When Is It Ok To Ask For Less Distance?

One of the modern marvels in club making is everyone wants to hit the ball farther than ever before. While that's an awesome thought, the reality is, not many of us "should" hit the ball further. It was a hard lesson for me to learn this off-season, but it was one that has really helped my game more than I could have ever imagined. I no longer want to hit the ball "longer" - I want to hit it better. I think this should be the key focus of everyone that steps on to the course, and here's why.

Starting out with the distance issue, or the issues that distance creates, is the key to understanding why you should never want to get longer than you already are. I'll use a normal sized golf hole as an example here, so bare with me as I set up the scenario. A long 420 yard par 4 awaits you. You stare down the driving lane, hitting your new blah-blah-blah driver 240 yards. You then have 180 yards to the green, over a bunker and water behind. You need a 180 yard shot, so you pull out the 3 hybrid that you hit high and straight that will land softly at 175 yards. You then have a 40 foot putt from the front of the green to the back location of the hole. A great first putt comes up just short of the hole and a tap in finishes out the par. It's how the game is played.

In contrast, you buy some extra distance with a new driver setup and those fancy new delofted irons. You swing a bit harder, giving the ball that old "steroid jerk" that was made so famous by the movie Tin Cup. Your drive heads off down the left side of the fairway like a screaming eagle. It rips into the branches of the pine tree 270 yards off the tee. It fights it's way through and lands in the rough just inside the tree line leaving you 150 yards in. You pull an 8 iron from the bag and hit a spectacular shot into the green that plops down from the sky and lands 20 feet from the hole. Again, you line up your putt and just miss it by inches. It's a tap in par.

It's the tale of two holes, played exactly the opposite way, but it really sums up golf in a nutshell. There isn't just one way to play this game and there is no right or wrong way to do it. Custom fitting isn't about getting the clubs that will help you hit the ball farther. Instead, custom fitting is about finding the clubs you need to score well. I watch the bags of the people I play with: driver, 3 wood, 5 wood, the usual smattering of irons and a few wedges. I wonder if they know how far they hit everything in that bag? I wonder if they've ever hit everything in that bag? Maybe they should take that 90% swing that "always works" and use it all the time? So many maybe's, so little actual work.

Let's just take my own game for a minute, with my 305 yard drives and my 90 yard 60° wedges. What does all that distance gain me when I'm not 100% accurate with any of those shots? Where do I sit for scoring when I hit 305 into the trees instead of 280 dead center of the fairway? How many birdies can I make when I muscle up on my wedge and hit it to 45 feet? Isn't it better to relax and hit the ball to an area that makes scoring easier? Ultimately, golf is all about scoring, not how far you (or I) hit the ball. Consistency is the key to scoring well and there is no way to be consistent if you aren't dialed in at every level. Sure, I could go pound my driver and wedge at the range for days on end to get my consistency down, but that first uneven lie or drive that finds the trees is going to complicate things quite badly. Then it's about scrambling.

What I am finding as my game goes from good to better is that my scores are a direct reflection of how much trouble I get in during a round. Driver in the fairway leads to closer approach shots. Closer approach shots lead to more birdie putts. More birdie putts lead to lower scores. It's a pretty simple deal and pretty much backwards from what I've always played. In seeing this, I've given up on hitting a 250 yard 3 iron from the fairway. I've decided I don't need to hit a driver on every hole. I've started pulling my grip back to a weaker setting and I've started to become a more consistent shot maker at every level of the game. Cleaner play means lower scores.

Now, this does not mean that you shouldn't invest in a quality set of clubs. It means when you do, decide what your goal for the new gear is. For me, I want feel, with minimal offset and a high ball flight. For you, it may be more distance and a bit more forgiving head. No matter how you do it, find the piece that your game is missing and start building from there.

