Worked on the timing issues at the range today, a lot of work left, but for the first time in my 20 years of golf, I feel I actually have a good idea of what I should be doing.

I think I have had about 5 coaches over the years, and it was always, try to do a little more of this or that. Whenever I tried to explain them that I didn't actually knew what I was doing, it was always, no you're fine, just try a little more of this or that. Morans. I always stopped going after a few lessons.

But now I am getting somewhere (I hope).

Hey Java Nut, have you ever tried Tour Tempo? I think we're similar in the fact swing thoughts have hurt our timing/tempo. Anyway a few days ago I bought this app for my Iphone that beeps when you're supposed to start your swing/downswing. It's REALLY helped me get those thoughts out of my head, and I've been hitting the ball better than ever.

There is a PG Woodhouse story where Wooster is to play someone who really can't play golf, and so he thinks he is sure to impress the current young lady of choice. Only the the chap who can't play shows up with a timer on the club shaft he winds up before every stroke. He swings back and waits for the timer to go off. And suddenly he plays very well.

My problem is not so much starting the backswing and starting the downswing. It is getting the sequence of the individual movements in the right order. Like not throwing the club at the start of the downswing, not lifting the head until after the ball is hit, and all that stuff.

Timers would drive me nuts, but thanks for the tip.

EnormousHyperSupercalifragelisticexpealidoceousToi nfinityandbeyondBragofalltimesincetheuniversewascr eated:

Was at the range finetuning my swing, did quite well.

At the mat in front of me one of the kids (approx 14 yo) was getting instructions on his swing from our pro. The pro was working on his follow through. He was staying back on his right foot, and was pulling his club to far left in the follow through.

Suddenly the pro ask the kid to look at me hitting one of my drives, and to look at how my body was at the finish. I hit a quite good drive and held my finish perfectly, and had to stand there a little while while the pro explained the kid what was good about my posture at the finish.

Bonusbrag: The pro then said nice trick with the ball. As we hit from mats we have a thick rubber tee to stick through a hole in the mat from below when we hit drivers. So when I place a new ball on the tee, I use my left foot and the head of the driver to lift the ball up on the tee. I've done this thousands of times, so I really do not think about it anymore, I just do it.

I am typing this with a pen in my mouth as I seem not to be able to get my arms down.

I know pics or it didn't happen. Well I will try to get a vid of my swing next week. And I will include my teeing the ball up trick.

We had a guest at the golf club after yesterday's big rain:

That Fox is tiny. I thought fox's were dangerous.


Off to lessons in a bit. Hopefully I can get some stuff wrinkled out beforeGolf tommorow, and especially the tournament this weekend.

I seem to have a problem with the transition from the upswing to downswing sometimes, which creates outside/in but can't identify exactly why I'm doing it. I think it has something to do with turning my shoulders too early in the downswing.

That fox looks so soft.
Last year we played on this really foggy morning and a fox approached us on the first hole of the course. He got pretty close to us a few times, but seemed harmless. He followed us around the course for about 5 holes before he got bored and left.

The course I play at every weekend has a resident coyote cub/infant. It was extremely frail and skinny to start the season but by now I have been feeding it Nature Valley bars and bagels every Sunday, as well as tons of other people, it is starting to get back into good shape.

Im sure its not the greatest thing to have a coyote who isnt affraid of people, but this thing really is pretty cool. He lays on his back sunning most times next to the 2nd tee.

Ill have to grab a picture.

If he gets by on you guys feeding him, he will probably be pretty domesticated, even when he grows bigger. The key though is to keep feeding it, to some extent at least. If you stop, he will have to find food, and will probably look for it on the course, as that is where he is used to getting food.

Hey foxes are very small and rather cute. Unless they are rabid, they would never harm people, why would they attack something that are about 5 times bigger than themselves? Keep away from the puppies, that might upset their mommy, though not necesarily.

If you got a treat hold it in your open hand, and the fox might even come and get it. But don't try to pet it, you might scare it. Even if it is not scared by humans, it is not tame.

The hours I've spend on the range lately has really made a difference. Now I am making a much higher class of mistakes.

Coyotes aren't really the kind of animal you want to have hanging around. If they are really hungry they attack humans.

If they get food at a reasonable regularity at the course, so that they never are really hungry, then they will not attack, but do get some animal care center to catch it and give it a better life.

After all it is a wolf, not a puppy.

I came into work at 6:00am this morning, finishing my shift at 2:00pm and heading out to Osprey Valley to play the Royal Hoot course. Can't wait to get my revenge on it from last week.

Random vent: Why does the short game have to be so freaking hard? Up to two weeks ago I was chipping the best I ever have. It was EZ. I even chipped from the fringe instead of putting several times for basically the first time ever - my chipping has always sucked. It's gone and I'm back to chunking, overpowering, you name it.

