International

[GolfSpy MPR]

MGS New Member Introduction: International Region

All the other nations of the world, which is almost all the people

Welcome to the MyGolfSpy forums! We’re always glad to have new members contributing to the best golf discussions on the internet.  If you’ve already created an introduction thread, feel free to re-introduce yourself here!

If you haven’t yet done so, take a moment to check out the Moral Codes that shape how we treat each other here.

You’ll find that this community is very welcoming to newcomers so come on in, take off your shoes, and get comfortable. Tell us all about yourself. To help us get to know you, here are some questions you might answer in your new member post. Feel free to share some fun pictures of your golfing ventures as well!

1. How long have you been playing golf? What’s your handicap or normal score?

2. What do you love about golf?

3. What brings you to MyGolfSpy? Do you already know any other Spies?

4. Where are you from? What is your home course?

5. What are the best and worst things about golf in your region?

6. What do you do for a living?

7. How’d you pick your user name?

[GolfSpy_APH]

Why no kick this one off and hope that it ends up being the biggest one! No not a new member but we have to start with someone!

1. I have been golfing most of my life, but only taking it more seriously the last 5 or 6 years. I've got my handicap down to a 9 and am typically in the low 80s and creep into 70s at my home track. And more importantly I'm a lefty!

2. I love golf for the ppl you meet along the way and taking time to be outside and enjoying all the different sights and landscapes many courses offer. Shout out to NZ who has many more courses I need to explore!

3. MGS is my home for everything golf. Although I have been a member here for a while Nunfa0 is the only member I have met in person. It's a great community and keeps me entertained during the winter golf withdrawals.

4. I'm from Halifax Nova Scotia Canada and play a variety of courses with Lost Creek Golf Club being my home track. 

5. We have world class courses here that are truly stunning ... However we have horrible winter's that seem to never end. Being on the east coast of Canada out weather can be confusing and volatile with more severe storms each year. 

6. I work as an ice technician for curling clubs and events. Different I know but I truly love what I do. Plus summers are my off season!!

7. Originally I used Danbrook (my last name) however after the year was up I was in need of a change and went with Apolloshowl. Apollo is my pup who is now 6 years old. He is a Alaskan Klee Kai which is a mini husky. He has a really amazing howl that is more like talking and makes me laugh and smile. It's a name I've used for fantasy teams and more and felt very fitting for here. Plus it harks back to my hometown growing up with me growinh up on Apollo road. So lots going on with it!

Looking forward to reading more about my fellow international spy's! 

Edited February 12, 2019 by Apolloshowl

[alsi]

Been  checking the site for a long time , and finally decided it was time to join. Most of my equipment  is influenced my MGS  “Most Wanted” list and I really enjoy reading your articles. I picked up golf late (in my 30s) and love all aspects of the game. My handicap is somewhere around 20 and I play all around SW Ontario.

[doubleday]

I've been playing golf for 20+ years but have really taken it more seriously in the last 7 or 8 years.  I'm a 9 handicap, who is aiming to be a 7...  Aren't we all....  Handicap is frozen for the winter but my scores have really started to come down this winter.  Regularly shoot in the high 70's and low 80s, with the odd round in the low to mid-70s.  73 best round 3 times.  

I love the fact that as good as you can play you can never play a perfect game!  Keeps you coming back for more every single time!!  Love the comradery and friendly competition that brings golfers together!!  Other than my family memories, my best memories are of fun times with buddies on the golf course!!  Awesome!

I've been following MGS for a couple years now and decided to become part of the family.  #1 place to find any kind of golf content!!  Sorry Mark Crossfield, Rick Sheils, James Robinson....  etc...  Still, love you guys too...  Shout out to TXG Tour Experience Golf!!  Good Canadian kids!!!  Keep up the fine work!!

I'm from Vancouver in Beautiful British Columbia, Canada!  I'm a players club member at Morgan Creek Golf Course, which is where I play much of my golf.  However, my golf group will play at several different courses.  Sand Baggers and Whiners.

