Ray Ray's Swing Thread

[Hawkeye77]

5 hours ago, TheDeanAbides said:

I wouldn't defer to another hacker for your metrics. You have to decide what improvement is, but at this point I wouldn't expect any improvement in your scores. I think you said that you only play a couple of times a month? Honestly, it's really hard to score well like that, but you can recognise changes in your swing with practice alone. 

 

Please clarify you are calling @mshills a hacker as a term of endearment - he's not offering any metrics nor has given any advice other than the OP should go see a coach in person. 😀

 

Working on month three of this thread I think he's 100% correct.  OP gets a few stills, can show this or that out of who knows how many practice swings or static setups, and there is no real progress, just the next rabbit hole, IMO.  Plenty of good advice given in the thread but it's not really done much because he doesn't know what to do with it and is off to the next YouTube or thought in no time at all.  Part of the fun of all this is "the thread", seen it many times and not a criticism.

 

I'd love to see him improve but if I was forced to gamble on it, maybe $4.25?  He will not get significantly better without getting to an instructor and practicing in a focused way on a range and play golf.  

 

 

[TheDeanAbides]

47 minutes ago, Hawkeye77 said:

 

Please clarify you are calling @mshills a hacker as a term of endearment - he's not offering any metrics nor has given any advice other than the OP should go see a coach in person. 😀

 

Working on month three of this thread I think he's 100% correct.  OP gets a few stills, can show this or that out of who knows how many practice swings or static setups, and there is no real progress, just the next rabbit hole, IMO.  Plenty of good advice given in the thread but it's not really done much because he doesn't know what to do with it and is off to the next YouTube or thought in no time at all.  Part of the fun of all this is "the thread", seen it many times and not a criticism.

 

I'd love to see him improve but if I was forced to gamble on it, maybe $4.25?  He will not get significantly better without getting to an instructor and practicing in a focused way on a range and play golf.  

 

 

My comment was specifically referring to @RayPlan suggesting that @mshills provide the metrics to determine what success is for him. I honestly wouldn't let anyone, other than myself, who isn't a pro that I respect make that call. "Hacker" in this context is pretty much all of us - certainly wasn't meant as a dig at mshills. 

Edited February 3 by TheDeanAbides

[mshills]

To be clear, I’m rooting for the OP to achieve whatever he is after. I don’t know what that is, hence my earlier suggestion. Frankly I’m not sure if this person is playing golf. It should be obvious the player in question is the only one who can define what success looks like.
 

For some, putting up low scores under pressure is all that counts. 
For others, understanding the intricacies of the golf swing is the priority. 
For some, the social aspect is paramount. 
For many, the hobby is more about the equipment.

 

Anyhow, I’m out, my only contribution here has been made. If you’ve seen my action you know there is no help I can offer on the golf swing. 

[bladehunter]

12 hours ago, RayPlan said:

I'm open to suggestions on what a meaningful measure would be. I've never established a handicap, and I've played like 3 times a year for the last 3 years, then 0 times for the prior 3 years. Hard to quantify with such a small sample.

 

All-time best round was an 84 on a pretty average difficulty public course, maybe 15 years ago when I was 20. My mechanics were garbage back then, but I played a lot.

 

@mshills you've taken such a keen, good-natured interest in my improvement. Maybe you can come up with a good metric

Score is the only metric that matters to the game of Golf.  Now. You can probably assign any number of metrics to your swing , if you’re unable to play the game.  But until it scores it will only remain a concept , minus proof.  If that makes sense?  
 

And I understand limited time to play .  So not judging that. 

[bladehunter]

1 hour ago, Hawkeye77 said:

 

Please clarify you are calling @mshills a hacker as a term of endearment - he's not offering any metrics nor has given any advice other than the OP should go see a coach in person. 😀

 

Working on month three of this thread I think he's 100% correct.  OP gets a few stills, can show this or that out of who knows how many practice swings or static setups, and there is no real progress, just the next rabbit hole, IMO.  Plenty of good advice given in the thread but it's not really done much because he doesn't know what to do with it and is off to the next YouTube or thought in no time at all.  Part of the fun of all this is "the thread", seen it many times and not a criticism.

 

I'd love to see him improve but if I was forced to gamble on it, maybe $4.25?  He will not get significantly better without getting to an instructor and practicing in a focused way on a range and play golf.  

