Andy's Updated WITB 2021 [new pics and journey / progress]

[Andygolderson]

Leave the specs down below to the signature 🙂 there's a free slot waiting to be filled. 

Still need to fill the 100-120 gap: Callaway MD4 54* comes up short sometimes, the 50* and 52* must be bent or odd-lofted, because they don't quite make it much farther. GW goes too long to 130, it's basically the same as my PW.

Took out the 2-iron since it's pretty comparable between the 5W and 4i. Rather fill up on the lower end.

The wear on the irons is pretty disappointing after about 6 rounds. At least i seem to be hitting them fairly well ? haha.

 

 

Edited November 19, 2021 by Andygolderson
Update title.

[Bunkersarebigcups]

Great bag, especially love the DF putter.

 

[Jtbsox99]

🤤

[suuch]

Man those irons are puuuure.... Had the privilege of hitting a 7i demo in store and I was pleasantly surprised with how easy they were to hit?! Maybe it was visually appealing and I forgot about how small the blade was... how have you been getting along with them?

[Andygolderson]

11 hours ago, suuch said:

Man those irons are puuuure.... Had the privilege of hitting a 7i demo in store and I was pleasantly surprised with how easy they were to hit?! Maybe it was visually appealing and I forgot about how small the blade was... how have you been getting along with them?

Loving them. They're so sharp and aggressive, but they don't put you off when looking down over them for the shot. PW and 6i are sharp !

 

They're very smooth and pure like you mentioned, I was quite surprised. I blind bought them from the internet, and of course people were commenting they're really small and only for single digits and pro's, but they're actually very friendly.

(I'm around a 15-18 handicap, but i'm not affriad of blades, and my driving and short game is what let's me down.) I hit them better than the previous King Forged MB's I play.

 

Look good, feel good. Performance is also very nice. Either i'm hitting them very well, or they're actually very forgiving.

The Pitching wedge is my favourite right now, 130 yrds everytime, down the line. I think it's the shaft that really helps with the feel. Definately feels softer and more stable kick point than my F4 110 Recoils.

 

Fun fact, the clubs faces are actually bigger than the King Forged MBs, the sharp toe is higher and the "muscle" in the back is thicker on the bottom side. They're very thin on the top end side.

 

Mack Daddy 4, 50* was a good choice today, solid 115 yds, very impressed. I feel the King MIM Master's wedge would be a good addition to top off the irons (OCD), but i'd have to buy 3 and bend 2, not sure how well that's going to work ? 😕

[Andygolderson]

On 4/29/2021 at 5:43 PM, Bunkersarebigcups said:

Great bag, especially love the DF putter.

 

Thanks Bunkers, i'm struggling to find a way to get the Latrobe back into play. It was my favourite putter. The DF i got has such a pure line up marking that i am not able to send it out from the front line 😛 The half crescent marker really makes it easy to  get the ball centered and there's a thin line (Which i thought was a scratch when i bought it, aligns the path really well).

 

I just rotate them when i have the notion.

[soccerjay]

Awesome looking bag, those irons look sleak 

[cbyard11]

Those irons are beauties. Too bad I cant hit them!

[Jtbarilla]

That bag though 🥵

[Andygolderson]

On 5/1/2021 at 8:09 AM, cbyard11 said:

Those irons are beauties. Too bad I cant hit them!

They're easier than you think 🙂 don't be affraid.

[foamhead]

Those irons are pure 

[Andygolderson]

Update on the update, on top of some other updates.

 

I've ditched my driver and still in between putters, but after some months of play, i've settled the bag. No more spending, unless a Toulon small batch SSM bulllseye comes ito my radar. 😍

 

Driving is just terrible. OB right, aggressive pulls when I over compensate, hitting something and coming up short. Just an average round for me. (It also counts tee shots from par 3's and 4's)

 

Scored a recent low score 89, which makes a change from mid to high 90's each week. Letting the driver go really made a big difference on not losing shots to big slice, and there's not really any loss of distance due to better consistency with the wood off the tee. I experimented with driver shaft in the cranked down 3w, however, the length didn't really affect th disance much according to my pocket monitor.

 

My next goal is to shoot 2 or 3 more in the 80's and see how low I can manage to take my score - 83 would be a record low for me. I only manage to play once a week, but with recent swing and grip improvements, i'm sure i can reach some consistency.

