Cliffs for above.... "spoken like a true 30 handicap". (ie. lots and lots of wrong with a large of plate of denial.)

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I'm trying to not argue about this, but what you said isn't true ARC.

I am now a steady 18, but I did get down to 10 for a week, and I am a terrible driver. I only got down to low teens and so because I became very good at scrambling.

It seems that you are oblivious to the easiest way to improve your game.

I have been told by a veteran of the club - 'You have a good short game because you have to!'

I have been told that I had a similar game to a guy 10/15 years older than me - sprayed it off the tee, but could score due to determination and practice around the greens - also a good putter.

So - unless all you care about is hitting nice drives and some pure iron shots, why don't you get just get down to the practice green and rip a load of shots from your h/c?

I understand your point, but if you only hit a driver 260 what clubs are you suggesting this player hit that go 220 then 190 with great consistency to give the 110 shot? Aren’t there a number of times that player messes one of those up and has 175 in?

I really don’t care if you ever break 100. That’s why I tried to word that somewhat nicely. My point is just that even if you can break 100 half the time you are still just so bad that you need work everywhere. My discussion here is pointed more at relatively decent players. I understand your point that the driver isn’t your main weakness, but it is a weakness.

As for would I rather be 18th in strokes gained or total driving I am not sure I can answer that question without knowing how my entire game is. Would I take 18th in Total driving and 100th in putting or 18th in putting and 100th in total driving would be a better question. For that I would take the better driver and worse putter. I think that the PGA Tour results show that would be a better combination as well.

I took a client out for golf yesterday who is probably a 90’s shooter and he is not very good in all aspects of the game. I also find it hard to imagine you could pick up 18 shots around the greens in under about 5 years. Guys like you don’t get it up and down very often? Nobody gets it up and down very often. People seem to think that scratch handicaps get it up and down every time and they simply do not. A scratch hits a fair amount of greens, makes a couple of birdies and gets it up and down on about half the greens they miss. But hitting around 10-12 greens a round eliminates the need to chip very much and that is where their edge is. It is not because the get it up and down 13 times a round.

I've probably said it before itt, but to me it generally comes down to:

- the long game influences you shooting a big number
- the short game influences you shooting a low number

yeah ship but not only do I not get it up and down often, sometimes I don't get it up and down in 3. All I'm saying is guys who shoot 95 don't spray the driver off the tee. They're almost always going to be peeing away strokes near the green. I mean if they sliced their driver oob half the time then they'd just hit less off the tee. But they can't hide from bunkers/chipping/putting.

Also, what are your thoughts on my comment that the farther you hit it, the wider your landing area is? (And thus, it can be inordinately penal since, not only do the fairways not widen, but they narrow due to fairway bunkers)?

I think being a bomber would be worth a lot more if they widened fairways beyond 310 or moved fairway bunkers in 20 yards. The short, straight hitters are also rewarded extra because their drive will have plenty of rollout, whereas a bomb that lands 2 feet in the rough might bounce only 3 more yards.

The current game is set up for guys who can hit it 280 and in the fairway. I mean moreso than it should be.

I also think the PGA Championship should be held at bombers' paradises, since the US Open is set up for donks like Furyk.

Ship I made a veiled reference to your swing reminding me of Stenson's the other day. (at least I think it was your swing that was posted 3 yrs ago or so when I first started reading Golf SE) Similar build, wide arc, etc. Am I on the right track? Thoughts? Thanks.

What are the fundamentals of putting? I just did a quick google and came up with an article that mentioned the six fundamentals below. Does that sound about right?

1. The front eye is directly over the ball.
2. All the motion is with the shoulders and arms.
3. The shoulders are parallel to the target line, not open or closed.
4. The putter travels back and through along the target line as long as possible without affecting the natural path of the stroke.
5. The blade remains square throughout the stroke.
6. There is an Acceleration through the putt.

Those are Pelz's. I believe the putter travels on an arch. I don't have time right now but I'll expand on this later

Read Stan Utley's book, it explains why the putter should make an arc instead of straight back straight through.

Isn't it kind of pick-your-poison?

The arc method doesn't rely on wrist manipulation, but it may be hard to have your putter square at impact because you are opening and closing the face, whereas the straight method is relies on wrist manipulation to try to square up at impact (but club doesn't swing open as much).

Either way, you're ****ed. lol

The arc is superior because the shaft is not perfectly vertical and therefore requires a manipulation to move it SBST with a square face.

Proximity to the hole on approach shots >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Everything else in golf

Does anyone have a good video explaining the arc putting method?

Isn't it just the natural arc made by rotating? It's not like a gigantic arc or anything. I don't think it's a "method". It just means you aren't going straight back/straight through which relies on wrist manipulation (to offset the natural opening of the clubface).

Just google Stan Utley.