 

 

Amen. All fronts. Not a good look.  Definitely makes me think hard about my own words. Because i cant  say I’ve never said that here. I dont remember.  But I’ve thought it. And it’s been said that to think it is same as saying it. 
 

that being said. It struck me yesterday that not a soul here has seen the op hit a golf ball. 🤣.   If this were medicine , the window of liability would be greater than any malpractice insurance sold. 

[Nels55]

1 hour ago, bladehunter said:

Amen. All fronts. Not a good look.  Definitely makes me think hard about my own words. Because i cant  say I’ve never said that here. I dont remember.  But I’ve thought it. And it’s been said that to think it is same as saying it. 
 

that being said. It struck me yesterday that not a soul here has seen the op hit a golf ball. 🤣.   If this were medicine , the window of liability would be greater than any malpractice insurance sold. 

There is video of balls being hit.  The opening post for instance. 

[bladehunter]

27 minutes ago, Nels55 said:

There is video of balls being hit.  The opening post for instance. 

Into a net.  What can we say about that ballflight ?  Was it a fade ? Pull draw ?  This will ignite a wildfire. But it shows my point.  Are we ( instructors not me ) teaching the game or the swing ?    Easy answer. They’ll yell swing. Ok. Fair enough. But where do we prove these concepts ? Into nets ?  
 

this again isn’t demonizing anyone here. Just pointing out that an in person instructor who can see and show proof of concept is preferable to repeated points by folks who haven’t see anything real to be making comments on. Some of us just can’t help but want to save the guy some time … by covering up rabbit holes. And pushing towards the right way. 

Edited February 3 by bladehunter

[Hawkeye77]

I found where he put up a few vids early December - I think he looked a lot better in the couple from late in a round on a golf course than where the "search" has taken him to what he's got now (even though that's a moving target), and to the point above, I'd bet with feedback from a ball out on the course or the range, he'd be knowing what's working and what isn't instead of trying to match up pictures of this or that person to a swing position.  

 

It's for the instructors, I guess, and tossing this out because it's what I see and don't get,  but he seems to be on a quest to have a big and intentional weight shift left with no apparent hip rotation until after the shift and little upper body rotation to match up with any of it, even though I don't know how you'd match up to what looks like a big slide to me.  If I'm seeing/interpreting that all wrong at least I'm going to learn something!!

 

Edited February 3 by Hawkeye77

[RayPlan]

2 hours ago, bladehunter said:

Score is the only metric that matters to the game of Golf.  Now. You can probably assign any number of metrics to your swing , if you’re unable to play the game.  But until it scores it will only remain a concept , minus proof.  If that makes sense?  
 

And I understand limited time to play .  So not judging that. 

It makes sense, my question was more aimed toward what a "valid" goal would even look like. 

 

So for example, if the goal was "shoot 84 by end of season," if I played 5 times in the season and shot 95, 100, 84, 94, 97, does that 85 really show that I've gotten better? I'd say no, and I'd be disappointed because aside from the 84, that's slightly worse than when I came back from a 3 year hiatus.

 

I can generally get the ball around the course pretty competently, so I can hit plenty of decent shots, but my rounds are also full of terrible mis-hits because my mechanics have never been very good. Like shanked drives that go 50 yards, or having a good lie with a shot at the green, then topping it, possibly even twice in a row. Or trying to make a good choice and take a safe punch shot, but it goes way off line and hits a tree I should have easily been able to avoid. 

 

All I really want is for my bad shots to be less bad, and for them to happen slightly less often. At this point, I think it would be a very modest goal if I set out to average below 90 for the whole season.

 

[GoGoErky]

21 minutes ago, Hawkeye77 said:

found where he put up a few vids early December - I think he looked a lot better in the couple from late in a round on a golf course than where the "search" has taken him to what he's got now (even though that's a moving target), and to the point above, I'd bet with feedback from a ball out on the course or the range, he'd be knowing what's working and what isn't instead of trying to match up pictures of this or that person to a swing position.  

His swing was terrible and very obvious it meeds to be fixed. He has to change movement patterns. With his current work on the backswing he would still have a pretty bad downswing. Using nets,indoor lessons it allows the student to make movement pattern changes and not get distracted by what the ball is doing or the result.

 

Monte has talked about the improvements students had in playing golf after spending indoor lesson time during COVID with movement pattern changes.

