****Official Golf Thread****

['Hamas' Jenkins]

The original Bushwood thread is overflowing like Craig Stadler's FUPA.

Use this thread to discuss tournaments, swing thoughts, equipment, and golf deals.

I thought we could also use the OP to create a WITB for ChiefsPlanet members. I'll list a poster's name and put their sticks in a spoiler tag, so you can see what everyone is carrying.

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by scho63

This past Friday, I played in an industry event scratch and scramble at a country club in Germantown MD on the Potomac. All the beer and food you could drink, a margarita machine on one hole that was strong as hell, shots of oak cask whiskey and scotch on another, free Nike Windbreaker or Nike Golf Shoes, bloody marys and mimosas with breakfast, full BBQ pork dinner, free cigars, and a beautiful day....or so I thought.

I signed up as a single and they paired me with three other members. Sadly, two of the guys from one company failed to show up and me and the guy I was with spent the whole scramble hitting TWO SHOTS each holes for around 150 shots, including me warming up on the range. After nearly 6 hours on the course, I felt like a bag of jello. I wound up sleeping 12 hours Friday night, hitting the sack at around 7pm. Never again........

Serious question, was it the walking? Let's hope 150 strokes didn't kill you.. Hell I take 3-4 warm-up swings in at the tee, and 1-2 from wherever the hell else I hit it. And I've done what you did, I was A-OK with dropping the 2nd ball at the point where the 1st drive landed.

[scho63]

Originally Posted by GloryDayz

Serious question, was it the walking? Let's hope 150 strokes didn't kill you.. Hell I take 3-4 warm-up swings in at the tee, and 1-2 from wherever the hell else I hit it. And I've done what you did, I was A-OK with dropping the 2nd ball at the point where the 1st drive landed.

The walking to and from the golf cart was the easy part. Practice swings are just not the same as a full shot. What else sucked was that a lot of the holes we were hitting long irons or 3 and 5 woods in addition to having to track down 3 balls after each drive and iron shot that were all over the place. It was just a lot of extra work for every aspect of what we were doing. Even trying to find a lost ball every 3-4 holes. The guy i played with was horrible from tee to green but he did most of the work on the green.

It was also hard to concentrate and focus on the greens even though each of us got two putts per hole. Also waiting 5 minutes on every shot sucked.

I don't know if I could ever play a round of golf with you as I play fast and people who take a lot of practice swings all the time drive me crazy....

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by scho63

The walking to and from the golf cart was the easy part. Practice swings are just not the same as a full shot. What else sucked was that a lot of the holes we were hitting long irons or 3 and 5 woods in addition to having to track down 3 balls after each drive and iron shot that were all over the place. It was just a lot of extra work for every aspect of what we were doing. Even trying to find a lost ball every 3-4 holes. The guy i played with was horrible from tee to green but he did most of the work on the green.

It was also hard to concentrate and focus on the greens even though each of us got two putts per hole. Also waiting 5 minutes on every shot sucked.

I don't know if I could ever play a round of golf with you as I play fast and people who take a lot of practice swings all the time drive me crazy....

Yes you could, I walk so I'm usually faster, even if I take a few practice swings. What I can't stand are the cart types on CPO days, or even 90/degree days. I've learned one thing about walking and a GPS watch, if you know your clubs (especially the distance you lose when it's not in the fairway...) walking the line and knowing where to start looking makes it all go a lot faster.

Now I know I'm prolly the only one on the board who's not hitting fairways 80% off the tee, but a course like Adams Point is one where you can spend a LOT of time looking for a ball that's a yard off the fairway. Not because it's "tough", but because they don't mow. I've told them there's a difference, and they just laugh...

Anyway, I think we'd be just fine, I've never been the holdup.

[scho63]

Originally Posted by GloryDayz

Yes you could, I walk so I'm usually faster, even if I take a few practice swings. What I can't stand are the cart types on CPO days, or even 90/degree days. I've learned one thing about walking and a GPS watch, if you know your clubs (especially the distance you lose when it's not in the fairway...) walking the line and knowing where to start looking makes it all go a lot faster.

Now I know I'm prolly the only one on the board who's not hitting fairways 80% off the tee, but a course like Adams Point is one where you can spend a LOT of time looking for a ball that's a yard off the fairway. Not because it's "tough", but because they don't mow. I've told them there's a difference, and they just laugh...

Anyway, I think we'd be just fine, I've never been the holdup.

I used to belong to a country club in New Jersey that had caddies and I loved using them to walk. If you have never played a round walking with a caddie, it's the BEST way to play!

[NJChiefsFan]

Originally Posted by GloryDayz

Yes you could, I walk so I'm usually faster, even if I take a few practice swings. What I can't stand are the cart types on CPO days, or even 90/degree days. I've learned one thing about walking and a GPS watch, if you know your clubs (especially the distance you lose when it's not in the fairway...) walking the line and knowing where to start looking makes it all go a lot faster.

Now I know I'm prolly the only one on the board who's not hitting fairways 80% off the tee, but a course like Adams Point is one where you can spend a LOT of time looking for a ball that's a yard off the fairway. Not because it's "tough", but because they don't mow. I've told them there's a difference, and they just laugh...