2018 Competition Season: Well, That Didn’t Go As Planned

On this cold, soon to be really stinking not, Monday morning, I’m forced to look back on the summer of 2018 and think, “What could have been?” This year started off with such promise, such expectation, yet it turned out to be just another summer of nothing going as planned. This weekend was probably the biggest eye opener of the bunch as I missed out on the last two big shots of tournament play for the year. My first gaff was missing the deadline (maybe subconsciously on purpose?) for the WSGA Mid-Amateur (have to work as someone else rescheduled their vacation on me) and I missed the Riverbend Open (my home away from home course.) I have to admit that while this didn’t go as planned, I’m not horribly devastated by it. My game is not ready to compete with the big boys at a scratch level, nor is my conditioning. Sure, I’m making strides in both right now, but both are still quite a ways off from being ready to roll. Anyways, that’s more of a story for another day. This post is far more about the entire season and why I’m not really disappointed in my game at this time. Without much more gabbing, let’s talk about my game and where it’s at…

Over the weekend I finally took in a full range session. I was hoping to get on the Trackman, but it was in use, so no luck there. What I can say though is that my wedges were pretty sharp, though I did have a bit of a pull left on a few of them. Inside 50 yards, I was pretty well locked in. That is a huge plus for not having worked them properly over the last few months. Moving out of the shorter clubs into my FG 100’s, the wedge, 9 and 8 iron all seemed spot on. Good distance and control. The 7, 6 and 5 irons also behaved very well, though the range didn’t have great targets set up for those distances, so it was a bit of a guess. Still, they felt good and the ball travelled very well. Moving up to the longer irons, I actually took the 3 and 4 with me this time and I am happy I did. I was rifling off some of the best 3 irons that I have hit in quite some time at this session. Moving on to the hybrids, this had to be my best session ever with them. Smooth shots from all three, though the 17 degree didn’t behave quite as well as normal. I’ll chalk that one up to fatigue since it was so late in the session before I got to it.

Finally, I made out out to the driver end. This is where things got really exciting. Friday, my new Wilson Staff Triton arrived. Equipped with the Aldila Rogue Black 95msi 60 shaft in an extra stiff flex, I quickly plopped it into the bag for a few hits that evening. I started off with the obvious fit of the titanium plate and a 3g (shaft side), 6g (middle) and 6g (toe) weighting to help open the club up a bit to make up for the slightly closed alignment. The Triton was obviously designed to help most players with that light fade to slice shot, so making ta change over to open it up a bit was very helpful right out of the box. The Triton is louder than most driver’s I’ve ever swung, but the pop off the face was pretty solid. What’s funny is many of the reviews of the club kept pointing to the “ping” that it makes verse the “thwack” that some other drivers do. I was in a stall next to a guy with the Mizuno GT-180 driver that I supposed to be all the rage and it was just as loud, with almost the same “ping” sound as the Triton. I sort of like the satisfying “bing!” every time I strike the ball well, but I could see how some would get annoyed by it. That’s a story for another day as well. For now, it looks like the almost dialed in Triton got me about 15 yards. I’ll try and get numbers on it soon as the Trackman at the range was in use, so I couldn’t get much out of line of sight measuring except that it was longer, by quite a bit.

That probably will signal a change in my WITB for September, but there’s a few other pretty major changes possibly coming on the horizon as well. After the session that I had Friday night, I’m strongly considering plopping the 3 and 4 irons back in the bag as well. I was hitting pure 3 after pure 3 with full control throughout my session. This hasn’t been the case in over the last year or so, but it makes it sound tempting to plop it back in the bag. For now, I’ll keep the hybrids in, mainly due to their consistency, and keep the 3/4 irons in the garage. Maybe by next year they will have proven their worth again, but in reality, I still think the hybrids are a better fit for what my game needs at the moment.

To wrap this all up, 2018 isn’t what I expected or wanted out of this season at all. I planned on hitting so many tournaments and range sessions that I would be back into golf almost full time this year. Unfortunately, getting sidelined early with my leg surgery, then missing a few deadlines and not polishing up my game soon enough has left this to be a lost summer. Perhaps I’ll get lucky and get into a few winter tournaments and sneak in a few more rounds of dry golf this summer. If not, then it’s just going to be a nice break before the next season starts. Stay tuned as I get my post season wrap up completed and get some goals set for the 2019 Competition Season! It’s definitely going to be a good year.

Golf Fitness: The Journey To 100–The Reboot-Week 2

Last Wednesday, I as a few days in to my Ketogenic Diet and managed to knock myself down to a crazy 306.4 pounds. This week, as predicted, things slowed a bit and currently I’m down 6 pounds to 300 even. I’m still finding that this works a bit strange. I mean, bacon and eggs for breakfast followed by a hamburger patty with cheese for lunch? It doesn’t seem like a normal diet at all. That said, It really is working as my calories have really limited themselves by eating less fillers and more proteins. My daily average intake was about 1425 calories, about 65% of which was fats. The amazing part, I cut my carb intake down to about 6%. Now my macro program run “Monday through Sunday” so sometimes when I talk about the past week on Wednesday, it won’t actually be the past week’s food. It will be that time frame that ended on Sunday. I will keep my official weigh-ins to Wednesday though to make it easier to track.