 

Starting at the top:

King Cobra F9 Tour Fairway 3-4 : 12* w/ HZRDUS Smoke Green Hand Crafted 'HULK' 43.25" - "2 wood / mini Driver"

King Cobra F9 Tour Fairway 3-4 : 15* w/ ALDILA TOUR GREEN ATX 75 X 42.25" - "4 wood"

King Cobra F9 Tour Fairway 5-6 : 19* w/ ALDILA TOUR GREEN ATX 75 X 40.25" -  "7 wood"

 

Throw in some wedges:

Cobra MiM Black Wedge 52* Classic grind, 12* bounce KBS Hi-Rev 2.0 (125g) - Black PVD

Cobra MiM Black Wedge 56* WideLow grind, 7* bounce KBS Hi-Rev 2.0 (125g) - Black PVD

Cobra MiM Black Wedge 60* WideLow grind, 4* bounce  KBS Hi-Rev 2.0 (125g) - Black PVD

I decided on WideLow to prevent chunking and to be able to sweep through the rough better, as I tend to spend quite some time over there. For the Gap Wedge, I opted for the Classic gind, as i feel it's more versatile than the ...versatile grind. 🤪

Short game is improving, paying more attention to club selection and trying to remember the hard greens. 

 

Next up are the irons. Still gaming the Rev 33's 4- Pw:

 

Cobra RF Rev 33 4-Pw - KBS C-Taper 120 Stiff w/ golf pride align grips.

 

I'd played around last weekend with the Forged MB's, which are slightly smaller, however, I get a much better feeling from the rev 33's. 

Iron play is quite solid, i tend to hit quite straight for the most part, with the exception of coming up short, so some potential for better scoring if i didn't need the chip on. However, i pay on hard greens, so it's also a risk of going long most of the time.

 

I'm still in between putters, but i think I will sell the L.A.B, in favour of the San Diego. Mallets aren't my favourite style, although it is a great putter. The Latrobe has some weighting issues with the stability shaft. it's too light down at the clubhad, so I need to work out a different shaft or lighter grip option for it to feel comfortable.

 

So Toulon San Diego 35", A|7 weghting, regular shaft with a SuperStroke Traxion Flatso grip is the putter of choice:

 

I'm making about 63% of putts within 10 feet and 15-20% of longer putts above 20feet. Unfortunately approach tends to come up short, usually due to soft conditions with wind and pure carry, which I tend to forget or misjudge.

 

Throw on the headcovers, and we're ready to go 😇

 

Ideally, I would like to get some more Golf Pride Align grips on the woods, spine align them on my current loft settings for a more comfortable reminder on my grip.

 

My 3 and 5 woods have MCC multicompound grip, which is really nice. Recenltly just aquired the other 3 wood with the hulk shaft, which came with something else, but i'd ike to get that replaced.

The wedges have a no frills Lamkin Crossline Connect - Black, however, I feel these are quite slippery, especially for a wedge.

 

Sticking with the stand bag, gives me a bit more trunk space, easier to carry and i don't need so much space right now for too many things in the bag.

 

 

Irons are wearing in well, little disappointed in the finish to be honest. They just seem to be coated, rather than deep grained with copper colouring.

 

The P-wedge just took a big ding to the center face last weekend, I guess I must have dug up some chips or stones. One of the best shot's i've hit though, held the green perfectly, so can't really complain. 🤭 (difficult to see)

 

I've been testing out many different balls, i'm starting to go towards something more firm, however, on the course, i've not really noticed much of a different to be honest. TP5, AVX, e12 soft, Honma TWX, Foremost, VPlus, BX s, Mizuno. I've tried a lot, the only real different i notice so far is from feel or from durability.

I do still really love the E12 sot in Matte Yellow, so i might go back to those again.

 

I'm using the PRGR Black launch monitor, but it's often unreliable in night time range conditions.Works fine for some gestimates.

My recent purchase was a Puttout Pressure trainer. More for fun than needing to get some pressure in my opinion, which i roll along a Wellputt mat.

 

That's it, now to focus on scoring 😁

[CoachCraigie]

Lovely bag! Particularly like the Scotland touch... 😉

[suuch]

Nice to see an update with the irons still planted in the bag.

 

With your dispersion would you say the 48% misses short come from poor club selection (taking pw instead of 9?) or mis hits? I made a huge leap when I dropped the ego and hit the extra club...

[Andygolderson]

On 11/22/2021 at 4:50 AM, suuch said:

Nice to see an update with the irons still planted in the bag.

