I have never felt so happy to pay $500 a month for a private course than I am right now.

Yeah the course I live 2 mins away is a total **** show when it comes to pace of play. I avoid it as much as I can on weekends. Costs me less than 20 to walk so it is my go to when I don't use golf now and is in great shape for all the play it gets. Sadly if you get stuck behind people 4+ hours is common on a weekday, total crap shoot. Weekends is like 5 hours, and this is on a course with no real trouble at all and the only a few places on the course that you might take a penalty stroke.

Haven't had a round take over 3 hours since I joined our private country club. Love it. At the muni I used to play at if you weren't the first off you were lucky to get it done in 4 hours.

I think it's time for a 2+2 "What's in the Bag".

Callaway GBB Epic Subzero 9* w/ Fujikura Pro Green 72x
Callaway GBB Epic Subzero 3W 15* w/ Fujikura Pro Green 72x
Titleist 816 H2 3h 19* w/ Fujikura Motore Speeder HB 8.8x
Titleist 716 AP2 4-W w/ TT DG X100
Titleist Vokey SM5 54* 58*
Scotty Cameron Select Newport 2

My bag is pretty much set with the exception of some shaft experimentation in the 3W and possibly the driver.

might be worth it's own thread.

my first time caddying in a tournament in 30+ years..

vancouver tournament on canadian tour.......... not gonna out my player just yet.

played point grey which is old, tight course. i guess it's 6800 yards and it is sea level, damp golf.

my knowledgable golf friends told me the player won't want much more from you than a robot could provide... carry clubs, clean clubs and ball, hold flag, provide some positive support and watch out for anything obvious - like if i see yardage marker pro doesn't see.

my player hit 2 iron off the tee alot, even on what i'd consider pretty long holes. he was very good with his long irons. basically saved his score.

every bogey - 3 of them - we had seemed to be set up with a bad drive

i'll ask my player if it was abnormal but we had so many 4 to 6 foot putts. scrambled like mad and quite successfully

nothing much noteworthy. the greens were horrible as we had very harsh winter - which is abnormal here - and it's been the wettest spring on record or close to it.... these greens were horrible by the worst municipal standards. pitted all over 70% of every single green.

Got a fun day of 36 tomorrow with a huge group of guys in Toledo. Think we have 26 guys playing at 18 in the am and 18 in the pm at a different course.

Ryder Cup style?

Broke my 3-wood, and not sure how. Was taking it out for a shot and the shaft was broken in the middle, just hanging by a thread. Always walk, and sometimes it has been hanging out, and then sometimes keep right hand on some clubhead. Maybe I stumbled in the woods looking for a ball and pressure got to it, all I can think of. For sure did not break while hitting. Seven year old club, and I never loved it so not too tilted, was a bit wtf when grabbed it from the bag though. Would have been more satisfying to break it to pieces myself after another mis****.

ok, my second day caddying and my last day caddying as we're out of the tournament and not sure i'd do it again.

my player blew up pretty badly today but he was always nice to me which was good

eventually i didn't enjoy caddying that much as it's alot of trying to keep up and cleaning ball and clubs.. i would liked it alot more if i could have helped my player with some putts and local knowledge. i wouldn't deign to help my player with full shots very much - certainly nothing remotely to do with swing or club selection. but some confirmation on wind and distances - without being pest - i think would have helped.... mostly local knowledge and seeing something extreme in putting like huge dropoff after hole (and of course my player put it way past)

a few thoughts,

their recovery shots are pretty conservative even by my mid-handicap standards. really surprises me and i've noticed that at other tourneys.

green conditions in vancouver at nice clubs change fast. not sure the players know that.

these guys grind pars really really well even when they didn't play hole very well.

mental golf is huge. my player was one of the better players day 1 and was terrible day 2... the other player i know was probably amongst the best players for three 2 hour stretches and one of the worst the rest of the time. that's hard to reconcile ........ both the guys i know well have excellent long irons games compared to the field.

