I was going to make it a pdf download and ask people to contribute what they thought it was worth, but I thought if I put the book up on Amazon’s website it would be better formatted for all types of digital readers.  If this doesn’t work after a couple of months I may put a link to the pdf up as well, but for the time being please think about supporting The Dan Plan by purchasing the book here:

Amazon Unites States:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MTC0NJA

Amazon UK:  http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00MTC0NJA?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

Amazon Australia: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B00MTC0NJA

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And most any other country, email me if you want a specific link or search for “The Dan Plan”.

I wish to apologize in advance as a few external links did not translate to this format.  One of the most blaring absences are videos.  On a few occasions I talk about watching a video and it’s just a blank on the page.  Outside of that the content is whole.  I edited out about one third of the posts but there is still quite a bit of content, too much in a lot of ways.  Down the road at some point I will have a professional editor (or a well versed friend, or myself when the amount of time in a day magically doubles) take a gander at the content and polish it up.  For now, this is the story, more or less, word for word from the beginning.  I hope you enjoy and get some value out of the content.

For every book purchased from Amazon almost $5 goes to The Dan Plan.  Thank you for reading and please help spread the word to anyone potentially interested in seeing what it takes to make such a drastic change in one’s life.

Cheers!

Recently I turned 35 and along with that came an increase in my monthly dues at my home course.  I went from the 30-34 bracket of the “intermediate” membership to the 35-39 and so my dues went from $298 to $381 per month (including a monthly mortgage assessment).  There’s also a $50 per month food minimum, locker fee, club storage fee, annual charges for keeping the GHIN handicap number, Thursday and Saturday game entry fees and a few other optional charges that can accumulate over time.  All in all I was averaging just over $400 per month and will now be somewhere a shade above $480.

I joined Riverside last July because I had to leave Columbia and needed a place to practice on a daily basis.  At the time I thought I would spend a year at Riverside and then figure out what to do next, but recently it was brought to my attention that I signed a two year contract so I will be there for the next year in order to play that out.  It is what it is and I, more than 99 percent of golfers, can spend the time to get my money’s worth out of the track.  However, considering that I was contemplating dropping my membership, and my job is to practice golf daily, it got me curious about how many people were joining courses and playing the game in general, especially in their 20s and 30s.

The monthly dues for a 35-year-old add up to $5,760 per year, minimum.  That’s a good bit of money in an economy with a high unemployment rate and, from what I have read, a large number of underemployed.  It’s a chunk of change for anyone, really.  $110 per week; so if you play twice a week every week (through the winter) you are spending $55 per round.  That’s not too bad considering the amount of work that goes into maintaining a private course and the cost of golf rounds in general in the states, but it could be a hard pill for a young family to swallow.  The more I thought about it the more it made sense that golf is on its decline.  I hadn’t even considered the fact that it can literally take an entire day to play from the time you leave your house to the time you get home.  That can be a good or a bad thing, just depends on your point of view.

Then I started Googling course closures and ran into the HBO series Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel about the crisis in golf.  I had heard about the show a couple times so decided to give it a view and wasn’t too surprised by the numbers they were giving.  Golf has been in a steady decline since the boom that Tiger brought into the game from the 90s to early 2000s.  Now, on average, 130 golf courses have closed permanently each year for the past 8 years.  That is one course closing every 2.8 days of the year for 8 years.  Jack Nicklaus was interviewed and said his design company had zero course design jobs in the States and all of the work was in China and Russia.  Were there simply too many courses built in America or is it the decline in the sport’s participants that is causing all of the shuttered windows?  I’ll just assume it’s a bit of both, but the price of being a member here in the US also doesn’t help.

I have talked with a large number of people around the world lately and it seems that in a lot of places (Australia, NZ, England and a few other countries around Europe) annual dues are less than half of what I am paying at one of the most affordable courses in Portland as an intermediate member.  I don’t want to come off like I am venting, but there has to be a different way to run things if you can be a member of a nice course in Sydney for $2,000 a year, or about 1/3 what you pay here.  If I am considering dropping my membership because of the costs involved and my day job is to practice golf there is something wrong.

