smohan215

Some stronger opinions in this thread than I was expecting! I've played a TON of used balls from LostGolfBalls.com over the years. I typically stuck with a 4A ProV1. It always made more sense to me to buy 4A ProV1s at $18/dz instead of new TruFeels or whatever else in that category; because realistically the used ProV1s are probably still inside the manufacturing tolerances allowed for cheaper balls. And really, for balls, the biggest priority would be consistency. The first thing I'll say about buying/using used balls is that you should probably stick with flagship models (since those will have more durable covers than cheaper balls) and to stick with 4A or above - and NEVER refinished. Refinished balls have been some of the worst balls I've ever hit and are definitely not worth touching a club with. Also, on most used balls sites (at least for ProV1 models) they'll differentiate by year, so the batch you get will all be from the same model year; I would definitely offer as a pro-tip to buy those since, a) you'll more likely have greater consistency between balls, and b) those batches would have necessarily gone through an additional QA for them to be sorted. So when buying used balls: go with a flagship model from a reputable seller, stick with 4A or above and never refurbished, and select a batch with a specific model year. This past season I played used ProV1 2021s, and new ProV1 2021s and 2023s in practice rounds and competitive rounds. The BIGGEST difference I'll notice in a used ball vs a new ball: the cover on the new ball is much brighter. New balls are much easier to find. So in a strokes-gained analysis of new vs used for myself: I'd score better with new balls, but really a lot of times those were strokes saved by not having to take a drop on a lost ball that should have been found. But as far as performance between used and new? In my experience it's been vanishingly different. If I were to put it on a Trackman, I'd probably get a couple extra yards with driver and a couple hundred extra RPM with irons and wedges - so there is a difference. But that difference is less than two of my swings back-to-back as a mid/high-capper. There is not a single shot I took on a course last season and I thought "ah, if I had been using new balls, that would have been a good shot - but because it was a used ball it duck hooked". That's just not the reality of it.

I actually hadn't considered the OWGR angle before - but wouldn't it be the opposite? (full disclosure: I could be completely misunderstanding this) The OWGR points are awarded in eligible tournaments (which designated events should be) based on position and strength of field. Seems like a solid solution for ranking players in a bunch of different tours and events with varying strengths of field. So as a recent example, Chris Kirk earned 31.24231 points for winning The Honda Classic and Max Homa earned 40.31926 for his 2nd place at The Genesis Invitational. Makes sense because the top ranked players at Honda were 18-20 while Genesis had all of the Top 10 and most of the Top 50 players competing - the strength of field was drastically different. But won't that be the case at every designated event? Those should always have the greatest strength of field (which is part of the whole selling point, right?) since it will be the Top 50 previous season + Top 10 Current, otherwise + Current season winners, etc. But when you couple that with no-cut... now you have a not-so-hypothetical world #43 Kevin Kisner who's clever enough to know he makes money and earns OWGR and FedEx Cup points no matter what, while world #47 Jason Day (but #114 at the end of last season) potentially sits home an extra 8 weeks a year. I picked Jason Day (OWGR stats) semi-randomly, but he's actually a good example. He was ranked #114 at the end of last season so would be ineligible for designated events that way. He finished T18 at the AMEX and T7 at Farmer's earning him ~11.8 OWGR points and ranking him #92; so he's still ineligible for WM Phoenix or Genesis (assuming the speculation is correct and those are both designated events) outside of sponsor exemptions or getting lucky with the math. So Jason Day sits home for two weeks instead of finishing 5 at WM Phoenix and T9 at Genesis (earning ~25 OWGR points and moving to #46). I just don't see how this doesn't turn into a "the rich get richer" scenario. Sure there's compensations for current-season winners and top points-earners between designated events... but the majority of your 70-78 player field (Top 50 from the previous season) are locked in for 8 no-cut events which earns them points with any result besides a withdrawal. I concede it will only be 1-2 points if they finish last, but that's more than 0 points - and in the Jason Day example, those are the exact events players need to be in to move up the rankings - those are the events that allow for a player to move up the rankings in a meaningful way. I mean if we're seeing the gap widen between a Kevin Kisner over a Jason Day, what's that going to look like for a Joel Dahmen, Anirban Lahiri, Rickie Fowler, or Kevin Na? To me, it seems like they'd have to grind even more: playing all 3 non-designated events (with cuts) in hopes of getting to the 2 designated events. More weeks on the road with potentially no income... which was one of the actually sympathetic arguments the LIV players made - the grind on tour is brutal and can break you financially. Maybe I've got the math all wrong, but it looks like it will insulate the top players while making it a lot more challenging for players "on the bubble".

I was able to snag a lob wedge with this shaft and love it - want to complete the set in the same shafts. Ideally looking for a 54° with 8° of bounce.

Sergio must feel somewhat vindicated in going to LIV, what a wild coincidence that the audio was caught and the ruling was found to be in error.

