I'm not sure what's going on here, or why the PGA Tour tweeted it out. Seems pretty cringy to me.

Got on the Trackman today for the first time, and it was pretty interesting. The one outcome that I'm happy with is that a driver upgrade will 100% impact my game. I had good-feeling baseline shots with my current driver, and literally every shot I hit with the test drivers (I tried three different heads/brands and several shaft combos) gained distance. Overall average was 8 yards more, but with the one I'll end up getting (Ping G425) it was closer to 10, with better dispersion, and the bombs were upwards of 20 yards. I'm giddy at the thought of 10 extra yards. I'll try it out a couple rounds this weekend for on-course perspective, but that will probably be the one.

Somewhat surprising to me since they're 6 years old, none of the irons I tried showed enough improvement to justify an upgrade, which is fine with me. I like my irons; if there was a big change I would have made it, but there wasn't.

Also talked about delofting my 5 wood into more of a 4 wood, and ditching the 3 wood from my bag. Definitely makes sense on my home course, and probably others. I just don't hit it consistent enough, so it is smarter golf to hit something with less dispersion and predictability, and the distance loss isn't too significant.

I was happy to see that I haven't been lying to myself about club distance. If I was that would have been bad, because I KNOW I don't hit it far, ha.

i suppose it's just a reminder that every stroke matters in tourney golf, no matter the level

Porter - curious about delofting your 5w to a 4w and ditching the 3w. what other club will you bag? how much do your gaps matter at that distance? asking because i know my gaps don't matter much at all over 200+ because my lack of consistency makes them pretty much irrelevant.

The elimination of the 3W is in a lot of ways addition by subtraction. I shouldn't hit the 3W as much as I do since it's so inconsistent, but if it's in the bag I'm going to try. A lot of this thought process is problematic since it is centered on my home course (and it might not travel well), but going through a round I get in positions where it takes a perfect 3W to hit the green and a miss gets me in a lot of trouble, and while a 5W might not get me there, it will more consistently give me a good yardage where I'm comfortable (and not in trouble) I also don't have that much of a gap between a well-hit 3W and a well-hit 5W.

I'd most likely add another wedge and rearrange my wedge gaps. That's another thing that came up in conversation today: the pro is going to see if he can get me stock wedges that match my current irons. For years I've played semi-used Vokeys and just switched them out when needed (there's a guy in Portland who sells clubs out of his garage; he always has tons of sets). But that's stupid. One, I don't have a matching set of wedges, so I get a different feel with different lofts; not ideal. Two, while my wedge game is pretty good, I don't have the skill to really take advantage of whatever advantage the Vokey might provide. Talking it through with the pro, I think my game would be better served pitching with the same wedges as my irons from a feel and confidence perspective, especially since I love using the PW I have for both pitching and chipping. I currently have a PW (45 degree), 52 degree, 56 degree, and 60 degree. I think I'm going to try the PW, 50 degree, 54 degree, 58 degree, and the 60 (which I don't use often, but really like having it when I need it).

Five wedges might seem silly, but it's where I score. I also bump and run a lot from varying distances, so the smaller gaps are a bit more important. Worth experimenting.

thanks. i also play a 45* PW, and forever played volkey 50, 54, and 58 wedges. last year swapped out the volkey for calaway mac wedges with the same loft and i'm seriously considering swapping back the volkeys.
i never got the feel for a 60*, although i've played one or two in the past.

Annual charity scramble on Friday. Last year we shot -13. This year we have 3 people back (me, another 2 handicapper, and a 10 handicapper), plus the 2 handicapper's son who is 8 or 9. He can hit the ball around 160y so perfect from the red tees.

Should be fun!

I love scrambles and wish I played in more of them. My club only has about one a year, course a few miles down the road has one, but that's it. Even when I lived in Portland I had a hard time finding them.