I did recently find an alternative way of having unlimited golf balls and playing privileges.  My plan was to get an unlimited range card from a local range for about $1,000 a year and then pay $1,400 for an entire year’s worth of greens fees at one of the public courses (Broadmoor has an annual deal for unlimited rounds).  That would cut my annual costs by over $3,000 and I would still have a place to play on an as-needed basis.  Personally, if things don’t change financially that is what I will do starting next July, but for the time being I will use as much as I can while in my current contract.  It seems to me that more courses should have a deal like that to entice all of the golfers who would like to play more but don’t want to commit to the financial burden that is a private club.  This doesn’t necessarily address any of the issues of golf in general, but it would at least encourage people to get out more and enjoy the game more affordably.

Also from the HBO show I found it interesting what TaylorMade’s former CEO Mark King thought about the future of golf.  His ideas are to do whatever it takes to make the game fun as he thinks people are not playing because it is inherently frustrating/difficult.  He has created a new 15″ golf hole and put those holes at roughly 100 golf courses across the country this summer to see if people enjoy it more and they have found that it is working.  They say that not only are people having more fun, but it speeds up pace of play by an hour, which is amazing.  Perhaps if there is a bigger hole and a round is less than 3 hours (so they can get more tee times and more people playing) and costs 60% of current costs more people might come out.  It is an intimidating game to newbies and takes a large investment that a lot of people simply can’t afford and those who can might not want to spend all that money on one type of recreation.  You could always cut two holes, one 15″ and one standard 4.25″ and depending on handicap you play a certain hole.  If it makes the game faster, more accessible and more fun then go for it.  Hell, if I ran a public course I would try it out for a couple of weekends just to see what kind of buzz it generated in the golfing community. Couldn’t hurt.

All of this is the tough/frustrating part of the game that I have come to love.  I don’t want golf to continue to have the air of an elitist sport.  If there is a way to make it more approachable we should pitch in to help make that happen.  I played a two-on-two match at Heron yesterday with three guys I really enjoy golfing with and the entire game came down to the 18th hole.  It was an all day back and forth epic match and the epitome of what is good and fun about the game.  Competition, camaraderie, frustrations and elations, quality shots and overcoming misses, challenge and an eventual victor.  The day was an amazing summer golf day and worth every penny that was spent.  But… how many people are willing to put in the work and shell out the expenses to get to the point where they can have days like that?

I’m not sure why golf in America is as expensive as it is, but it kind of breaks my heart that this game doesn’t seem to be for everyone.  There is so much beauty in the sport and as the TaylorMade CEO said,  “If we don’t have kids graduating from high school playing golf, what’s the game going to look like in 20 years?”  It might not be my place to pose these issues, but I spend so much time on golf courses and can’t help but think about who is and who isn’t playing the game as well as the general attitude towards the sport from those who have never played.

Unfortunately I don’t have the answers right now and I’m not overly familiar with the costs of running a course so can’t get into specific numbers, although I am looking into that in the evenings as it has become an interest/hobby of mine as of late.  For the time being I will continue to practice and try to inspire some people to play this game through my own successes and failures.  Every day is a new day and you never know how you’re going to do out on the course until you get out there and give it a go.  It’s a beautiful sport that everyone should have access to if they are so inclined.

The last time I felt like I do today was during the Men’s Journal interview back in summer 2011.  I literally lost my voice half way through the day and had to resort to writing notes so that the journalist, Gavin, could get his questions answered.  In retrospect, It was a comical scene and we have managed to stay friends since that story.

Today is a good day to try and figure out the best ideas moving forward.  I have the entire afternoon to write, read and ponder on progress both past and future.  It’s a quiet day and a reflective one.

