betarhoalphadelta

Thanks!!!

Thoughts on fitting results for my son? The version he's got from using the optimizer has only the one shaft, not multiple recommendations... He's about to turn 18 (entering HS SR year) and looking at probably getting him some used irons for his birthday. He's playing the clubs I was fitted for 25(!) years ago lol... He's still growing and developing as a player, so want to get him "in the ballpark" if not necessarily perfectly fit. CHS: 84.33 Tempo: 3.00 Toe Down: 2.33 Kick Angle: 3.67 Release Factor: 7.67 Shaft Lean: 6.33 Attack Angle: 4.33 It gave him the top shaft option of the Nippon NS Pro Neo S. I don't think I'm going to find that shaft in ANY used irons anywhere, so something more mainstream would be great. He did hit a club with this shaft, and it felt good for him. But right now the irons he's playing are Nippon 950GH Stiff, so it's probably partly because it's closer to what he's used to. Any thoughts (or anyone who can provide the *full* list based on the data) would be helpful... pfs_fitting_summary_1753811859.pdf

I'm not. My son (about to turn 18) watches all sorts of stuff on YouTube, golf or otherwise. I personally don't understand how he can spend that much time staring at his phone... Who wants to watch anything on a 5.5" screen?! That said, some of it is fun. I'll sometimes throw something like that on as background while I WFH. I'm not REALLY watching it that actively. It's not something that trumps tournament golf for me. But it's a lot more interesting than Golf Today on GC 😂

And I'll still stand by them being apples and oranges. They're both entertainment products, but high level professional tournament golf is largely built around the competition being the entertainment. That's why @Titleist99 replied with his "head-scratching" remark about wanting PGAT players to have personality. I think in many cases them having personality is a plus, but it's completely unnecessary as far as the value of the tournament to entertain. It's the competition and the high level of play that is mostly drawing in viewers. The opposite is true with most YT golf. I don't watch much of it, but one thing that I always enjoyed was Random Golf Club when they'd do their "Breaking" series. Take four golfers of varying abilities on a high-level (usually a major) track and each of them sets up their own target score they want to achieve. It's entertaining because it's a polished, shorter-form (even if a whole breaking series might be 3x 45 min episodes), curated product, narrated by EAL, etc. The level of play is largely immaterial. Now, I get it, different people watch the PGAT for different reasons. Your dad, and my dog, like to nap to golf. But I'd say the vast majority of the golfers are watching it for its value as a sporting competition, and they derive their entertainment from the quality and stakes of the competition. And the vast majority of the golfers watching YouTube are NOT watching it for its value as a sporting competition, they're watching it for the entertainment and the quality of play is much less important--which is good, because it's FAR lower. What makes a PGAT golf broadcast successful and what makes a YT golf video successful are just completely different things. The only thing connecting them is the four letter word that brings us all together here at WRX.

I don't think there'd be a 10 second clock on something like this. The rule (13-3) is specifically worded around any part of the ball overhanging the lip of the hole. A ball 6" away is not, under any use of plain English, overhanging the hole.

YT golf is a different breed. It's shorter format, and built to be entertaining. You're there as much for the personalities as the "golf shots". Comparing it to high-level professional tournament golf is apples and oranges. Of course. But the ROW has roughly the same number of golfers, combined, as North America. Spread across more than a dozen of time zones. In countries which roundly don't have the same amount of disposable income as North Americans. Oh, and how many different languages are spoken across the range? So it's a disparate audience geographically, with less income to justify ads, spread across a bunch of countries speaking different languages, some of which are countries sponsors may not see value advertising. Maybe it's "unfair", but logistics and economics are the reason that the PGAT is the dominant tour. The rest of the world may have an appetite for professional golf, but the economic value of the 2025 Greater Greensboro Open to sponsors is larger than that of the 2025 Shanghai Shootout.

