Keep it going Franky.

_________________
Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

Heading out of town next weekend and will miss a couple weekends of golf. Just looking at yearly stats and very similar to last year. Probably have a solid 25 rounds left, maybe more so I'll see if I can get some improvement.

2022 year end 77.06 avg -- 40% fairways -- 49.8 % greens -- 30.32 putts-- 57% scrambling for par -- 37% sand -- 1.7 birdies/rd

2023 ( 36 rounds) 77.63 avg -- 41% fairways-- 50.2% greens -- 31.17 putts-- 55.6% scrambling for par -- 27.6% sand -- 1.56 birdies/rd

GOALS Under 77-- 44% -- 52% -- 30.5 -- 60% -- 33% -- 1.75--

_________________
Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

just upgraded drivers. my swing speed dropped to an avg of 102 mph and the fitter recommended that I drop from x flex. at 42 that probably makes sense. shaft is also a little lighter.

going from TM SLDR TP - Xflex to a Sim 2 Max. S flex.

I made a mistake buying the SLDR. its awful. I figured out how to hit it over the years but it can get pretty inconsistent if you don't' hit it right on the nose. I've been putting my old FT3 in the bag.

I got rid of my SLDR after one season. Never felt good and the weighting was all weird. You should like the MAX a lot. I’ve been playing the TM M5 for a while now and like it a lot. Also have a Callaway Rogue Sub Zero riding the bench.

_________________
Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

One of these rounds, I'm gonna show up with a giant cardboard cutout of your old avatar mugshot guy, and cheer you on from the gallery.


I hadn't touched my clubs in 3+ weeks due to poor play, but I ended up at Cog Hill's range after dark on Tuesday and actually hit the ball tremendously well. I'm hoping the storms hold off so I can play 9 holes after work today.

_________________

lol

Sometimes putting the clubs down for a couple weeks does wonders for your swing.

_________________

I didn't play enough to justify getting rid of it. I've been working for a company that makes legal software and have been getting involved in a lot of bar association outings and softball guys have been having me sub for their golf league here or there so it was time.

so i was able to hit a bit more with both to compare on a buddies machine in the basement. I'm losing about 10 yds on well struck balls but my spray is way tighter.

Anyone have a recommendation on lessons / an instructor ? ? Ive never been a very active golfer but am freeing up more time and want to actually learn the proper mechanics . South / southwest burbs if anyone has a guy.

_________________
Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

I’ve been giving up some distance in the hopes of finding more fairways or keep it in play. It’s been much more enjoyable

_________________
Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

Mistwood Golf Club in Romeoville might be a good place to check out. The facilities there are top notch.

_________________

Brilliant minds . Had my first lesson there today ( bought six 1/2 hour lessons . Big takeaways. Thanks to you tube videos and trying to apply what I saw the swing isnt a total wreck ( though definitely a work in progress) address, alignment, posture , rotating the hips rather than a lean back then forward and swinging thru the ball at follow thru rather than making contact and essentially shutting it down were what we worked on. Spent about an hour on the range after the lesson , feet together , just taking half swings with my 8 iron concentrating on what he told me , while it wasnt perfect and there were far more chunks than Id like , Id say 6 or 7 out of every 10 were 50 to 60 yard lobs so all in all it at least gives me something to work on . Based on his suggestion, the next lesson I booked for an hour because obviously you can work on more and get a little more in-depth and after that I’ll have one and a half hour more of lessons. It’s pricey, so I don’t know how long I can continue to keep doing it but even if it’s just this initial three hours of instruction, at least I have someone that knows what they’re looking at guiding me and putting me on the map to doing things right.

_________________
Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

You did the right thing by going to the range after the lesson. As I mentioned earlier in this thread after my lesson, you are wasting your money if you don't go out and practice what you were working on during your lesson. Find as much range time as you can between lessons. Even 15 minutes does wonders. Glad it went well today!

_________________

This is what kind of inspired me to get off my ass and get formal instruction. I’ve been on vacation and had been going to the range hitting balls without any real idea what I was doing wrong. The other day I couldn’t get on the range as the course had a high school tournament going and the range was blocked off for those kids to use before they teed off. I sat and watched a bunch of 15 yr old , 150 lb kids absolutely smash the fucking ball 275 plus , dead straight , irons high and far , hell the smallest kid I saw was maybe 130 lbs and I don’t know whether he was doing a drill or what, but he gripped the driver cross handed and hit maybe 5 balls that way , past the 225 marker high and straight . That was the lynchpin , no use hitting buckets of balls with no direction or plan. Find out HOW to hit the ball the proper way and practice with purpose.

