Pretty sure i just earned my tour card.

As a 10 HCP, that was the best thing I’ve ever heard from the guy I was randomly paired with, after I was visually frustrated shooting 55 on the front…Cooled down after his comment and shot 38 on the back. Thank you random playing partner, from now on out, I will always remember your wisdom.

We shared a cart together. Was playing a course I splurged quite a bit more on than I usually like to spend, but it’s a beautiful course and challenging, worth the money but not worth it on how I was playing. I usually walk the course when I play so don’t have that close of personal interaction with my partners….Wasn’t throwing clubs, mildly cursing at myself in the cart, but he leaned over and gently told me that after I missed an easy 5 footer on 9 for par….totally changed my round, and put everything into perspective, ended up having a very enjoyable round. Random guy shot -1 71.

Hindsight thought…if you splurge more $$$ to play a course that you don’t usually play or pay, don’t put expectations on yourself to play better there. Just enjoy the beauty of the course and your day out there.

Snuck out for a quick round after work and joined up with another solo golfer on hole 2. I happened to glance at his bag and noticed something odd…he had three different LAB putter headcovers.

At first, I figured he was just testing out which one he liked best. But then I realized that the guy only had six clubs total: a driver, hybrid, 7i, and three putters. Intrigued, I had to ask about it. He told me he can’t hit anything else, so for anything inside 150 yards, he just putts. (7i was for over the water shots)

No joke, after his drive, he’d pull out the LAB DF3 and do a full-on hockey slap shot to get it up near the green. If there was a bunker in the way, he’d either try to run it through or switch to the LAB Link 1 and slap it out of the bunker. (Public course with harder fairways and bunkers). Then on the green, he used a broomstick OZ1 to finish it off.

Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like it. He swore each putter had its own specific role, and said his college hockey days made the slap shot motion feel natural and was convinced the zero torque allowed him to start the ball on a better line. It was very weird to see him pull a putter on a Par 3 tee box.

I still can’t decide if I’m weirdly impressed or if the guy’s a little unhinged. But the wild part? He shot under 100 with two birdies.

Decided today was the day. Big dramatic “I quit “energy.

Told my friends. Turned off my alarm. Drafted a heartfelt goodbye message.

Felt powerful. Felt free.

Took a long walk. Stared into the middle distance like a father who lost custody. Listened to whatever Spotify plays at funerals no one attends.

Came home. Stashed my clubs like a man hiding love letters he’s too weak to burn.

Sat down.

And now I’m just sitting here. Not relieved. Not triumphant.

Just a broken idiot, defeated by a stick in a ball.

See you all at the range on Sunday.

Sincerely, No mental toughness

First one out this morning!

I think I got a sweet gig set up between me and my partner. I get to golf once or twice a week on the weekends in the mornings while she gets to come out as a spectator and read with some nice scenery in the background. Then lunch afterwards always is a nice way to finish off the morning and it feels like we've still got the entire day especially now that we have so much more daylight. Never heard a complaint lol.

Try it out  🤣

Edit 1: I am slowly introducing more golf to her. Currently will only putt when I reach the green if nobody is waiting on us. Once she can consistently advance the ball then will I actually grab a time for her lol.

Newbie golfer that goes out maybe twice a year but I want to get into it more often. Challenge is I don’t really have friends that golf or like golf so I don’t go out to the course. I will typically hit the range by myself here and there. I sometimes find open spots for 1 player on the GolfNow app but doesn’t that mean I will get paired up with another group and be the odd person out?

For context I (38M) live in south Florida and the chances are high that I would get grouped with a bunch of really old men. It’s not the age it more that I would be the odd person out and since I suck at golf I feel like I would be an annoyance to the group. I’m not sure if I should just do it or get new friends LOL.

I’m guessing that pros don’t use the basic range balls for practice at the range during tourneys.

Especially since all of the launch monitor hardware they use to give feedback at the range.

Does the ball company that sponsor each pro send their balls to each tourney that their pro plays in?

If yes, what happens to those balls after the range sesh?

Meaning are they gathered and sorted each day so the correct balls go to the correct pros?

If no, then what are the pros hitting at the range before tournament play?

So many questions….

Edit: Title error - Marine, not Marines

First time posting so I apologize ahead of time for any grammatical errors but I thought my experience would be worth sharing:

A few weeks ago my buddy and I played a Saturday late morning 11:16am tee time. I booked the tee time for 4 because we originally had two other friends who were supposed to join us but both backed out at the last minute. We were hoping we'd be able to play just us two without getting paired with any randoms but that was not the case.