To expand on my drunk post from last night, think about what a stroke would look like if you put a putter head on a perfectly vertical swinging pendulum. As the club swung back it would move slightly up, then back down as it moved to impact, and then back up post impact. It would be traveling on a vsemicircle, with the face staying square to the plane it is swinging on.

Moving the shaft from vertical to an angle simply means that you've tilted the circle, and that to keep the face square to the plane it opens and closes in relation to the target, but not the plane.

Think about it in an exaggerated fashion. If the lie angle of the putter was 45 degrees (or flatter!) it would be pretty onerous and manipulative to take that SBST while keeping the face square to target line. So that stroke would have to move in a pretty significant arc to be on plane.

In reality putters are pretty upright and the arc is minimal.

Check out Ricky Barnes' stats... 4th in Greens in regulation.. Strokes gained putting : 171st , 132nd in Fedex cup, 137th in scoring avg. (Just happened to stumble upon this, and thought it was interesting.)

http://www.pgatour.com/players/playe...ormance-stats/

drive for dough...hit irons for dough...chip for dough...put for dough

that's the new expression

Probably a bit. Now I’m a tad fatter and less flexible so sadly the similarities are dwindling.
In premise the idea of an open to closed stroke never made sense to me as I thought that getting the timing of the square spot would be almost impossible to replicate. As a result I wanted to learn a square to square stroke so I went hard core into Pelz’s theory.

It made sense to me and I had never heard any putting theory so I just went with it. I don’t think square to square relies on wrist manipulation as much as shoulder manipulation. He says that if the shoulders move up and down on the target line that the putter will move square and remain on the target line. I took a t-shirt and cut little holes in the front of the shoulders that I could feed a shower curtain rod through. I would then put the shirt on and the rod would basically be attached to the front of my shoulders. Then I would stand in a doorway with the rod on the door frame and putt. From there I would practice getting my shoulders to move up and down on by putting with the rod staying on the door frame the entire time. The gimmick worked great, but I quickly realized that this felt contrived or forced.

I then decided to investigate open to closed on an arch by watching Tiger putt and realized what I was missing. As I have stated many many many many times before here Tiger putts the way he does due to his strength and stability. I realized that if you took Pelz’s putting robot Perfy and simply let the shoulders move naturally in relation to the spine that the square portion of the stroke would ALWAYS be in the exact same spot. To be honest, now that I feel that I have the fundamentals down of what I want my stroke to be I feel I can fix my putting in the gym quicker than I can on the practice green. Good arch putting starts with fitness and strength. From there you need to learn to be able to move specific muscles without moving other muscles. Meaning you need to be rock solid from the sternum down while rocking your shoulders on a natural T in relation to your spine. Strong hips and legs, firm abs, then simply rotate your shoulders keeping your upper arms to your body.

Silly as this sounds you need to be able to sit in a chair and make a putting motion with your shoulders without feeling and shift in weight in your butt in the chair. Sitting on the toilet is a great way to really feel if you have the ability to move individual muscles without shifting your weight around. Once you can do that you just need to learn to line it up and put the correct speed on it.

There is no manipulation required to putt this way as there is with square to square. Once you realize that the putter is actually square to the arch at all times and that stability is what keeps it that way you can at least conceptualize what you need to do.

Maybe Ricky should stop hitting to the middle of every green. No way you can be 4th in greens and score that bad unless your average birdie putt is like 40 feet.

As said before, you need to be good at everything and great at a few. There is no room to simply be a horrendous putter. But even with that said, he literally putts like a 5 handicap and due to exceptional ball striking almost kept his card.

Good news, there's a stat for that. His proximity was 48th on Tour. He simply can't putt at all.

From all of my experiences with golf from playing a ton of junior tournaments, working down to scratch and now coaching a JV golf team it's ball striking that separates the better players from the worse ones. The people shooting really high scores are bad at everything. Someone who even shoots in the 100's occasionally isn't even thinking about nearly the things that matter in golf as someone who has almost played on the PGA tour.

It's like a 5th grader arguing with a college professor about the correct way to do a math problem. Sure the 5th grader may have figured out a way that works for him on the limited set of problems he has encountered but the professor knows much more about everything and can give him the easiest path to success because the 5th graders way may lead him into pitfalls that he can't see coming.

Seriously, Ship is way right about this and most everything he posts about golf.

I talked with Sean Foley (and Mark Brodie) a little bit today at Sloan. If you ever wondered whether PGA Tour players were being exposed to stroke-EV analysis, wonder no further. Foley's guys most certainly are, and they're basing practice regiments, course strategy, and psychology on the results. I can't speak to how widespread it it on tour, but at least his guys (not a bad group!) are getting it.

Incidentally, he's head-asplode smart about both the analytics and the mechanics/physics of golf. Shocking news I'm sure....

Awesome