We have some very nice courses here in Metro Vancouver as well as world-class courses all over the province.  Our weather is the worst thing about where we live.  That being said, I have played every weekend since Sept until last week, when mother nature decided to dump 40cm (15 3/4 inches) on us.  Can't complain about our weather so far this winter...  It can melt anytime...

I'm a teacher.  Summers off to feed the addiction.  

Looking forward to getting to know like-minded golf fanatics!!

Cheers!!

 

 

[Kenny B]

20 hours ago, doubleday said:

I've been playing golf for 20+ years but have really taken it more seriously in the last 7 or 8 years.  I'm a 9 handicap, who is aiming to be a 7...  Aren't we all....  Handicap is frozen for the winter but my scores have really started to come down this winter.  Regularly shoot in the high 70's and low 80s, with the odd round in the low to mid-70s.  73 best round 3 times.  

I love the fact that as good as you can play you can never play a perfect game!  Keeps you coming back for more every single time!!  Love the comradery and friendly competition that brings golfers together!!  Other than my family memories, my best memories are of fun times with buddies on the golf course!!  Awesome!

I've been following MGS for a couple years now and decided to become part of the family.  #1 place to find any kind of golf content!!  Sorry Mark Crossfield, Rick Sheils, James Robinson....  etc...  Still, love you guys too...  Shout out to TXG Tour Experience Golf!!  Good Canadian kids!!!  Keep up the fine work!!

I'm from Vancouver in Beautiful British Columbia, Canada!  I'm a players club member at Morgan Creek Golf Course, which is where I play much of my golf.  However, my golf group will play at several different courses.  Sand Baggers and Whiners.

We have some very nice courses here in Metro Vancouver as well as world-class courses all over the province.  Our weather is the worst thing about where we live.  That being said, I have played every weekend since Sept until last week, when mother nature decided to dump 40cm (15 3/4 inches) on us.  Can't complain about our weather so far this winter...  It can melt anytime...

I'm a teacher.  Summers off to feed the addiction.  

Looking forward to getting to know like-minded golf fanatics!!

Cheers!!

 

 

Welcome neighbor!

If you have summers off, you are welcome to join us in July for a weekend of golf in the Spokane area.  @Har in the Hat started this off and Spokane seems to be central to those interested.  Here is the link to the thread...

 

[Wessex]

• How long have you been playing golf? What’s your handicap or normal score?

• Hi, My name is Peter and I'm from the little island across what you would call "The Pond", Old England. I'v been playing for 23 years and a handicap of 16.

• What do you love about golf?

• I'd watched golf on television when I was in my teens and always thought it needed too much accuracy and would cost the earth. 30 years later when there was a glut of golf clubs and they were basically begging you to join I tried it. Then the bug bit and 20+ years later I'm still trying to perfect my game. This last weekend I think I got close to what I would call feeling comfortable with how I play but it has been a Love/Hate relationship. Our club Seniors have a summer friendly competition with 17 other clubs in the South which I enjoy playing in.

• What brings you to MyGolfSpy? Do you already know any other Spies?

• I did a search for a review on Shot Scope and found you people.

• Where are you from? What is your home course?

• As I said, Old England, in the deep south near Bournemouth a coastal holiday town. Home course is Rushmore Golf Club high on chalk downs in a private estate with some gorgeous views and tall redwood trees. I have had the misfortune of hitting most of them as well. Has the unique distinction of being in two Counties, (States); a beautiful mature course.

• What are the best and worst things about golf in your region?

• The friendliness of the regions members, the worst being the weather. We don't water our fairways and last year's very hot and prolong weather scorched the fairway grass and now in winter the fairways are a but muddy in the rain. Fortunately ours aren't too bad but still we're suffering a bit.

• What do you do for a living?

• I teach people to drive. Patience of a Saint. Past retiring age but just love the job and as long as the phone keeps ringing with prospective clients I'll still keep teaching. Keeps me in golf, beer and good holidays money.

• How’d you pick your user name?

• Thomas Hardy wrote his books in this area and Wessex was a fictitious County in the south where I live. So it's called Wessex One to One School of Motoring. I specialise in Automatic Tuition and help the people who have been disabled with stroke etc to get back behind the wheel.