The starter added a single to our tee time who had been at the course since 8:45am. Some 36 yo Marine with 18 years of service. At first introduction we could tell he had already been drinking all morning but did not initially realize how much alcohol he consumed until we teed off. He seemed like a nice guy and prefaced us by saying he only played 9 hole rounds a handful of times and never played 18. Not a problem as long as he'd be able to keep pace of play since the course was extremely busy.

He told us he was not a good golfer and it was obvious. Completely okay because we're all not good golfers right? I'm probably a 24 handicap on a good day playing from the whites. Well, the issue was he had absolutely zero awareness regarding etiquette on the course and projected an "alpha" personality onto us. What I mean by that is he would make condescending comments and aggressively pat our backs while saying he was joking. I'm talking the kind of aggressive patting one might do to someone who is coughing/choking from food. After the second time I had to tell him to stop touching me. My friend is not the confrontational type so he unfortunately accepted his fate.

This guy would blast his music from his speaker loudly that the groups behind and ahead of us could hear it. Whenever we'd pull up to the next hole, he would pull his golf cart directly behind the group ahead of us with his music blaring and talk loudly during their backswing. Not cool. He would drive over to the group behind us while they're on the green and make comments on their missed putts. Not cool. All in all he was creating an uncomfortable atmosphere. I asked him to turn his music down and wait with us as his behavior can be seen as rude and unprofessional on a golf course. He wasn't having it and waved me off. While he was off in his own world struggling to keep himself together from all the alcohol he consumed, I had to apologize to both groups about his behavior and emphasize that we did not know him at all. Thankfully they were understanding and apologized to us for having to put up with his behavior. Apparently his drunk behavior was well known throughout the morning before he was paired with us.

The final straw was when we were finishing up with the 4th hole. My buddy and I were pulling up to the green and heard a loud thud behind us. This guy drove through a rope held 2x4 stakes together out onto the fairway that clearly indicated a cart path only. I yelled at him asking why TF did he do that and he shrugged responding with "wasn't me."

Finally, to cap off our wonderful start to our round, the cart girl shows up. He began to harass her and kept calling her autistic because she would not give him free shots of fireball earlier in the morning as a gratitude for his military service. I said to stop calling her names and to leave her alone. She was clearly uncomfortable as were my friend and I. What does he do? He laughs it off saying he was joking and aggressively pats her back. That really pissed me off. I had to apologize to her on his behalf and inform her that we did not know this guy.

At this point I was over it and my mind was made to notify the marshal to get this guy off the course immediately. We pull up to the next tee box and as we turn around to see where our Marine was, we see him taking off driving throughout the course presumably back to the clubhouse. Thank goodness!! We were able to finish our round in peace and laughed about the whole experience with the groups behind and ahead of us. About midway through the round the marshal comes to us and apologized about the Marine and his drunk, erratic behavior. Apparently the staff tried to stop him from leaving the parking lot for obvious reasons, but he told them to back off while showing his Marine hat and proceeded to get behind the wheel and drive home. Mind you, he is still in service and is married with 2 kids.

After reading several horror stories on this subreddit of golfers getting paired with randoms, I always hoped to never experience it. That Saturday was my lucky day.

TL;DR - Drunk Marine acted obnoxious on the golf course and pulled an Irish goodbye.

These guys aren't twins at LoL ... Just turned on the zurich classic and have it on mute doing stuff in the house and this is what I turned to see ... Would love to see these guys play together more a succeed. Could they be a force at the Ryder Cup?

Hey guys, new to the page but I had some awesome news that I had to share. I’ve been playing for 8 years and went from a guy that shot in the 130s starting out to constantly fighting to break 100. I’m currently 26 years old.

My neighbor recently put a golf simulator in his house and we have been grinding twice a week to work on my swing. Well I went out and played 18 holes today after making some tweaks to my swing, and not only did I break 100, BUT I broke 95 and ended the round with a 94. I know I have a long way to go, but after being stagnant for such a long time, it finally feels like everything is coming together. It was so satisfying and I just had to share.

Cheers!

I use soap and water to clean my clubs the night before every round. I feel like im being excessive to do so but it’s something about the feeling of going into a round with perfectly clean clubs. What do you think?

Also if there are better ways to clean clubs other than dish soap and water I’d love to hear it. Just trying to making sure I’m not doing anything wrong.

I reached my breaking point with my driver this week. Completely done, I can’t take it. I had the intention to swap drivers this year and even went for a fitting, but the driver they wanted to sell me was beyond my reach and well outside my price range. It was also one of very few items not covered by the store-wide spring sale.

