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Official OGBoards Golf Thread

I think Tau was saying the scratch golfers at the college level are legitimate scratch golfers since they're recording scores from tournaments and whatnot.

Yea, there are definitely scratch players at a lot of clubs that are 'ego scratch' - that is, they only post their best scores, or even scores a little better than their best scores, if you know what I mean, just so they can say they have a low handicap. I'm not talking about those guys.

College golfers lose a lot of money to the 'old' guys at my club...
 
Yea, there are definitely scratch players at a lot of clubs that are 'ego scratch' - that is, they only post their best scores, or even scores a little better than their best scores, if you know what I mean, just so they can say they have a low handicap. I'm not talking about those guys.

College golfers lose a lot of money to the 'old' guys at my club...


I know we are probably having different experiences but I see the exact opposite happen at my club. The weekend golfers who shoot scratch every time they play on Saturday/Sunday fall apart and shoot 78 in the club championship or in a match of new school vs old school due to not having that to not having swings that hold up under pressure. The college kids who have been playing AJGA since they were 13 don't have that problem due to their swigs being built to stand up in pressure and that they are use to it. It sounds to me like you don't think that makes them a better golfer, that they are just more seasoned in pressure situations. I would a argue that this in and of its self makes them a better golfer and that all "scratch" golfers aren't created equal.
 
I know we are probably having different experiences but I see the exact opposite happen at my club. The weekend golfers who shoot scratch every time they play on Saturday/Sunday fall apart and shoot 78 in the club championship or in a match of new school vs old school due to not having that to not having swings that hold up under pressure. The college kids who have been playing AJGA since they were 13 don't have that problem due to their swigs being built to stand up in pressure and that they are use to it. It sounds to me like you don't think that makes them a better golfer, that they are just more seasoned in pressure situations. I would a argue that this in and of its self makes them a better golfer and that all "scratch" golfers aren't created equal.

Yea, I think we really agree. Players who play a lot of competition tend to stand up better and play their best when it counts. No doubt.

And, because of the way handicaps are calculated, there are what I call "good" zeros and "bad" zeros -or really good and bad for any handicap level. "Good" means you are consistently at that level and your scores don't vary that much. "Bad" means your best scores get you the low handicap (since handicaps are based on best 10 out of last 20) but you also shoot a lot of scores a lot higher than your handicap.

Finally, my club is a little unique in that we have a good number of older players that are really good and that do play a lot of competition. So, sometimes their experienced, wily ways allow them to school the young bucks. Though I would say that group is starting to age out and lose their edge...
 
I never realized handicaps only counted your best 10 of 20. I'm pumped, I can now claim a better handicap.
 
So if I am not a member and snag one of these deals to Pine Brook they will honor it? I have always wanted to play there just never thought you could unless you are a member.
 
So if I am not a member and snag one of these deals to Pine Brook they will honor it? I have always wanted to play there just never thought you could unless you are a member.

Pine Brook has been allowing public play (with some tee time restrictions) for a while now. Course is in awesome shape right now. I'd be more than happy to host you. PM if interested.
 
Pine Brook has been allowing public play (with some tee time restrictions) for a while now. Course is in awesome shape right now. I'd be more than happy to host you. PM if interested.

Not only is this man a member, he's the (non-championship flight) club champion! (Congrats, by the way)
 
I never realized handicaps only counted your best 10 of 20. I'm pumped, I can now claim a better handicap.

Yep, and statistically you should only play to your handicap roughly one out of every 4 rounds.
 
Yep, and statistically you should only play to your handicap roughly one out of every 4 rounds.

I'd mainly been wondering how so many people were apparently so good at golf thinking handicap was average. I mean I was probably like a 10 or 11 at my best, but averaging much closer to bogey golf. I mainly think in terms of 9 from HS golf.
 
I'd mainly been wondering how so many people were apparently so good at golf thinking handicap was average. I mean I was probably like a 10 or 11 at my best, but averaging much closer to bogey golf. I mainly think in terms of 9 from HS golf.

A handicap is basically a measure of your best potential, not an actual average as you've figured out.

I maintain a +1 and still throw up an 80 on occasion (as I just did to lose our club championship by 1 stoke), but those 80's never really factor into the handicap calculation. One round under par has way more weight in determining handicap than an 80+ for me.
 
A handicap is basically a measure of your best potential, not an actual average as you've figured out.

I maintain a +1 and still throw up an 80 on occasion (as I just did to lose our club championship by 1 stoke), but those 80's never really factor into the handicap calculation. One round under par has way more weight in determining handicap than an 80+ for me.


Not your issue, I would guess, but tangentially, this is a problem with not playing enough and therefore playing inconsistently. Throw up a few 84s, then shoot 2 or 3 72-75s, and you end up with a handicap that kills you if you have your bad round(s) during an handicapped event.
 
I've been putting in some work on the greens lately trying to make my stroke hold up better under pressure. To measure my progress I've been using the iPing app.

So I took the following before/after stats on a series of 10 foot putts. In between I went and did the gate drill for about an hour: http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-instruction/short-game/putting/tigertip_gd0710

The results are pretty impressive. My stroke went from having an open face at impact to nearly perfectly square, and got much more consistent.

