Back to 12 minutes in NH. I played 9 in 2:10 but would have bet it was over 2:30So Wachusett’s an absolute disaster. Running 20 minutes behind with 5 groups on holes 1 & 2 - got a sneaking suspicion they’re not using 15 minute spacing for tee times
While I love Boston/Mass, golf here fucking sucks. Except in October. Then it’s sublime.I have nothing to add except I that I don't miss golf in Massachusetts even a little. Saturday morning 4:30 and people are bitching here. I love Boston, but sub 4 hour rounds and nothing approximating a hockey fight on the golf course are underrated reasons not to live there.
What do you mean 'here' you're in golf heaven right now!While I love Boston/Mass, golf here fucking sucks. Except in October. Then it’s sublime.
We have the added benefit of having a member who owns a company that disinfects restaurants, hotels, schools, the entire State of MA DYS and MBTA systems, etc. They are fogging the carts every night (as opposed to having some kid wipe them down) in the barn (he's also done Kettle Brook, Wachusett, Pleasant Valley and a bunch of other courses recently, although not nightly like we're doing it).I know it's part of the golf culture at your club but I don't think mandatory carts are a good idea right now. Yes, disinfection and limiting carts to one per player will reduce risk but we're not quite sure surface transmission, even outdoors, is negligible yet. I wouldn't bet on the cart disinfection process being perfect either. Forcing folks to accept risk just isn't appropriate for what is ultimately not a necessity for many to play golf.
FWIW, I was not impressed with behavior on the golf course this weekend. Many members were ignoring distancing requirements and basically walking side-by-side throughout their rounds. I had to ask a few to maintain distance from me. I'm sorry to be blunt here but it is extremely likely we're going to get another wave sooner or later and many people are going to desperately wish they hadn't been cavalier with relaxing their guard.
All square on the 14 tee. I think both Kiz and the Foreplay crew are -1. Kiz missed a couple birdies on the front and the ForePlay group is playing good team scramble golf.Yeah, Kiz will smoke them but it will be entertaining. They played at Palmetto a few months ago before the virus hit. That round he played match play with Riggs giving Riggs 12 shots and that match was over by 15 I think. Then Kiz played the last 3 holes deep into his beer cooler and with only a 5-iron and still beat him easily. IIRC, Riggs might’ve beaten Scott Brown but I’m not sure what format they used. Kiz gave Frankie something like 25 shots in stroke play and that wasn’t even close either. Kiz is has a great personality that you don’t really see on tour and is an epic shit talker.
Edit: I bet the scramble will come in closer to 80
I did. I love the wedge around the greens mostly. I was concerned about the high bounce (10 degrees) but so far the grind has handled that admirably. I'm a bit concerned about how it sets up for full swing shots but my game is such a mess right now that I'm not ready to blame the club for that yet. I also got the hybrid and it's a thing of beauty through 1.5 rounds. Playing the next 4 days in a row including a 2 day tourney this weekend so I'm really looking forward to putting it through it's paces when it matters.@jercra Have you received your wedges from sub-70 yet?
I've played 3 or 4 times with my new irons. I like them a lot but I really need to get to a good quality simulator with them to do a gapping session. I find myself a club to a club and a half longer with these irons. A little bit of distance was to be expected because these are 2 degrees stronger than my old clubs but I'm 10-12 yards longer with each one. My big worry was being able to stop them on the greens, particularly because my ball flight is low, but they actually check up just as good as my old clubs. I'm hitting them higher as well but that may be down to the shaft.
The good news is there are several direct-to-consumer like Sub 70, Hogan and Bombtech that will save you hundreds on a new set. The bad news is that they're better for people who know their game and what will work for them in general. Also, Ebay is your friend. There are lots of great deals on 1-2 year old clubs.I have not bought clubs since my ahem TM RAC HTs. Witty username and all. Coworker just moved a mile down the road and wants to start playing again when CV19 slows down before or after work. I haven't played a round in probably 3 years. I don't have my clubs anymore I think my dad has been using them. But I'm guessing technology has changed immensely since I bought those anyways. Should be interesting to research clubs again wife is allowing me to buy them lol
Yes I'm totally fine with second hand. As you say I have no idea what my game will be. When I played before I was 50lbs bigger and way less strong. So I have no idea how my mechanics will have shifted. eBay sounds like a good start thanks!The good news is there are several direct-to-consumer like Sub 70, Hogan and Bombtech that will save you hundreds on a new set. The bad news is that they're better for people who know their game and what will work for them in general. Also, Ebay is your friend. There are lots of great deals on 1-2 year old clubs.
