gavinski91

Went out over the weekend to Loomis Trail, a course that ate my lunch the last time I played there. I managed to stay mostly out of trouble this time, with only one penalty off the tee, and finished with an 85. Given that I was playing it out at almost 6900 yards with a 72.2/138 rating, that round managed to lower my handicap by half a stroke. Got a golf trip this coming weekend at Suncadia for my brother's bachelor party, so the game is coming into form right at the right time!

Who Am I:
An above average dork, with a below average golf game.... I think.  I am a terrible writer.  I think mostly due to me not dealing with people day in and day out.  I occasionally forget how to human.  Spending 8hrs a day in a genetics lab... yeah.  It warps ya. 

I also work with some questionable people...
I digress.  I love golf.  Like absolutely love it.  Ive played for a long time but never seriously.  The usual once a year maybe a couple times a year typical player.  Then I got involved with a golf league and truely began to love the sport.  Bonus I get to play with my dad once a week.  I consider myself very fortunate.
Me kicking his ass in Hawaii.

I brew I dont know... semi professionally?  I do this at home, but occasionally help a friend who does do is professionally. so... semi pro it is haha.  I mean what else is a damn microbiologist supposed to do for a hobby right?

I also have a cat that prevents practice... a lot, so improving can be difficult some days.

I love filming storms when im not dodging them on the golf course.  Ah the missouri in the midwest... gateway to repeated hail,flooding,tornadoes... oh my.
 
Overall im a complete dork with a warped sense of humor.  Two goals this year were to shoot at or below par (so far not so good), and hit a 300yd drive (which ive gotten close and missed that by 13yds).
Area Of Testing Focus:
Dispersion.... Im hoping this can really tighten up my left miss.  If my tempo isnt great that day my current shaft really punishes me and starts hooking like im in the red light district.  Barf.  Distance isnt bad for me.

What I’m looking for: 
Something to keep me more in the middle (arnt we all?).

Hey... can ANYONE TELL WHERE MY MISS IS?!?!.... blah!  Is my shaft too whippy? maybe.  Can I make it work?... well sure.
I do think im ready to try something new though..  Ive been doing speed training and I can sometimes if im not in perfect form over match my current shaft.
How it started vs how its going:

 
Overall Im really looking forward to giving this shaft a try.  I do much prefer lighter weight shafts and my testing choice will hopefully represent a close analog in metrics vs my current one (as much as possible).  Can I get stability and BOMBS?... we shall see.  Ill be running arccos as per usual so the metrics will make themselves readily apparent.
I look forward to providing you with a joe average impact of this shaft on my game.
Cheers.
 
UNBOXING: I got a shaft in a box yo.
Well now that I only feel slightly less like death warmed over.  Finally get unboxing up.  It showed up and this thing had clearly seen some s*** on the way to my house:

But it was in good shape so the box did its job.  This forum I swear... no matter what I want to do it wants to show this upside down... SO BE IT!

Its just fractionally shorter than mine which is what I was expecting so kudos to Fujikura for absolutely crushing the prep on this thing.
 
Well.... apparently this is a TOUR adapter that some of my fellow reviewers did some epic Dick Tracy s*** on to figure out and its mostly the same.  Besides... im so crap will .5* make a difference?  Somehow I had been playing with what I thought was a 9* setting... HAHAHAHA no.  I had my og setup set to 8.5*... whatever itll be fine.

Initial impressions are.... well im still trying to figure this out.  Overall I cant wait to get out again with this when im not clearly sick and back to 100%.
 
 
 
 

I shot a career best 82 this weekend, on a course that has been pretty tough for me previously. Even with a career best round, I felt like I left some strokes out there with my putter - really happy with where my game is this early in the season!

Currently on rain delay after 3 holes. Playing Reservoir Creek in Naples, NY. 8 iron from 152 for a 2. Golf is more fun when you don’t have to putt. 
 
Now we wait. 

Works great for me - a few quibbles here and there when it misses shots. 3 years in and my driver sensor is starting to die, but I need to replace the grip anyways (it's a built-in sensor). The data about my game really helps direct my practice time, and I found that it also allowed me to dial in distances within a round or two when I switched to a new set of irons.

Went out for 9 holes on Saturday and decided to play from the front tees to see how low I could go. Ball striking an short game were good, but my lag putting let me down - 3 over, with 3 3-putts. Have a weekend golf trip coming up next weekend for my brother's bachelor party, so the game seems to be coming into form at the right time!