The first thoughts that came to mind when thinking about ways to continue to improve was chipping and putting, especially the latter.  Lately I have not felt my putting stroke and I have not been putting up to the standards I have set for myself.  Some of that is due to the fact that I have been working on the full swing for so long that a bit of the other aspects have suffered, and part of it is just a cyclical confidence issue.  When you are rolling it hot you don’t think about it and tend to drop a lot of putts.  Once you start missing you think about it more and get overly nit-picky about the stroke and focus too much on mechanics instead of just finding your line.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a bad roller of the rock nor am I in a putting funk, just have been missing a couple of putts per round that I think I should make and haven’t really been dropping anything outside of about 5 feet.  Some of this might be due to the fact that the greens on a lot of courses have been punched and sanded and some because my alignment is out of whack.  When I saw Bruce on Wednesday he noticed that my shoulders had gotten closed to my intended line so there is some concrete setup issues to unkink.  Outside of that, I must remember to continue to improve the basics even if my main focus has transitioned to a different part of the game.  In order to succeed all things must be improving, not just what you are focussing on that week.

It is important to have specific goals and you can’t always work on everything, but don’t allow yourself to lapse on anything in particular.  I’ve always had a goal of being one of the best putters in the game and there have been times when my putting was rock solid, but over the past few weeks my stats have gone south in that arena.  Now is a good opportunity to pick it back up and drop those birdies.

Yesterday I played in a 4 man tourney at Riverside.  When I woke up I didn’t want to play as I was feeling crappy, but I had signed up as part of a team and wasn’t going to cancel at the last minute.  With a head full of cough medicine and a belly full of what Riverside calls meatloaf we all went out and teed it up starting on a lightly rainy 17th hole.  As a team we played great, Eric had 4 birds, Mick 2, Tom 1 and me 1 and we pretty much ham and egged the entire day to shoot a good score on the 2 ball best ball (they take the best two balls for each hole out of the four of us).  There were only one or two holes where 2 of us didn’t get par or better and despite all shooting 78-84 we were second gross and first net for the event.  It was really just a fun round as the competition was as light as the Spring drizzle, but I was proud of the team for sticking to it and finishing strong.

Personally, I shot 78 with a couple of missed short putts and some chips that led to two-putts which were easily avoidable.  The short game woes may just have easily been from the swimming head as from lack of consistent chipping and putting drills over the past month.  It’s hard to say, but after each round I am upset with myself for not taking better advantage of some good opportunities. In particular, I never like leaving birdie chips/putts short of the hole and need to improve that.  At least give it a shot to drop.  And, I seriously need to focus on making 6-12 foot putts as I have had numerous birdie putts from that distance lately and far too few make the bottom of the cup.  It has been a long time since I had more than 2 birdies consistently in any single round and even though I have limited the number of bogeys or worse per round I am not scoring as well as I could be due to those situations.

Luckily there is a very easy solution to this:  work and work harder.  I need to rediscover my putting routines and spend more time on the greens, especially as my swing is starting to shape up better.

On a side note, the trip to NYC was postponed for 2-3 weeks.  We will be heading over there soon, but couldn’t do it this week due to some unforeseen conflicts.

Also, I have been testing the Game Golf tool lately and have a few rounds in there to share on the site.  But, I’m not exactly sure how to do that yet.  Will discuss with their tech people and post something soon.

Back to resting.  I want to get out tomorrow and work on putting and chipping so need this body in better shape than today.  One day down for rest is okay, anything more is unacceptable.

It’s a funky little town and a good place to step away for a couple of days and reflect on the past year’s successes and setbacks before heading out to tackle 2014.  I’m a big fan of having these short interludes for reflecting a bit before setting out on the next adventure and on January 2nd I’m heading to Palm Desert for a few weeks to stay with a friend and step up my winter practice routine.

Today I am going to hike around Cape Disappointment, which in some ways (jokingly and seriously) is a fitting name for my reflection spot for 2013.  My initial gut reaction on 2013 as a whole is that it was the toughest and in some ways least productive year to date of The Dan Plan.

