thx for posting the trackman stats.

just have basic questions,


club path and face angle?.. what do positives of each mean? from the inside AND open?

and very nitty question, but is face angle relative to club path or to horizontal line? (i'm pretty sure it's the latter).

thx in advance

So positive club path is inside out and positive club face is open.

You are correct.
Correct again. A positive number for path means in-to-out (for right hander) and positive face means open relative to target. So if both numbers are positive, then you want the path number to be bigger than the face angle number or you will start the ball to the right and it will curve more to the right.

Just swing like you're trying to tear an oblique.

Any preference on cart bags? My Ogio stand bag is driving me nuts and I'm to the point where I might consider just going a cart bag, old man style. Particularly because of no full length dividers, I've had several clubs get frayed grips simply from rubbing against other clubs and they're a pain on the ass to remove from the bag sometimes. Maybe there's a full length divider 14-way stand bag out there that I've not found.

Following the responses to your question g-bebe.

Super no0b question (i've been playing for like 3 weeks) but what makes cart bags old man style? I just bought a push cart, so at that point is it pretty much unimportant whether I buy a cart bag, carry bag or hybrid at this point? I'm kind of confused of the difference other than one has little legs which is convenient if you're literally carrying it around the course

The difference is a cart bag doesn't have a stand and a carry bag is much lighter weight.

Plus cart bags are old man bags. Just putting that out there.

If you’re never going to carry a cart bag is fine. I have one - Sun Mountain C130 goat - but also have a carry bag. If I were just going to have one bag I would get one with a stand tho.

If you aren’t super picky you can save by buying last year’s model, some retailers and online will stock those/have closeouts.

I have one of each as well. I use the carry bag on trips because it fits better into my travel case. I have no problem throwing my cart bag on my push cart.

with the new golf rules, i have a question:

can your caddy tend the pin on a 10 footer and then judge whether the flag should be removed or not?

i feel really stupid asking this but with the old rules, if your caddy tended the flag (off-the green shot) did he have to pull it or could he again judge whether it should be removed?

i think the obvious answer is "yes they chould" and "yes they can" but it's funny i haven't noticed it happening.... i realize to really judge whether the pin should stay in or be removed the ball would have to be very very close to the hole (so you'd only have a split second to remove the pin)

Not sure of the rule before if you were off the green but now if it is tended you must pull the flag.

Tended flag for off-green shots had to be pulled before the new rules also.

carry/stand bags are also more versatile. you can get stand bags that are almost as large as cart bags (i.e have as much storage because that's really where the difference is), but are much easier to tote to the range because they are designed to be carried and most often have dual straps for comfort and easy of carry. many of the larger carry/stand bags have dividers. just go to the Sun Mountain or other manuf. website and click around.

Sun Mountain alone has three stand bags of different sizes with full length dividers.

You know you buy too much golf stuff when you completely forget where it is. I know I bought a Sonartec 4 wood off the bay a few years ago and wanted to break it out. Looked in my bags of surplus clubs in the spare room, nope. Went to the storage unit, nope. WTF. I must have a number of clubs stashed somewhere because I'm also short a bunch of putters.

Last week I gave in and bought the discounted sub to shortpar4 golf box. Comes Thursday and excited to see what's in it. I need so much golf gear I figure it cant hurt to try for $20.

Also after playing a real course my uncle who plays in the mid-high 80s convinced me a Volkey 56-14 was an absolutely essential club to have in my bag so bought one of those odd Ebay for $35 shipped. The rabbit hole to go down is crazy. So much stuff I want lol and I'm not even good yet

Took my first lesson today. In an hour pretty much just covered grip, posture, backswing and follow through. All simple stuff to you guys most likely but makes a world of difference. The balls I hit flew way further than they were before and the ones I hit clean were way straighter.

The hard part for me now is going to be trust. Taking a big backswing always felt like something you'd do if you try to hit the ball to hard but I learned how important opening the club face is so you can follow through with speed is. I'm playing a big course again with my brother in law and 2 of his friends Sunday and it's going to take discipline to trust that swing. I'm so happy to have something to work on at the range now.

Only downside is in the hour we pretty much only covered that which were with irons, which are obviously hugely important. I tried applying that to my driver and woods which I was actually hitting pretty well before and it was a disaster. I'm tempted to go back to my old driver and wood habits for now which worked well but also don't want to slip into bad habits. I'm sure the driver and woods are a different approach but I'm not doing another hour anytime in the immediate future. Same goes for my short game. I jumped on the executive course after hitting a bunch on the range after my lesson and I was crushing my gap wedge lol. Hard to take a little off it with a proper backswing but that all comes with practice I know, and I ordered a 56-14 wedge so I'm sure that will help as well once it gets here.

And lastly now that I'm taking a proper backswing and really connecting with the ball and getting lift on it I have no idea where it goes off my club. I can't find it in the air and completely lose track of it. On the executive course right after my lesson I would see it just on the fringe of the green and have no idea it was there. I left so many balls on the course today because I had no idea where they went off my club despite knowing it hit it flush just not sure if straight or slightly right or slightly left (know I didn't slice or hook it too bad). This is a problem lol

LFC,

glad to hear you got some benefit out of your lesson. i will offer a few general suggestions, which are worth as much as you paid for them (nothing).

golf is not about hitting the ball as far as you can with each club, it's about hitting the ball a somewhat predictable distance with each club in a somewhat predictable direction.

predictability comes with consistency. for full swings (not chips, pitches, etc) try to make the exact same swing every time with every club in your bag and you will quickly learn how far you can expect each club to go and expected results. once again you aren't trying to hit the ball as far as you can, you're trying to swing easy and controlled enough to hit is as consistently as you can.

if you think a particular shot requires you to swing harder than you normally would to carry the distance, pick the next longer club and swing easier.

that's all you need for now...go out, have fun, and swing easy.

Yea that's a great point. I think I realized that today. I was swinging more effortlessly after the lesson and the ball was flying, way further than when I hit it hard my old way.

Right now the smallest club in my bag is a gap wedge which if I take a normal swing on anything inside 60 yard is flying. I can't wait for that 56 sand wedge to get here and take some full swings with that.

It's great when you can see the improvement happen right before your eyes, isn't it? My wife was ok for a beginner, but after she took her first lesson it was a massive difference and so fun and encouraging to see the ball go high, straight and farther!

It really is. I wouldn't say I've seen actual improvement yet but have certainly seen the potential for improvement.

Seriously though how do you guys see and follow your ball of your club?

one more general comment and i'm done for now: it can be a trap to measure yourself against other (better) people you're playing with. don't try to hit the ball as far as other players do because you can't and most likely never will. what you can do is learn a lot from watching how they handle shorter non-full swing shots (chips from the fringe, shots from the sand, putts, etc) because those are shots you are likely more capable of successfully executing and those shots go a long way to reducing your score.

More great advice redeye.

I'm not confident I can consistently hit the bar farther or longer than even myself yet. I saw the potential to do but it's so so hard to trust my new swing. Not that my old one was in any way reliable but I was in control. This one I feel completely not in control and it's exciting to do it thousands of times until it feels right with repeatable results.

As for the advice keep them coming. Appreciate all of it and good to see this thread alive.

Thank god the fat girl from Arizona is a senior, she weighs like 70 pounds more than me and I am on the fat side. Hope I never see her on tv again

LOL I got caught up in the women's college golf yesterday too. She is an absolute UNIT that's for sure. There was some high level golf on display though. What % of these girls will end up on the LPGA tour?