 

24 minutes ago, Hawkeye77 said:

It's for the instructors, I guess, and tossing this out because it's what I see and don't get,  but he seems to be on a quest to have a big and intentional weight shift left with no apparent hip rotation until after the shift and little upper body rotation to match up with any of it, even though I don't know how you'd match up to what looks like a big slide to me.  If I'm seeing/interpreting that all wrong at least I'm going to learn something!!

It’s not a big shift, but rather only about an inch and yes that shift happens before the hip rotations starts. Hips move later in the backswing than hands, arms, upper body. Monte has posted his thoughts about this and the hips are last to move.

 

marching up a big slide is hard because there’s not much time to recover. Monte and AMG has videos on this weight shift and getting all the pressure to the trail side and it staying there too long. A big slide makes it harder to get good pelvis’s rotation and thus leads to all kinds of problems.

 

 

 

 

[Petethreeput]

52 minutes ago, RayPlan said:

my question was more aimed toward what a "valid" goal would even look like. 

Here would be my recommendation.  @bladehunteris right, I think score, particularly if the score is getting killed with very poor shots would be the improvement metric to look at. We are all victims of our memory in this game, if we weren't I don't think anyone who wasn't scratch after their second round would play it. We tend to remember two things, the best and the worst, and the score is oftentimes defined by the X number of shots in between.  Get a handicap, then you can track your score.

 

GHIN has a spot where you can track each shot as well if you are so inclined, you might be surprised where the scoring damage is really coming from.

 

If 84 is your best I would shoot for another 84, but best is a one off, I would take an average of your last scores and try to improve that by 2 shots, if the sample size is small (less if you plan on playing much more). So not the anti-cap, or even the handicap, but the average of your scores. 

[PNWGuy]

There are tons of free handicap calculators online to informally measure your progress.  However, given the amount of time you have to practice and play, I suggest you track the enjoyment your get from your journey.  Golf is cool because there are so many aspects to explore… just look at the many subforums here.

 

I'm glad you're getting quality online instruction. I love golf because it's challenging, and improvement takes real effort. The "Journey to Improvement" threads are my favorite, so please keep us updated. Best of luck and enjoy the process!

 

P.S.  It’s never too early to involve your family.  Some of my best memories of my dad were made on the course.  He was never a good player but that never mattered to me.

[dirthead]

@RayPlan, since you haven't been working on anything other than full swing mechanics, maybe track some metrics around ball striking (GIR, Fairways hit, track number of mishits, etc).  Try to improve those numbers each round.  I don't think focusing on scoring is really going to tell you much.  There's a lot more to scoring than just swing mechanics, and that could send you down more rabbit holes, rather than giving you specific things to track your swing improvement.

[RayPlan]

6 hours ago, bladehunter said:

Into a net.  What can we say about that ballflight ?  Was it a fade ? Pull draw ?  This will ignite a wildfire. But it shows my point.  Are we ( instructors not me ) teaching the game or the swing ?    Easy answer. They’ll yell swing. Ok. Fair enough. But where do we prove these concepts ? Into nets ?  
 

this again isn’t demonizing anyone here. Just pointing out that an in person instructor who can see and show proof of concept is preferable to repeated points by folks who haven’t see anything real to be making comments on. Some of us just can’t help but want to save the guy some time … by covering up rabbit holes. And pushing towards the right way. 

Here's me hitting actual balls on 10/4/24. This is what my actual swing looked like in the fall, and probably what it would continue to look like without any work. It was also before I knew how to properly align the camera.

 

 

The video from the start of this thread was never representative of what I was doing most of the time, it was a misguided attempt at something I thought might be good, that I couldn't even consistently pull off when I tried. It was more like "hey I started doing this weird thing, is it a bad thing to try to build into my swing?"

 

Speaking of weird things...

Edited February 3 by RayPlan

[Hawkeye77]

2 hours ago, RayPlan said:

Here's me hitting actual balls on 10/4/24. This is what my actual swing looked like in the fall, and probably what it would continue to look like without any work. It was also before I knew how to properly align the camera.

 

 

 

The video from the start of this thread was never representative of what I was doing most of the time, it was a misguided attempt at something I thought might be good, that I couldn't even consistently pull off when I tried. It was more like "hey I started doing this weird thing, is it a bad thing to try to build into my swing?"

