I’m feeling pretty good now about my $150 costco putter purchase.
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I was making everything from outside 6 feet yesterday with my stroke lab 7:
I love this thing. It’s perfectly weighted for my stroke and the ball rolls so smooth off of the face. I got a fat grip with it and choke all the way down on it so I’m almost hunched all the way over but it works for me. My instructor says I’m one of the best putting students he has and I have tied the putting drill record he has all of his students do (it’s a putting ladder drill).
I played really well this weekend until the back 9 yesterday. I shot 11 over through 11 holes on 11 straight bogeys which isnt that horrible for me on this course, it’s a tricky one. But for some reason my driver was just going nowhere and I couldn’t even pull off a 190 yard carry (downhill with the wind) over a river and it just completely unraveled me. Shanked my hybrid on the next shot, threw the club. Then I had a sidehill lie which I whiffed. Then a bladed wedge that went a mile but somehow still didnt get anywhere near the green.
Tripled that hole and we went to scramble format because I was just over the top frustrated and no one was playing that great anyway. I really need to work on my driver. I can hit my 7 iron nearly 150 yards now, but my driver only is going 175. I don’t know what’s wrong with my driver swing at the moment. Gonna spend the next several lessons just practicing driver but I kind of hate practicing that club. I just want some confidence with it.
I’m still counting the weekend as a win because my short game was fire and I think I only missed like one or two approaches with a short iron. So the base of my game is still there, I just gotta work on getting to inside 150 yards. It’s so unbelievably frustrating how short I am off the tee. Maybe it’s just a strength issue and if I start working out it’ll get better, but somehow I doubt it. I think it’s a technique thing - my swing speed with my irons is in the low 80’s which I’m told is decent but my driver isn’t really getting much faster than that.
Driver is a SOB, I’ve found that with other clubs, as I make parts of my swing more fundamentally sound, the results either stay the same or get better. With driver, it’s all or nothing, whole swing need to be pretty sound or would be better off swinging like a complete beginner.
The ONLY benefit of the partly fundamentally sound drive is that the swing is so bad and short that the ball at least stays in bounds, lol.
I think I’m swinging down on the ball like I do with my irons, which is causing the super high short shots. My friend thinks it’s because my driver loft is 12 degrees but I really dont think that’s a large part of the issue here. I’m pretty sure it’s spin - I mean you can see it in the shot, it takes off at a really nice high angle and looks like it’s bombed (people on the tee usually go “oh NICE!”) but then it just balloons and falls straight to the ground like I shot it into a 20 mph headwind.
I’ve hit a nice high 240 yard shot with this club so I know it’s capable of it.
Too much loft contributes to too much spin but obvi not your only problem if losing that much distance.
My logic in the loft choice was that higher handicappers benefit from more loft in their drivers due to them being more forgiving. I may have overdone it though. Unfortunately I lost my receipt so I just need to learn how to hit this thing.
While rehearsing my driver swing in my living room I did notice I do a much different move than I do with my irons. With my irons I try to get the butt of my club facing away from me on the downswing (which translates to a more inside path). This move’s absolutely nonexistent with my driver, possibly because it feels so much harder to control and get the clubface around than with my irons.
It feels like if I do that move with my driver that I’m gonna miss the ball completely.
Hear you, I’m on my 4th or 5th used driver from Callaway Pre-Owned, lol. With the big sales they always have and decent trade-in value, it hasn’t been too expensive.
When you say club pointing away from you, do you mean a move that gets your left elbow pointing away from you? If so, just saw GG say you should do that.
From there, pushing off the right foot then “pulling the cord” (like starting a lawnmower) to finish your swing might get you there.
I “humped” some nice drives on the course yesterday but think I need the cord pulling move for consistency in getting the face square so going to try that myself.
No I mean the butt end of the club, the side with the grip, will be facing more away from you when you come down if you’re coming from the inside. If it’s facing towards you the clubs gonna take an outside arc. If the butt end of the club is facing away from you then the club path is coming more from behind your body, aka on the inside. But yea with this motion your left elbow is pointing away from you.
I previously thought i had to manipulate the club path with my arms but the light bulb moment was when I realized it’s really manipulated more by the hands (at least how i imagine it).
Once I started doing it this way the numbers on my simulator switched from outside to inside (with all my clubs except driver and woods)
I’m looking forward to trying out my driver theory on the simulator tomorrow. That’ll fix my slice but hopefully it also fixes the distance. I think it all comes down to the insane amount of spin on my ball.
