Golf Thread: US Open at Pinehurst - RORY VS. ROIDS

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I figure I started the golf thread on the last site, might as well get one going here. I haven’t played in a while because my shoulder was giving me problems most of the year, but it’s improved lately and I’ve got an appointment in late January to get fitted at Club Champion for a new set of clubs, so I’ve got to get my swing back in gear soon. I’ll probably try to get my simulator up and running again early this week and start practicing/playing on there 3-4 times a week.

@BasicBlue this will be another thread you’ll enjoy once it gets going! Lots of LIV hate and personal golf stories.

Speaking of professional golf, it’s already Kapalua!

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I’ve not heard a peep out of LIV or even seen a single clip across all my social media accounts. good riddance bryson et al.

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had a golfing first today. A sand save for a nine. Very difficult bunkershot, too. could’ve easily been a 12, So I felt weirdly great as I tapped in the quintuple.

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Every year I say that this will be the year that I spend a couple hours practicing bunker shots. I expect that I’ll be saying that again next winter, too.

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I’m by no means a magnificent bunker player other than I know I’m not going to get stuck in one very often or skull it into the next tee box.

bunkers used to be auto double bogeys for me, I can’t remember what changed, other than an instructor took me to the only place within 25 miles I know of with a practice bunker and just showed me exactly how to hit it. hit an inch or so behind the ball, open the club face, swing over the top and make sure to follow through. That was the gist of it iirc. I think for me the biggest one was following through, it’s very easy to quit on it because it feels like you’re swinging so hard on a 5 yard shot. Your wedge makes a big difference too. I use a cleveland CBX wedge with a fairly large bounce and the thing makes bunker shots so easy that it’s kind of crazy.

My problem right now is 3 and 4 putting. I miss so often from 2-3 feet it’s kind of ridiculous. I’m making the longer 10+ foot putts, so I’m pretty sure it’s not my stroke, but today I realized while practicing i’m slapping at the short putts rather than sweeping like I do on the long ones. Today though I ended my 9 hole round with a 50 today (one quintuple and 2 triples, lol) on a pretty nice 6 foot putt for a hard fought par on a 450 yard brutal par 4. give me a 2 footer for birdie though there’s almost zero chance I make it.

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The type of wedge you want and the amount of bounce will vary a lot based on the course conditions, too. Like if the sand is dry and fine/soft, you want a lot of bounce so that it can’t dig in as much. If the sand is more packed down or wet or very course, you may want more of a leading edge to dig into it more.

Go on the practice green, pick a hole that’s not perfectly flat but pretty close, and pick 5 putts around it that are 3 feet out and put a tee next to each. Hit 5 from each spot then move to the next. Don’t stop until you’ve made at least 20/25. Then do 6 feet. Once you get both, go back and aim for like 25/25 on the first drill and 23/25 on the second or something like that.

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I do practice this I just miss like 25/37 and then give up.

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This guy thinks I have different wedge bounces that I can break out for different sand fluffiness. I got a 58 and whatever happens happens lol.

Am focusing on staring at a spot an inch behind the ball and try to open the face and pray nobody is behind the green for the 1 out of 5 that get bladed 50 yards.

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wait @commonWealth you make 20/25 from 6 feet in drills? wow I need to practice

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No, that’s just how you get really good at those. I haven’t done that. I’m pretty good from 3 feet and in from getting to where I could make like 23 or 24/25 from there.

But keep in mind you’re going around the hole hitting the same putts over and over, so once you’ve done one circuit, you know the exact line/speed on all five.

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For your next golf club purchase, you should add another wedge. Ideally what you want to do is gap them every 4-5 degrees after your PW. Mine are 52, 56, 60. I have a 64, but I don’t carry it.

Between the 56 and 60, it’s useful to get one high bounce and one low bounce, so you have options based on course conditions for chipping and sand.

But if you’re just going to carry a single wedge and you’re not looking to put that much time into it, just upgrade that one and base it on the courses you play the most and what type of sand/conditions you have to play primarily.

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64 is nutty. you can just open the face of a 60 slightly.

I use a 48, 52, 54.5, and 60. The 60 almost never comes out of the bag, it’s pretty much for flop shots or ~50 yard shots I really wanna spin back for some reason. I almost exclusively use the 54.5 for around the green shots and the 48/52 (pw and uw) are mostly for full swings of various yardages or sometimes if I want a chip to come out lower and roll I’ll club up to the UW but I know how to hit a chip high or low on command now so I just find it easier to use a single club I’m comfortable with.

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Yah I have a 58, 52, and 45 PW. But I only ever use the 58 in the sand. Maybe its a leak.

