Golf Stroke Counters

This is one item of equipment that I found totally unnecessary. In fact I don't bother to fill up my score till the end of the 9 holes because I can remember every stroke I played for that nine and which clubs I used. This only applies when I play the home courses. For away courses, I need to record my score and I usually do it myself. Sometimes the caddy does it, but they are always a bit too generous.

Anyway back to golf stroke counters, I have picked up a lot in my time. But the two nicest ones are: a Pink Mickey Mouse one with a nice chain, returned it to the Japanese lady in the flight in front. She was really grateful. The other one was a blue one with teeth on the side for you to flip the numbers and  a centre button resets it back to zero with nice quick click. It counted to 12 strokes. LOL.

Anyway don't think I will be getting one soon.

Driver Shafts- IMPORTANT

Just put in the order for a UST shaft. Almost ordered the wrong shaft. Remember if you plan to shaft onto an adaptor , ie Taylormade adaptor, you need to order the one with the 0.335 inch tip OD for the TP adaptor. If you plan to shaft into a fixed driver/ non-adjustable one or the standard TM non-TP adaptor then you need a shaft with a tip that is 0.350 inch in diameter.

Now you know! Ha!

http://www.ustmamiya.com/golf-shafts/woods/proforce-v2

The Driver - the most important club in the bag?

The Driver is the most important club for me in the bag at the moment. It's the club that keeps my score down and is also responsible for bringing my score up. If I can hit the ball off the driver onto the fairway, ie get my driving accuracy up it will definitely improve my game. My short game and approach in with the mid and short irons are up to standard.

So don't neglect the driver. In recent times, you read magazines and the emphasize a lot on the short game, which is not wrong. But the short game is easier to master then the driver. The driver is a longer club and per practice session you can only hit so many balls with the driver. Short game can be practiced hours on end without fatigue.

If you go onto the range and people watch, you will realise that golfer's with a lousy swing can hit anything up to 7 iron well, but when they reach the longer clubs they struggle with distance and when they hit the driver their inadequacies of the swing shows as they don't hit any much further then their irons.

So the driver is the most important club in the bag at the moment. (3rd November, LOL)

Golf after work

Its great to get to the range after a hard day's work. But I must remember to tell myself it's never a good idea. After work when you are tired and mentally fatigued, your swing won't be at it's peak. So it's a better  idea to practice in the morning when you are nice and fresh.

If you don't have such a taxing job then go ahead and practice after work. This I do when i work for a couple of hours. Sleep deprivation affects golf.

For me its the mind not focusing well, the lateral shift/bump and the body rotation go wonky and your body tries to compensate for the fatigue by releasing the lag too early.

The golf swing is rather unforgiving.

Golf Balls

The best balls around are Titleist PRO-V1 and PRO-V1x according to the general consensus.

But to me, the best ball is the TaylorMade PENTA TP or currently the TP5. It works very well for me and it is reflected in the score returned and definitely cheaper too. But I still stress that the industry yard stick is still the Pro-v1/v1x.

There are a lot of pretenders claiming themselves to be equal to PRO-V1 and PRO-V1x, don't believe them!

1st rule for buying golf balls ---- More expensive then pro-v1/1x? Then forget it.

There are alot of ways to select a golf ball for oneself.

1.  Some people believe that performance of the ball in the short game is the most important and that the difference in performance in the long game between various balls are negligible.

2. Some people want distance through all the clubs.(distance balls)

3. Some people want less spin.(low spin balls)

and so on and so forth.

There are also design considerations to consider, number of dimples, Dimple in Dimple, number of layers of the golf ball, the feel of the golf ball (compression of the golf ball now not relevant) and so on and so forth.

The 2nd rule is get the best ball and don't fall for the gimmicks and claims. It just like what the Titleist website says; they will always recommend v1/v1x. Any other recommendation would be more of a price concern than play related. So get the Prov1/v1x or the Penta TP5 and you won't regret it. They are low spin of the driver, high spin of the shorter clubs, workable and soft with putting. They are playable through all swing speeds. Even passed my Mom some pro-v1 and she loves them, till she realised the price then she wasn't too keen to play with them.

http://www.titleist.com/golf-ball-fitting/  This page is a good read.