_________________
Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

Ended up getting 21 holes in at the very short and odd Edgebrook in the city. Really ended up being a nice evening. It was warm, but it got cloudy and about the 11th hole or so a lake breeze developed which made the humidity drop to a reasonable level.

First 13 holes or so I hit the ball pretty solid. 7 pars, 6 bogeys. I shot 35 (+3) on the front 9, and had 89 for the entire 21 hole round. Again its only a 4500yd course but you still need to be straight off the tee, chip, and putt. Had a couple bigger numbers towards the end of the round but I was happy to get out and play with minimal shots wasted. My previous rounds had been chock full of shanks and tops, and Friday these were kept to a bare minimum.

Kind of a goofy course that is only at an "ok" condition level but there are some tricky holes where the North Branch of the Chicago River comes in to play and some longer par 3s. Its a nice practice course that I would play again especially considering the $25 cost to ride in the afternoon. This is the right price for sure. The highlight for me was an 85yd par 3 to an elevated green over the river. The first time I played I was long but chipped to about 3' for a tap in par. The second time round I put a wedge to about 10' and two putted for another tap in par.

It was just good to drive away from the course with a smile having had fun out there which had not been the case my previous 3-4 times out.

_________________

good on you taking that next step on honing your swing, and now welcome to the suck. Did you get any eyes on the practice facilities at Mistwood? Wondering if I should check that out over the short game area at Bolingbrook once in awhile.

I finally escaped the 105-115 hear indices and 8am first start times of the Triangle and am heading to Canada for some vacation golf. I'm playing some tune up rounds as I am driving north as I am visiting friends in various cities on the way north.

Today I played at a course about 60 minutes north of the Baltimore suburbs, in Pennsylvania. The weather was great until the last two holes, the high temp today was 84 and it was 71 when I was on the first tee. The course was interesting - lots of trees and hilly foothills terrain. It was short for a long hitter (6100 par 71 off the tips) but long for a senior or bad player (5600 from the golds). Lots of teeing off with 4-iron on the narrowest holes.

I played well for where I'm at in my game. Mostly doubles, a couple of bogeys and only one real blowup hole. I took the 5 and 6 iron out of my bag, and that seemed to help. The new 7iron is sweet when I don't hit it thin, and for some reason I was hitting 7 wood reasonably well from the first cut of rough.

Next warmup round is probably Monday in western Massachusetts, although I might try to get in an afternoon slow as molasses 9 on Saturday somewhere around Allentown. Then five rounds in the Canadian Maritimes.

_________________
"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

I think this barely playing thing I have going on is really helping my game. played in a work scramble Friday and it was like I was playing darts, not golf. Never played better in a scramble. I probably accounted for 50% of my team's shots and was always batting clean up. Lots of high pressure shots where there were 3 bad ones before me and I came through on every one. Highlight was a 150 yard 5 iron out of the rough to 8 inches. Stuck a few shots onto the green and close from 175+ which is WAY out of my range. Driver was drawing nice all day. Short game was solid as always.


Only my 4th time out all year.


Playing today at 5:30 at Arrowhead with my college bestie and his son who is about to start his freshman year at Wheaton College on a golf scholarship. hvaen't seen the kid play in about 6 years so gonna be cool seeing him blast it nowadays.

_________________

Big lawyer scramble yesterday at Harborside. Crazy conditions for a scramble. 25mph winds all day + the course was pretty saturated from the rain.

My group managed a very respectable -4 for an 8th place finish. Top 3 were -11, -10 and -9. I've played 4-5x all year and that makes me the 2nd most active player in my group. 2 of our guys haven't played since the same scramble last year. Plus I drove 2 of them so they could get completely shitfaced. All 3 besides me got hammered. Yea I'd say -4 was a pretty damn good score.


Highlight of the day for me was at the signature anchor par 3. There were a couple smoking hot chicks/venders set up on that hole doing a CTP contest for each group. They offered to play walk up music for everyone in our group. I suggested I am whatever you think I am by Eminem. I hit last so as the other guys were hitting the girl asked me if thsoe guys had any walk up song suggestions. I told her don't worry about those bums and just focus on my needs. I go last and stick a dart to 5 feet. Turn to the girls and tell em that's why I'm the one that gets the walk up music.

Other highlight was watching my buddy play between beers # 9 and #11. It's a proven scientific fact that during that sweet spot my buddy is the single greatest golfer in the entire world.

_________________

This may be adjacent to a drunk-guy-hitting-on-cart-girl anecdote.

_________________

it actually was adjacent cause my buddy definitely tried hitting on the cart girls while completely hammered. Kept asking them where the post round party was and if people were going out after this. They at first were confused as to what he was even slurring or if it was even English, but then I just drove away before it got any more awkward.