In this case, you may be more sensitive to shafts than some... As mentioned above, I am as well. If I'm playing something too light, my tempo gets messy. Just one note about "aftermarket" shafts... There's nothing that says an expensive shaft works better than an inexpensive one. It's all about what shaft works for YOU. You don't need some bespoke $400(+?!) shaft in a driver to hit the ball well. I do well with the stock shaft in my [very old] driver because it works with my swing. An expensive shaft that didn't fit me would be worse than a stock shaft which did.

I disagree... I think a fitting is useful nearly any golfer. But even for high handicappers, while you might have path / face / strike location variance that is pretty significant, your basic swing tempo and mechanics aren't changing much. So you CAN still be fit. Now, part of it for me is that I'm also very tall (6'5") and fairly strong, which means that both my proportions and my strength are a little outside the mainstream. I personally don't fit into any "light" clubs--it completely screws my tempo and it feels like I'm swinging air. Shaft weight for me is a huge thing. My most recent fitting I was going into it knowing the head I wanted (Wishon EQ1-NX single length). We were fitting to +1" based on the testing, which boosts the feel of heft a bit. I went through the fitting the "right" way, meaning that I was trying to not look at or pay attention to the look or sticker on the shaft in any way that might bias me, and go based PURELY on how it was feeling and how good I felt hitting with it. The only three shafts that felt right were the Steelfiber i110s, Modus 120S, and KBS Tour 120S. Surprise surprise, they're all right in the same weight range! Everything else just felt "off". I kicked out the KBS as it didn't feel as good as the other two, which both felt "good". In truth, I probably could have played either just fine... At my skill level, being fit "perfectly" is less important than being fit "in the ballpark". But there were a lot of shafts that were *NOT* in the ballpark. So I absolutely do think shaft fitting is important.

I took it differently. I think @goudok is more referring to what he perceives as a "bait & switch" from the club selling him a membership based on certain expectations, and then reducing the available services over time (increasing league conflicts from 1/wk to 4/wk), while also apparently doubling the membership price. I can see how that would be frustrating, particularly if his preferred availability for play (afternoon/evening on work days) are the times that are most affected, given a lot of these leagues commonly are... Weekday after-work leagues. I'd normally criticize and say that the answer isn't to complain online, it's to evaluate the price and services and if they're not meeting his needs, to cancel his membership. However as he was NOT the OP and just offering his own perspective, I see it more as venting from the point of view as a member fighting leagues for access to tee times.

I'd love to see some actual work done on this--i.e. how many players of what we'll call "mid-cap", say 10-15, who work solely on speed training and see demonstrable improvement to their mechanics. It would be difficult to actually put this into test due to subjectivity, but I'm saying something along the lines of having them measured on GEARS, then they do 6 weeks [or whatever necessary duration] speed training, and then get back on GEARS and compare. Do their mechanics actually improve, how much, and is it nearly universal across the sample size, or do some see no improvement or regress mechanically, while others improve? My gut instinct is that working on mechanics to improve your speed is a more likely path for bringing down your index than speed training in the hopes that it increases speed and ALSO has a positive effect on your mechanics...

Exactly. I personally think there are three main components of speed: Trying to make your swing as efficient as possible (technique work). Trying to make your body as capable of producing power as possible (hit the gym and work on the right things). Dedicated work to increase swing speed via speed training. I think #1 and #2 are precursors to #3. I think #3, if your swing is not particularly efficient and you're not taking care of fitness, is going down the wrong path. But #3 is easy, and fun, so people do it.

IMHO that doesn't really cover it... That's related to where you play from in a case where the rules allow or require you to play from the "previous place". I.e. if you're taking a S&D penalty, it doesn't mean that you have to hit from the exact [estimated] spot of your previous stroke unless the previous stroke was on the green. On the tee you can play it from anywhere in the teeing area, and in the general area the previous spot is a reference point and you have a 1CL no nearer the hole area to drop within. It appears rule 6.2b(6) is what I'm talking about. Any time your ball lies in the teeing area, even if it is already in play from a previous stroke, you are able to move it w/o penalty, including placing it on a tee, to play your next stroke from within the teeing area.

