Think I've had 3 or 4 this year, All on Par 4's either chip ins or hole outs. Too short to reach 500 yard Par 5's in 2, Maybe in the summer when the ball is going a bit further providing I can actually hit a 3 wood off the deck properly, When that club gets in my hand I literally forget how to swing a club ... I should actually force myself to go round without a driver and use the 3 wood a ton to figure it out.

Going to Bandon in January with dad, brother, and best friend. We are playing 5 rounds in 5 days, with the last 2 having caddies who are double bagging. Gonna play 18 hole matches with different partners for the first 3 days, along with skins and headsup matches.

For last 2 rounds, guy who is up most and down most are partners for a 36 hole match against the other 2 guys, with a caddie assigned to each team to maximize the camaraderie etc.

That sounds like a blast. If you don't already have caddies lined up you can request my brother, Andrew H or Colorado Drew, and depending on when you're there he may be available. He's starting his 8th year there which is wild for me to fathom.

Decided to put in a card today... Didn't help me arriving in a rush 20 min drive took 40 mins.

Conditions were really iffy and super wet. Started saving my score a little on the back 9.

Birdie on the Par 5 was fun. Hit a good drive, Think I had like a 6 iron into the green all carry as water is short. Felt like I hit a good shot but just a yard short and into the water. Took a drop and holed it for a birdie.

15 and 16 are stupid bogey's such easy holes shouldn't be dropping shots on them holes.

17 I actually thought I holed it off the tee hitting up hill so you cannot see it down. Weirdly it's flew the green I think as I couldn't find a pitch mark, So 1 or 2 clubs out on that one.

Happy with 80 overall giving the conditions and it's not one of my favourite courses in the world my best is 77

As it's the BBV thread I'm gonna dump a bit of my year-end stats. Got Mark Broadie's golf metrics app this year as I wanted to track my game more closely than score, putts, fairways and greens hit. As I suspected I'm a poor driver of the ball, a worse putter than I thought and pretty dang good with wedges, irons and even hybrid/3w long game. I ended up logging 23 rounds (about half of what I played; no tracking at Bandon, new courses I played only once, 2-man events, etc.). 7 were tournament rounds, which were mostly a disaster as I have documented in this thread I get a bit antsy in solo golf events.

My biggest take aways are that I don't hit it far enough or in play enough off the tee (like more than I thought), I don't make enough makeable putts and I 3-putt way too often. THe distance thing is interesting; I'm not long by any stretch (100mph driver speed), but I have to hit a lot of driving irons as I lack ability and confidence. "Scratch" driving seems to be 220 y in the fairway and 250 in the rough, plus penalty shots hurt and almost all my penalties are off the tee, so averaging 225 isn't going to get it done when the goal is low single digit.





Clearly a focus on the tee ball, 150-200 mid and long irons and putting of all distances is what I will focus on this winter and next spring!

My last 8 tracked rounds (since mid August or so) have been wildly better (and thanks to ntnBo for some encouragement and advice related to my tee game woes). I also switched to left-hand low putting at this time as my putting yips and awfulness had reached its peak:



Fun to play well this fall; looking forward to a FL trip in January and hopefully a good start to the spring when the snow melts and we get going next April.

Curious as to how much work is involved when inputting info in during a round. Like what do you all need to enter?

Just the distance on each shot and the type of lie (tee, fairway, rough, sand, deep rough, recovery, penalty). Distances on the green are feet, everything else is yards. So if hole 1 is a 400y par 4 (just use scorecard yardage as especially with your home course it will average out from pin position and tee location after a few rounds).

Then note your distance for your approach (which you're likely lasering anyway). Say you've got 150 in the fairway. Then you miss the green; and you've got a 20y pitch from the rough (or and or fairway, etc.) and hit it to 5'. Then if you make that for par you'd have your 4 shots and all the information you need or if you missed and tapped in from 1 foot you're still done. Samples:

I just note the approach distance, short game distance and putt lengths on my card then go back after the round and enter it all in; takes a few seconds in between each hole and then 5-8 minutes after the round to get it entered into the app.

Like $70 for a year subscription I think

OK so no club details are entered in the, Seems easy enough.

Exactly - no club detail/data. So thus you get a total average driving distance but can't get just driver distance. They try to accomplish that with the 75 percentile stats I think, eliminating the stinkers and lay ups.

You can also set the data to pro which I think is PGA Tour baseline, but I don't even look at that.

Why don't you use something that's more automated like Shotscope or Arccos?