Preface: I am constantly confused by the rules around OOB, I think partially because a lot of non-competitive play treats it pretty fast and loose. In this clip from Good Good on YouTube, one of the players (Grant) is talking to the camera saying his ball crossed in "right around here" and he's taking a drop. But where he is doesn't appear to be a hazard; there's no stakes, there's no water. It appears to be just out of bounds. It was my understanding (and I could be completely wrong) that you don't get a drop for hitting out of bounds. Here he would have to hit another shot from his original ball and take a one stroke penalty. Is that correct?

I was thinking about that too, but I was struggling with generating too much spin. The 9° driver head with a stiff shaft is new-ish to me and actually fixed a lot initially. BTW! How do you like the Mizuno Fli-Hi? I've been eyeing those to replace hybrids

Hahaha well this is just a little too reasonable for my taste! You're totally right of course, it's just weirdly something I never end up doing. I talk myself out of it because I'm thinking "I'm at the range, I can use this time to 'fix' whatever swing mechanic" which is very much giving myself too much credit to actually do that. So of course I get myself where I have a couple rounds booked and no time for a range session more than pre-round warmup. Poor planning on my part.

I've honestly been of the same school of thought until very recently. My thought was always that if I'm putting my driver in a draw setting, I'm reinforcing whatever swing mechanics I'm creating that produce bad shots. Yesterday I read this article about Scottie Scheffler's bag and the two things that stood out to me were about lead tape and bending the lofts on his wedges. I was also looking up the specs on Jack Nicklaus's irons because I have an old set of MacGregors in his spec I took to the range (man are they hard to hit) and saw that he had his 1/2" short and 0° bounce. Tiger has irons and wedges in his spec produced by Taylormade (the irons are in Scottie's bag) and the legend goes that he had Nike create irons that were like the Mizuno irons he played before they signed him. Anyway, all of this is to say: the best players in the world have their clubs adjusted in every imaginable way - so it's almost arrogant for me to think I'm 'too good' to not use these same adjustments.

I have a buddy that swears his straightest drives are when he dropkicks it because it helps to square the face, so there might be something to it!

When adjusting the hosel on a driver to 'draw' what is this actually doing to promote a draw? With adjustable weights it makes sense; moving weight to the heel will promote the toe to release more quickly, closing the face at impact. But the hosel adjustment obviously isn't moving weight around, so it must be (I'm guessing) adjusting the lie angle to be more upright which typically promotes a draw. With irons this makes sense because the loft is effectively pointed closed when the heel is lower than the toe. Also it seems that turf interaction with the heel and not toe would close the face (dragging the heel as the toe continues to release) as the ball is being compressed - which would also close the face. But since driver has much less loft and no turf interaction, it makes it seem that an upright lie would promote a draw nearly as much. I've never used the draw setting before, because I've normally had a natural draw - which has frustratingly evolved into a push-fade with driver this season. My path is still inside-out but I'm failing to close the clubface. This is probably for another post at another time; but my issue (I think) comes from feeling like I need to help the club to have a positive angle of attack, so I'm releasing incorrectly. My hesitation in using the draw setting is that if the above is correct, making the lie angle more upright when my fitted clubs (Ping Fairway adjusted flat, and Mizuno irons flat as standard) are flat and don't have the same miss seems counterproductive. All of this is to ask: if my typical miss with driver is a push-fade, would using the 'draw' bias adjustment on a Cobra hosel be a potential fix? Caveat: clubs I've been fitted for (irons and fairway wood) are all flat, so making my driver more upright seems like I'd be working in the wrong direction (if my assumption about what the hosel adjustment does is actually correct).

I started playing in earnest during 2020 and after lessons and really working on my swing this past winter, I want to break 90 for the first time with the stretch goal of breaking 90 at three different courses. My swing and game are capable of it, but I struggle to (as most people trying to break 90) mitigate the damage from blow-ups. Starting this weekend, I'm trying to be a lot more thoughtful with my tee shots instead of pulling driver anytime I'm on a par 4 or 5 without an obvious forced layup. Fingers crossed this is a winning strategy!

Similar spot! It's cool to see how many of us that took it up in earnest in early covid are sticking with it and have developed some pretty strong games. I'm similarly in the 90s most of the time and my goal is to break 90 at three different courses this year, which is starting to feel overly ambitious. I play with my uncle sometimes who's consistently an 80s shooter and the thing that always strikes me is just how boring his game is. There's no spectacular shots, he doesn't have really great distance or a very nice swing, but he also just doesn't get into trouble. My swing has improved tremendously in the off-season with lessons and tons of simulator time. Driver and fairway distances are way up, irons are a little longer but have much better trajectories... but my scores are about the same. It really seems like minimizing damage is the key to breaking 90. Anyway, good luck to ya! Excited to see someone else chasing the same goal!

I played my first 18 holes just over 3 years ago and only played a few times before really getting into it last summer. I usually score in the 90s but sometimes over 100. My goal this year is to break 90 at 3 different courses. I think I love the endless progress of it. There's always improvement and work and you can hit some amazing feeling shots on the way. It's been a really great resource learning about equipment! I'm from the Philly area, and my home course will be Five Ponds this summer. The best I'd say is the variety of courses, though I don't know because I've never played anywhere outside of PA and NJ. The worst is definitely the cold months. I work at an advertising agency doing data analytics. It's basically just my email address haha