My target yardage is usually around 6400 yards, but I don't mind playing whatever the group (or randoms) I'm golfing with want to play - I've learned to taper my expectations based on where I'm playing from.
Interestingly, I played 9 holes last week for the first time from the front tees at a local course. It was a very different experience than what I'm used to (sand wedge on both par 3s, drove the green on a par 4), but it was fun! One thing that I noted though is that on holes where the tees were significantly forward, they were all placed off to the side, and in a few cases that meant that trees were blocking you out from hitting the center of the fairway. One one par 4 hole I actually had to hit a 7-iron off the tee, because the only way I could hit it any further and still have a look at the green was to hit a draw (which isn't a shot shape I have in the bag).

Works great for me - a few quibbles here and there when it misses shots. 3 years in and my driver sensor is starting to die, but I need to replace the grip anyways (it's a built-in sensor). The data about my game really helps direct my practice time, and I found that it also allowed me to dial in distances within a round or two when I switched to a new set of irons.

Who’s going to the U S Open in Pinehurst?  
 
Proud Pinehurst member and volunteer, I’ll be working as a Marshal on the 8th hole. Stop by and say hi!

@GolfSpy_APH great write up! Happy to see some of my pics make the cut, I was sweating since it was my first go 😅
Excited to see if interest picks up in the thread, and glad to see some adopters already starting to chime in!
https://mygolfspy.com/news-opinion/forum-member-review-ping-s159-wedges/?

Works great for me - a few quibbles here and there when it misses shots. 3 years in and my driver sensor is starting to die, but I need to replace the grip anyways (it's a built-in sensor). The data about my game really helps direct my practice time, and I found that it also allowed me to dial in distances within a round or two when I switched to a new set of irons.

Went out for 9 holes on Saturday and decided to play from the front tees to see how low I could go. Ball striking an short game were good, but my lag putting let me down - 3 over, with 3 3-putts. Have a weekend golf trip coming up next weekend for my brother's bachelor party, so the game seems to be coming into form at the right time!

Went out for 9 holes on Saturday and decided to play from the front tees to see how low I could go. Ball striking an short game were good, but my lag putting let me down - 3 over, with 3 3-putts. Have a weekend golf trip coming up next weekend for my brother's bachelor party, so the game seems to be coming into form at the right time!

Went out for 9 holes on Saturday and decided to play from the front tees to see how low I could go. Ball striking an short game were good, but my lag putting let me down - 3 over, with 3 3-putts. Have a weekend golf trip coming up next weekend for my brother's bachelor party, so the game seems to be coming into form at the right time!

Went out for 9 holes on Saturday and decided to play from the front tees to see how low I could go. Ball striking an short game were good, but my lag putting let me down - 3 over, with 3 3-putts. Have a weekend golf trip coming up next weekend for my brother's bachelor party, so the game seems to be coming into form at the right time!

I played just this past weekend at the local Air Force base in Florida.  We’ve been through a dry spell and to say the course was “parched” would be generous.  Most of the greens were in very rough shape and the fairways were borderline dirt. But, my game doesn’t see the fairway that often, so the rough wasn’t bad. We didn’t bother with keeping score, just who lost the most balls.  I lost one less, but I can’t complain.  Good company, inexpensive round and I played okay for having a litany of aches & pains. Life ain’t bad.

Went out for 9 holes on Saturday and decided to play from the front tees to see how low I could go. Ball striking an short game were good, but my lag putting let me down - 3 over, with 3 3-putts. Have a weekend golf trip coming up next weekend for my brother's bachelor party, so the game seems to be coming into form at the right time!

New PB!

I've been playing a bunch. Played yesterday actually and started with a triple, double, par, birdie. Talk about a bounce back after an opening meltdown! Ever up right on my handicap.

Today was a tee box miracle! Even when I missed a fairway, I had a line at the green all day. 77%

Hit some great chips, a few darts from inside 120, and generally putted well. I think above all, the goldfish memory was in full effect. And today I got the good bounces. That's a thing.



My goal this year was to put up some rounds in the low 80s. I'm supposed to be satisfied right?

Not close! I can taste that 79.

Anyways, golf is hard. Golf is fun. I feel blessed to be able to spend this perfect day out on the course.

Wishing you all favorable bounces.