_________________

Another 400 miles of driving to do tomorrow, and I will be back home from a golfing vacation in the Canadian Maritimes. I played six rounds total - one north of Baltimore as I was driving up, then one in New Brunswick, one south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and three on Prince Edward Island.

We didn't have enough time or money to play in Cape Breton, but one of the twosomes we got paired with did and thought it was outstanding.

The three PEI courses all had hotels run by the same company, so we were able to book a three night stay at the best course and then one round at each. Crowbush Cove was the most picturesque and toughest of the three, with several holes right on the ocean and very tricky fast greens. Not being in the right position was almost always going to cost a stroke unless your recovery was excellent. Brudenell River was a little easier with significantly slower greens. Next time we would stay there instead of Crowbush, as they have a second course there which we didn't play, and there were more services within 15 minutes of the course. Mill River was way on the other side of the island, it was an older course which reminded me of a few of the parkland courses I used to play when I lived outside of Boston; it was fine and I wouldn't return.

In Nova Scotia, we really enjoyed playing at Chester Golf Club about 45 minutes south of Halifax. It was a very attractive layout on the Atlantic. It was drizzling for a few holes and then the fog rolled in. But there was a shitload of mosquitoes, take repellent.

As for my game, I had played a grand total of 40 holes this season before playing 90 in Canada in a week. So I stunk more than usual, especially on longer par 3s and par 5s. I did manage to be reasonably accurate off the tee, and really focused on using 7w, 4, 7, and old bladed 8 I use to chip. I lost a lot of shots because I didn't have enough touch from 45-65 yards and kept on leaving myself 10 paces from the hole with some sort of awful double break.

The really atrocious heat should be letting up in North Carolina after next week, and then I can start playing 6-7 rounds a month until mid-December.

_________________
"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

While being a passenger yesterday as my cousin was driving before I dropped him off in Portland, I found this link on a reddit thread:

https://operation36.golf/

I thought it was interesting and very aligned with what shakes has posted regarding game improvement. I had mentioned to my cousin that the main issues between getting from the 109-113 I shot this week to the 96-102 I would have shot 15 years ago was that I wasn't accurate enough from inside 65 yards, and that I was having too many 3-putts from 25-30 feet (in part because the greens were really tricky, in part because I wasn't reading breaks well).

This Operation 36 is for total beginners. It has you play from 25 yards off the front edge of the green until you can consistently get down in 4 for 9 holes (so 36 or less). Only then do you move out to 50. And then once you master that, out to 75 etc, until you are playing par 3s off the tee box and par 4s and 5s from the 150 marker.

I think I can adapt my approach when I play practice rounds alone to both play first and second shots from the tee, and then work on pitching and green reading.

_________________
"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

Put my new clubs up for sale this week only to be told I was asking too much. The number I was told was half what I just paid for them in February. I played them 20 times and were brand new. Ended up pulling the listing and started using them again this weekend. 76yesterday and then managed a -2 70 this morning. Birdied first two holes and managed to hang on from there. One of those rounds where everything went right. Made a few putts and got up and down 8 of 9 times from off the green including a chip in.

_________________
Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

Your clubs just needed a time out. Nice round!

_________________

Think I was expecting too much and upset they don’t go as far as my old clubs. More accurate and better feel in exchange. Been close for a few months just could never put two nines together. Now I have 3 sets of clubs and that’s probably one two many.

_________________
Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

Scheduled a fitting in a couple weeks . Itll be interesting what I end up with after their recommendations. Finishing up my block of lessons this week. Even after having only a couple hours with an instructor ( and a shit ton of range time ) , Ive definitely seen improvements even using the
garbage 20 yr old mish mash of clubs Im using .

_________________
Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

I don't know who you're going with, but when I got fitted I was a little unimpressed with how the fitter was fixated on 7 iron distance for my irons, without even caring about spin to hold the green, so be on the lookout for that and be prepared to ask. I heard a TaylorMade fitter say on some YouTube video that ideally irons should be spinning their number in RPM's (7 iron at 7000, for instance), and when I looked back at my fitting on the launch monitor the 7 iron guy tried to get me to buy were spinning at around 5K.

Game Improvement Irons have made club fitters look their best in a long while, probably, but if you're willing to put in the work with a coach and on the range, IMHO there's more to this game than smacking a 7-iron 180.

This is a good point. People are obsessed with distance. Most of the game improvement irons have strong lofts on them compared to traditional lofts. You are going to feel great when you hit that 7 iron long but realize that it’s usually at least the same loft as a traditional 6 iron, sometimes more.

_________________
Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

How often do you think you are going to play going forward? Already have a group of friends, relatives or whatever? If you do all the lessons, range and club buying don't forget it fades without repetitive use. DAMHIKT.

_________________
Elections have consequences.