Earlier this summer I was putting great (for me). I started regularly making the four footers that have kept me in the 80s more often than not. Now that's gone too.

And don't get me started on bunker play. The sand at my home course sucks more than anything but obviously the problem is with me.

Yeah, yeah I know, I should go practice. And I will. It would just be better if I had any CONCEPT of how it's supposed to work.

Sigh. Maybe I should get Phil's DVD and a putting lesson.

I spent at least an hour practicing my chipping last time I was at the range. I don't even know if this is a worthwhile drill, but I was starting with an almost full-swing punch shot (like a 60+yd carry w/ my pw) and then just shortening and shortening it until I was carrying my SW like 6-8 ft. The fuller swing really helped me get a feeling of what I wanted to do and then on the short chips all I was thinking about was that feeling and of course not decelerating. By the end I was semi-confidently hitting those shorter chips off of a very hard (fringe-like) surface.

/edit Although I might suck and have never had a single lesson.

Today my long game was pretty bad. Playable. But bad. I've really been working on my 30-70yd game though, and that kept me in it shooting +7 over 9 (good for me). I got up and down from that range today 1/2 the time with only 2ft-20ft putts remaning . I've changed up that range quite a bit, and don't know if it's right. But I've taken a lot of lower body movment out of the equation. And using basically just a lot of arms, and some shoulder turn, and focusing on good contact. Every divot's perfectly straight. No timing issues at all. Way better contact. And misses to the left, and right have cut down probably 300%.


Now if only I could get my long irons and woods gooing decent.


Your obv better then me. But what about David Ledbetters short game video? You can download it with torrents. Gives the concepts of differnt shots atleast.

So ive been practicing my iron on the driving range for the past couple of months about 3x a week now. im wondering when i should move on to other parts of the game. ive taken 3 lessons and feel the next step would be hitting the driver or the wedge or even the putter and practice from there. i kinda wana get a feel of things before i move on. do you have any advice?

This is a longshot but does anyone have any clips of tap-in putts that went wrong? YouTube search turned up nothing, but there has to be some televised moments of guys leaning over with one leg out trying to tap in a missed putt only to dog their tap-in too and look like morons.

Thanks in advance!

After missing 10 birdie putts + an eagle putt i decided to go get a new putter.
Got a scotty cameron.

for 300 ****ing bux it better work

Our greens has gotten quite a bit faster after the damange of the spring drought had done to them. I find I putt better. But now I've totally lost my touch when chipping with my 7i. The ball just runs through the green. Then I realised that I perhaps should use a 9i or PW instead on the short chips.

hang in there. #1 piece of advice: always be trying new things. My bunker game sucked complete balls and one of the tips i was trying to use finally just started working and I am pretty decent now.

No help on chipping sorry.

56* if you ask me.

My #1 rule for chipping for most amateurs is to use the club that allows you to comfortably clear the fringe but that gets the ball rolling the soonest.

My stepdad loves to chip and run the ball and he is generally pretty good but about twice a round he will hit a chip that lands in the fringe and not on the green all because he has such a hard head about using the least amount of loft humanly possible so his margin for error is super small as he has to land the ball like one foot onto the green.

I use the least amount of loft possible but try to land the ball 3-4 feet onto the green giving me some room to miss if I mi**** a little. That normally means I use one less club then he does on the same chip.

You want random? I'll give you random.

Our foursome yesterday met up at a park-and-ride lot off the interstate. There's really nothing at that exit other than park-and-ride lot -- otherwise it's all corn fields. It's the middle of nowhere.

Coming back, we got off the interstate and made the turn for the lot, which is a few hundred feet to the north. Across the street is a little dirt road, at the entrance of which we observed the most unusual golf store ever - Woody's.

Woody's golf emporium consists of an old long bed pickup with some kind of multi-level rack in the back rigged up to hold a couple thousand clubs. For reals. The thing was 3 or 4 levels tall and it was packed with clubs. A hand-printed sign was stuck in the ground with the name Woody's and the offerings - golf clubs, bags, balls.

I've never seen anything like it.

I wish we'd stopped. We didn't, it had been a long day. I wish I'd brought my camera. Since I didn't, I will hang my head in shame for the lack of pics. I definitely want to go back and check it out. Who knows, maybe Woody has a putter that isn't ****ing defective.

There used to be a golf shop in west London "Aladdin’s world of golf" or something similar. It was in a large old building with split levels and small rooms leading in to one another and as I only went there a few times it was very easy to get lost in. This confused and cluttered lay out made it seem as if you might stumble onto something wonderful at any moment and I remember finding a set of half irons once, no three iron four iron instead 3+1/2, 4+1/2 in hindsight I’m not sure what the purpose of these was but as a child I found them impressively exact.