah international shipping is definitely a no no for me.

I sell a lot of items on Facebook garage sale sites. Saves me the fees, but the no show rate is the annoying part for sure!

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
 

I thought using the "Global Shipping Program" would take the pain out of it, but it really doesn't. In this case, several of my annoyances all occurred with this same international sale. The buyer didn't read my description, ended up getting something they didn't want, but I had pretty much zero recourse to do anything other than let him keep the item and refund the money. Would have cost me more to get the item back than what it was worth to me.

[Got Problems?]

Selling on eBay is such an awful experience these days. I've been trying to unload a bunch of stuff that we don't need but has some decent value (I try to donate the rest), and only about half of the time does anything go smoothly. I already hate having to deal with the 10 percent final value fees and PayPal fees, but in just the last few weeks I've had to deal with so many annoyances. Slow payments, buyers changing their mind days after winning an auction, buyers not reading descriptions, international shipping (never again) and people just generally being unable to communicate in anything resembling written word.

I had plans to dump a lot more stuff on eBay over the winter, but now I'm not so sure. Incredibly frustrating! 

[What/How Did You Practice Today?]

Large bucket at the heated range again this morning. Not as great as last week. Falling into old habits again. A little too inside on the takeaway and not enough turn into my right hip on the backswing. Did find a few that were just right and liked the results. Just a matter of consistency. My miss right now is off the toe when I get too steep in the downswing.

Club head speed continues to impress thanks to Fit For Golf. It was very cold this morning (high 20s, heated stall probably in the upper 40s), and right out of the gate with no real warm up I was seeing some very positive speed results. Now, I just need to get more of the center of the face to get my ball speeds up.

I also spent a good 15 minutes on the indoor practice "green," which although quite large has some ridiculous undulations and is about as hard as putting on concrete. The positive I'm taking away is that my impact when putting has gotten a whole lot more consistent since fixing my stance and adding a bit of forward shaft line. I think next year could be a much better year for the putter!

[edingc's Work In Progress]

My makeshift putting practice area this offseason consists of a Birdieball remnant and Putt-Out trainer stashed in our basement bathroom area. I've been practicing six foot putts consistently since I received these items a few weeks ago.

My attitude toward putting in the past has been that, "whatever works, works!" I used that mentality as an excuse to hardly practice putting technique at all during the past season, thinking I was "above average." Yeah, I was kidding myself.

First thing I noticed when I actually paid attention to my putting was that I stood too close to the ball (seems to be a theme with me!). The heel of my putter actually came off the ground, and I pulled a lot of putts left because my arms had no where to go but out-to-in across my body. 

Over the past few weeks, I've changed my stance to give my arms a little more room, which has solved the pulled putts. I've also paid specific attention to ball position (I'm perfect about 1 cm left of center) and added a bit of forward press. The forward press has helped tremendously in consistently hitting the center of the putter face. 

I've also worked in the ruler drill. My tendency now is to push putts, so I'm still sorting that out. But I've made a lot of progress in a short time.

[The annual donor raffle!]

I had the opportunity to listen in a bit, and of course got pulled away by a phone call about 15 seconds before I was picked for the T20 wedge. 

Awesome time listening in, and such a great thing to do at the end of the year. Lots of familiar names in the chat box, too. Good to see.

[MPR: The Single Digit Project]

10 hours ago, GolfSpy MPR said:

In the next couple of days, I'm going to experiment with a setup that gets my center of mass more over my feet. I noticed in @edingc's thread on his off-season progress his observation about standing too close to the ball. I don't think I'm likely to actually increase my distance from the ball, but by straightening my legs and bending more from the hips, I suspect I'll feel a great deal further from the ball.

I'll be curious to see the changes! Your stance reminds me a lot of Keegan Bradley, as is. 

[edingc's Work In Progress]

I watched a lot of Larry Cheung videos this week and just had to get back out to the range. I've been posting over in the "What are you practicing/working on?" thread about this, but this week I realized I setup too close to the ball.

Unbelievably happy with my results after stepping back a bit and also working in some of Larry's teachings. Still a long ways to go, but I am getting some speed finally, and even starting to hit a bunch of push draws!

 

[What/How Did You Practice Today?]

@Rickp @revkev

I hit far too many balls at the heated range this morning, but I can confirm I was too close before. Now, the caveat to that is that it is definitely possible to be too far from the ball also. I had quite a few close to the toe while I figured out exactly how far I should be.

I ended up finding a distance where my arms were hanging freely at address, but also that I felt pressure on both the balls and heels of my feet, with a bit more pressure on the heels. The little bit of extra pressure on my heels helps me get a nice turn of my lower body.

[What/How Did You Practice Today?]

1 hour ago, revkev said:

 

You would not like my teacher

He doesn’t believe it’s possible to stand too close to the ball.


Sent from my iPhone using MyGolfSpy

 

I just never realized how much I hugged my arms in toward my body instead of letting them hang freely. Standing a little further away lets my arms hang naturally now at around 5 o'clock when viewed from behind, which seems to be letting me go back more on plane and not inside like I did before. 

I have longer than average arms for my height, so I think this contributes to it.

Of course, this has only been validated with foam balls in the backyard. Hoping to get back to the heated range tomorrow.

[What/How Did You Practice Today?]

I mentioned in my last update that I "discovered" I've been standing too close to that ball. Today, I pulled out the tripod just to see the difference. This is only from Sunday until today.

Sunday - Typical looking backswing from this season. Could never figure out how to get steeper and longer in the backswing, anytime I did, I felt really disconnected. As I posted above, from here I come down really steep on the downswing.