Before continuing on, some scenes from today’s Cape exploration.

A secret beach:

The road along the way included a 4 mile long bridge across the Columbia from Oregon to Washington, long enough for the road to disappear into the fog:

A must unnecessary sign (unless, of course, you are learning Chinook):

Small buildings where only the imagination can shed light on their past use:

After spending a few hours thinking and hiking around the foggy cape I realized that last year was, in fact, the most productive year of the project to date.  I went from being told how to make a golf swing in the first couple years of the project to finally understanding what it means to apply the appropriate swing and I now have a deeper understanding of the physics of golf and how to “make a golf shot.”

Also, 2013 was the year that I found the right coach; the one I wanted to work with in order to boost my game to the next level that I will taste soon down the 2014 road.  Early in 2013 I was playing some of the best golf of my life, shooting one over par a couple of times in January and February and scoring an 81-81 in a two-day tournament on a tough track that landed me my first prize money to date with a net 6th place.  But, I knew my swing fundamentals would not allow me to progress much past those levels and that I needed to shore up my swing in order to produce the type of consistency and power needed to continue improving.

I met Bruce in May and we started the long process that is a major swing change.  I knew it wouldn’t be easy, yet still struggled with these changes for months and have continued to do so.  Although I finally understand exactly what I need to do and am excited to get down to the desert and not play golf for a while so that I can concrete the next changes.  It’s a surprisingly tough process and I have much respect for PGA Tour players who go through similar fundamental/coaching changes that leave them off the radar for a year or more.

Most of the summer was spent trying to figure out what it was that I was supposed to “feel” in the new swing and for a long time I was struggling to break 90 again and did not enter any tournaments as I wasn’t ready to compete.

Finally, around the time of Portland’s last tourney of the year, I knew that I needed to test what I was working on so signed up for a two-day amateur event mostly out of curiosity as well as a bit in order to get some revenge as I shot horribly in the 2012 event (92-86).  I did not have any expectations, but knew that I would be able to shoot better this year than last as my swing was much more consistent.  That said, I was a bit surprised when I shot a 76 the first day.  That score was with two missed short putts on the final two holes that could have been extra birdies.  It was a relief and a huge confidence booster as I had never scored under 80 in a tourney.  The next day I had a triple and a double on the back which killed my chances to repeat a sub-80 mark, but still posted an 82 which kept my two-day average under 80.

That was the best way to end what was basically a non-existent tournament year.  It gave me plenty of fuel moving forward and left me excited to compete when the season picks back up.

There was much more to the year than that and it would be impossible to quantify a year’s worth of practice by talking about a few scores or the generalities of a swing change, but 2013 was just one growth ring in the constantly evolving process that is ultimately a complete transformation.  Honestly, it doesn’t even make sense to break out one year analytically just because a calendar happens to turn, but it does provide a convenient stepping stone and I suppose that is why we tend to have resolutions and set goals this time of year.

My goals are simple:  Don’t lose momentum, find new vigor and new energy and apply it daily.  Don’t allow frustration to set in.  Stay positive, learn, grow, improve, make every minute of the day quality time whether it’s on the course or at home.  Remind myself that there cannot be any regrets and live each day accordingly.  Break par, get to scratch, win an event.  Concrete that swing change, become more consistent, get faster and improve balance.  Understand my mind and body and how they are connected.  Sleep more soundly and wake with more energy.

That’s it.  Simple, straightforward goals that are mostly written out in order for me to remember to continue to push forward.

2013 was a mixed bag, as it should have been.  There will always be highs and lows and without each the other is unrecognizable.  Similar paths will evolve in 2014, but I think I’m a hair wiser this December 31st than last and can see a clearer path in front of me.  I may not have accomplished everything I wanted to this past year, but I grew slightly wiser and stronger and can’t really ask for more than that.  Who knows what I will be writing about, or where from, come December 31st 2014, but over the next 365 days I know that I will be doing my best to improve one way or another.

