A Set For All Seasons

[scomac2002]

birly-shirly; I've been thinking about your post most of the day. My woes around the green are a result of my own making as I've been fighting the hooks particularly with my irons. It's a bit of new territory for me as traditionally I would have to deal with bouts of thins and fats rather than a very specific ball flight issue. So my swing has changed sufficiently to yield better contact, but a swing path issue that I've yet to come up with some sort of correction. The gist being that I'm missing greens to the left, landing in the rough, often with tricky lies that leave me with few options to a short sided pin on a sloping green. This has as much to do with anything when it comes to getting the ball to check up. I can live with the two putts, but being the poor putter that I am, I'm having a few too many three putts entering into the equation. So as you say, it becomes more of a case of managing the misses and making smart choices for the subsequent shot to get the ball on the green and rolling as quickly as possible.

[birly-shirly]

Ah well, all bets are off if you're facing a shot out of a difficult lie in the rough. Good news at least if you have managed to trade iffy contact for a solidly struck draw, even if it turns to the occasional hook. FWIW, hooking was my bad shot for a good number of years and for my money, including what I spent on in-person lessons, the best advice I ever came across for mitigating and managing it was Jim Hardy's Solid Contact book. Good luck.

[scomac2002]

b-s; thanks for the pointer. I'll definitely look it up.

 

I would agree that my current situation is preferable. It hadn't really occurred to me that my contact was that much better until I thought about it over the course of the past few rounds. My ball-flight is lower than it was and about a club longer to boot so that has been another adjustment to factor into my rounds. In many ways, good problems to have.

[stevemcgee99]

you want to get the ball down and rolling as soon as you can.

 

Playing the game this way, I think I also need to hone my judgement better for shots that land short of the green and run part of the way through fairway and apron. Maybe not as easy to judge as a ball pitching and rolling on the green, but not as easy to screw up either...

 

I don't try to stop the ball too often. And usually there's no need for me. If I think my roll will have too much speed I aim for fringe before the green to slow it down.

[birly-shirly]

Yay - 72 tonight! Think this maybe belongs here rather than in Rounds with a Vintage Bag. Steel shafted 975D and a PT 4 wood, steel shafted Cleveland hybrids and (whisper it!) TM RAC blades. That's my low round of my life, and I'm pretty confident crediting a lot of what I've learned here on effective bag set up.

 

The woods are both short, heavy and X-stiff. Irons are also DGX, and played fine though I'm by no means a power hitter. It probably helps that the longest iron in my bag was a 5. Swing thoughts on the way round were all rhythm and tempo - so no attempts to thrash these heavy stiff things, and never felt that the clubs were too much to handle.

 

Hybrids are S flex but each an inch to inch and a half shorter than when they first arrived chez moi with graphite shafts. Even my putter, a Maxfli TM02 has lost about an inch and a half.

 

The hybrids are a little cheeky, but the rest of the bag doesn't really boast any technology that isn't about 20 years old.

[oldschoolrocker]

?⛳️?⛳️?⛳️???

 

Well done!!!!

[gsea33]

Yay - 72 tonight! Think this maybe belongs here rather than in Rounds with a Vintage Bag. Steel shafted 975D and a PT 4 wood, steel shafted Cleveland hybrids and (whisper it!) TM RAC blades. That's my low round of my life, and I'm pretty confident crediting a lot of what I've learned here on effective bag set up.

 

The woods are both short, heavy and X-stiff. Irons are also DGX, and played fine though I'm by no means a power hitter. It probably helps that the longest iron in my bag was a 5. Swing thoughts on the way round were all rhythm and tempo - so no attempts to thrash these heavy stiff things, and never felt that the clubs were too much to handle.

 

Hybrids are S flex but each an inch to inch and a half shorter than when they first arrived chez moi with graphite shafts. Even my putter, a Maxfli TM02 has lost about an inch and a half.

 

The hybrids are a little cheeky, but the rest of the bag doesn't really boast any technology that isn't about 20 years old.

 

congratulations .... I have actually been think of re-shating my 975d with steel. I have steel in the 975f 16.5 and really like it. What shaft did you put in and at what length? Congrats again on the round.

