John van der Pflum

On Thu, 2 Oct 2008 08:45:49 -0700, "dene" <>
wrote:

>... buy a new putter!!
>
>-Greg

I did that too, BTW. :-)

Annika1980

On Oct 2, 12:22 am, "\"R&B\"" <noneofyourbusin...@all.com> wrote:
> I read John Pflum, Jr.'s article about getting his handicap down below a 13,
> making him a pre-teen.

Excellent news!


> What's holding you back?  What, in your view, is the biggest obstacle to
> your becoming a lower-scoring golfer?

Time, money, & to a lesser extent, desire.
I think the desire would be greater if the other two factors were
solved.

Tom Yost

"\"R&B\"" <> wrote in
news::
>
> What's holding you back? What, in your view, is the biggest obstacle
> to your becoming a lower-scoring golfer?
>

I recently started tracking my "up & down" stats and they are truly
miserable < 20% success.

Better chipping and putting would help my scoring tremendously.


Tom

R&B

""R&B"" <> wrote ...
>
>
> What's holding you back? What, in your view, is the biggest
> obstacle to your becoming a lower-scoring golfer?


Since I posed the question, I guess I should answer it.

I could make the case that length off the tee is what has always held me
back. Even when I was playing my absolute best, I was never long enough off
the tee to enable my game to travel very well from my little 6,000-yard goat
track where my scores were consistently their lowest during my hottest of
hot streaks.

But the truth is, I'm longer off the tee now than I've ever been (still not
"long," but long enough), and on those rare days when my swing is in good
rhythm, I'll score about the same regardless of where I play. So the
"portability" of my game is not the issue either.

Yet except for those rare instances where everything is hitting on all
cylanders, my overall scoring ability is but a mere shadow of what it was a
decade ago. Used to be I would shoot pretty much the same number, time
after time. Now I could go out and shoot a 78 or I could shoot a 98. Or
worse. Usually it's a struggle to keep a round from getting completely away
from me. I can usually expect to have a few good holes, but the bad holes
are off-the-charts bad, and any hope of salvaging a decent score can
evaporate on one hole where I will too often card a score that looks more
like an area code.

So what's the difference?

Clearly, it's two things:

1. I'm just not playing as much these days. Ten years ago, I would play 3,
4 or even 5 times a week. Got my handicap down to a 7, and at one point
(that I'll probably never get to experience again), I fired consecutive
rounds of 70 (-1), 73 (+2) and 73 (+2), the three lowest rounds of my life
(on a "full" length course, I've shot lower a few times on an
executive-length par 67 course). During that amazing Summer of '97, I would
shoot in the 70s as often as I would shoot in the 80s. Nowadays, however,
I'm lucky to break 90, and a good round for me is in the low 80s. Despite
my hopes of playing more in '08, it just hasn't worked out. I've been too
busy, had other priorities, and while I played a bit more in the Spring and
early Summer, I've hardly touched a club at all since around July. Usually
after a long layoff, I can expect to play pretty well the first time out,
then the wheels fall off. It's a matter of muscle memory -- I have none.
So I lack consistency of any kind. Except for putting. I can always putt.
But when I'm putting from 30 feet to save double-bogey, it kinda makes it
less fun.

I went through this same ordeal with bowling back in the early '80s when I
first took up golf. The less attention I gave to my bowling game, the lower
the scores plummetted. Pretty soon, I completely gave up bowling in favor
of golf. Today, I'd be lucky to shoot a 180 at the bowling alley, whereas
in my younger years, I would expect to fire at least one game of 250 or
better in just about every single practice session of 10 games or more
(that's back when I would bowl 20 games a day, or until my thumb was
bleeding...literally). (I haven't touched a bowling ball in years, and I
don't miss it a bit.)

2. I'm not practicing at all. The last time I went to the range for a
practice session (this doesn't count hitting balls at the range to loosen up
before a round) was sometime last year, probably summer of '07. Before that
practice session, you'd have to go back another year or two to find the last
practice session. When I was playing my best, I'd play multiple times each
week, and I would go to the range for an hour-long (or longer) practice
session at least once a week, and often 2X per week. It's no wonder my
ball-striking was more consistent back then.

I've resigned myself to the reality that I'll never be a long hitter. But
with the aid of modern technology, I'm long enough to achieve the goal I set
out for myself when I first took up this silly game -- to get good enough at
it to have fun doing it. So the thing holding me back is just plain old
inattention to my skills. I don't practice at all, and I don't play enough
to maintain even a modicum of consistency.

The good news is, with what I learned about the golf swing (or MY golf
swing, anyway) years ago, I pretty much know my tendencies, and when certain
shot patterns emerge, I almost always know what I'm doing wrong. But
without the muscle memory to call upon, it's harder than ever to correct
it...which just gets more maddening. It's bad enough to know you're not a
great player. It's a whole lot worse knowing exactly what you're doing
wrong and still not be able to correct it.

Practice, practice, practice. Or lack thereof. That's what's holding me
back.

And I suppose if I'm honest about it, I would admit that this lack of
attention to my game is evidence that I'm considerably less committed to
golf than I once was. Knowing I'm likely to play badly doesn't get me
terribly excited about going to play, which only serves to fuel further
inattention to my game. There was a time that I would go to the golf course
brimming with optimism, even during times when I was a much worse player.
But in recent years, reality has set in, and I find myself going to the golf
course with much lower expectations. Somehow that makes it less appealing
to me. In a way, this fits into a pattern that has been present throughout
my entire life. I've always achieved a level of excellence in anything I
had a knack for doing, whereas those endeavors for which I didn't seem to
have any natural ability, I quickly lost interest in them and just left them
behind.

I don't think it will ever get to that with me and golf. There's still that
glimmer of hope that comes from making the occasional good shot, and even
once in a while stringing a few of them together that makes me believe "I
can do this."

If only I could make more time for it.

Randy

Kenn Smith

For me it's mostly age and associated loss of distance. I'm hitting 7
woods into greens where some of the guys I play with are hitting 9
irons. That does put a strain on the scoring.

Example: in our city championship last weekend the big hole in one
prize was on our downhill par 3 10th hole, playing at 175 yards. To be
sure of clearing the creek in front of the green it a full out driver
and knocked it about 20' past the hole. The upside was that I was the
only one in the foursome to par the hole. I had no confidence in being
able to fly a 3 wood that far; a long hitter I am not.

assimilate

On 2-Oct-2008, "\"R&B\"" <> wrote:

> What?

Well even though I've made lots of progress: when I came to RSG-ATL I had
been back golfing less than a year and was somewhere in the 18-22 range, now
I'm at an all time low of 7.9; I've always been a good putter; my worst days
are mediocre; chipping is solid but not good enough this year to get up &
down but 1/4 times, this could be improved with more pratice. My weak spot
currently seems to be course mgmt and the mental game. It seems to me that I
have been putting a lot of work into improving my swing and I've gotten
results, but things that used to be strong points are just not quite as
sharp as they used to be. Something about having just 24hours in a day!