God I hate this game sometimes. I've gone from having my best driving season ever to having the worst driving season, all in about 5 games. I barely had to think about it at the start of the year, just line up and poke it out there with a high draw. Now I stand over the ball with all the memories of the last 10 heel and toe-shots and the occasional shank (yes, i can shank a driver, i'm talented) that I have hit and I just know with 100% certainty that I am going to mis-hit the drive.. and I do. I marked my ball last night with a purple sharpie and by the end of my round, i had a nice concentric circle of purple marks on the heel of my driver's face, I probably hit 10/14 drives off the heel. brutal.

otoh, although I wasn't always there in regulation thanks to my driving, I hit almost every green last night when I had an iron or hybrid in my hands. Just pure effortless swings creating a beautiful ball-flight. I think I only had 3 bunker and 1 chip shot in 18 holes. If only all the parts of this game could come together at the same time for me.

I also had the up-and-down par of a lifetime last night. Par 4, 380'ish, severe dogleg left with trees in the left knee joint so you couldn't cut a lot of the corner. I hit a 3-wood off the tee but it ran through the fairway. I had about 140 to a front-pin but the ball was at least a foot above my feet in medium length rough. My buddy convinced me to hit an extra club, "it plays longed ldo", so I took 7-iron. I aimed a bunch to the right to compensate for the hook-lie and really pure the thing, so much so that it goes all the way off the back of the green.

I had a downhill left-to-right ~60' approach shot across a green that was hiding a few elephants under the turf with the pin tucked on the left-side. I took a really aggressive swing with my 52 degree and pinched it nicely off the turf, it landed about halfway there took two bounces and the put the brakes on. The ball trickled nicely down to the hole and ended up about 4 feet past, easy 1-putt from there.

I recognize these words, but strung together like that they make no sense

So the women are playing a 'major' this weekend. I tuned in for a little of the coverage on the Golf Channel yesterday - it was on from 12:30 to 2:30, with a replay at .... midnight?!

Yeah, the LPGA gets a lot of respect.

picture my friend took during our round at Half Moon Bay Ocean course. Suuuuch a beautiful day. Lol accounting for the slice...

lol, just saw someone shank it on the LPGA coverage :x

No biggie, PGA Tour pros shank it much more frequently than their LPGA counterparts. Happens a lot more than you think.

BO

wait, you mean I wasn't the only person on the planet watching?

I got one too from yesterday. I've played golf for too long to call anything "of a lifetime," but it was pretty damn good. I hit my second shot in the water about 50 yards short right of the green. The rough is about a foot tall, and there is a giant tree directly in front of the green. I have no option to go low at all and no way to hit it solid out of the foot tall rough I'm about to drop in. So I find my expert spot to drop on a fairly light part of the rough, problem is it is on a downslope and my left foot is about 6-7 inches below my right foot. I pick it perfectly and it clears the tree and lands about 2 feet from the hole. EZ bogey.

Meh, I really think the article unfair to the talent of those guys. They put 2 foot tall luscious rough around baked out greens on holes that are already hard. Then they all "played bad" because they shoot 1 or 2 over? stupid.

...btw...I almost had a little bit of a problem with the way they made Pebble difficult on a few holes this year. For example, on no.7, there was literally 0 chance of getting it close. I like it when they make it extremely hard, but not just unfair. If you hit a "perfect" shot, you should get a birdie op.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/34...op-bet-815993/

See, this is basic flawed Americanized thinking. There are times where a so-called "perfect shot" from 100 yards is 30 feet from the hole. It's the Americanized version of golf where players expect to throw darts right at the flag every time from short range. This is not the case where golf was invented.

BO

Picked up a Vokey 56*, and Nike 60* for $80 yesterday, and spent a few hours on the chipping/putting/sand area at the driving range today. Absolutly love them. It's soo much easier getting close out of the sand with an actual sand wedge vs. the PW/no bounce gap wedge combo I've been using.

Think I'll pick up the white ghost TM putter next paycheck as well.

No that isn't what I think, that it should just be a dart to a foot, but I think there should be a possible way to get the ball to to a foot. For example, there is not one British Open hole that I can think of where you can't get it close somehow some way. I'm not saying it's going to happen very often at all, but you can run it up, hit it really high, ride the wind, whatever, you can find a way. On #7 at Pebble, You could hit it to 40 feet or hit it to 40 feet. There are plenty of times where "the perfect shot" is to 40 feet because of some hazard or danger, but the perfect possible result shouldn't be to 40 feet. I hope you understand the distinction I'm trying to make.


Just for example, I thought #14 (or whatever the par 5 is) was a great hole. If you hit the shot, you were fine, but it was just really really hard to hit the shot. Same thing for #17. Incredibly difficult yes, but not so much that it it was literally physically impossible to knock it on and make a birdie.

Also one more criticism I have of the US Open is they basically take the driver out of play half the time. The courses get so incredibly baked out that it turns into a "who can manage themselves in insanely tough conditions with a wedge and putter" the best game. What were they hitting on 6, like 6 iron 9 iron? and on #3, like hybrids to a par 4? Silly.

Very excited about my game right now.