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I use my 60 in the sand like 95% of the time, I only go to the 56 (the one that in my setup has less bounce) if the situation calls for it because the sand is packed down/wet.

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How I scored a 9 on a par 4 and walked away from the hole feeling good about it -

Setting the scene - golfing with my FIL, who is a total hacker but thinks he’s crazy good, I can be absolutely puring the ball and out driving him by 40 yards and one bad shot and he’ll start giving me tips. Always starts strutting around if he outdrives me etc. It’s fine, I deal with these kind of guys a lot because I often play alone.

The hole is #12 but our third hole because we started on the back. 450 yard par 4 from the whites (I think I said “what are we, in the f***in PGA tour?” so me being about 200-220 off the tee already knew I was playing for bogey at best. Just a long, straight hole, ~75 yard wide fairway lined by a row of trees on each side with some fairway bunkers. I step up to the tee with driver in hand.

Shot 1 - I actually hit it really clean but pushed the absolute hell out of it 80 yards right and double crossed myself, end up on the outside of the row of trees but on the next hole over.?

Shot 2 - after awkwardly waiting to dash into the fairway to take my shot when the coast was clear, I had a narrow window and almost no chance of going above 15 feet or so with the shot because of the branches in my way. I opted to punch slice a 5 iron into the fairway as far as I could advance it (a shot I’ve actually practiced and comes insanely in handy, seriously, if you are a slicer you need this shot in your bag). I put the ball forward in my stance to promote a low flight path and swung as hard as I could with my upper body - and absolutely pured it right into the tree branch, which ricocheted right past my head and bounced about 70 yards behind where I was.

Shot 3 - a bit flustered, my phone falls out of my pocket and I opt to “get it later” as I decide to take the same 5 iron and this time pure it over the trees because I have room. End up trying to swing a little too hard and chunk it to the exact same spot I was just in.

Shot 4 - try the same shot as shot 2 and almost identical result. Now at this point I’m a bit flustered.

Shot 5 - I do finally make it into the correct fairway. This time I used my wood to hit a grounder back into the fairway. Looking back I should have just played it on the other hole’s fairway and then lobbed a wedge over the tree line near the green, and this is starting to occur to me.

Shot 6 - now I am about 300 yards out still and asking myself how in the everloving crap can I salvage this? roped a 3 hybrid to about 100 yards out (yea my hybrid and driver go about the same distance right now).

Shot 7 - on approach I take my stock wedge shot and pushed it right and short just a tad and end up in a deep pot bunker on the flag side.

Shot 8 - this is where I’m proud of the hole. I tell myself if I can just get on the green and 2 putt for a 10 and get out of here I’ll be happy. The flag is at my eye level as I’m taking this shot and only about 6 feet away from me. I flopped it just barely out of the bunker, it caught the top of the slope, and trickled down to about 4 inches from the hole and nearly went in. It looked like a finesse shot but it was kind of an accident, the pot bunker’s slope was so steep I was just trying to hit it up as high as I could and get it out.

Shot 9 - tapped in

… then I realized I didn’t have my phone.

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I know unsolicited swing advice is frowned upon, but to hit it lower you generally want to play the ball back in your stance, not forward. So for the righty, not on top of you right foot but definitely right of center.

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I am not so sure this is true. The ball back in the stance I have done with chipping for a long time to promote a higher path - the club is coming down more vertically which promotes more spin and loft.

further up in the stance through extension you’re naturally gonna lower the loft and cause it to go lower - at least in my swing

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Cooler’s right — typically, the further back in your stance you play it, the lower the loft should be.

Sean Foley explains it here:

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+1 to back in your stance to hit it low, forward in your stance to hit it high. The one thing to keep in mind is that on a full swing, back in your stance can give it more spin and make it rise more, so it could start on a lower trajectory and balloon somewhat. Typically it would still stay lower, though, unless you’re just insanely steep into the ball. You can also deaden your hands to take the spin off somewhat on those shots (this is similar to a stinger), or shorten your swing and take more club with it back in your stance.

The main thing to think about in regards to where it is in your stance is that the farther back, the more your hands are going to be in front of it when you hit the ball, delofting the club. The farther forward the ball is, the more you’re going to release the club before impact, thus using more of the loft.

If you’re putting it forward in your stance and hitting it low, you’re probably catching it thin or borderline blading it, and for that to produce your desired low shot, your timing has to be nearly perfect.

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are you sure you guys aren’t talking about driver shots? I can’t see any possible way it’s true for irons. farther in your swing path the club gets de-lofted. for a tee’d up driver shot, farther up in your stance will go higher because the path of the club is rising as you hit it