MD/DC/VA Golfers - Twelve Monkeys Mental Divergence

[willboyrd]

What in the world is going on with Phil's new putting stroke? He gets to the top of the backstroke then pauses for a solid beat or two then proceeds with the throughstroke. Bizarre.

[dcmidnight]

The first time I saw it was on that par 3 he almost hit it in the water - I thought he was having a stroke.

[FAbb]

I can't even recall the last time I jumped on twitch, but @baddomes and @Golfer827 put on a highly entertaining show last night. 827's video golf game was RUSTY. Full on chip yips. It must be the most realistic golf game ever created. Domes brought out some voice changers that had me laughing so hard, I had to pluck one headphone off and give it to my wife to listen for a few minutes. 827 put Rick in timeout. Freezy showed up. Hoop brought his investigative reporting skills, to ask the hard hitting questions we all needed answers to.

[baddomes]

Fabb left before the best moment of the night.

https://clips.twitch.tv/JollyBigPuppyEagleEye

[XHoop24]

We also were treated to a breakdown of the three best golf shots of @Golfer827 career (both video game and real golf) and this ranked third on the list.
Some serious shiggles were had on the twitch last night for those interested in joining future steams.

[SullGolf]

What were #1 and #2 if #3 is a virtual Ace on a par 4?

[Golfer827]

#1, Hole 7 of the Executive 9 at Northwest during the ICC 2019. THDC left me out to dry on the right on another fairway. I needed to hit a high hook to get to the green, but haven't hit anything like that all day. Pulled 4 Hybrid, took some practice swings, and pulled the trigger. Saw it hook, and saw it climb. Landed on the green, rolled to the other side. THDC and Chen Jr. looked at the ball, looked at me, looked at the ball, looked at me and THDC said 'HOLY ****!' I cracked up about it.

 

#2, Cow pasture known as Frederick Golf Course. Old 18/current 9 if the course is even open anymore. Uphill tee shot, and while it is a short hole, I drove the green. Made Par after a 3 jack.

 

Now, that does not mean the close calls for ace and the like at previous CC's and other events aren't high up there. Just those are more memorable to me because it was the first time I had actually done something I was looking to do.

[Kent01putt]

Anybody playing B team at Woodmore this coming weekend. I will be playing at Woodmore. I know there are a lot of guys on here that belong there.

[TheCityGame]

Kent -- your boy beat Covid.

Now, when Tiger has 20 majors, you can go, "yeah, but he never beat Covid. Jack's still the best."

[Kent01putt]

No won't do that City. Jack will always be the best to me but Tiger is 2nd for how.

[ceejay81]

Beating COVID counts as winning a major. Jack is up to 19 now.

[dcmidnight]

Awesome weekend at Club Championship, will try to writeup more later. Could not play 1st flight this year because they held it Friday morning and I had to work, so was top seed in Flight 2. Cest la vie.

Friday Round 1 - Was 5 down after 11 holes, 4 down after 12. Pushed the 13th with tough bogies. Won the last 5 holes in a row incl 2 birdies. 1 up.

Saturday Round 2 - Hardfought match the whole way. Sunk a tough 15 footer for birdie on 16 and 2 putted from 60 feet on 17 to win 2 and 1.

Sunday Finals - Came out hot, confidence still through the roof. 148* heat index - approximately - helped me absolutely thump some drives. Opponent actually played really well - I just made more putts. 6 & 4 winner.

Three club tournaments entered in the last four weeks. Three outright wins. Index as of this morning down to a 3.5. Doesnt help that I've had competition rounds posted of 72, 70, 72, 73.

[misplacedtexan83]

I was going to say you are my hero but than @Sterling_247 posted a video of him singing so ...
However so awesome brother! That’s fire

[gregh729]

Congrats DC. Strong play

[gregh729]

I took 39 putts this morning. How am I doin?

[FlyingLaw1]

Hi All!

Totally forgot about this thread.. (honestly haven't been on WRX much since I moved here... ) I'm not in my 11th month of living in Arlington and so far liking it. So far I've only played Laurel Hills, Potomac Shores, and Twin Lakes-Lakes. Laurel Hills was by far my favorite. Any recommendations for similar courses I should try in the same price range? I want to try some place new this weekend.

 

[thechief16]

Bull Run or Westfields would be my recs.

[FlyingLaw1]

Westfields it is! Thanks!!

[SullGolf]

How many GIR? That’s anywhere from “eww” to “yikes”. Once you hit 40 putts it starts being curse words instead.

[gregh729]

hit 11 greens, 39 putts. shot 83. Turned a nice 76/77 into an 83

 

[2moreTerpz]

lost my colony match to sully yesterday 3&2. he did some good stuff. he was short of the third green and hit a super crisp chip that with the pin location rolled out a bit. he made a decent length putt for par. He hit a crisp iron on 5 from the fairway bunker to have a pretty good look at birdie. On 15 he was next to a tree and got it all the way to the green but right with the bunker in his way. He hit a great pitch off the slope and then made a decent length putt for par. Good stuff. I'm not sure what PNumber the top of the backswing is but he always gets to the same spot and it looks real good.