 

Speaking of weird things...

 

My swing could use some of what's good in that one, lol.  Even if your instructor is online, you need to be able to really practice, IMO, whether an indoor facility or a range when it is warmer (and play), but my vote is still for instructor and stick with it and plan on it possibly being somewhat incremental.  I wouldn't get caught up in a score goal when making a swing change, but sure, you'll expect to play better if you improve and handicap or average scores where you play is sure a good way to keep track over time.  But if you start down that path, stick with it and give it a chance -- can't be second guessing, and "my instructor says this but I just looked at so and so on YouTube I'm not sure now what do you think, and on and on."  

 

Just an opinion from someone who isn't a coach but has seen all sorts of folks try to get better in many ways ----- it looks like the last two plus months have demonstrated you may not be ready to solve the issue on your own or have a handle on how to process all sorts of helpful input, which as much as digging it out of the dirt and figure it out sounds good, most folks that can do that I maintain are the exception and not the rule.  Too much good information out there now about what good players have in common as far as good golf goes not to avail yourself of it (in a focused way).

 

Also have an instructor get involved in your short game, one way or another - you seem athletic enough it should pay dividends quickly.

 

 

[RayPlan]

4 hours ago, dirthead said:

@RayPlan, since you haven't been working on anything other than full swing mechanics, maybe track some metrics around ball striking (GIR, Fairways hit, track number of mishits, etc).  Try to improve those numbers each round.  I don't think focusing on scoring is really going to tell you much.  There's a lot more to scoring than just swing mechanics, and that could send you down more rabbit holes, rather than giving you specific things to track your swing improvement.

My general focus in the last 3 years (after the 3 year hiatus due to child #1) has been to look at the shots on the course where I intended to do something, then I actually executed. Score has been really secondary.

 

So for example, in two out of three of my last rounds, I had a total of three situations where I actually needed to hit a flop shot onto the green. I had never really been able to hit those on command before, but my brother (who shoots in the high 70s) showed me a better way to setup for it, and I actually made the shots as I envisioned them. One of them bounced next to the hole and lightly hit the pin, leaving about a one footer.

 

I had a round in August where I hit a long, straight drive down the fairway on a par 4, hit a nice and easy wedge to maybe 15 feet, left my uphill birdie putt about 2 feet short, then made a par that I was happy with.

 

Stuff like that.

 

And here's me hitting a bad shot in my first time out playing 18 holes with my 6 year old daughter (child #1) in October. I had her tee off from the fairway, and we picked up a lot, had her try putting on most greens. She was mainly sitting on the cart by this point (hole 17).

 

 

[Hawkeye77]

35 minutes ago, RayPlan said:

My general focus in the last 3 years (after the 3 year hiatus due to child #1) has been to look at the shots on the course where I intended to do something, then I actually executed. Score has been really secondary.

 

So for example, in two out of three of my last rounds, I had a total of three situations where I actually needed to hit a flop shot onto the green. I had never really been able to hit those on command before, but my brother (who shoots in the high 70s) showed me a better way to setup for it, and I actually made the shots as I envisioned them. One of them bounced next to the hole and lightly hit the pin, leaving about a one footer.

 

I had a round in August where I hit a long, straight drive down the fairway on a par 4, hit a nice and easy wedge to maybe 15 feet, left my uphill birdie putt about 2 feet short, then made a par that I was happy with.

 

Stuff like that.

 

And here's me hitting a bad shot in my first time out playing 18 holes with my 6 year old daughter (child #1) in October. I had her tee off from the fairway, and we picked up a lot, had her try putting on most greens. She was mainly sitting on the cart by this point (hole 17).

 

 

 

The swing on that shot looks a lot better than most of the stuff you’ve posted in this thread - no reason to wander in the desert. Get a coach and go - you’ll be fine. 

[RayPlan]

11 hours ago, Hawkeye77 said:

The swing on that shot looks a lot better than most of the stuff you’ve posted in this thread - no reason to wander in the desert. Get a coach and go - you’ll be fine. 

 

Ball flight don't lie, as demonstrated by Advanced Tracer Technology:

 

 

 

[Hawkeye77]

38 minutes ago, RayPlan said:

 

Ball flight don't lie, as demonstrated by Advanced Tracer Technology:

 

 

 

 

You think your swing on a good shot is way different than your swing on one bad shot?