Enough about the inner workings of how I’m doing things. Let’s get back to the actual progress and how it’s moving along. As I said, this week, I’m down another 6.4 pounds. That takes me to a total of 18.2 for the two weeks I’ve been on Keto. Not a bad start by any means, but it’s time to keep the momentum moving forward and get below the 300 mark again. As for how this is getting done, Above is another typical meal for me. I’ve eliminated just about anything “boxed carbs” and gone to straight fats and proteins. Again, it’s different than anything I’ve ever tried before, but it seems to be working. My one concern, well maybe two, is that it looks like my diet could be a bit high in cholesterol and sodium, so I’m watching that intake, but not worrying about it yet.

I can’t believe how well this bout is going after two weeks. My hunger is completely gone between meals. There’s no late night snacking. Even staying up really late on Saturday night, I didn’t feel the urge to have a sweet treat late in the evening. Heck, I even survived my birthday without gaining anything. It’s been a great start to the month, now it’s just time to keep it up. Last night we took a nice jaunt over to the mall to return a duplicate birthday gift for the kiddo, but more important for me, get a nice long walk in. I’ve struggled getting the steps in that I wanted over the first two weeks. 3000 steps doesn’t seem like much, but if you are trapped at a desk all day, getting them in can be rough. Thursday, I did well with 5077 and followed that up with 4701 on Friday. Saturday was a sloth day for me, we watched movies and relaxed (plus, I’m not sure I had my watch on for most of the day to count them) and it was a dismal 335 steps. Sunday was back up to 2303 as we road tripped so there wasn’t much walking to do. Monday I was back over my goal at 3146 and Tuesday the mall walk got me over 7000. It was a good week overall with a total of 22565 steps or an average of 3223 per day. Not exactly what I was going for, but it will work.

So, on to week three and to see if I can keep this pace going!

What’s In The Bag: August 2018 Edition

I haven’t done an official What’s In The Bag post since November of last year and while the bag is still currently the same as it was then, I felt like everyone may want to have a good reminder of what’s in there. First off, I have played Wilson Golf equipment for almost every season that I have ever played golf. There was a very short jaunt over to the Ping S57 irons for a time, but it was right back to the Wilson Fluid Feel irons as soon as I was playing again. So, without further ado, here’s my WITB for August of 2018.

Driver – 10.5° Wilson Staff FG Tour F5 with Aldila Roge Black 70 X-Stiff Shaft

I love this driver. Funny that I decided to go with the 10.5° head instead of the 9.0° head that I had been using for quite some time, but I found that setting the 10.5° down a degree really got me a better ball flight than the 9° did at it’s standard loft. It’s also a big change from the 8° that I had been setting it to to start with.

Hybrids - 17°, 20° and 23° Wilson Staff FG Tour F5 with MCA Fubuki Z-80 Stiff Shafts

These hybrids have been one of the best moves I have ever made in my bag. The 17° club has become a go-to off the tee and the 20° fills in amazingly well for my harder to hit 3 iron. The 23° is a bit of a wash as it really goes about the same distance as my 5 iron when I strike it well, but the flight pattern is much different, so I’ll keep both around for a while longer.

5-PW - Wilson Staff FG Tour 100 Irons with Stiff Dynamic Gold S300 shaft

As much as I hate to admit it, I may be hanging up my trusty blades sooner than later. I’m still hitting the ball well enough with the 7 iron and below, but having already pulled the 3 and 4 irons, I’m left with a bit of inconsistency with the 5 and 6 irons. The strange part is that it’s not necessarily ball striking that’s the issue, but it is the hot face in the sweet spot that really beats me up. For example, a solid 6 iron is pinned at about 180 yards. During my last few efforts I’ve hit a few that were closer to 195 and some that flattened out at 175. That’s just too big of gapping based off of where the ball comes in contact with the face. While it’s been a process, for now, they are staying in the bag, but I am looking over my shoulder at other options right now.

Wedges - 51°, 56°and 60° Wilson Staff PMP Tour Grind Wedges

Love these wedges. They gap out perfectly at 20 yards apart and I have an 80, 100 and 120 wedge in the PMP series. Now, if I could start hitting more of them at the range, my approach numbers may start looking good enough to get my scores down to scratch again.