My handicap index has dropped about 3 points in the past month to 7.7.

My last 6 rounds are: 77, 77, 78, 76, 86, 74 (2 in the 90s before that, yikes.)

I am averaging exactly 30 putts per 9 during this span (low of 26) and every part of my game has just seemingly gotten better.

I think the confidence I have in making those 5 feet and in putts has changed my total outlook on everything.

Had an interesting shot today that tilted me and made me laugh at the same time.

From about 235 yards out, I hit my 18degree hybrid super thin so it was only about a foot off the ground. It was going dead straight and looked as if it would make it to the green...that is until it hit the 100yd marker and deflected 90 degrees to the right and ended up under a tree.

The yardage stick was normal size (like an inch or two wide)...FML

Exactly why marker poles should be outlawed. It affects play and makes a course look silly.

BO

Same with me! I was staring to think all had been lost a few months into this year, but I've started playing really solid the last couple of weeks. My handicap has dropped a point and almost all of my rounds have been consistently in the low 80s. My short-game is starting to get so good; instead of wondering where my chunked chip is going to end up, I'm starting to see landing areas now, I'm anticipating the ball checking, etc.

My driving is a bit off the last couple of weeks, but I feel like it's completely an alignment issue, so I'm confident that I'll find the fix to that.

At the start of the year, I was hitting 3-4/18 GIRS, now I'm starting to put stretches together where I hit 8/9 or 12-13/18. I just need to drop my putts per round a touch and I'll be golden.

Here's a silly question, which I probably already know the answer to, but here goes.

Lately, I am out-driving my driver, with my 3-wood. I hit some drives on the weekend which I thought were pretty decent, only to walk them off with my GPS device and find that they were in the 220-230 range. I did manage to get one or two of them out to 250 or so. Then I walked off a few 3-woods and some of them came in at 230-240 yards.

Driver: ft-5, 10.5, Accra M60 shaft
3-Wood: Callaway x-hot (I forgot what the loft is, maybe 15), stock shaft

I had the driver fitted about two years ago and the guy put in the Accra shaft. At the time, I was generating about 100-104 swing speed. I believe it is a regular flex shaft. At the start of the year this year I was hitting drives in the 250-270 range. All the good drives I was hitting were going a mile in the air.

The 3-wood for me has a very low trajectory, I have rarely seen it get 30 feet off the ground. It almost always draws and the flight, to me, is a thing of beauty. I almost drove a 290 yard par 4 with it a few weeks ago, came up just short in the fringe.

Any suggestions? I'm pretty sure it's the indian and not the bow, but I'm at a loss.

With that kind of swing speed you should be driving much better than that. I use an older sub-400cc driver that was a hand-me-down (ie never fitted to me) and I drive 225-250 usually with a swing speed in the 90s.

I'm not sure what would explain your issue though. I would think you might be better off in a stiff flex shaft, but that shouldn't be the issue if you were driving better earlier. I would also think that your driver might be ballooning on your but if your earlier drives that were good were very high then that seems to point away from that too. One possibility is if you are slicing your driver that would eat up distance compared to the draw flight of your 3-wood.

Has anything changed about your ball flight from when you were driving better?

Guy plays 612 holes in a day for charity.

http://www.wndu.com/sports/headlines/97144444.html

There was a video story on this on CNN.com but I couldn't link it properly.

He had someone driving a cart for him (and not just a regular cart, it was much faster). His balls were pre-teed up for him on each hole as well. Sick how well he played given the circumstances.

Going to Idaho to play Coeur d'Alene this weekend. Pretty damn pumped.

Hi guys,

Need some advice if anybody can take a minute.

I'm a casual golfer (I don't break 100 on good courses) and also very tall, 6'6-6'7. I noticed recently when getting some instruction from a friend who has taught that my clubs are quite shorter than they should be. He recommended I get fitted and have longer shafts put in.

My clubs aren't very high end and my opinion now is that it's not worth it to upgrade the clubs until I've improved my game some. So I plan on getting my current irons extended tomorrow somewhere and I just really want to know if there's anything in particular I should watch out for, ask about, know about, etc. I'm not sure what model I have, my clubs aren't near me currently, but I have Acer irons. Thanks.

Does he want you to get your shafts lengthened, or to have completely new ones put in? If its the former, i assume when you get fit for new shafts they'll take a look at your swing speed and adjust accordingly. If you're getting them lengthened, I'd be worried if your shafts are regular stiffness. As for getting them fit to your height I'd say its pretty necessary for someone as tall as you. I'm 6'3 and my irons at home are 2 degrees more upright, 1 or 2 inches longer then normal. I moved out to the west coast and bought some clubs 2nd hand, and def notice a difference.

If you're looking to upgrade your clubs golf stores will often fit new club purchases for free, but I found that buying clubs 2nd hand and paying the $100 (5 yrs ago) was still significantly cheaper.

Actually as an extra question for anyone answering this- how hard is it to change grips and extend your own clubs an inch?

My buddy had the same problem when we started playing. He looked into it and for what it would cost to have all of your clubs extended, you could buy like 3 or 4 used sets. Look on Ebay, you should be able to find a bunch of sets on the cheap.