RetiredBoomer

I stopped using a 3-wood when I switched from store model clubs to pro shop clubs many decades ago. 2, 4, 5, 7 works best for me. Factory published lofts on present clubs are 13, 18.5, 21, and 24°.

My approach is to fill my bag with clubs that I can hit and than hope I've got something I can use when I'm standing over my shot. No point in filling gaps with clubs that aren't comfortable to hit. This isn't 1965, but I have a set of four wooden woods, #s2,4,5,7, that I can actually hit, and they're not even old. I can't get the loft/lie/face angle combos that I need with modern woods, even using the adjustable hosel gadgets. Thus, I chose fit over tech and at least make good contact. I don't have long irons to hit from the fairway, but I've got a driving iron that I can hit from the tee. I like hitting irons into tight landing areas and woods into greens. It doesn't have to make sense. I've got 5-9 numbered irons, pretty common today, but with a 42° 9-iron, I passed on the matching 46º PW. Instead I've got 6° gaps from the nine-iron with 48-54-60° wedges. Because I can't easily get matching graphite shafts for the whole set, I've got Dynamic Gold R-300s from top to bottom [try to find steel shafts for woods today]. Would a fitter fit me with them? I strongly doubt it, but I'm content. And finally, I've got a hickory shafted replica of a circa 1925 putter. So that's my strategy. Bag fourteen clubs that I like individually, and hope they can function adequately as a set. In the end, I'm enjoying the fresh air with my friends. Most people on internet golf forums are probably a lot more competitive, but we all have our own way of enjoying the game..

Denver beat not one but two Boston schools to win the NCAA title. Hockey is the only college sport that's heavily followed in Boston since BC football went south and Harvard isn't big time anymore. Boston University and Northeastern both dropped the sport altogether. The basketball final four gets the lowest TV ratings in Boston of any major market. I guess the Celtics are our best team right now, but I haven't followed them since the Bob Cousy / Bill Russell days.

They should draft a left tackle. They don't need to draft a quarterback. Sixty-one year old Doug Flutie is sitting around doing nothing, and our offense won't do any better with anybody else anyway. 20 years of Tom Brady, and then we get a clown car as follow-up. I can't make myself watch anymore.

Can't help with tips, but I certainly credit you for your initiative. I bring my bag to the pro shop and say, "Thirteen new Tour Wraps, please."

It must be great to still have a football team. After 20 years of Tom Brady, I simply couldn't watch what followed up our way. It's like the game doesn't exist for me anymore. I'd rather watch Korean language dramas on Netflix.

I've got Gold Pride Tour Wrap 2G grips on all thirteen of my non-putter clubs. Since I don't wear a glove, I prefer a wrap grip, but I haven't tried them all. I guess that I've just stuck with what I know.

I used to play the ponies, not for big stakes, just for fun, but Suffolk Downs, Rockingham Park, and Narragansett Park have all closed down and Thoroughbred Racing is gone in my area. Baseball, boxing, and Thoroughbred racing were the "big three" pro sports when I was a young boy. Times have changed more than a little, obviously.

I wish that I were good enough at putting to have a "dream putter." I'm presently using a hickory-shafted putter because it looks cool, but when that goes colder than normal, I always have the Ram Zebra that I bought in 1978 and a Ping Zero 4. My cutting edge knowledge of up-to-date tech is why I only use my smart phone to call AAA if I get a flat, or to order take out on my way home.

I have six degree increments from 9-iron [42º] to wedges [48, 54, 60º], but I don't use the clock method anymore. I use "the Force" to club myself for a shot as the results tend to be pretty similar either way.

Since I use YouTube mainly to watch Japanese women's wrestling, it's had minimal effect at most on my golf swing.

I HATE music on the golf course, but fortunately, our club doesn't allow it.

woods: #s 2, 4, 5, 7 irons: DI, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 46º wedges: 50, 54, 58, 62º putter. My current set has sixteen clubs, but I play with a "law-abiding" 14-slot cart bag. I have yet to play a single round with this set where I didn't at least once want to hit one of two clubs I didn't pack. 16 club rule? I'm all in.

I recently bought a hickory shafted putter from Louisville Golf, the "Amby-Dex," but I haven't played it out on the course yet.

I can't hit any offset putter of any type. My putters are either shaft-aligned or onset.

I don't use a glove, so I've got simulated leather wraps on everything but my putter--presently Gold Pride Tour Wrap 2G.

I started at fourteen and this would have been my sixtieth season (1961-2020). I've only belonged to my club since the 2002 season, however. That and retirement increased my frequency of play...until this year.

I play 18 holes, riding, at our club. I play 9 holes, walking, on the nine hole pitch and putt course on which I practice. I haven't played any holes since last October, though. I'm calling 2020 golf an even money bet at this point. The Northeast is still body bag city, "curve flattening" not withstanding.

I'll take up two of my fourteen spots to overlap two 200 yard clubs. A long iron to hit wind cheating, hot landing line drives at landing areas on tight driving holes. I don't hit driver at tight landing areas. A well lofted wood for high, vertically descending shots that leave deep ball marks to repair on the green. They're both important shots so I want both clubs. One won't do both jobs. Even if it creates a distance gap elsewhere in the set.

In 1980, an LPGA Tour player hit me right between the shoulder blades with her drive. It didn't even leave a mark--not like getting shot by the Hampton Beach Police in 1964. Certainly much better than being hit by the ball on its way up, right? Plus I kept her in play. She made her par.

pozzit created a post about "jacked lofts," and I offered my opinions on the subject that "pozzit" introduced. You disagree with my opinions and I disagree with yours. I made my observations with no mention of you, however. You wanted to make a personal thing out of it, and you also attribute whining to me where no whining took place. Perhaps you might subject yourself to more specificity in your remarks rather than saying Potato, Pahtato after insulting me without cause.

Chi, I do buy the clubs. I have new clubs that haven't seen green grass yet because of the pandemic. The totally incorrect numbers are stamped on the soles, and I know and understand that I have to live it. It didn't stop me from buying the clubs, and there wasn't a single word in my post that would suggest that it would. Maybe you could read it again. What I did say was that the OEM excuses for it are totally BS, and I only said it because I know for a fact that it's true. You're an actor, Chi. That's great, and art is important. My job required understanding what specific language meant, recognizing BS when I saw it, and I was really, really good at it.

Did the moderator delete my post? I don't understand the objection.

There is no pushback against the technology. None at all that I can see. The pushback is against the cosmetic stamping. They could have today's high tech models exactly as they are, but with the numbers stamped correctly. They choose not to, and you're right, we either go along with it or we play obsolete gear or we don't play at all. That doesn't mean we have to buy the phony explanations from the OEMs, though. I know from personal experience, not mere opinion, that it's all BS. If you took up the game right in the middle of all this jacking, you probably have no reason to care--I understand that. The actual fact remains, however, that it's vanity lofts, pure and simple, not science. The science is there for sure, but independent of it.

I'm guessing that my user name is fairly self-explanatory.