 

With your dispersion would you say the 48% misses short come from poor club selection (taking pw instead of 9?) or mis hits? I made a huge leap when I dropped the ego and hit the extra club...

you could be right about the selection. Often the gorund will be soft and i can get too much under the ball losing some distance. combination of better distance planning and club choice depending on the conditions.

[J_Tizzle]

On 11/21/2021 at 2:50 PM, suuch said:

Nice to see an update with the irons still planted in the bag.

 

With your dispersion would you say the 48% misses short come from poor club selection (taking pw instead of 9?) or mis hits? I made a huge leap when I dropped the ego and hit the extra club...

 

That was just kinda my thought as well, and of course my mind goes "more forgiving irons" but of course you gotta play what looks good to you.

 

Very nice WITB!  Keep tracking your stats, thats the quickest way to find where you can drop strokes.

[Andygolderson]

6 hours ago, J_Tizzle said:

 

That was just kinda my thought as well, and of course my mind goes "more forgiving irons" but of course you gotta play what looks good to you.

 

Very nice WITB!  Keep tracking your stats, thats the quickest way to find where you can drop strokes.

i've tried to use improvement irons, but I find the feel and the offset aren't to my liking. Interestingly, i also didn't see any clear difference in distances or in consistency / forgiveness. Anything i'm doing wrong is from me, not from any clubs.

The majority of my scoring issues are down to poor judgements, to be honest. i'm finally working on playing smart, not playing hard. I'm a stubborn one, but playing for almost 2 years with primarily retirees led me to realise that I can play smarter.

Don't need driver from every tee, don't always attack everything. Maybe i'm just getting old 😛

 

I'm expecting the only changes moving forward would bea putter or to get the driver under control, but let's leave that for much later 🙂 

[J_Tizzle]

5 hours ago, Andygolderson said:

i've tried to use improvement irons, but I find the feel and the offset aren't to my liking. Interestingly, i also didn't see any clear difference in distances or in consistency / forgiveness. Anything i'm doing wrong is from me, not from any clubs.

The majority of my scoring issues are down to poor judgements, to be honest. i'm finally working on playing smart, not playing hard. I'm a stubborn one, but playing for almost 2 years with primarily retirees led me to realise that I can play smarter.

Don't need driver from every tee, don't always attack everything. Maybe i'm just getting old 😛

 

I'm expecting the only changes moving forward would bea putter or to get the driver under control, but let's leave that for much later 🙂 

 

That is totally fair!  I wasn't meaning anything negative with my comment, just so you know!  Ball striking has always been a weaker part of my game so when I moved to game improvement irons and then to the i500s helped my game a lot, irons that look good and are still super forgiving helped my game a lot.

 

For me personally, as soon as I learned how to think my way around the golf course I went from a 10ish handicap to a scratch without a lot different happening in my full swing (although I'll admit the switch to side saddle putting helped a lot, there is a massive thread on here I'm a part of if you want to take a look and would be willing to make that switch 🙂 ).  

 

I've had a buddy just start taking golf a lot more serious and we've been playing together and I gave him the tip of thinking that every green is 30 yards deep, so if the pin is in the front and 150, realize you can hit the ball 160 or 170 and still hit the green and that helped him break 90 for the first time the other day by 4 strokes!  It also helped that he made about 150ft worth of putts, lol.

 

Good luck with the journey and awesome WITB!

Edited November 23, 2021 by J_Tizzle

[Andygolderson]

10 hours ago, J_Tizzle said:

 

That is totally fair!  I wasn't meaning anything negative with my comment, just so you know!  Ball striking has always been a weaker part of my game so when I moved to game improvement irons and then to the i500s helped my game a lot, irons that look good and are still super forgiving helped my game a lot.

 

For me personally, as soon as I learned how to think my way around the golf course I went from a 10ish handicap to a scratch without a lot different happening in my full swing (although I'll admit the switch to side saddle putting helped a lot, there is a massive thread on here I'm a part of if you want to take a look and would be willing to make that switch 🙂 ).  

 

I've had a buddy just start taking golf a lot more serious and we've been playing together and I gave him the tip of thinking that every green is 30 yards deep, so if the pin is in the front and 150, realize you can hit the ball 160 or 170 and still hit the green and that helped him break 90 for the first time the other day by 4 strokes!  It also helped that he made about 150ft worth of putts, lol.

 

Good luck with the journey and awesome WITB!

No worries, you're free to say what you think 🙂 I'm sure many people are of the opinion why a high handicapper is trying to play ego golf with blades.