I'm not saying that increased ball speed and hitting it further are not two of the the very important goals of working on your swing. Per your next post I'm also not saying that you should be "steering it around" the course. Speed and accuracy are NOT mutually exclusive--they usually both improve as your swing becomes more efficient and more consistent. I specifically said that you shouldn't be thinking about "speed training" until you've addressed the low-hanging fruit of having an inefficient swing. Again per your second post, for most mid-high caps, I believe dedicated swing technique work is the first and most effective way to increase that "headroom" in your swing, not buying speed sticks. If you're mid single digit in your ballstriking ability, but lack power, you *might* benefit from speed training. In your case the fact that you're actually scoring well on shorter courses, but likely not on longer courses where you might not be able to reach long par 3s, or reach long par 4s in two, and never sniff reaching a par 5 in 2, power may be worth focusing on. But per the bold, I don't think most 10-13 caps can swing the club efficiently on the right path and make solid contact, consistently. If they could, they wouldn't be 10-13 caps. Remember, a 10-13 cap is going to be averaging ~3 strokes higher than their index, which means their course scoring averages will be somewhere likely in the 12-16 over par range (depending on rating/slope). You're gonna tell me that guy is swinging the club efficiently on the right path and making solid contact, and just needs to work on speed training to get their index down?

Yes, the teeing area and the green are two areas that you are allowed to move the ball. I.e. on the teeing area if you've put your ball on the ground (or a tee) and you realize you don't like where you'll be taking your stance, you can pick it up and move it. On the green you're allowed to pick up your ball as well. So in both cases, an accidental movement of the ball is not penalized, because a deliberate movement (picking up) the ball is likewise not penalized. In other areas of the course, moving a ball in play is only allowed in very specific circumstances, usually as part of either free or penalty relief. Other than those cases, you can't cause it to move. So in those cases, accidental movement *is* penalized. Question... I saw [somewhere online] that the rule relating to the teeing area allows you to move the ball even if it is in play. For example, if you take a stroke and nearly whiff the ball and it rolls 6" off the tee--or if you take a stroke and it rockets into a tree and ricochets right back to your feet--you're allowed to retee without penalty. Of course that previous stroke must be counted as a stroke (you're now hitting 2), but you don't have to "play it as it lies". Was that wrong?

Bear in mind the idea of basing it on "play stats" is just a rough rule of thumb for how efficient your swing currently is and how good of a ballstriker you are. It just tends to be difficult to be a 10+ cap with an efficient swing, so they tend to correlate. The overarching idea is that the less efficient your swing, the more you should be focusing on fixing that FIRST rather than trying to increase speed with an inefficient swing. Increasing speed with an inefficient swing is likely to just make those misses bigger, and may [depending on the cause of the inefficiency] make injury more likely. Of course, this is WRX, where we're all 4-caps who have + long games and would be there if we could putt. So nobody here has an inefficient swing... ...but this is WRX, so we all fly it 350 already, with a 1 iron, so I don't know why we need to do speed training anyway! 😉

He's got a long way to go for an EGOT, the "Grand Slam" of entertainment, but do you think he might be the first person in history to complete the OMPUO? (Oscar/Masters/PGA/USO/Open)

Well, that seems to presume that seeking accuracy and seeking distance aren't related... I believe they are. For most golfers, their inaccuracy AND their lack of distance come from the same inefficient swing motions. They have to build in compensations for flaws that both make them inconsistent, and rob them of speed. Fixing those flaws will generally improve both accuracy and distance. For an unpopular opinion; nobody should even think about speed training until they're at LEAST low single digit, hitting 9+ greens per round.

Ahh. That's good context. I don't follow YT golf much, just knew that it was one of BDC's major sticking points. My thought was that if they brought BDC back it would mean that they'd have to address player content to get him back, and that might open a smoother process for other players. But it seems I might have it reversed... They've already been developing a smoother process, and that might help them entice him to come back if it's no longer nearly impossible to get anything approved.