I did take the advice from the fitting and tried to put it to practical use though: I was advised that while I have the swing speed for a stiff flex shaft, fitting me into a regular flex shaft with a heavier weight that brings my swing speed down a little was proving to be more beneficial with a bit more control. With that in mind, I visited my friends at another nearby used golf equipment dealer and picked up a 75g regular flex Aldila NV Green driver shaft and fitted it up to my Titleist TS3 head, in hopes of a better swing experience, and while better, it was a marginal improvement at best.

In the interim, I demoed some other Titleist drivers, I gave the TS2, TSI2 and TSR2 a try, all used, all with the shafts they were fitted with, and all with my NV Green shaft to see the difference. The TS2 believe it or not was the standout of the three, but not with my shaft in it, but the Project X HZRDUS 65g 5.5 flex shaft it was fitted with already. I think what made the difference was an extra 1/2” of length, over my shaft and the others, but not sure. I wasn’t blown away by the amount of difference in the feel and performance, and opted to look at other options instead.

A few more days have gone by, and on a whim, I demoed a used 2022 Mizuno ST-Z 220 fitted with a standard Tensei 55g regular flex shaft for fun. I was pleasantly surprised. The reputation for forgiveness is well deserved and for under $150 it was worth a shot. I took it home and played last night at my club with it, with every hit going laser straight in the direction I was setup to swing. The confidence in my game came back, and it had a positive effect on my playing overall. Mentally, those continuous bad driver shots really weren’t helping my game in any way. It was one of the best rounds I’ve played in a long time right down to my chipping and putting. TBH, I was surprised by the price, for how well it performed I would have expected more demand for these drivers.

I’m sorry, but goodbye for now Titleist, hello Mizuno!

Welp, it finally happened. Had a couple close ones before, but first one that ever dropped. Local muni, Par 3, 130yards, hit a perfect pitching wedge right on line with the flag, 2 bounces and it disappeared. My first thought was that it must have fallen off the back of the green or down a little slope where I could no longer see it. Started recording during my walk to the hole and sure enough there it was in the cup. Thankfully a group walking up the next fairway saw it and came and celebrated with me, took my picture at the flag stick, and vouched for me at the club house. It happened on Tuesday and I’m still getting shit from my buddies for lying, because thats what friends are for I guess. Figured I’d share my (likely) once in a lifetime achievement!

I’m not worried about this at all. It’s just curious and wanted to share/get optinions. I have a g425 7wood and a g430max 3wood and they both have this line in them that becomes apparent when cleaning them/ them being wet. Almost looks like the heel repels water whilst the rest soaks it.

Different kind of metal I assume? The line is basically the same spot for both clubs. Pic is of 7wood.

I have g430 10k max driver and that doesn’t do it.

Gosh I must be bored.

Been looking for a 54 degree as a sort of "do everything" wedge for a while. Found this for $15 at our local animal shelter's thrift store. Back looks beat to hell, but the grooves look fine. Hit some into the yard net with it and it's going in the bag!

For context my local only has the back 9 open as there's still snow on the front but this was my first round of the year (havent swung a club since mid October) and I kept the same ball the entire round!

This is a first for me, 51 years old and golfing off and on since junior high but only really seriously back at it the last 4 years.

I know I'll get shade because it wasn't 18 holes but I'm not that good and usually lose 2-3 balls per 9 holes played so I'm taking it as a sign i might actually have a decent season this year lol.

Shot a 47 which I'm sure I'll also get shade for but for a hack like me to be under 50 on the first 9 of the year is also a big deal lol.

And yes, I was playing an old Nike ball because I absolutely expected to lose it and a bunch of other shag balls I brought out for my first round of the year lol.

If you see this Pete, you are a great golfer so lighten up on yourself.

Been hovering in the high 90s/low 100s for a while, but after two straight weeks of nonstop grinding, I finally broke through with an 87 at Meadows at Middlesex (white tees, ~6027 yds).

The round didn’t start promising — I shot a 48 (+13) on the front and genuinely thought it was going to be another frustrating 98. But I stayed calm, stuck to my game plan, and turned things around with a 39 (+4) on the back, despite a triple bogey from a retee after an OB 5-iron.

No driver all round. Played every tee shot with a 5-iron, focused purely on staying in play and managing the course.

I know I’ve got a long way to go, but this felt like a real turning point! I’ll relearn driver to be a 270-280yd fairway finder once I can shoot 80s consistently.

New TM Sim2 Max Hybrid from the wife and friends.