[Par-net-birdie]

Nicely done sir

[scomac2002]

Well done birly-shirly! That's a round worth talking about! ;)

[Fellaheen51]

Yay - 72 tonight! Think this maybe belongs here rather than in Rounds with a Vintage Bag. Steel shafted 975D and a PT 4 wood, steel shafted Cleveland hybrids and (whisper it!) TM RAC blades. That's my low round of my life, and I'm pretty confident crediting a lot of what I've learned here on effective bag set up.

 

The woods are both short, heavy and X-stiff. Irons are also DGX, and played fine though I'm by no means a power hitter. It probably helps that the longest iron in my bag was a 5. Swing thoughts on the way round were all rhythm and tempo - so no attempts to thrash these heavy stiff things, and never felt that the clubs were too much to handle.

 

Hybrids are S flex but each an inch to inch and a half shorter than when they first arrived chez moi with graphite shafts. Even my putter, a Maxfli TM02 has lost about an inch and a half.

 

The hybrids are a little cheeky, but the rest of the bag doesn't really boast any technology that isn't about 20 years old.

 

Well done Birly!! Excellent round. Is a 72 even par? And accomplishing it whilst playing X flex. Beast mode. You serve as inspiration as I set here this a.m. contemplating my upcoming round latter this morning. Feel that my game is rounding into shape, striking the ball more effectively. Just need to tidy up some course management issues and less than stellar short game lapses. Primarily chip and run distance control. Today's the day when it all comes together and I bust a round.

 

Just one very minor side note and in no way meant to diminish your fine accomplishment. Probably would have been in the 60's (three strokes easy) if you had been playing the Hogan shovels. Just say'n.

[birly-shirly]

congratulations .... I have actually been think of re-shating my 975d with steel. I have steel in the 975f 16.5 and really like it. What shaft did you put in and at what length? Congrats again on the round.

 

Cheers.. It's a bog standard Dynamic Gold, probably playing at about 42.5". The club started life with a graphite shaft before I reshafted it, so the head is a wee bit heavier than a stock steel shafted club would have been. It came out short because that's the shaft I had lying around and because of the the bore through hosel. I gave myself the option of extending it, but so far haven't felt the need. It's a good compromise for me between full on modern and a classic persimmon - probably no more distance than a well struck solid block, but very consistent. Feels great. Goes good.

 

Well done Birly!! Excellent round. Is a 72 even par? And accomplishing it whilst playing X flex. Beast mode. You serve as inspiration as I set here this a.m. contemplating my upcoming round latter this morning. Feel that my game is rounding into shape, striking the ball more effectively. Just need to tidy up some course management issues and less than stellar short game lapses. Primarily chip and run distance control. Today's the day when it all comes together and I bust a round.

 

Just one very minor side note and in no way meant to diminish your fine accomplishment. Probably would have been in the 60's (three strokes easy) if you had been playing the Hogan shovels. Just say'n.

 

2 over. Definitely not beasting it though! Quite the opposite. When I first got my hybrids set up, I played a round hitting them exclusively off the tee with the result that I hit probably close to 30 full "long iron" shots, and I got into a real rhythm of easy swinging and decent results at distances that I often tend to flail at a bit. That sent me scurrying back to study my Manuel de la Torre and I've been taking it easy ever since.

 

I've said before, I have a pretty unrefined palate when it comes to shafts. I don't have really strong preferences on how they should feel. If there's a catch for me it's that stiffer shafts MIGHT lure me into feeling that I need to make more of a muscular effort. Even that could be more of a psychological consequence of reading the label than of how the club actually plays. I was absolutely convinced for a while that some unlabelled Mizuno TP Originals I acquired felt super stiff, until I discovered that they were actually regular, possibly soft-stepped! So long as I keep the "mash it" instinct reined in, the X100s seem to play fine. No sign of undue harshness. And I'm probably hitting my 7 iron about 140 yards. The shame...

 

LoL at the Hogans dig. They might actually be the next clubs up in the rotation. Ping, to TM, to Hogan shovel. There's a kind of inevitability to that progression, isn't there? I actually got my '99s at the end of last season and between one thing and another, I'm not sure I've had them on the course. I'll get back to you on whether they live up to the high standards set by TM and the Resonant Amplitude Co-efficient stuffed into their "Feel pockets".