Edited February 17, 2019 by Wessex

[doubleday]

Sounds fun!  If it's the second half of July I might be able to come,  In Hawaii for 2 weeks.  

[Kenny B]

17 hours ago, doubleday said:

Sounds fun!  If it's the second half of July I might be able to come,  In Hawaii for 2 weeks.  

Right now it's planned for July 12-14, unless it changes for some reason.  Enjoy Hawaii.  I save my trips to Hawaii for the winter.

[jhak]

Greetings from icy Finland!

I jumped the gun in the Shafts board before introducing myself. But better do it later than not at all, right?  

My love affair with the game began in 2013, when a friend managed to talk me into taking a green card course. The course was couple of hours of group instruction on three evenings. After the first one, I went straight to the pro shop and bought a beginners set. I think it was Ben Sayers M15 in blue. For a few years, I enjoyed the game immensely without much regard to score, technique or course management.

Realizing that I wasn't really going anywhere, especially technique-wise, I delved into Youtube golf channels and took a few lessons. I started to focus towards short game, mostly because I found I could get the easiest gains near the greens. My long game was mostly held together thanks to the Aeroburner hybrid I still carry around, and humbly accommodating for almost as much slice as distance when lining up my shots.

The Ben Sayers irons gave way to a set graphite-shafted game improvement Callaways which managed to stay in the bag for two years. However, I always graved for the feeling of the steel shaft, and eventually switched to steel-shafted Fly-Z set. They were much nicer to hit, although I had yet to really understand how the golf swing works and how to produce favorable impact conditions. And I never did, until one March (bear in mind, here in Finland we get to play from April/May to maybe October) I spotted a set of new Mizuno MP-54's for half the price at my local golf store. I hit three shots indoors with the seven iron and put the clubs in my bag.

The MP's changed the way I hit the ball overnight. No longer did I have the bravery to just whack at the ball as hard as I thought I could. I had to concentrate, relax, control the club and understand what I was trying to do. For me, these irons were the necessary wake-up call to get my head around the golf swing and the impact. Lacking natural talent at the game, dropping my handicap from 38 to 16 was huge for me. I attribute me still playing golf today to these irons. I will play lots of other sets in the years to come, but I will never part with my MP-54's and they will never gather dust.

As I said earlier, we get to play roughly 6 or 7 months around summer in Finland. This makes winter a natural time for making changes and training. Now, I have always been one to choose playing over training anytime. Last autumn was a magical time for me, but mostly because I played enough to have some rounds where I consistently hit quality iron shots. I shot a new personal best of 89 only to best myself the day after with an 88. Coincidentally, I was born in -88. (This was on a par 73 course, FWIW.)

The newfound iron strike and dropping scores have lead me to finally embrace training; this winter I've started strength training in the gym three times a week and hitting the indoors range as often. Swinging now feels effortless and powerful and I'm set to continue on this regime until the snow melts and grass grows. My goal is to gain as much speed as possible before summer and then learn to control the curve once we can hit balls outdoors and actually see how it flies.

So that's how I've ended up here. Let me know what you think, if that wasn't too long. I sure like writing...

To finish up, here's me (right) with my playing buddy in a memorial scramble, and another picture of my club (Espoo Ringside Golf) at just a magical sunrise last October.

Go Low!

[GolfSpy_APH]

Awesome introduction! I've had the pleasure to spend some time in Finland over the last few years however they have always been in the winter. I really hope to get there sometime in the summer to experience some of your courses!

[jhak]

Thank you! Nice to hear you've been to Finland. Late summer tends to be the best time for golf here. Many of the courses take a long time to recover after winter since a lot of the grass dies and frosty spring nights with no snow shielding can make things worse. Drop me a line if you ever get the chance to come and need some playing company!

[GolfSpy_APH]

29 minutes ago, jhak said:

Thank you! Nice to hear you've been to Finland. Late summer tends to be the best time for golf here. Many of the courses take a long time to recover after winter since a lot of the grass dies and frosty spring nights with no snow shielding can make things worse. Drop me a line if you ever get the chance to come and need some playing company!