I personally use the shotscope watch and think it does a pretty good job. It's automated but you do have to edit the round afterwards. Putting is probably the worse thing for it, Every hole you are meant to go up to the flag once you holed your putt and tap the watch to register the flag position I forget to do this a lot.

But other than that I can't fault the product. Once you get a load of rounds in you get a ton of data and you can compare yourself to x handicap and tour pro's if you'd like with shots gained

I can post some examples of the stat pages if you'd like just let me know. I can't speak for Arccos as I've never used it but it seems to do the same thing the big thing for me though it was automated,

How do you know the distance from your watch to the pin? Or does it use center of the green?

I'd love a little more automated but again, I'm getting every yardage outside 20-30 yards anyway so I just shoot the laser and in between holes note it all down

Yeah you only get front middle and back having a laser with it is the play though.

The only thing that might let down using shotscope is "I think" it just assumes everything is flat, So a 165 shot that's actually playing 175 will go down as 165 on the stats page I think, Might skew the stats a little but probably will average itself out over a season.

I should add Shotscope you buy the product and then it's free. Arccos you buy the product (I think it fairly cheap) but you sub to the app $100 I think it is for a year.

I have Arccos arriving today and am pretty excited to bathe myself in data nerd glory.

And thanks for the rec, KJ, I'm sending Bandon a message to see if your brother is available on our dates!

38-39-77

13 pars, 5 bogeys

Two club wind. Hit the ball great, never made a putt. They were slower today, not sure if wind was changing direction of putts or not.

Xmas Scramble 9 holes today, Was really fun to play.

Got paired with a couple of Senior women. Unfortunately one was at the early stages of Alzheimer's .. It come in stages whilst we were playing. Like she would forget it was her turn to hit and on 1 hole she was aiming down the wrong hole for her approach shot. Then sometimes she just wouldn't play at all.

Overall though was fun to play and to play with some others that I wouldn't normally meet or play with. Was funny on our 4th hole I hit a driver nearly to the green but we had to take 1 of the ladies shots as it was going to be tough to get them in as we all had to have 2 each min. Put a bit of pressure on me as I was the only one in my group who could hit over 160 yards after the tee shot, I did have another middle aged guy he could hit around 200 off the tee but off the deck he struggled.

Come like 8th out of 18 groups some how won something

Great turn out for a small club think we got like 72 people and we also had a reserve list on top of that. Everyone showed up I think on a super cold and bitter day,

Last MGA event of the year.

Front 9 was modified Chapman. Both tee off, then hit each others ball, then choose one and alternate shot in. We shot gross 35 there.

Back 9 shamble. We shot 38 there.

Never would have thought we would have been better on the front 9 game. Partner was my boss who is 66. He only hit one bad drive all day which is great for him. 2 birdies on the front, 1 on the back.

Oh, our second hole of the day is a medium par 4. I hit 7 iron on the left front leaving about 50 feet for birdie. Pin was cut front right, just above a ridge that acts like a false front, I putted it off the green and made double

Team game today, Managed to go around in +1 today individually though. +1 on the front level back 9 very steady as I only had 2 birdies and considering my wedge game was on point today probably should of had a few more.

We only just won overall think by 1 shot in the end. On the 17th which is the 2nd hardest hole 3 of us birdied it and the other guy got a par so that hole probably won us it.

Was pretty cold out there today with a light bitter wind was kind of painful playing into the wind.

Went back here today, Shot 76 +6 much better performance.

There is a little bit in me that actually feels sort of disappointed at the same time too though. I 3 putted the last 2 holes and I missed a couple of short ones. So could of been a little better. Beat my best by 1 today so really happy with that. Should bring my handicap down a little. This time I kept the doubles off the card.

37-37-74

4 birdies, 1 double

Finally a decent round. Starting birdie, birdie helps. Doubling the 3rd after putting one OB doesn't.

Yeah, but that's basically birdie-birdie-par start!

always be turning

i would enjoy reading a trip report if you were willing to post one in the Bandon thread.

but she's still playing to her best ability, and has been fortunate to find other players to help her along. may we all find similar companions when our time comes.

100% will do!

Absolutely, nothing terrifies me more honestly.

100% she actually had a bit of banter about her too which was nice to see. She started ripping into the other women when she described her breakfast to us, I was in stitches

42-38-80

1 eagle, 1 birdie, 2 doubles

New driver shaft arrived and it's a world of difference. Much softer than the rebar I had before. Still need some work with it but it did produce a 300y drive on 18 leaving me 220y. Hit 3h to 25 feet and made it.