 

If a compliment to your swing turns into "look where that ball went my swing is terrible" you are doing nothing but holding yourself back from understanding how to improve.  You've already said that swing in general allows you to play some okay golf - you aren't consistent, you have swing flaws, welcome to the club.

 

Seriously - "I have the evidence I hit a bad shot" - just not that relevant in the grand scheme of things.

[bortass]

I'm late to this party and have not read every page yet, so may have missed something.

 

I would start by finding a pro you click with, online or in person, to work with on a regular basis. The best thing that ever happen for my game was when I met Rick Altham. I worked with him for about four years in Maine, just a 6 - 7 month season, and he was able to turn my insta-slice swing into something functional enough to break 90 multiple times. I would still look at things online but as far as my swing improvement went I stuck with what Rick told me to do. Being the pro at the club I eventually joined it was easy for me to bounce things off him outside of lessons to get his take on how it fit in with what he wanted me to work on. I have had lessons from a few other people and with one exception, Monte, I never got that buy in to what they were teaching me vibe.

 

Swing changes are not easy or fast which is why I think you just want one voice that you trust telling you what to do. It reduces the churn of going down a bunch of rabbit holes which only slows you down. It's fine to read/watch/listen to other people to get other perspectives and learn more. I just recommend talking to your coach about it to see how it fits in, if at all, in what you are trying to accomplish.

 

Now for metrics/goals. You need to set realistic expectations to start with and take how you deal with adversity/setbacks into account. I set a scoring goal when I first got serious about golf and while it gave me the drive to get to where I was going, it was a very painful road. It kinda sucked because of how I dealt with setbacks. I was too focused on the result and would let a bad hole ruin an entire round.  Really it's the process that matters because the result is the output of said process. It took me a long time to learn that lesson and could have saved me a lot of grief on and off the course.

 

You need to understand what is and isn't working in your process of playing golf. Be realistic, we all can get better at every aspect of our games, but that won't really help you in the near term. Think about what's good enough for now and what really isn't and how much investment is required to improve those items. 

 

My example:

I mostly keep my driver in play. No need to spend any time of it directly because it's serviceable.

My approach/iron play is weak. This is a long term fix and will take years and improvements here will bleed into the driver.

My short game is okay for my skill level. I can either ignore this or spend some time on it because it probably would not take a huge time investment to see some improvement.

Putting has issues. I am good at lag putting but bleed strokes inside 10 feet. My short putting sucks.

 

Decide what you plan to work on and track some basic stats to help you see how you are doing. I might consider tracking near GIR to see if I am improving with my approach game. Being near the green in regulation is realistic for my skill and a sign that I am getting better with my approach. If I go after my short putting, I'd likely just use how many putts I had when inside 10 feet. I'd have to track it for a bit to get a baseline and then track it to see how it's trending as I work on it.

 

There is no point in tracking something that has no value to you. Putting stats are not that useful if you don't care about putting. So pick things that are meaningful to what you are trying to accomplish. If you love stats, then go wild, but don't feel like you have to.

 

This applies to anything related to your golf process. It's not just technique based. It can be your mental game or decision making. I go on tilt after a bad shot and try to be a hero( which almost never works). Time to take my medicine and play for bogey instead. I'd consider tracking this if it was something I did a lot and wanted to change.

 

We are talking about a process and not point in time. This means long term trends are what matters, not individual rounds. There will be ups and downs but over time the trend will tell you if you are improving versus that one day where you caught lightning in a bottle and played great which doesn't tell you much outside of your potential.

 

• Figure out what you want to improve
• Determine something you can measure related to it.
• Start tracking it and watch the trend over time.

 

It's a fairly individual exercise since it's your game that you are trying to improve. People can give you ideas but you really need to figure out what makes sense for you.

 

[RayPlan]

4 hours ago, Hawkeye77 said:

 

You think your swing on a good shot is way different than your swing on one bad shot?

 

If a compliment to your swing turns into "look where that ball went my swing is terrible" you are doing nothing but holding yourself back from understanding how to improve.  You've already said that swing in general allows you to play some okay golf - you aren't consistent, you have swing flaws, welcome to the club.

 

Seriously - "I have the evidence I hit a bad shot" - just not that relevant in the grand scheme of things.