Used Ping irons are value country for irons.Yes I'm totally fine with second hand. As you say I have no idea what my game will be. When I played before I was 50lbs bigger and way less strong. So I have no idea how my mechanics will have shifted. eBay sounds like a good start thanks!
Oh nice is there an equivalent for woods?Used Ping irons are value country for irons.
Fairway woods design hasn't developed much over the past decade. Shafts have gotten better but I wouldn't spin too much on that if you're just getting back into the game. Ditto for hybrids. Any of the big manufacturers are safe bets. Some of the lesser brands have cult followings too (and might be dirt cheap since resale is worse).Oh nice is there an equivalent for woods?
My Titleist one is better, and throw some respek on my name.Ah yeah, forgot you got the hybrid as well. I also have the hybrid. I like it when I hit it well but I may send it back for the 5 wood, which I just think suits my game better.
I'll say this though, my playing partner has a Titleist hybrid and they are nearly identical.
Thanks for the intel and links appreciate it a lot.Fairway woods design hasn't developed much over the past decade. Shafts have gotten better but I wouldn't spin too much on that if you're just getting back into the game. Ditto for hybrids. Any of the big manufacturers are safe bets. Some of the lesser brands have cult followings too (and might be dirt cheap since resale is worse).
Drivers are the place to spend more money. The tech advancements even over the past few years are significant. You can still save buying a model that's a year or two old but I wouldn't go much older than that if you can afford it.
Check out the Callaway pre-owned site. I've never quite meshed with their woods but lots of people swear by them. I'm a big fan of their hybrids though.
I don't really had the sweat and wipe in eyes problems. I do dislike greasy hands while trying to grip a club though, so I try to put it on where there's a sink so I can wash my hands afterward. In the current world order, I've resorted to my fallback method, which is to rub my palms on the grass after applying sunscreen--not pretty, but it works for me.Ok, suncreen for golf? What are people using? I can't stand having my hands be slippery at all when taking a swing so I just generally don't wear sunscreen. Even the spray shit gets on my hands as soon as I sweat and wipe it out of my eyes. Anyone use a sunscreen that's sweat proof and dries either dry or even tacky within a minute or 2 of application?
Yes, several times. Nice club/clubhouse, good course conditioning. Nice layout although not in "wow" kind of way. Happy to try answering more if you have specific questions.Has anyone every played The Patterson Club in Fairfield, CT? if so, thoughts?
Wow, that's amazing all around!! Really. Is this something they could open up to the caddies to them play for their own sake as well?So while golf is the perfect social distancing activity, caddying is not. At my club in NY no caddies so far this season (as I assume everywhere else, at least in this part of the country). Tough on the caddies, as I'm not sure what fraction of them can successfully get unemployment benefits. Not the school kids but the guys that do this as their primary job, some going north/south with the seasons.
In April we solicited donations from membership to support our regular caddies. For May the pros got creative and over the last week had a golf marathon challenge--where they and any members would pick a day and play as many holes as they could, getting sponsored $x/hole by whoever wanted to (plus some bonuses for birdies and eagles). No carts--just walking and carrying.
The two pros who planned it went the first day and walked 80 holes. Then a member went out solo on Friday and did 90, finishing in late rain. I was impressed--didn't peg him for someone who plays more than 18 most of the time, and he's a 19 index (but hits the ball pretty straight), a little guy in his 50s (not that I'm that big or much younger).
Yesterday I went out with a friend, while another pro played on his own (we started separate sides and never ran into each other). He walked 102 while we finished 108. Started at 6:30am and stopped around 8:15pm. Had light for maybe 2 more holes but thought we'd stop at an even 6 rounds. My body was unhappy with me this morning, but felt just a little sore by a few hours later.
It's a relatively hilly course, particularly on the front 9, but quite walkable. 6,750 yards from the tees we played, and we carried ~10 clubs with normal golf bags. My friend's Garman says we walked 34.1 miles. Anyway, thought I'd share.
Yeah, this is what I do when I eat something that may be a little greasy on the course. Always eat it with the glove hand (glove off, obviously). The issue isn't so much putting it on since I could do that at home and have it dry by the time I get to the course. It's that I walk every round and that will cause some sweating in the summer months. That will inevetably lead to me touching some part of myselft that's both sweat and has sunscreen on which will lead to greasy and hands eventually to a club slipping out of my hands and someone getting hit in the head and dying. I don't need to go to prison over sunscreen. That being said, my wife found some stupid expensive stuff that I tried before playing a little par 3 course near me yesterday and after about 10 minutes it was completely dry and didn't seem to get greasy again with moisture. I'm going to try it out on a full round today.One trick I use for sunscreen is to use my glove hand to do any spreading or rubbing in. I can aggressively wipe it down after the application, and then it’s covered with the glove so no slipperiness and no sun exposure. You still have a to deal with covering the glove arm, but I use a spray, so I go with that.