-13 seems about right for that group of handicaps. Pre-covid I had a regular scramble group at the annual lawyer convention that was me (back then, around an 11), a 3, a 5 (who played in college and used to be scratch, and still hits the ball a mile), and a 15. -12 was always the target and we usually hit it and won, but the competition wasn't great.

the shits-and-giggles scramble scores that seem to win these days in Portland are almost always in the high 50s, somewhat frequently in the mid-50s.
just underscores how crazy it is for a PGA pro to break 60 under tourney conditions.

Had a lesson today my 1st one in like 10 years.

Not sure if I can agree with what he said or not.

I try and hit a right to left shot like I intend to do it. However he saw this is a problem and started try to set my up square to the target and was trying to get me to hit just straight balls which I thought was a bit weird. The thing I didn't like he didn't put down any alignment aids to help me which I thought was a bit odd but wasn't to fussed as I personally feel I can sort my alignment with a pre shout routine.

The one thing I do agree I need to work on is shorten up my swing and at the top of my swing I need to keep my right elbow more connected as it tend to flare out and causes my club to go across the path.

When I was trying to keep my right elbow more connected I felt like I was going to shank everything so this may take some time

Went out to play yesterday, got my clubs in the car, felt the wind blowing, and took my clubs back out and stayed home. First time I've not played when I had a reservation due to wind or cold. Was about 44 degrees with gusts around 30mph. When I called the course to cancel my reservation the guy said the course was packed. Guess I'm getting soft in my old age!

**** man just layer up, cover the head and ears, and go out and have fun. weather like that is a built-in excuse to not focus on the score and try shots you don't normally get to make because the score doesn't matter.

Yeah I agree it can actually be quite fun slinging balls around in the wind. You'll probably end up learning a bunch of stuff to.

Wind, rain, and cold. I will play in any combination of two of those, but won't play in all three. And rain is the only one where if it's too bad it's a no-go.

Subpar is the best golf podcast imo. Only one I’m listening to consistently. The latest with Pat Perez is great.


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Have to check it out, thanks. Perez is always a great guest.

I listen to No Laying Up, quality varies but I like when they have a long interview with a player (Max Homa was on recently and he was great). Also listen to the Drop Zone occasionally.

I ONLY listen to their interviews. I like their tournament previews and recaps, but they're just too damn long. I have about half an hour a day to listen to podcasts and like some variety throughout the week, so a two hour podcast isn't ideal.

Forgot to mention that Perez throws some small shade at 2+2's favorite son Will Zalatoris for being one of the players most likely to tie up a practice green with putting gadgets, ha.

Ha I need that

I'll check this out, I have about an hour per day to podcast and I worked my way through all of the Sweet Spot (pretty good content, somewhat repetitive and shilly but their interviews in particular are good) and Chasing Scratch (very inane but it can be funny). Was just starting on Hack It Out which seems decent so far.

How much talent must this guy have?

I do like a podcast mainly to fall asleep to for some reason these days I cannot fall asleep without something on the tv.

Golf podcast is better than booze for sleep aid

Me and two friends have started playing various different betting games when we play.

One friend is a 5 handicap, myself and my other friend are 15. My friend whos a 5 is moaning a lot about making birdies and not winning the hole, and says that when people play games like skins, vegas, nassau etc, that they dont typically use full handicaps and usually use only a percentage of each persons handicap.

I have tried googling and cant find anything that backs this up. Is he talking out of his ass or is this common practice?

It really depends on what game you are playing. I play with a rotating group of 4 other players. I am the lowest handicap and play off of a scratch. The others get 7,10,13, and 18 shots off of me. When we play wolf, good luck as a low handicap. That game is notoriously bad for low caps when you are facing all higher handicaps. When you play one v one I think the handicap system works well.

Since you have three people try playing 9's. 5 points for 1st, 3 for 2nd, 1 for 3rd. Play a much per point as you want.

One little thing we have done is to give a player no more than double on their card when it comes to turning in their score to GHIN. Not net double, just double. In the game you can score higher but not for our posting purposes. That gives our higher handicap players a slightly lower handicap than they really should have.

Getting to your question, yes, he really is talking out of his ass. Have you kept track to see who really is winning and losing?