I appreciate the compliment, I was just adding a little levity. I thought the crude, impossible curly cue "tracer" gave away the intended tone. (It was a bad hook that nose-dived and bounced into the hazard, though)

 

Anyway, that shot predates this thread. My journey up to that point involved a lot of unfocused YouTube rabbit holes, driving range sessions, and hitting balls into the net in my backyard (which was near-daily when the whether was warm).

 

The bottom line is that I had a full swing that produced dramatically inconsistent results.

- Some truly good shots few and far between (especially with longer clubs)

- Some decent shots that go very roughly the right distance, but have directional issues (miss right or left of the target) or are somewhat long or short 

- Many bad shots where I advance the ball but hit it only 60-75% of the intended distance

- A significant number of bad mis-hits (topped, badly chunked, shanked, severe hook), sometimes resulting in penalty strokes

 

This is all very anecdotal, and I don't know what an acceptable distribution of ball striking or shot quality would look like, but it's no fun to play this way. It's like driving an old beater of a car that mostly works, but has some quality of life issues, and breaks down every so often. Better cars exist, and if I want a new one, I may have to work longer hours or work for some side income, but my value judgment is that it's worth it. 

 

I don't want to own a beater swing, which is why I've set out to change it, rather than try to compensate for its flaws. I say that not to beat myself up or set myself apart in some way, but to recognize that my swing hasn't been good, and can be better. Now, I haven't always taken the most direct route to getting there, since I haven't yet engaged an instructor, but I have learned much more from helpful people here than I did spending endless hours spinning my wheels on YouTube, thinking I was learning but gaining no real ability to self-assess. Obviously I still have a lot to learn, but I'm certainly in a better spot than I was at the beginning of this thread. I'm also much closer to actually paying for instruction.

 

Anyway, this got me thinking: it would be really interesting to know what percentage of shots are mis-hits for different handicap/skill levels. 

[KMeloney]

17 minutes ago, RayPlan said:

Anyway, this got me thinking: it would be really interesting to know what percentage of shots are mis-hits for different handicap/skill levels. 

I'm guessing "most." (Didn't Hogan famously say that he might only hit 1 or 2 as-intended shots in a round?)

 

It's not a matter of the percentage of mishits -- it's about how useful your bad shots are.

[RayPlan]

1 hour ago, KMeloney said:

I'm guessing "most." (Didn't Hogan famously say that he might only hit 1 or 2 as-intended shots in a round?)

 

It's not a matter of the percentage of mishits -- it's about how useful your bad shots are.

I meant the more catastrophic/embarrassing kind, like the examples I listed. 

 

"A significant number of bad mis-hits (topped, badly chunked, shanked, severe hook), sometimes resulting in penalty strokes"

 

But your overall point is what I'm after. Right now, too many of my bad shots look like what you'd see from an absolute beginner, like the classic top that goes nowhere, or a ball that comes off the club 45° off target. I think it's reasonable to attribute that to poor mechanics.

[KMeloney]

32 minutes ago, RayPlan said:

But your overall point is what I'm after. Right now, too many of my bad shots look like what you'd see from an absolute beginner, like the classic top that goes nowhere, or a ball that comes off the club 45° off target. I think it's reasonable to attribute that to poor mechanics.

Didn't you say that you don't play much, or have only started playing again after a 3-year layoff? ARE you a "beginner" (for all intents and purposes)? How much do you play in a year?

 

 

[ShortGolfer]

On 2/3/2025 at 10:01 AM, bladehunter said:

Score is the only metric that matters to the game of Golf.  

If you play social golf I'd say that pace of play is more important that score.  Golfers like to play with people that play fast.  It also seems to matter for folks who watch the elite golfers playing on television.

 

A simple course management technique to do that is to allow for your misses to stay in play,  rather than slicing into the woods, rough, or bunkers.  It is easy to hit another shot if it stays on the fairway.

[bladehunter]

6 hours ago, ShortGolfer said:

If you play social golf I'd say that pace of play is more important that score.  Golfers like to play with people that play fast.  It also seems to matter for folks who watch the elite golfers playing on television.

 

A simple course management technique to do that is to allow for your misses to stay in play,  rather than slicing into the woods, rough, or bunkers.  It is easy to hit another shot if it stays on the fairway.