I played Forged Tec's Black from 2019 and they felt very hollow. I know that's their design, but thay feel very light and not very solid. They also played too high to my liking. I like the feedback knowing when and where i've hit it on the face. (at least, i usualy get it somewhere on the face 😉)

 

One issue i'm facing is that without regularly playing on real grass, it's difficult to judge the distance, based on turf interaction, completely correct every time. Not sure if that makes sense to other people, but for the most part, i define my distances on a range from a mat, together with the portable monitor. Of course, they are only really etimates, and not really correct to 100%. Other times, i'll club up and end up going long. It's just a learning experience. There are no grass ranges where i live, so i rel on course feedback once per week.

Next few rounds I will try to focus on "Smart Range" instead of "Smart Distance" from the Arccos app, as there's a ~7 yards delta between them. So, i'm always thinking my PW is 135, when it's probably closer to 128 for 60^ of the time.

so, yes, clubbing up is good advice to secure a cloer approach i think.

 

The green depth is a good tip, since the greens i play are solid and run out, i've been playing to the front, which is also not helping me, as you can see, i'm coming up short, so i will also just stick to the center yardage and if i'm shorter, then i know it will roll out a bit.

 

i500's are a nice iron, i especially like the heel shape, with that nice hollowed out piece on the neck. Similar to the newer forged tec look i think, with the tungsten screw insert, but they look more clean and blade like.

 

if by side saddle, you mean "open body", i dabbled in it for a few practises, but my main issue having moved location was being able to read the greens on different grass types. I've got to the point where i'm pretty confident with putting recently, mainly down to some distance practice for 10, 14, 20 and ++ yards, together with a comfortbale grip 🙂 

 

Thanks for feedback.

[J_Tizzle]

1 hour ago, Andygolderson said:

No worries, you're free to say what you think 🙂 I'm sure many people are of the opinion why a high handicapper is trying to play ego golf with blades.

I played Forged Tec's Black from 2019 and they felt very hollow. I know that's their design, but thay feel very light and not very solid. They also played too high to my liking. I like the feedback knowing when and where i've hit it on the face. (at least, i usualy get it somewhere on the face 😉)

 

One issue i'm facing is that without regularly playing on real grass, it's difficult to judge the distance, based on turf interaction, completely correct every time. Not sure if that makes sense to other people, but for the most part, i define my distances on a range from a mat, together with the portable monitor. Of course, they are only really etimates, and not really correct to 100%. Other times, i'll club up and end up going long. It's just a learning experience. There are no grass ranges where i live, so i rel on course feedback once per week.

Next few rounds I will try to focus on "Smart Range" instead of "Smart Distance" from the Arccos app, as there's a ~7 yards delta between them. So, i'm always thinking my PW is 135, when it's probably closer to 128 for 60^ of the time.

so, yes, clubbing up is good advice to secure a cloer approach i think.

 

The green depth is a good tip, since the greens i play are solid and run out, i've been playing to the front, which is also not helping me, as you can see, i'm coming up short, so i will also just stick to the center yardage and if i'm shorter, then i know it will roll out a bit.

 

i500's are a nice iron, i especially like the heel shape, with that nice hollowed out piece on the neck. Similar to the newer forged tec look i think, with the tungsten screw insert, but they look more clean and blade like.

 

if by side saddle, you mean "open body", i dabbled in it for a few practises, but my main issue having moved location was being able to read the greens on different grass types. I've got to the point where i'm pretty confident with putting recently, mainly down to some distance practice for 10, 14, 20 and ++ yards, together with a comfortbale grip 🙂 

 

Thanks for feedback.

 

Oh I don't envy you for having to practice off mats at all.  I hate hitting off mats, luckily, my course has an excellent range that some very wealthy investors put money into (home course for the Missouri State golf teams), so I'm very lucky there.

 

I'm not too familiar with the Arccos program itself, but wouldn't it just show you "total" distance  Given that you're kinda "triggering" it when you get to your next shot, I assume its total yardage, so that could be something to consider when working on your yardages.  Personally I only worry about the carry yardages when I practice on a mat as I feel it kinda screws with your spin numbers (I 100% cannot confirm that).

 

As for side saddling, this is the thread 

 

In theory, its a very open stance, but I mean like I look directly at the hole and swing a long putter straight down the putt line.  It's worth trying in my opinion if you're ever looking to just totally revamp your putting lol.