I dunno... I feel like DJ might retire once his contract is up. Cam as well, b/c I think he doesn't care and now he's rich enough. I see them as being the type to take the money, deal with the term of the contract, and ride off into the sunset. Others might walk because they don't like the "conditions" that come with being on LIV... Forced international travel, no control over schedule, no control over what you're allowed to--or forced to--say, etc. I see this as maybe the has-been Euro golfers that went for the contract and are now old enough, and rich enough, to retire. Yeah the $4M winner's prize looks big, but if you're in the bottom half of the field (as many of them might be), your share is <$200K. And that's ASSUMING LIV actually keeps up these $20M purses, which isn't a guarantee IMHO. I think anyone who thinks they're good enough to return to PGAT will want to do so... Which is probably most of the players capable of regularly finishing in the top 10-12 of their events, and thus the only players LIV would be worth trying to keep. But if they're just trying to keep them with purse sizes but have the forced international travel, no schedule control, and all the other restrictions. And I'd think this would be especially true of the American players. The only one who might have a major sticking point could be BDC, as he would need to work out some sort of blanket deal for all his YT content due to the media rights restrictions. That said, I'm sure that the PGAT could work something out, and would be incentivized to, as long as they can do so in a way that doesn't jeopardize their other TV/media deals at the detriment to the other players and the Tour itself.

To me it's that the PIF needed an exit strategy. It's embarrassing to run a failed, useless, unwatched tour. It's more embarrassing to shut it down in disgrace with nothing to show for it. So keeping it running as long as possible to try to find a way to shut it down without admitting defeat is key. Which is why I think PIF really wanted the merger. But they wanted a merger that they could call a "victory", which would likely entail YAR having a prominent powerful position in the new org, some sort of sop where some of the LIV tour events are rolled into the PGAT schedule while still maintaining international events (incl. annual events in SA), some sop to the "team" thing, etc. They couldn't stomach shutting down LIV just to be a silent partner putting money into PGATE, and I think that's pretty much what they were being offered. So now they're stuck between a rock and a hard place. LIV took their shot and missed. The contracts will be coming up for renewal and LIV can afford to--but would be stupid to--renew them for certain players. If they don't, players will leave LIV en masse once their contracts are up, and they're NOT going to get a steady stream of stars to replace them. So it comes down to keeping a failed tour, with "nobody" players, on display, where everyone will see it 14 times a year, point and laugh... Or it comes down to shutting it down which is a very public admission of defeat. One hits the pocketbook, the other hits the ego. Which one will rule the decision-making? Maybe there's another option I'm not considering?

Well stated. I had the same takeaway from his statements but was struggling to figure out how to put it into words. I think the media seemed to spin this as "Scottie doesn't care about golf", when in reality the truth is that Scottie cares DEEPLY about golf. He must, to be as absolutely dedicated to the craft, to putting in the work, and to being a cold-blooded assassin out there on the course. He's the competitive sociopath inside the ropes and then once the tournament is over and he's holding the trophy, he doesn't understand how he could be THAT guy on the course and then pivot to being a regular, normal, devoted, husband and father. It's not that he doesn't care; it's that he cares so much about winning, in the moment, and doesn't understand why. And he's going to be that normal guy, until he puts the next peg in the ground on the first of 72 holes of a tournament. Then he's going to want to crush his enemies, see them driven before him, and hear the lamentations of their women.

Dude... Clean your monitor.

I don't do much with my golf balls that would make me ALL that concerned about germs, but maybe you have a... More intimate relationship with your golf balls?

Exactly. Leaving out any moral quandary that may be involved with stealing a ball that belongs to the range, a main reason someone pays ProV1 prices is for Titleist's excellent quality control. That quality control is compromised with a ball you find in your range bucket. That range ball may have come out of a pond, may have been heavily played, may have been hit hundreds of times. It might visually look OK, but how much do you really trust it to perform when you have ZERO knowledge of its history?

Excellent, thanks! I hadn't realized either that wrong place was 2PS, nor that you would take only the higher-level penalty. Makes sense.