Most certainly will! Always good to have a local to show some good spots and a few hidden gems. 

Enjoy the site as well there are a ton of incredible ppl here with the best content around. 

[KBaker]

Hello from Canada!

1. I've been golfing for about 8 years when I had a customer who owned a local course and would get the golf cart tires fixed at my shop. He ended up dropping off free passes every week and a buddy and I picked up clubs and started playing. It's a difficult course and after a couple years of hacking our way around the track shooting 100-110 I decided to get serious. I used to do a lot of travel rock climbing but with age the risks started to not be worth it anymore.   Within a few years I had dropped to a 10.1 index but then came my wife, and a house, and a couple dogs so playing time was harder to come by and when I was only getting out once a month my handicap crept up to around 18. Two years ago I dedicated myself to atleast one round a week and to work towards getting into the single digits. I finished off last year as an 11.7 and am looking forqard to the snow melting to work on getting to that 9. 

2. What isn't there to love?

3. I've been a long time reader of MGS and because of the testing I gave many brands a try which I never would have thought about in the past and even ended up with a set of Srixon Z565 irons because of it. 

4. I hail from the snowy north (Ontario, Canada). My home course is Hidden Lake Golf Club. This will be my first year as a member at a club the last several years I've floated around most of the courses in the Burlington area. 

5. We have a ton of great courses in a small area but we have long winters. 

6. I golf for a living but I'm mechanic in order to pay for that. 

7. Used my name, I'm not too creative. 

[Tricky Micky]

Playing golf on and off for about 30 yrs. 

HDCP 5.

The thing I love about golf is no two days are the same.

What brings me to golf spy? The chance to interact with fellow golfers all over the globe, get inside info on latest gear. Chance to be aproduct tester. 

From Blantyre Glasgow, home course Hamilton golf club, Scotland, also referred to as Ricarton.

Best thing about golf in my region, you dont need to travel far to play top tier golf courses. Worrst thing about golf in my region, weather, I can experience the 4 seasons in one game of golf..

I work in management for a logistics and distribution company. 

I picked my name from one of my nicknames

 

[tony@CIC]

1 hour ago, Tricky Micky said:

Playing golf on and off for about 30 yrs. 

HDCP 5.

The thing I love about golf is no two days are the same.

What brings me to golf spy? The chance to interact with fellow golfers all over the globe, get inside info on latest gear. Chance to be aproduct tester. 

From Blantyre Glasgow, home course Hamilton golf club, Scotland, also referred to as Ricarton.

Best thing about golf in my region, you dont need to travel far to play top tier golf courses. Worrst thing about golf in my region, weather, I can experience the 4 seasons in one game of golf..

I work in management for a logistics and distribution company. 

I picked my name from one of my nicknames

 

Greetings from Ohio which by the way can sometimes have similar weather patterns. Well maybe not 4 seasons - but 3 aren't out of the question. Glad you're here and looking forward to your future posts. 

[Dawson]

Hello there, 

This is Dawson from China.

A manufacturer of golf range finder.

I join the group in investigating your average requirement to a golf rangefinder,

then, I can develop our goods with you guys' professional suggestions.

My English is not very good, please forgive my China English...

[Svengineer]

Hi, I am a severe golf nerd from Iceland and it feels a bit weird to present myself as a grown man. I am not sure I have ever done this. But I really respect the work that MGS is doing and just sponsored MGS to make sure I help keep you guys doing the good work.

1. I have played since 2007 and currectly play off 4.3 hcp in the EGA system and usually play even to 8 over par, depending on how well I know the course.

2. I just love the challenge of playing better today than yesterday and beating my friends at the game. Insanely competitive type.

3. I ''use'' MGS before any purchase of clubs or equipment. I have a good club maker buddy in Iceland that knows all the tricks in the book, but you guys are able to test everything and that is very helpful.

4. I was born in Iceland and started playing in Reykjavik, the capitol of Iceland but I have been in Bergen, Norway for 6 years and my home course is Fana Golf Club.

