It's as close to a lock to be warm as you are going to get, other than going further south in Florida but I dunno anything about Miami. For a stay that short and a modest budget I assume that out of the country isn't realistic, some place like Orlando or Tampa that's easily accessible and has lots of lodging and quite a few golf options is where I'd go.

Not a Florida expert though, usually do my golf travel later in the spring when the Carolinas are fine.

On a mostly unrelated note, what was originally a really nice weather forecast for Saturday has gotten worse and it may be that the local season is over. Still a chance for offseason golf (i.e. walking on a course that may or may not be open and isn't being maintained) since it hasn't snowed but no more regulation rounds.

Once again will go through the process of forgetting all the little swing thoughts and adjustments that I figured out over the course of the year and will look like I've never seen a golf club before when March rolls around. Good times. Note to self: Maintain triangle w driver, aim a bit left, weak grip. Rotate. Take tension out of extension. Slow and smooth with the hybrids and irons. Get the toe vertical with the wedges around the green. And fergodsake learn how to putt you dodo.

during winter break I would like to make a yardage book for my home course.
they are not popular here in Poland, never (beside internet) seen one.

got a few question:
1)when taking measurements from google earth all I can take is "flat" distance, what about elevation ? does yardage book should take it into account ? if so how to do it?

2) distance should be taken from the front/middle or back of a tee box ?

3) distance to the green should be to the front middle or back of it?

You could do either. If you just want a place to stay in that price range I would look at Reunion to see if they have any sort of stay and play packages. You can def go cheaper though if you go a la carte. The a-la-carte route and some cheaper places to play that I like:

Orange County National
Grand Cypress New Course (highly recommend this course, also best to play this one first if you are coming off of a layoff, as there is a ton of room).
Hawk's Landing (this is a resort course to be sure, not sure on how long their rounds take there).

Other areas worth a drive:
Mission Inn
Black Diamond Ranch
World Woods (although this is closer to Tampa)

Now if you REALLY want to go cheap you can always drive over to the Clearwater area and play my course (I get 6 guest greens fees for around $40/each. Can't beat the price with the quality of course )

LFC - here are some suggestions to your questions from an amateur.

1) typical yardage books don't take elevation change into account, but of course you should when you're on the course. google earth can actually give you a rough estimate (look to the bottom right of the screen as you place the curser over different locations), but as i said it is a rough estimate. the best method in your situation to probably just do it by intuition.

2) take the tee box and green distances from the middle and adjust. tee box distances really shouldn't matter much unless there's a drastic difference on a par 3.

3) take the green distances from the middle and understand how deep the green is from front to back and side to side. in most cases you should be aiming for the middle of the green anyway.

here's an example of a yardage book i'm familiar with. the distances in the left margin are from each corresponding colored tee to the dotted arc in the fairway. the white numbers in and around the fairway are from that particular spot to the middle of the green. the + or - numbers around the green give you a sense of where the trouble is when you add or subtract them from the middle of the green distance.

In the future, traveling out of the country is going to be very much on the cards, and for me actually preferable. This obv isn't the year to be planning that though.

This post is sooooo awesome! I'm going to look into all of these. Thank you! These are all using Tampa as a base? How far out can you typically book a tee time?

Normally I lurk here but just wanted to chime in on this one point. Golf wherever the heck you want.

I'm a NY resident. I waited YEARS working on my game to shoot somewhere in the 80's so I could golf Bethpage Black and not embarrass myself. I finally have the courage to go out as a single this summer.

I get paired with 3 other guys, one was about my skill level. The other 2 absolutely averaged less than 200 off the tee. I sincerely think that neither one of them reached the fairway all day. Every second shot was short of it in the rough. They played it 5-10 times a year. For those of you that have played the Black before will testify that this couldn't be any fun for them. Both shot about 120.

You want to play TPC Sawgrass? Go do it. I promise you won't be the worst golfer out there. Just walk up and hit your ball. Easy days. As another poster said, everybody sucks.

BS-

thanks for chiming in bacon. all good points and words to live by.

was 95-98 clubhead speed with driver a few months ago. Been doing superspeed system and stretching daily. Hadnt got the launch monitor out in the while. Went to range yesterday hit about 20 drives all between 108-113. Pretty pleased. See if I can get to 120 by April.

Going a-la-carte some of the courses will let you book up to a month in advance. Most though I would guess 2 weeks. This is all from a base around Orlando (Disney area in particular). If you stay in Orlando highly recommend west of the city, near the Convention Center, Disney, or Kissimmee.

Re: yardage book for home course.

Is it really worth the time to do a yardage book for your home course. You should practically know it by heart already. I would think spending time doing a green mapping book would be better use of time, but I guess you really can't do that over the winter since you actually need to be on the course for that.

If you are doing this over winter because you are bored and want to stay in the golf mind, then carry on!!!

That's an insane increase in speed!

Just to clarify, you did Super System daily?

Agree. Great results

I’m doing an H&F thread trying to see how much I can increase over the winter if anyone wants to follow along/weigh in

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/8...shape-1781026/

The SuperSpeed system is 3x per week. It takes about 10-15 minutes each day.

Ok I’ve only been doing it 2x per week. Might need to up that

After i hit like ~15 drives on the range I can sort it out but everytime I get to the course its completely lost. Been all summer and now into fall with multiple lessons and getting frustrating. Any pointers?

Rest of my game is improving significantly too. But if you can't get off the tee its almost pointless. Im actually shooting worse lately despite playing (ball striking) much better

I struggled with my driver also. Was topping consistently for about a month before I sorted it out. Only thing I can say is to try not focusing on distance at all. I loosened my grip and just tried to hit a 200yd fade on the course until I got the feel back. As I started striking it better I was able to gain confidence and start swinging more freely and getting back to my usual distance (250ish). If you take distance out of your mind I find it helps.

Trying to hit it harder/further is often the problem (for me) when the driver goes but I'm hitting my irons well.

Here's a little something to lift your spirits if you aren't happy with your game:

hahahahahahahahaha

I would never need a golf ball again just following him around the course.

Paul Casey is a sad ****.

And so are the rest of them, but at least most of them either admitted to being sad ****s all along or didn't boast about not being it.

Barkley plays great in The Match today and runs away with it. It’s fantastic that he had an internet rep as having one of the worst swings, he has a major coming out on cable TV and way outplays. Good for him.

Even though he way overperformed his reputation, it’s hard to give too much credit to Charles, as I think it really shows how great a pro like Phil is compared to Stephen Curry who plays to scratch.

Ridiculous no0b question but scratch means you play even par from the black tees?

Scratch generally means you have a USGA handicap index of 0.0 or better.

Because every course is different, the color of the tees isn't the issue -- the front tees at Oakmont are probably harder than the blacks at Vacant Lot Hills CC. The USGA handicap system takes this into account -- (almost) every course and set of tees has a course rating and slope score that says how difficult it was.

Really oversimplfying (this is for illustration, not accuracy), if you played tees with a 72.0 rating and you shot a bunch of 72s, you'd be a 0.0. If you shot those 72s on a course with a 66.0 rating, you'd be more like a 6.0. If you shot 72s at Oakmont, you'd be Tiger Woods.