I don’t disagree with that.  But we’re really saying the same thing.  Lower score is faster.  

[KD1]

On 2/2/2025 at 8:34 PM, RayPlan said:

I'm open to suggestions on what a meaningful measure would be. I've never established a handicap, and I've played like 3 times a year for the last 3 years, then 0 times for the prior 3 years. Hard to quantify with such a small sample.

 

All-time best round was an 84 on a pretty average difficulty public course, maybe 15 years ago when I was 20. My mechanics were garbage back then, but I played a lot.

 

@mshills you've taken such a keen, good-natured interest in my improvement. Maybe you can come up with a good metric

 

So are we talking metrics for playing golf swing or golf?

 

If you're going to be playing golf you could always track the Tiger 5

 

https://decade.golf/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/23087_Decade_Five-Stats.pdf

[RayPlan]

4 hours ago, KD1 said:

 

So are we talking metrics for playing golf swing or golf?

 

If you're going to be playing golf you could always track the Tiger 5

 

https://decade.golf/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/23087_Decade_Five-Stats.pdf

That's a good list. Saving that for posterity.

 

In that vein, I've never actually kept track of anything other than score when I play. I could probably learn a lot by documenting the circumstances around every shot. I read Every Shot Counts years ago (pre-2018 hiatus), which I found very enlightening. 

[RayPlan]

13 hours ago, KMeloney said:

Didn't you say that you don't play much, or have only started playing again after a 3-year layoff? ARE you a "beginner" (for all intents and purposes)? How much do you play in a year?

 

 

 

That's a bit of a philosophical question. I'm 35 now, and those three years were probably the only years in my life that I played absolutely no golf, going back to when I was a little kid. You probably didn't come for my life story, but it goes directly to the essence of the question.

I come from a golf family, with my mom, dad, and older brother all pretty good at the game. I don't know that any of them ever had formal instruction, but my dad played golf in high school and at the junior college he attended, and did well. He's a golf course superintendent, but he would play in club events when I was little and sometimes win. In the 90's, when I was single-digit age, I came to resent the game because I thought I should just magically be better than I was. I played in at least one parent-child outing with my dad when I was 5 or 6, which I have photographic proof of, but no memory of how that went. At some point, it was better for all involved if I just rode in the cart, because trying to play made me and my family miserable. I got all pouty when things didn't go my way on the course. My dad would try to teach me, but I was uncoachable. He would show me things, but I would try a few times, then declare them impossible. My little brain wanted instant gratification at all times, which I later connected with my ADHD once I was diagnosed as an adult. I found video games much more rewarding than golf.

 

When I was 10, I joined a summer junior golf program at the country club where my parents worked at the time. It included some basic group lessons on the range, formal rule instruction, etiquette, but mostly things I had already picked up from being around the game. I played a lot of golf that summer, including the final event of the junior golf program, a tournament. Unfortunately, I was a little jerk to the other kids throughout, including actively rooting for my main opponent's shots to go awry. I ended up tying for 1st in my age/skill group, but lost in a scorecard playoff. I cried and pouted about this, and as a result of my extraordinarily unsportsmanlike conduct, my mom banned me from future participation in the junior golf program. I can't blame her, because I really was raised better, plus she worked in the pro shop and played a big role in running the program, so it was all pretty embarrassing for her. Had I been better behaved, I probably would have steadily improved as I moved up through the different classes. 

 

The next few years, I still spent a lot of time at the course in the summers, so I would play golf with my brother, the club pro's kids, and other members or employees' kids. I was always the worst in the group, and my errant drives (wild, high slices) would really drag the pace of play, since I had to spend a lot of time looking for my ball in the rough, or determining whether it even remained in play. My mid-irons and short game were all pretty decent, and I was pretty good at putting, I just couldn't hit woods to save my life, because of some underlying mechanical flaws that never got addressed. A big part of that was because I remained uncoachable, because I didn't have the patience or the desire to put in the work. I would play with my family on occasions like Mother's Day, Father's Day, birthdays, and other times, but I didn't have a lot of fun, and I would make everyone else suffer through my poor reactions to bad shots, and my bad moods.