Spottswood,

Nice tempo. Try practicing with an exaggerated pause at the top of your back swing.

I need to find a new golf ball. I've played the Bridgestone E6 for years, got a dozen of the new ones and I don't like them at all. I've probably got a couple dozen of last year's balls to work through, but eventually I'm going to have make a change.

Good review. And yes, caddying or sure isn't an easy business by any means.

You should be able to get them off of the used websites for quite a few years going forward. You might laugh but try the Pinnacle Rush and Soft balls. Before I improved I was playing those and really liked them.

We did some 1v1s but mostly everyone played their own ball. The first course we played had the mythological hard to find "very firm slow greens" was odd.

here's a question,

the player i caddied for in a canadian tour event - like AA baseball - has project x 6.0 shaft in his irons.. i don't know much but that shocked me. i thought those were high-end R or low-end S. i would have thought he'd be high end S or even XS.

tons of loose shots..... whereas i saw other players that barely had any loose shots over 18 holes .... don't get me wrong, he had tons of good shots too.

ok i found a chart that shows that 6.0 irons are high end S.... that's no my experience. and same thing for their flex chart for driver. the chart completely overstates stiffness IMHO.

i should note there a category for flighted - irons? - and i have no idea what that means.

I think that means they are lower launching.

As for the bad shots vs good ones it really is about how bad the bad is. There are a million people who can hit amazing shots just as well as the guys on tour(some guys on tour are freaks that no one can hit the shots they do). It really is about how good are your misses.

The irons that I play are 13 years old and I was considering buying some new ones. Over the course of the years I've bought a one off 3/4 hybrid that I love. Also broke my pitching wedge a few years ago and bought a 48 degree wedge that I hit great.

So I may only be in the market for a 5-9 iron. I've got a couple local golf shops in the area. As I haven't bought a full set in a long time does anyone have any experience negotiating for only 5 clubs of a set? Or are places pretty set on selling a whole lot? I'm sure each shop is dependent but I don't know if I just need to bite the bullet and go all new.

agreed 100%. my dad and i always talk about that for our level golf but i think the concept is true for every level of golf including the very highest level.

at this event, i later course marshalled for a 2some where both were super-elite name NCAA players (recent grads... walker cup type players) and it was like they barely hit any "bad" shots - at least in the long game. and that's over 54 holes (36 holes for one guy, 18 holes for the other). short game is a little touchy for every single player it seems. at least with the course conditions they played.

sorry, i should elaborate that when i said i consider project x 6.0 somewhat whippy, i meant the driver shaft. don't really know that much about the iron shafts although i have a few.

lots of sets aren't even close to 3-pw these days, although i think most have a pw.... so you might have to buy 4-pw. and perhaps jettison the 4i and pw. if they sell them to you one by one i figure they just charge you more per iron and end up charging you almost the same.

used doesn't seem quite as good for irons as something like drivers...... but there are tons of good used places online in usa. and at least one good one in canada.

is it the case that many stiff and x-stiff shaft are simply made thicker with material? i.e. not so much engineered.......... and ergo, heavier? thx in advance

I am not really super knowledgeable in the makings of shafts but I don't think it is a 100% heaver = stiffer. Also there really isn't any kind of actual ratings for what a stiff is by each company and for that matter the same shaft. You can check the cpm's by some machine and that is a true measure of the stiffness.

Add all that to the fact the kick points and shaft tip firmness effect how it feels and launches ect. Best bet is go to an experienced fitter who will match up everything make sure has same feel ect.

thx... much appreciated

i spent 2 days caddying and 2 days course marshall at my local canadian event. course marshalled for some huge name ncaa players...

anyway, went to the range today and my ball striking was soooo much better after watching them... and i was striping a 4 iron with a project x 6.5 shaft more than 200 yards and high. broke a pga tour used x stiff shaft in 2 although i think that was probably just old shaft and my misuse of it.... anyway, the pga guys go at the ball really hard but it's all rhythmic and good timing. really rubbed off on me.