Sometimes it's not enough to just go and roll putts for practice. Need to work on the fundamentals. If the putter face isn't square when it contacts the ball, you'll develop bad habits (alignment, stroke) to compensate.

BS2SrCXCUAAd4g6.jpg


I've got a couple huge events in the next 10 days and I'm going to devote my time to working on my stroke and chipping instead of my long game, and see what the results are.
 
I've been putting in some work on the greens lately trying to make my stroke hold up better under pressure. To measure my progress I've been using the iPing app.

So I took the following before/after stats on a series of 10 foot putts. In between I went and did the gate drill for about an hour: http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-instruction/short-game/putting/tigertip_gd0710

The results are pretty impressive. My stroke went from having an open face at impact to nearly perfectly square, and got much more consistent.

Sometimes it's not enough to just go and roll putts for practice. Need to work on the fundamentals. If the putter face isn't square when it contacts the ball, you'll develop bad habits (alignment, stroke) to compensate.

BS2SrCXCUAAd4g6.jpg


I've got a couple huge events in the next 10 days and I'm going to devote my time to working on my stroke and chipping instead of my long game, and see what the results are.


Did you have to buy the putter attachment? If so, do you like how it works? I need to do something to get my short putting back on track.
 
Did you have to buy the putter attachment? If so, do you like how it works? I need to do something to get my short putting back on track.

Yeah, let us know where to get whatever stuff you need. My putting hasn't been great recently, I would love to have something lik this to try out if it's easy to come by.
 
Did you have to buy the putter attachment? If so, do you like how it works? I need to do something to get my short putting back on track.

Yeah, it's a cradle that holds your phone and clips to the shaft of your putter. The whole apparatus definitely changes the weight of the putter, but the point is not to make putts. It's to measure the steadiness and fundamentals of your stroke. The goal is repeatability.

http://www.golfsmith.com/product/30056280/ping-putting-cradle-for-iphone-4
 
I've found time is much better spent working on short game when leading up to playing in tournaments. My long game is basically always the same and not going to vastly improve, but working on touch, feel, and mechanics around the green I've found saves me a couple shots.
 
I've been putting in some work on the greens lately trying to make my stroke hold up better under pressure. To measure my progress I've been using the iPing app.

So I took the following before/after stats on a series of 10 foot putts. In between I went and did the gate drill for about an hour: http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-instruction/short-game/putting/tigertip_gd0710

The results are pretty impressive. My stroke went from having an open face at impact to nearly perfectly square, and got much more consistent.

Sometimes it's not enough to just go and roll putts for practice. Need to work on the fundamentals. If the putter face isn't square when it contacts the ball, you'll develop bad habits (alignment, stroke) to compensate.

BS2SrCXCUAAd4g6.jpg


I've got a couple huge events in the next 10 days and I'm going to devote my time to working on my stroke and chipping instead of my long game, and see what the results are.

Along the same lines, I highly recommend snagging a SkyPro or similar device for practicing. It's a small bluetooth device you clip to your club and sync to your phone. It then records every swing, tells you face angles, clubhead speed, and gives you a 3 dimensional view of your swing that you can watch in slow motion, backward forward, from any angle. If you do something really weird it'll highlight it, like "clubface 6 degrees open during take-away."

My favorite feature is the drill feature. You can take your driver for instance, and enter that you want to work on swinging to parallel. You get 10 swings and it dings if you are within a certain threshold and bongs if you screw up. You can also do tempo. Great for really focused practice.

I've been meaning to get the attachment thing for the ping Putter app. Maybe I'll follow up finally. Got Pinehurst coming up which I can focus on now that I'm done with all that wedding business.
 
Along the same lines, I highly recommend snagging a SkyPro or similar device for practicing. It's a small bluetooth device you clip to your club and sync to your phone. It then records every swing, tells you face angles, clubhead speed, and gives you a 3 dimensional view of your swing that you can watch in slow motion, backward forward, from any angle. If you do something really weird it'll highlight it, like "clubface 6 degrees open during take-away."

My favorite feature is the drill feature. You can take your driver for instance, and enter that you want to work on swinging to parallel. You get 10 swings and it dings if you are within a certain threshold and bongs if you screw up. You can also do tempo. Great for really focused practice.

I've been meaning to get the attachment thing for the ping Putter app. Maybe I'll follow up finally. Got Pinehurst coming up which I can focus on now that I'm done with all that wedding business.

Dude...I so need to get that.
 
I had some extra golfsmith cards from a tourney and got it without doing much research, but it's pretty sweet.

Definitely eye-opening to learn my average 2 iron swing was 5 degrees past parallel. After the first week working with it I played a tournament at Queenstown Harbor near Annapolis and shot a 73 while hitting 16 greens.

One drawback is you can see what your clubhead does but it's not video so you can't see WHY it does that. I think there's another similar device which will overlay video, but it doesn't have the drill feature. Plus since the device is solid it's really just whatever they add to the app, so who knows what they're working on. The SkyPro folks are pretty cool.
 
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