5. The best thing, compared to my Iceland experience it the weather and the quality of the greens. The worst thing is the access to training areas, almost no short game per 3 courses, no outdoor driving range when it is freezing, since my range uses floater balls into a lake that somehow gets too stiff when the temperature drops below freezing.

6. I am a mechanical engineer and work in the oil industry.

7. Svengineer is just so obvious for an engineer called Sveinn.

My strength is length off the tee, I have over 120mph driver speed, but that also means my wild shots usually just disappear so I have had to change my gameplan from in Iceland where it is possible to bomb it on almost every hole to basically just using the driver on 3-5 holes every round. I train alot, mostly with driver to rein in the tee shots and be able to use the potential of hitting up to 300m drives. I train at home indoors on a carpet with foam balls to keep the Phil Mickelson chipping method in check at all times.

My most unusual aspect on the course is that I use a long two grip side saddle putter that I putt with a pendulum motion so I am really good at knocking in short putts because I do not ever hit the ball off the line I pick, so that usually causes some interesting discussions, and almost always purchase advice near the end of the round.

I think the fact that fact thatI have only once proke par is probably mental, I overthink and invariably screw up a good round on the last 5 holes and that will be next summer's mission; to break par at least on a monthly basis which I think I should be able to do since I regularly play even par.

Despite the golf addiction, I still have a family, two boys that are already playing golf and I just enlisted my wife for a course this summer so I may possibly win the lottery this summer and have the entire family playing golf (but I will not get my hopes up for the wife.) She is slightly more restrained when it come to losing herself in a hobby like I have.

Otherwise, I use Shot Scope V2 and am very pleased with it and would totally be up for an analysis of my game by them in case they see something that I don't that might improve my score.

Lets get nerdy, Svengineer

[ashylarry]

Greetings from Regina, Canada.

I've lurked on here for a while but while I wait for the snow to melt and the season to start I might as well actually participate.

The best thing about golf in my region is the price. Golf is generally quite a bit cheaper here than other places in the country. The downside is that our season is relatively short.  Usually about 5 months that could stretch into 7 if the weather is good in April and October some years.

My home course is the Royal Regina Golf Club and I'm currently a 6.7 index and one of the many lefties in Canada.

I'm a software architect and I have a real golf addiction in the summer months and try to play at least 2 rounds a week to take advantage of that short season.

 

My current WITB:

Callaway Rogue Driver - 9.5/stiff

Ping G25 3H & 4H

Ping G25 5I-PW

Cleveland 588 RTX 3.0 48* - The only left handed 48* I could find in a store here

Vokey SM5 52*, 56*, 60*

Scotty Cameron Studio Fastback

[jhak]

21 hours ago, Svengineer said:

My most unusual aspect on the course is that I use a long two grip side saddle putter that I putt with a pendulum motion so I am really good at knocking in short putts because I do not ever hit the ball off the line I pick, so that usually causes some interesting discussions, and almost always purchase advice near the end of the round.

Welcome, Sveinn! Would you care to elaborate a bit on your putting? I've actually just begun playing around with different styles after putting Spieth-style (cross-handed, sharp takeaway) for five years.

[MarieLaure]

Hello all from Paris, France,

I am Marie-Laure, pleased to be a new member of this forum.

1. I only started golf a year ago (March 2018), but I immediately fell in love with the game.
   I don't have a handicap yet (this is my 2019 objective) but I usually score between 100-110 on the courses I play often. 

2. What do you love about golf? The long walks between two shots, preferably after hitting a nice one, that let me time to think about the next one. 

3. What brings you to MyGolfSpy? Do you already know any other Spies? I have been reading you for several months now, with much pleasure. I thought it could be fun to participate on some topics also.

4. Where are you from? What is your home course? I am from Switzerland but now living in Paris. 

5. What are the best and worst things about golf in your region? Many courses but even more golfers, especially during the weekend. I feel a little pressured when better players are behind but don't seem to want to play through me... 

6. What do you do for a living? I work for a consulting firm (Strategy and Finance)

7. How’d you pick your user name? I am pretty sure my user name is my actual first name...