Putter - Wilson Staff Grant Park Infinite 34"

Ah, my trusty Grant Park. So easy to line up and so smooth to get moving. It’s really the best sub-$100 putter I have ever used. If you are in the market for one, check them out. They are a steal. That said, the club that I really fell in love with, the TaylorMade Tour Spider, has been falling in price as of late. If it gets low enough, I could possibly be persuaded to toss this one in the backup bag… Maybe…

Ball - Wilson Staff Zip

Ok, so this is actually “mostly” accurate. This summer I was lucky enough to get a $20 coupon at a golf store that allowed me to purchase a dozen of the Duo Soft balls for nothing out of pocket. So, I’ve been playing the 2016 Duo’s and the 2018 Duo Softs this season a bit more than the lower cost Zips. Still, when those balls are gone, I’ll be back on the Zips as long as I can find them. At $.86 a ball, it’s hard not to go that route.

Bag - Wilson Staff Ionix Lite on the Clicgear Rovic RV2L cart

One thing I learned when being laid up for a few weeks this year was carrying a golf bag is hard work when you’re trying to concentrate on winning a tournament. Even a bag as light and “carryable” as the Ionix Lite gets heavy with all those clubs and balls in there. That led me to doing a bit of homework and ended with me grabbing the Clicgear Rovic cart to toss my bag on. I have nothing but good things to say about the Rovic and it’s really taken the strain off my back during the round. Sure, I might be that old guy with hybrids and a cart now, but I’d rather be the old guy that feels great playing than the young one that is tired and sore.

So that’s the rundown of what’s currently in my bag. Make sure to also check out the GolfPad GPS App and the Golf TAGS System if you want to really improve your game. It’s one of those “In The Bag” items that I don’t mention as it’s not a club, but it’s so valuable to have the data that it provides. The App is free and the tag system is always running on some sort of sale or deal so check in often. If you have any questions on what’s in my bag, let me know in the comments below.

Free Golf Balls? Where Do I Sign Up?

Ah, the quest to make golf cheaper took a turn this weekend when I saw my first commercial for the “Free Balls Club” online. In a somewhat funny, but very “questionable” advertisement that talks all about free-balling on the course, the FBC highlights how golf balls are too expensive, but you shouldn’t need to dig them out of ponds, find them in the trees or play inferior products while you are on the course. Instead, they offer you an alternative, playing their high quality 3 piece design “tour quality” balls for free. So, how does this really stack up and are the balls any good?

Starting off, the program is rather simple. You join the FBC for a $15 a month fee. After that, you pay nothing but $10 shipping and handling for as many balls as you would like. Now, the $10 a dozen shipping is a pretty great deal, but when you add the fact that you are $15 in the hole starting out, you’ll need more than a few dozen to make this deal pan out. Right out of the gate, 1 dozen balls will cost you $2.08 per ball. Somehow if you can manage to go through 2 dozen a month, the price drops to $1.45 a ball. Even bigger savings can be had if you are able to go through 4 dozen balls in a month. That price drops to $1.15 per ball.

Now when you start seeing balls like the Vice Tour ($1.32 per ball when you buy 5 dozen) or the Cut Golf Co. White Ball in bulk ($1.25 per ball when you buy 3 dozen) or even the Costco Kirkland Signature Ball ($1.46 per ball when you buy 2 dozen), it becomes very hard to suggest joining the FBC. It’s even harder when you think about the fact that you’ll be paying for months that you don’t use every year during the winter months or if things get busy during the summer and you forget to cancel. Overall, in a normal scenario, the club will cost you $180 a year and another $120 to have a dozen balls shipped to you each month. That pins the cost per ball at $2.08 per ball, or about the same as ordering through Snell, Vice, Cut or even Aris Golf’s subscription plan.

To make a long story short, I’m not going to bother signing up for the Free Balls Club and you should think long and hard to see if it’s right for you. The only real way I see this paying off and making the balls affordable would be signing up for one month, ordering about 6+ dozen balls and then cancelling. The issue there, you may end up with 70 balls that you hate. As for me, I’ll continue playing my $.86 Wilson Staff Zips or some of the Duo models that are around for about a buck a ball to save my money. When those are gone, I’ll be looking long and hard at the Aris line, and maybe those Snell MTB’s if the weather is dry and I won’t lose a ball that plugs in a fairway.