Happy New Year.  I hope everyone is happy, healthy and has an inspiring 2014.

Now that that’s clear, I want to talk about a hybrid situation I have had for the past 6 months.  Namely, I have not had any confidence in nor have I had positive results with the hybrid that I was fit for back in April.   The rest of my clubs seem to produce the shot that I apply on the ball, but for some reason the 19 degree hybrid that I was fit for in Oceanside earlier this Spring never felt right to me.  When I hit it right it was pretty deep, but looking at my stats I hit it well about 1 out of 5 times, which is a stat that has cost me many strokes over that time.

I have tried out about 5 different shafts in the 913 hybrid head and a few different weights in the head, but nothing seems to work with me and I finally hit wall yesterday during a round here in Portland, OR.  I pulled the hybrid 4 times and twice the ball went OB and the other two times I hit one long par 3′s green and the other shot punched through some trees but hooked hard right back into the trees.  That’s the problem:  statistically about 20 percent of the time the ball had a decent draw or fade on it and the other 80 percent it either had a huge hook or slice to it.

Back in the day, I remembered that my go-to club was always a 3-hybrid, so I decided to pull out an old one today to see if it was hybrids in general that I couldn’t hit or this one in particular.

Today, I played a round at Heron Lakes and hit the hybrid 4 times, once off a tee on a par 3 and three times on par 5s as approach shots.  Without any new special effort or golf swing technique, all 4 of those shots did what I thought they would do and either ended up on the green or in the fairway.  And, on the range before the round my shots were buttery ending up either with a baby draw or fade.

What I realized was that the Titleist hybrid’s club head was too light.  What I mean is that I couldn’t feel it during the swing so it has been hard to find square at impact.  Personally, I think this is because my shaft weight to club head is off, but I can’t figure out how to change that to make it a productive club.  The old hybrid, a 2011 Nike, has a heavier head and I understand where the club face is throughout the swing.  I’m sure there is a way to correct this, but for the meantime I am going to stick with my old club for short par 4s, long par 3s and approach shots on long par 5s.

But…  The old one only flies about 4 yards farther (personally I like to say further, but Country Club Eric constantly reminds me that that is not grammatically correct) than my Titleist AP2 4-iron.  It’s basically a redundant club and will need to be addressed soon, but having my current hybrid out of the bag creates a whole new level of confidence in 200 yard shots.  I just have a gap between 200 and the 240 yard 3-wood.

I suppose the point is that if you don’t have confidence in one of your sticks and you have worked hard on your swing then there comes a point where that piece of gear needs to be changed.  Between club heads and shafts there are a million options out there and there is one that fits us all.

I am going to head back to Oceanside for an update fitting at Titleist this Winter and figure out a better solution as I need a club that carries somewhere between my current 4-iron and my 3-wood.  In the meantime I’ll stick with a club that I can control and see how that helps the overall game.

On a side note.  I have been told by countless people to start a kickstarter campaign since day one, but have never had a good enough reason to launch this.  After that email from Bruce, though, I realize that this winter is a pivotal point in the project and with some added funds I could make it down to Palm Springs, train with my coach and practice alongside some inspiringly good golfers.  I have decided that it is about time to start that campaign and hope to get it off the ground in the next week or two.  Once it is live, please spread the word however you can.  I greatly appreciate it.

Some photos to end this piece.  First off my winter range setup for TrackMan use while in town:

And, the mythical double rainbow. The best thing about storms that actually pass through rather than sit on top of Portland for months at a time:

The first thing I learned:  No matter the brand, color, markings, etc, I loved how each one sounded when it hit the bottom of the cup.

The balls that I purchased and will review in a two-part blog:  Titleist ProV1-X and NXT Tour-S, TaylorMade Lethal, Bridgestone B330 and E6, Nike 20XI, Callaway Hex Chrome, Srixon Z-Star, Dixon Earth, and I threw in some of the new Titleist Velocity for the heck of it.