 

but i still feel like i gave the match away. i three putted four times on the front. i hit 7 greens/fringes and made 6 bogies. i missed makeable (like not long) par putts on 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8. I was three down at that point but won 9, 10 and 11 to get it back to AS. Sully won 12 with a 4/3 to go three up. 13, 14, 16 are no stroke holes. i went push, loss, push. Just not good enough.

 

After the match i walked nine more holes. For the day i hit 19 of 27 greens. I got it up and down for par 0 times. I made 0 birdies. Just not normal stuff. The ball striking is what matters. The putting and short game will be fine.

[willboyrd]

What course?

[SullGolf]

Tee to green 2MT wins 5&4 probably. I made a couple good scores when I needed to. Stole a couple of non stroke hole wins (3, 14) which is always big when you are getting 11 pops. The disparity between my match play score and actual score was big. Grint has my match play index as only 2 shots worse than my previous score that was 8 shots better by differential.

I did putt it off the green on two occasions though, and almost a 3rd. Ended up 3 putting but not hurting too bad since two were for bogey on stroke holes.

We had blood on 13 of 16 holes. Probably would have had blood on the last 2. I missed a shortie on 17 that I’m convinced I would have made in a match, and 2MT clobbered a drive on 18 to my OB hook.

Eagle is probably not so silently laughing about his good fortune.

[2moreTerpz]

will we played at turf valley

[dcmidnight]

I missed a shortie on 17 that I’m convinced I would have made in a match, and 2MT clobbered a drive on 18 to my OB hook.

Post-match handicap management game is on point here

[SullGolf]

I was going to address that but wanted to leave some low hanging fruit for the crowd.

Wouldn’t have matter for my cap anyway unless I went birdie birdie on those two.

[dcmidnight]

So I have made two minor equipment changes in the last month that must have had some sort of effect on my game – although clearly I cannot say which made more of a difference. The first thing I did was put a new putter in the bag at the end of June. The Miura has a similar head shape to the Toulon Austin but it’s a little heaver, has a sightline on the sole and also has a slightly thicker topline. The Stability Tour shaft is similar to the Stroke Lab shaft but maybe a subtle difference in look and weight – it feels really good although I don’t really care about having a debate as to whether these shafts “work” or not. Put the putter straight into my bag on a Tuesday night, won a league match on Wednesday and won a tournament that following Saturday. Whatever it is, I like it and more importantly it seems to be working on the course.

The second thing I started doing was choking up a good two inches with the driver. It was more an experiment than anything after watching a TXG video comparison that they did and sure enough it just worked. The SIM came at 45.5” so I am down to @ 43.5” effectively. I have gained some distance and more importantly it just feels better. TXG said something to the effect of for people with faster swing speeds, it might let you hit the sweet spot a little more than you do with the full length. I honestly forget their full results but that was the gist of it. Again, not sure why but its worked for me. Its short enough now that I can really go after it but I know I’m not going to lose the ball too far one way or the other.

Confidence this weekend was just absolutely through the roof. I feel like there has to be a point when you are trying to get better though where uber-confidence might actually get in the way of your game – I just don’t know where that point is yet. On Friday I was 5 down after 11 holes and yet I honestly knew I had not played that badly. I hit driver/wedge on a 440 yard par 4 12th, won the hole – and then won five holes in a row to close it out on 18. I think my opponent really thought I was out of it and was maybe a little unnerved the last three holes. I just kept pounding drives out there, hitting the green and making putts. Standing on the tee box Saturday morning after doing that on Friday was great. I honestly felt that there was no situation I could put myself in that I couldn’t figure my way out of. So where is the line between being over-confident in your game while at the same time knowing that you've proved something in tournament play and in match play?

Sunday was a great finals matchup with someone I really like playing with. One of those guys that is not long off the tee but is always down the middle and has a bagful of hybrids that he just hits right up/near the green. There were a couple holes though where he even admitted it was tough to keep up when it took him two shots to get to my drive. Made a bunch of mid length putts again and just gave him no chance at all to get going. I was up 3 at the turn, won 12/13/14 to close it out.

After finishing up on Sunday I was sort of ready for a break. It was so hot this weekend and combining that with a lot of mental grinding going on for three straight days, I was just ready to put the sticks up for a while. Woke up Monday morning, saw that my index was down to a 3.5 and said no way, lets get back at it Wednesday night. My goal this year was to get down to a 4 so its probably time to reassess that as well. I think realistically keeping it under a 4 will be a tough thing to do for the rest of the year but certainly not impossible.

 

[willboyrd]

I chuckled when I read 'it has a sightline on the sole'.

[misplacedtexan83]

Heck yeah DC!

Sounds like you have figured out something and just swinging now. For a couple years you were always working on a swing

Now just have to get a COD solo win and 2020 is complete

[TheCityGame]

Sounds like some good rounds, DC. We have CC this weekend and I hope I get it going. Each of the last two years, I've played really good qualifying rounds and been eliminated in round 1 of match play. Our placement round is on our "short/tight" course. I've been playing it some lately and have had some trash rounds on it but enough where I should be fine.

I do some "choke down drives" to try to hit controlled shots and sometimes I absolutely mash one. I feel like I get the center of the face more often when I choke down and the back swing stops at a better place.