B

At the risk of asking an exceedingly specific question - does anyone know if "Var" is actually Standard Deviation (square root of the square of every individual data point) or if it is in fact Variance (square of all the individual data points)?
Earlier in the thread and in the software it seemed like they called it "deviation" and then it changed to being called "Var". I am hoping it is in fact standard deviation, as that number is a lot more usable without needing a calculator!
I might do some quick spreadsheet math this morning to check.

Not a golf-specific purchase, but the truck I ordered back in January finally arrived last Friday, and it's been every bit as good as I'd hoped.

The range was lovely and I didn't see many carts going off so I stole a quick nine. Wasn't going to even keep score but it started off pretty good so why not?

I don't think I missed a single putt inside of 7 feet. Had some driver misses that weren't punished and made some great recovery shots for position with my hybrid. Hybrid hasn't been a confident club for a while now.

4 over for the 9. No birdies. 5/7 FIR but only 3/9 GIR. The scramble was strong today.

Besides two thin shots, striking was excellent. Definitely hitting my irons a bit further now that it's warmer.

I think it's time to look at a spinnier ball. Not seeing much zip.

I'm playing the golf I dreamed about playing last year at this time. Which means more practice, not less. Turns out, playing a whole bunch may have been the difference. Whodathunkit?

Sent from my Pixel 8 Pro using Tapatalk

Played my first round ever on Sunday! I struggled a bit in the beginning but found a decent groove as the holes went on. Definitely have a lot to work on but great to get out there to play. Irons need work for sure. I also need to control/slow my swing down quite a bit. Chipping/putting game seemed to be my skill where I played decently.
Kind of lost track of scoring, wasn't an honest score day either since we played best ball. I managed to hit par with help of a good drive though.
 
I can see how this can be come addicting, I am already setting up my next tee time! 😅

Today I had the privilege of playing a course in the northwest suburbs of Chicago called Stonewall Orchard Golf Club. This is a course that has been on my radar a lot as I've heard it's one of the best public courses in the Chicago area. It is an Arthur Hills design and I was very impressed overall with the quality of this course.
I ended up playing as a solo, as most of my friends had plans for Memorial Day. I was paired with a father/son duo who rode together as I rode alone, which I didn't mind. They were great company and solid players in their own right.
I ended up shooting an 87 (47-40) in what I will call "A Tale of Two Nines." The front nine I just couldn't seem to get my game going. I actually started with a par on the first, but everything was going right and I just wasn't feeling super comfortable over the ball. Ended up with three doubles on the front. 
The back started off great. I made great use of my 2-iron today as many of the holes didn't require driver. I was actually even on the back through 14 until I couldn't find a green in regulation and finished with four straight bogeys.
All in all, I am not too disappointed with how I scored. The course is definitely challenging and you need to know where to miss in order to score low. In addition, the wind was howling towards the end of the round and I was needing to club up twice just to have a chance of being pin high. Also, even with all the rain the course got yesterday, the greens were lightning fast. 
That being said, I can definitively say that Stonewall Orchard is going on my short list of best public courses in Chicago. The conditions were great, the layout was challenging, yet fun, and I never felt like two holes were the same. I will definitely be recommending this course to friends and hope to play it again sometime soon!
Until next round!

Just a quick update for everyone regarding the Triple Diamond, I have gotten about 10 rounds in with it, and it is f****** impressive. It’s a significant improvement over the first generation. Here’s some photos from the round. Generally, it’s longer, more controllable, more forgiving, and an absolute monster.

Quick update...
First scramble was a success until I got tired and lost my swing with the big clubs... We then pushed everything RIGHT... into trouble lol. Sadly not even the Callaway Ai SMOKE MAX D can fix swings that arnt even close haha
The MAX D performed awesome as it has for me the entire test. We used most of my drives. Honestly most of my long shots so happy about that. 💪
ADJUSTMENTS!!!
I moved the hosel sleeves from what I have been using +1/D to S/D while also removing the stock 7 grams weight for a 10 gram weight. This has upped my spin enough to allow the hosel adjustment and help me with carry yardage. Course was soft yesterday evening so most driver just hit with a divot/plug and bounced within a yard or so. I must say the heavier weight has also given me more confident to in the club feeling like I can get after it when needed. We will keep adjusting just to see what happens so more to come here...
 
Now for the photos which is what everyone wants!