It’s a pretty good list of a bunch of balls that I was interested in trying.  For the record, I have been fit for and predominantly play the Titleist ProV1-X and occasionally hit around the NXT Tour-S during practice rounds.  In the past I played the Nike Tour One D and then the 20XI for a bit when they made that switch but have been playing Titleist for about the past 8 months.

A bit about me, your (hopefully) trusted reviewer:  If anything, I have a tendency to play too much spin.  Judging by my TrackMan stats, both from tee shots and approaches I have high spin pretty equivalent to Tour averages with my irons and a bit higher with the driver.  So, I play the Titleist ProV1-X to help control that spin.  My swing speed with the driver is between 101-108mph depending on how much I go after it.  Keep those numbers in mind and always remember that the most important thing is to find a ball that feels right and performs how you think it should.

Bridgestone E6.  The E6 is a 3-piece ball with a surlyn cover.  A friend, who happened to finish the Appalachian Trail yesterday, (I have to show his picture here, it’s mega awesome inspiring, he just finished hiking more than 2,000 miles):

played these balls all last winter as they are a lower compression rate and he insisted he hit them better when it was sub-45 degrees out.  Playing with him I was not going to argue as he consistently drove the ball 20 yards past me in January.  So, I decided to pick some up and see how they performed.  I hit the first ball off the driver’s toe and it started turning and then seemed to pick up steam as it shot across the fairway  into some trees.  It wasn’t a good start, but I punched out and then hit a solid 205 yard hybrid to the green which one-hop stopped pin high.  The ball felt great off of the putter, almost bouncing off and landed in the bottom of the cup for a birdie.

Not a bad start for old E6, although definitely not loving that first drive.  On the next hole, I must have left the face open a bit and the ball took off super high and drifted hard until it found some water to land in.  I’ve played that hole probably 500 times and never pushed it far enough to reach the water.  Another troubling sign. I took a drop, hit a 210 hybrid and two putted for a bogey.  The third hole was a par 3 and the ball felt solid off of my 7-iron.  Putting was good again.

On the fourth hole, I managed to hit a harsh snap hook and hit it into a hazard closer to the pin than I think I have ever done on that hole.  Again I dropped and hit the green from 210 yards, so at least it worked well off my hybrid’s face, but there was so much spin coming off my driver that my miss-hits were unplayable.

The fifth hole I hit the drive OB once again, officially concluding my E6 test as I only brought out a sleeve with me.  The ball honestly felt good, but my intuition tells me that the lower compression was amplifying my misses and when you struggle with keeping it in play with your driver you can’t afford to make tee shots harder, so I was happy to move on to the next ball.

TaylorMade Lethal:  The Lethal is a five-piece urethane covered ball.  I don’t know if the TaylorMade folks are marketing geniuses or imbeciles.  Their product names are interesting to say the least. Perhaps it’s working and good for golf, and perhaps there is a whole new youthful generation growing up loving this stuff, or maybe they are just having fun with us and seeing how “different” they can name things.  Whatever it is, people joke around with the names of their stuff and that proves brand recognition.  Anyway, on to the Lethal (I just feel like it should be italicized and perhaps a snake head instead of the “a” in the name).  I thought this was a cheaper consumer ball and didn’t realize that they basically changed the name of their TP5 ball to Lethal until I was in the shop buying balls.

In the past year, I have played my best rounds with either a Titleist or a TaylorMade ball so was pretty excited to try this new one out.  This ball touts more distance and better control, but then again so do all premium balls and with regulated coefficient of restitution it’s hard for me to believe that a major golf company like TaylorMade somehow managed to make their balls go farther (or further, as my grammatically incorrect self likes to say).  And if they have done that it just means their past balls had not been optimized.