Today - Hitting foam balls in 30ish degree weather. Only change is that I've standing farther away from the ball. Lead/left arm is now covering the right shoulder, left shoulder comes up under my chin. Because I'm standing farther away I have more room to swing my hands/arms around my spine instead of inside my spine angle. On the downswing, this is translating to some shallowing and more club speed.

Excited to get back out to the range.

[What/How Did You Practice Today?]

Had a good first winter range session yesterday. I haven't finished building my new set just yet, so I only brought along the 7 iron and a 54 degree wedge. I was pretty please with the results, definitely could have shot a decent round with the swing I had.

I'm happy to say my pivot/backswing has improved greatly since I really started practicing in March. No more sway. My misses yesterday were on the toe, pretty sure I'm getting a little early extension pulling my arms in and coming across the ball.

This was one of my better swings and you can still see my first move in the downswing is to steepen slightly:

Have a few things I'm working on in my setup to help fix this, specifically making sure I'm not standing too close to the ball. I don't know why, but until yesterday I never noticed how much I pull my arms/hands in toward my thigh. They hang almost straight down at six o'clock, but if I let them naturally hang they are closer to five o'clock. When I setup that way it feels like I'm a mile away from the ball, but practicing with a few foam balls in the backyard tells me I have a lot more room for my arms to shallow being further away.

It'll be another two weeks until I get some more range time, most likely, but I'm looking forward to getting back out there!

[edingc's Work In Progress]

Spent Friday evening and Saturday morning putting together the Maltby PTM 7 iron since the loft/lies were adjusted last weekend and my graphite shaft extractor arrived in the mail on Wednesday. 

On Friday, I pulled the head from the UST Recoil shaft it came on, cleaned out the hosel and epoxied in the C-Taper Lite pull I bought off eBay. Yesterday, I cut to length (37") and gripped it with a red Star Sidewinder I had purchased earlier this season.

My plan was to build the iron and then add tungsten weight stickers until I found a swing weight I was happy with, but that ended up not working out. Despite the PTMs having a universal hosel design (fitting both .355 and .370 shafts - my CTLs are .355), it was a very loose fit, so I decided to go with a brass shim. Combined with cutting to exactly 37", and basically a 1/4" cap on the Sidewinders, the 7 Iron swing weighted out to be D4 off the bat, and I didn't want to go any heavier.

Today, I was able to get up to our nearest heated range and give the iron a test, as it is low-mid 40s in my area now. I am ecstatic about how it performed. Very similar feel and performance to the JPX 919 Forged head I was fit with. While I love the opportunity to get out and hit some balls, this particular range uses extremely worn Nike range rocks and I don't put a ton of trust in any numbers my Swing Caddie puts out. But, on a good swing, I was seeing carry distances into the mid-upper 150s, which should work out to be better performance than I was seeing with the 919 Forged indoors when ball and temperature is accounted for.

Love the feel of the C-Taper Lites, which for me have a nice smooth delivery feel on impact. And I think I'm going to love the D4 swing weight. My Wilson C300s were D2 across the set, and I personally feel like I could feel the club head a little better throughout the swing at D4. Altogether the overall, static weight of the new 7 iron is only 8 grams heavier than the C300 7 iron, so I'm happy that worked out that way. And the Sidewinder grip is great. It has a slightly less tapered design than the Lamkin Crosslines I played this season, but not so much like a +4 design, which I did not like. 

The range has a Flightscope I can rent some time on, so I plan on doing that next time I get out there. 

As for my swing today, I was really happy to see my success from my final round last weekend carry over to today. I still have a long ways to go, but I am feeling good about making strides this offseason.

 

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

1 hour ago, blackngold_blood said:

On a side note I did send an email Friday night about possibly purchasing heads only as I didn’t care for the tour v shafts when I tried them. Jason actually called me Saturday morning to discuss what I was looking for and to explain why they don’t SEND out heads only. He did however mention an option to purchase heads only and send the shafts I am going to install to them and they would install them for me. I prefer to do my own club work for the most part so I declined. It is a pretty neat option for those interested though. He stated that they really want to control the quality of the builds for their irons and I don’t think I can blame him for that.

I'm not surprised Jason reached out on a weekend. Every experience I've had with Sub70/Hurricane Golf/Diamond Tour, and with Jason specifically, has been great.

Very cool option with the shafts. I really wanted to get out to Sycamore this fall to do a fitting, but the timing never worked out for me and I've gone the road of some Maltby PTMs for next season. I told myself I wouldn't buy another set of irons for at least two seasons going forward, but that can always change...

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

2 hours ago, blackngold_blood said:

I had this box delivered this week!

Inside were a beautiful used 5-PW set of 699's.

Sent from my Moto Z3 Play using MyGolfSpy mobile app
 

Nice! They were used direct from Sub70? 

[edingc's Work In Progress]

1 hour ago, Trial&Error said:

For 2020, plan to keep training with Superspeed, this thursday I'm going in to get an TPI Physical screening and K-Vest Eval to begin the process in hopes to start to better understand what my physical limitations are (i.e mobility/flexibility/power) and hope to identify what I feel certain pains in my body and what of those (if any) is complicating my swing and well being. So I'm starting that chapter this week, in hopes to work to resolve and clean up any physical limitations I'm currently working around/compensating for.

That's awesome! I'm going to give Fit for Golf and chance this offseason and maybe try out a TPI screening next fall/winter depending on how next season goes. I know Mike from FFG does online TPI screenings, but quite a few physical therapy places by me do as well for a nominal cost (~$200, I think).