Just tried to duplicate this w/o also turning the left elbow out, think I was swinging like this recently. After you do this, does it feel like a stabbing motion to get to the ball?
Feels more like a flick, but kind of yea. Feels similar to the motion where you try to put top spin on the ball in table tennis. My instructor tried to tell me that a while ago but i didnt really get it at the time.
So think we are at similar places… Below are 3 ways GG teaches to focus on this specific move of pointing the butt and left elbow out (I’m taking notes on this shit like I’m studying for an exam, lol) fwiw:
Shallow Feels: 1) Hands up, back and away as soon as you start to turn 2) Leave lead arm up and push away 3) Lead arm “brake” while Right Seamline and Right Humerus run together
He doesn’t love all hands as gets you steep and in trouble w/ longer clubs. In fact, its in my notes of reasons for getting too steep, lol:
“#6 - trying to shallow w/ hands”
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Walked 18 yesterday with my Dad, always happy to break 90 but it wasn’t a stellar round. Driver is a mess! Hard to believe I was fit for this thing. Swan Lake is a pretty wide open course and I used every bit of it. At any other course I play I’d have shot 105+ with a zillion penalties. Not really sure what’s wrong, Dad thinks I need to shorten backswing on everything but it’s hard to do without messing everything else up. Guess I’m gonna shell out for some lessons next season. May take a 30min lesson on Driver before fall, we’ll see.
Only thing I did well was putt, lagged really well and nailed a 20fter on 18 to seal the sub 90 round. Didn’t know it at the time otherwise I would’ve missed, duh. I also bladed 4 short chips across the green but I’m usually tight with those so not too worried.
Worst part of the day was my Dad, he shot a 99 due to numerous injuries he’s dealing with. Hip, knee, back and shoulder, you name it he’s got it. He was in agony but refused to stop. Said he won’t be playing for a while so might as well finish and raise his handicap for next time he plays league golf, haha. Hope he gets it back so he can shoot some more sub 80 rounds.
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Yea I just never understand what people mean when they say shallow the club. i’m not quite there yet. I definitely come in very steep with my irons. It’s probably translating to my driver swing.
Dreamcrusher, good round. I like seeing rounds where the back 9 is much better than the front. I tend to fall apart late in rounds. I think it’s a stamina thing.
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These are my specialty, I think i had a round years ago where I went 55-40. I used to track all my scores and stats on oobgolf but the website went down and I’ve lost a lot of rounds 
It’s not unusual to have a 8-10 stroke difference between the 9s
Here’s one from a few weeks ago
Nice, I start to get tired and lose focus the last 3-5 holes. Which sucks because the way a lot of courses are designed, the last few holes are tricky.
One course I played a few times has a 475 yard par 4 (from the whites) on #18 with a narrow fairway lined with bunkers and trees the entire way to the green. I am always like fuck this. Getting bogey on that hole would be like a birdie for me.
Played yesterday (85) and today(86). Too many punch outs and not enough putts made inside 12 feet or else I could have had some really good scores. But I’ll take it considering this morning was 55 degrees and raining pretty solid the entire time. Of course it’s bright sunny and warm now.
On the 1st yesterday I hit my tee shot into the hazard and couldn’t find the ball. Took my drop, iron onto the green, and dropped a 20 footer for par. From there I played the next 35 holes with the same ball. I hit a branch on a hole today and really squeezed some wedges but the ball still looks in pretty damn good shape. I was playing the Chrome Soft Truvis which makes it a bit easier to find this time of year with the leaves coming down and the long shadows. Might have to switch over to some yellow ones soon because it took a couple minutes a few times to find it in the fairway.
The red callaway superhots are the easiest ones to find for me. But they’re kind of pricey. I like how they feel on chipping/putting.
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Snuck out of work early and squeezed in 9. Played well except for the disaster on the easiest
par4. Putted well, sent a few way past but nailed the comebackers.
For some further putter talk. This is my girl. I’ve played with my buddy’s Circle T and everything in between but keep going back to this brass putter my then gf, now wife bought me. Regripped it about 5 times over the years and will do so again before next spring. When struck just south of the eyesight line this thing is silky smooth. I sometimes I hit it off the inside too far for a “dead” feel. Works amazing when done properly.
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