What are your thoughts on the Free Balls Club? Let me know in the comments below!cale

Is THIS The Best Driver Deal In Golf?

Every year or two, something new comes along and outshines the previous model. It’s just what happens in golf, or life for that matter. Still, that doesn’t make the 2 year old club obsolete by any means, nor does it make it less valuable. As a Wilson fan, I followed the first season of their hit show, Driver Vs. Driver with a passion. When the winner was finally announced, the Eric Sillies designed “Triton” was crowned champion and Wilson immediately ran it into production and had it up for sale in shops all over the world. Sure there was that conforming issue, but it was fixed almost as fast as it was found. Still, the $450 driver was a customizable monster. The problem for many, it was $450.

Fast forward to today. The Triton still offers the same customizations with the TechX5 deal that it had out of the gate. The Visible Swing Active Technology lets you line up the face straighter than any other model on the market. The changeable sole weights allow you to craft the flight of the ball without any issue. The moveable weights continue to offer more flight adjustment than the average player will ever need and the adjustable hosel allows for even more customization. Finally, you get to the best part of all, the fully customizable shaft options. Now, Budget Golf is selling down quickly on options here, but they still have Aldila’s RIP Phenom 50, Aldila’s Rogue Black 60, an array of the MRC Fubuki Z50 or 60’s, and both the Red and White Tie options from Ozik in stock at the moment. Now flex availability will vary by shaft, but with these options, just about everyone should find a shaft that will give them a good ball flight.

With all of that tech built in to it and the $450 price tag, it’s hard to think how this could be posted in a value blog. That’s where the amazing folks at Budget Golf come in. Right now, and this could change by tomorrow, the Trition with custom shafts is a unbelievable 73% off – or under $120. This isn’t just a good deal, this is one of the best deals you will get for quite some time on a very, very solid performing driver. In fact, when the Triton was release, I gained about 5-10 yards on every shot I was hitting with it with the same shaft I had in my F5. It wasn’t worth it to me to gain half a club at $450, but for 10 yards at $120, that’s worth it. The Triton is available in 3 lofts in right handed models during this sale and a single loft in the left handed model.

This may not be the “best” deal ever on a driver in the history of golf, but it sure is a great one. If you are in the market for a major upgrade to that old driver in your bag, you probably owe it to yourself to check out the Wilson Staff Triton and seriously give it some buying consideration before they are gone – or the price goes up.

Budget Golf – Wilson Staff Triton with custom shaft options (RH)

Budget Golf – Wilson Staff Triton with stock Aldila Rogue shaft (RH/LH)

Wilson Staff Triton Fitting Manual – PDF Download

Golf Fitness: The Journey To 100–The Reboot–Week 1

Well, as fast as I restarted this journey, the first week is already done. The reboot began with me creeping back up towards the 320 pound mark with a weigh in of 318.2. This was up from my low in June (about 30 pounds back on since week 16 of the first go round.) The gain is really what snapped me back in to realizing that I was letting myself down, as well as anyone that was following this strange journey. I stopped blogging about it in mid-May. Then I missed the entire month of June, except for a few mini-posts about this and that. July came and went… Not only was golfing not on my mind, but writing wasn’t either. I kept making plans to switch this to a “video style” channel on YouTube, but frankly, I doubt I could produce videos well enough for people to watch. While IGTV or Periscope could be good options for quick posts, I just don’t know what direction to take going forward. Anyway, that’s a story for another time. This week, it’s all about how much of me disappeared – again….

As I said, I started out the week at 318.2. As of my weigh in to finish Week #1, I am officially down 11.8 pounds. Target achieved.

Now, how is this being done? Well, this is a flip of everything that I know and love in dieting as I am trying to do the Ketogenic Diet for the first time ever. It’s a pretty strict high fat/low carb diet that seems, despite all my backwards thinking, to work really well. Now, I’m just a week into this, so let’s see how it goes, but so far, so good. Eating different foods than I have before has been very strange so far. I mean, no croutons on my salads, but pork rinds are ok? Don’t use a low fat dressing, but instead use things like sour cream and heavy cream? This is all foreign to me, but so far, like I sad, it seems to be working wonders. Hopefully I can sneak out for a practice session soon and maybe even a round of golf. I know it’s been a long hard summer, but I’ll be back with some more budget friendly golf tips before you know it. See you in week 2!