I will spare you a hole by hole with the Lethal as I played it for the remaining 13 holes as well as 9 the next day.  It held up great, and how well the cover held up was one of the strangest things about the test.  Here is a pic of the ball immediately after it landed hard on a cart path:

It’s not a bad thing by any means, but after playing 22 holes with this ball and hitting all sorts of trees and a couple cart paths I was a bit shocked that this tiny scratch was the only discernible damage on the ball.  All of the other urethane balls that I have played seem to get beat up easily and if this is how it is then TM has a good thing going for them.

The ball played well.  It had a very nice muffled sound off of the driver (I play a Titleist 913D3) and generally had a good feel to it.  It is the closest thing to a ProV1line of balls that I have played and I felt confident while teeing it up that the ball would perform according to the quality of the stroke applied.

I would do a full review of the ProV1, but in all honesty it is the standard for golf balls and what I currently play so the point is to really see how other balls stand up to that line.

Nike 20XI: a 4-piece with urethane cover:  It’s hard to find specific details about the construction of this ball.  What I do know is that this ball was a disappointment.  After reading so much about how Nike was going to reinvent their 20XI line I was looking forward to give this a go.  Back in the day, I learned to putt and strike the ball with the Nike Tour One D and enjoyed hitting that ball, but then they went to their resin core and the past few balls have been anything but fun.  That said, I do believe that if you have a driver swing speed above 112mph you can play this ball.  It’s hard, and it takes a lot to compress it.  Also, it rolls slow on the putting green and for me doesn’t seem to check up quite as much as other balls.   This could be a good thing, though, as you can see from this pick that the Nike rolled back just 4 feet with an 8-iron to a par 3 while the Taylormade Lethal spun back about 15 feet.  In this photo the Lethal is on the left and 20XI on right:

It was an extremely similar strike with those clubs, and both balls landed within 2 feet of each other distance-wise, but had an entirely different experience after impact.  This was very interesting.  Later on I hit about 10 different balls to this same green and finished with a a Pro V1-X which one-hop stopped and pulled back about a foot from the mark.  But, that’s a story for the next comparison.

Nike says on their site that the 20XI is for swing speeds from 85mph and higher but to me it doesn’t seem to compress off of the driver and my gut tells me, as I said before, it’s for the big hitters out there.

As a final test, I hit tee shots with all of these balls:  Titleist ProV1X, Nike 20XI, TaylorMade Lethal and Bridgestone E6 and not too surprisingly they all landed within 10 yards of each other.  There was no significant difference in total distance, but sound and feel varied.  Nike sounded the most like a Top Flite: hard and metallic.  The Bridgestone felt somewhat like hitting a stale marshmallow, although great off the irons and pretty decent around the green and for half the price of the others it’s not a bad option, especially if your swing speed is under 95mph.  The Lethal had a nice muffled sound and was a solid ball all around.  The Titleist just felt like home and I knew exactly how far it was going to fly and how it would perform on approach shots and around the green.

Next post I will continue the process and look at the Bridgestone B330, Callaway Hex Chrome, Srixon Z-Star and try out the Dixon Earth. As always, the ball to stand up to will be my trusty Titleist ProV1X.  Also, I’ll take a look at the new NXT Tour S and Velocity balls by Titleist.

ADDENDUM::::

Today I was very curious as to what would happen if I played a “best ball” 9 holes with the TaylorMade Lethal and the Titleist Pro V1X.  I went out on the back nine of Riverside and alternated which one I hit first (so as to not have a bias towards the second shot) and played with the idea of wanting to score well in mind.  At the end of the 9 I shot even par with one bogey and one birdie, but felt like I could have dropped a few more if the greens hadn’t been recently punched and top dressed.  Putting was pretty obsolete.  Here are the competitors:

I didn’t count putts in my shot count and only had one chip throughout the nine (hit 7 greens in reg, chipped on one par 3 and the bogey was after a punch out to 140 yards that I then hit and 2-putted) and if both tee shots were in the fairway or equally bad in the rough it was a push.