I started to play and practice a bit more as a teenager, and I loved to hit balls on the range, but I could rarely keep my driver or other woods under control. I had a major tendency to overswing and try to kill every shot. The giant slice continued unabated, just getting longer and higher as I got stronger and faster. I could still hit decent shots with mid-irons, wedges, and on/around the green. My lack of control off the tee and my random catastrophic mishits kept me from breaking 90. I could have played a lot more, and it would have been free, but I preferred to spend my time playing games at home. 

 

When I was 19-21 is when I started to appreciate the game much more, but I didn't have as many opportunities to play, except in my summer breaks from school, when I would work on a golf course (doing 8 hours of course maintenance), then playing after work. This was the period where I started breaking 90 and peaked at 84, with the same busted mechanics that I'd always had. If I got lucky, I could hit the ball pretty far. My brother insists I was hitting 300 on those good drives, but I don't know if I can believe that, looking back now. 

 

After college and law school, I was away from the opportunities to play for free that I had throughout my childhood. Once the prospect of actually paying for it arose, I didn't really have that much disposable income to devote to it, and I also didn't have anyone to play with. I also got married in that timeframe. The last hurrah of frequent golf I had was the late summer and fall of 2014, when I was waiting for bar exam results, then looking for a job. I worked on a golf course part-time, changing cups and mowing greens, and I played a lot of rounds by myself. I also started reading golf books, trying to learn "Hogan's Secret(s)," 1-plane vs. 2-plane swings, Stack and Tilt, and other stuff that I couldn't really implement. My attempt to implement Stack and Tilt especially screwed up my swing. I also got fixated on lag as something my swing needed more of. After that, I moved to another state, over 2 hours from my family, so those family outings (which had become less miserable for them) became much rarer. 

 

After moving, I would play a few rounds a year, plus several unfocused driving range sessions. From 2015 to 2018, I started going down YouTube rabbit holes, especially Rotary Swing (Chuck Quinton), which I thought was the greatest thing. Trying to implement that, based on the free YouTube content meant to funnel you into the paid course, did not help me. I started taking video for the first time during that period, and I still have some of them. I posted a swing from 2015 earlier in this thread, where I looked grossly thin, and I had a nasty over the top move. I don't know if that was something I'd been doing for a long time, or if I developed it during that 2015-2018 period, but it sucked. Drives were still the same miss pattern: off-the-planet high slices. 

 

In 2018, my first daughter was born, and my golf game was entirely dormant for 3 years. Then in 2021, I found someone in my office who golfed, but hadn't been out in a long time (like me), and we decided to go out and play on a fall day where we both had the day off, but daycare was open so I didn't have to worry about childcare. We played a pretty easy par 70 course (Pete Dye designed!), and I somehow shot 88. A month later, with a similar holiday situation, we played the same course and I shot 94. I was hooked again, but then in 2022, my second daughter was born. I still managed to find time to go to the range a few times and play 2 or 3 rounds in summer and fall, but not too much. 2023 was a similar story. 

 

2024 was when I went a bit crazy and started taking video in my backyard. I was just making practice swings in the yard most days, taking video. I also went down too many YouTube rabbit holes, discovered AMG (good), but also couldn't get enough golf content, so I watched too many videos with too many different swing approaches, lots of quick tips, band-aids for bad swings, everything the algorithm would throw at me. In August 2024, I got a net, and started hitting foam balls into that near-daily, until the weather and daylight hours became a limitation. I think I played 4 rounds in 2024, went to the range many more times than that, and hit lots of balls into the net, while taking so many videos that I would constantly have to delete dozens of them at a time to keep my phone's 128GB storage capacity from filling up. 

 

So I wouldn't call myself a beginner, because I've played too much, and have much more granular knowledge of the game than any beginner would. I can also hit shots that no beginner would be able to hit, I just can't do it all the time. My busted mechanics have always created a ceiling on my potential, and I never really worked on that seriously until this year.

 

But like I said at the top, whether I'm effectively a beginner is a philosophical question. I don't know if I have enough insight to answer that truthfully.

 

[KD1]

4 hours ago, RayPlan said:

That's a good list. Saving that for posterity.

 

In that vein, I've never actually kept track of anything other than score when I play. I could probably learn a lot by documenting the circumstances around every shot. I read Every Shot Counts years ago (pre-2018 hiatus), which I found very enlightening. 

 

At the very least start keeping your handicap in an app. A handicap accounts for different course difficulties, different tee boxes, daily conditions, even outlying blow up holes. It's not perfect but it's something and the going standard.