I guess they could have in theory (well, the owners could have--it's not a members-owned course), but I can imagine some members may have objected at an influx of new faces during social distancing period or something like that. Also, maybe it wouldn't have seemed like a purely nice gesture to offer to let the caddies play, for the purposes of playing as many holes as possible. I've seen a few of the caddies out as guests this year.Is this something they could open up to the caddies to them play for their own sake as well?
I’ve played there a few times already this year, it’s right around the corner from my house. I agree that they’ve done a good job job with the course. We got through in under four hours the last time we played.For fellow Rhode Islanders, I played Crystal Lake this morning for the first time. I didn’t play that well but that was the only thing wrong with the day. We played 18 in 4 hours as a foursome and the course was in the best shape of any I’ve played this year.
It’s definitely target golf, but there aren’t many trees and it’s basically on a hill so the course gets a lot of wind. The greens were firm and fast.
That is seriously impressive.I could not have driven then ball better. I could not have played worse at everything else. I shot a 52 on the front without missing a fairway (and hitting legitimate drives) or losing a ball/taking a penalty. An incredible accomplishment.
I've been out to Southern Ireland a couple of times for golf, and during some of the rounds we played at Old Head, you couldn't see 5 feet in front of you, never mind 100 yards. Because the cliffs are so close, one caddy would stand next to you on the tee box, and then immediately grab your shirt to make sure you didn't take a wrong turn and fall off the cliff. That same caddy would also yell what direction the ball left your tee, so the fore caddies in the fairway could run to those spots and listen for them when they hit, because you couldn't see anything.That is seriously impressive.
I played my second post-lockdown round this morning, and for the first six holes, I basically couldn't see a thing. A thick haar (cold sea fog) has been hanging around the coast for the past couple of days, and it was really bad for a while - e.g., on the 5th hole, a 145-yard par-3, I could barely make out the deep bunker 20 yards in front of the green, never mind the flag. On a couple of tees I stood there and had no idea when to hit; we were well spaced out, but I still stood for a while to make absolutely sure, and when I pulled my drive onto the beach to the left of the 4th hole, I did so not very long before a family of three walkers out for a stroll passed by the path of my ball. (That could have been very bad.) So that's the other side of Scottish golf; how often have any of you played in a fog so thick that you can't see more 100-150 yards in front of you?
Luckily it had mostly cleared up by the 8th or 9th hole and was fine for the rest of the round. I went from making a lot of terrible swings on the front nine to figuring something out and making a lot of really great swings on the back nine; my putter was much cooler, but I still managed to card a 75, which I'm perfectly happy with.
I’ve done one before. Number of swings really depends on the consistency of your contact. I was maybe 5-6 swings up through 7i, then a bit more for longer clubs where I’m less consistent. Even 10/club for 4-P is only 70 balls which is basically a large bucket at the range? Or are you doing the whole set?The simulator that I was going to is reopening today. I already have a 2 hour appointment for this evening and am planning on doing a gapping session with my new irons. Anyone done one before? Last night I read that most places have you do 10 swings and throw out your best and worst yardage, than average out the other 8. Because I'm going with another guy, that seems like it would take a lot of time and would be exhausting by the end of it. I was just going to make sure I get 5 or 6 good swings and contact with each club and average them out.
What kind of simulator and is it all indoors? I'd be terrified to make any changes to my clubs based on a simulator that's not Trackman or equivalent and, for me at least, I see big differences in even Trackman numbers when hitting into a screen indoors than when they can measure from a bay outdoors. I think 10 swings isn't enough either and I feel like I'd want to go through the bag a couple of times. I'd prefer something like 5-10 swings from x-iron to z-iron and then repeat that pattern in reverse. Otherwise I think the inconsistency in the swing would be more significant than the differences in the clubs. I hope you report back though. I'd love to hear what your experience is. My clubs travel all over the country and get hit off of mats a lot so I'm sure they are bent to shit. If you find it useful I may try one myself.The simulator that I was going to is reopening today. I already have a 2 hour appointment for this evening and am planning on doing a gapping session with my new irons. Anyone done one before? Last night I read that most places have you do 10 swings and throw out your best and worst yardage, than average out the other 8. Because I'm going with another guy, that seems like it would take a lot of time and would be exhausting by the end of it. I was just going to make sure I get 5 or 6 good swings and contact with each club and average them out.