So, the game was to see which ball I hit better, or which ball suited my personal game better.  I kept a running tally through the nine as well as some notes on distances.  I did see a bit more iron distance off of the Lethal, although it had more spin and tended to pull back farther on the greens equalizing the shots.  For example, on one par 3 I hit the green with both balls.  The Titleist took a little hop and pulled back one foot to rest at roughly 154 yards and the Lethal landed about 159 yards but spun back to almost exactly where the Titleist ended up.  They flew different distances but ended up within 4 inches of each other.

In another situation, I hit two cut layups on a par 5 and the balls landed about as close as possible:

you can see how sanded things are, it’s that time of year where top dressing is in fashion.  You can also see that to similar cut shots from the rough with a 7-iron landed exactly the same distances.

I finished the round and in all honesty the ball that got the shot was the one that was hit better. I suppose that’s probably true with any ball, but I was curious to see how to top-tier competitors would hold up in a direct battle.  Long story short:

Titleist: 7

TaylorMade: 7

I hit each of them an equal amount of “winning” shots.

Personally, I felt like I knew the Titleist better and my approach shots were tighter with that ball, but the TM kept doing well off the tee.  This needs some more research, but it’s an interesting experiment.  What has everyone else found about their golf balls?

It’s not there yet by any means, but right now I call it my 50/50 game.  Half of the swings are what I want and half are still old habits creeping in.  But, this 50/50 now comes with a deeper understanding of what it is that I need to be doing.  Before, I was having mixed results and not exactly understanding what it was that I was doing differently.  Now I could be blindfolded as far as the swing is concerned and tell you exactly where the ball is going to land, which is a huge move in the right direction.

What happened was a mix of having a Bruce lesson last week and a fairly regular playing partner (who happens to be a solid plus handicapper) both mention that I needed to get my belt buckle pointing towards the target.  I messed around with that idea and the end result was that I had been getting way handsy with my swing and needed to calm the arms to allow my lower body and shoulders guide the club.  When I let my hands and arms get out of the way and swing with my body I crushed the drive and am so much more accurate with my irons and wedges.  It’s crazy.  This feel of a body swing produces so much more power and allows for better control.  The only problem is that I have a tendency to swing with my arms and when I don’t let my body take over I get handsy and snap hook it.  When I make a good turn and let the body do the work I hit a 300 yard drive and hit short par 5s in two with mid-irons.  Much much better golf.

I’ve had these realization before and they were equally as awesome then as they are now.

Today, I decided to watch the PGA Championship as I haven’t watched much golf in my life and figured it would be beneficial to see what the guys are up to.  After watching for a couple of hours I definitely have a few emotive opportunities for the blog.

First off, I was impressed not by their tee shot skills, but with how well they recover from errant shots.  That being said, it was interesting to see how much velocity they generate in their swing.  Looking at the PGA Tour averages, their swing speeds while playing in competition are about 10 percent faster than mine.  Which doesn’t seem like much, but when you go from carrying the ball 265 yards to carrying it 290 that makes for a much different approach shot into those tough greens.  I look forward to continuing to grow my swing velocity and getting to that level not too far down this road.

The recovery was most impressive.  At times the rough was so thick that the guys wouldn’t even land their chips on the greens, but the majority of opportunities they got the ball to within 10 feet and made the par putt.  At least that is what the top ten in the field were doing and that’s why they ended up top ten.  And even more important was the number of putts made.  All of those guys could hit it far and stick the greens close, but the winner was the one who made the most putts.

I suppose my overall view of the game didn’t change much at all after watching that major.  The important aspects to work on are still everything within 100 yards, putting and working on increasing swing speed.  The rest is 100 percent mental

Heading camping for a night.  There’s no place better suited for clearing one’s head and getting ready for the next big push than the Oregon woods.

Hope everyone out there enjoyed that last Major.  It was very inspiring to watch!