Anyway, I think we'd be just fine, I've never been the holdup.

Walking also helps you "walk" off a bad shot instead of getting in the cart and flooring it to the ball. I just enjoy it more. You feel the course and atmosphere more when you walk.

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by scho63

I used to belong to a country club in New Jersey that had caddies and I loved using them to walk. If you have never played a round walking with a caddie, it's the BEST way to play!

I've never done that, but I sure hope I get the chance to carry my son's bag, at some level, some day... But I do the push cart thing, and I rather like it.

Funny story, I played a round with a couple in Minneapolis in the spring and the guy in the couple is bringing 290, maybe 300. The marshal drives up and reminds us to not take the carts (with three 3-inch-wide wheels each) onto the greens. Odd because the carts were about 25' off the green and about 2' off the cart path! But big 'ol boy (a member), after a dumb look at the marshal and me, tells the marshal that's great advise because he was sure the carts would damage the greens more that his 6'2", full-figured 390lb, with size-9 shoes, might be. It was all the more funny because it was really wet that week and two green before he was mentioning that they should fill in his "feet marks" with sand and call them traps.

[philfree]

This just came to my attention. Nat!

Anyway I'm getting ready to go to Hilton Head in about two weeks. I'm going to play the Robert Trent Jones Course at Palmetto Dunes and also Dolphin Head which was designed by Gary Player and built back in the 70's. Maybe his first course. I'm starting to get stoked.

Image: Not Safe for Work

[stevieray]

I loved being a caddie at 13. Learned a ton and got to play for free on Mondays!

[philfree]

Originally Posted by stevieray

I loved being a caddie at 13. Learned a ton and got to play for free on Mondays!

I only really caddied once. I was spotting balls in the MGA Men's SR tournament back in the 70's. I was probably 15 or 16 years old. I'm spotting balls on 18 and the pro shouts and waves at me to come to the pro shop. I get there and he says they need a caddie. I walked golf every day so I was like Okay. Then I learn I'm caddying double. It's for two SRs on Hickory Hills CC which is long and hilly. That was a long day. In the end they paid me $8.00 each and I got a dozen balls for being a volunteer. I only lost one of their clubs so I thought I deserved a tip.

[philfree]

So I read this and cyphered out that for 1000 ft of elevation change there is about 1.5% difference in how the far the golf ball travels. So if I hit a 9 iron 150 yards in Springfield, MO at about 1200 ft elevation that same shot will only go 147 yards on Hilton Head Island. All other things remaining then same of course. That could be significant. Drop the temp to in the 50's and that's another half of club.

http://www.usgtf.com/articles/summer12/page33.html

Most of us have heard that you gain around 15% in distance when you go from playing at sea level to playing about a mile above sea level (5,280 feet, 1,760 yards, or 1,609 meters). How accurate is this long-held belief?

First, in researching the matter, we found that you cannot use a simple linear equation that works for all clubs. Each club has a different percentage, because they are not all launched at the same angle. What is true is that, at elevation given the same temperature, air pressure, and humidity, the ball faces less air density and thus will travel farther horizontally. What is also true that the ball will not stay in the air as long, because the lift provided by the backspin is also lessened.

Does anyone remember their physics from school? A projectile that does not create its own lift will travel farthest when launched at a 45° angle. This can be seen with someone shooting a basketball or throwing a rock. Golf balls create their own additional lift due to backspin and dimples.

A projectile that does not create its own lift will begin to decrease its angle of ascent the moment it is launched. A golf ball does not do that, because it creates its own additional lift. This additional lift will do one of the following: 1) Slow the reduction of the angle of ascent; 2) Keep a constant angle of ascent for a period of time; 3) Increase the ball’s angle of ascent for a period of time. As a result, launching a golf ball with a driver at 45° will not produce maximum distance.

If you’ve attended a professional baseball game, you might have noticed that pop-ups in the infield behave differently than what would be considered normal with regular projectiles. This is because the baseball, like the golf ball, has backspin. Illustration A demonstrates what a regular projectile’s trajectory would be, known as a parabola, while Illustration B illustrates a typical baseball popup’s trajectory:

In both illustrations, we are assuming the projectile is launched at the same initial velocity and angle. You can see that the baseball in Illustration B travels higher and shorter than the projectile in Illustration A, which is not creating any additional lift. Okay, so what does this have to do with golf and altitude?

It means that a ball hit with a driver at altitude will not realize the same distance gains, percentagewise, as will a ball hit with a shorter iron. Because of the lower air density at altitude, the ball’s backspin doesn’t create as much lift as it would at sea level. As a result, balls hit with a driver won’t stay in the air as long proportionally as compared with a 9-iron, and thus won’t realize the distance gains percentage-wise as would the shorter iron.

Another factor to consider is the air temperature, which plays a larger role in air density than most people think. The Winter 2011 edition of Golf Teaching Pro addressed this, but here we will add a little more detail. Shelquist Engineering has an air density calculator at http://wahiduddin.net/calc/calc_ da_rh.htm, which is where we obtained the following information.

At sea level, assuming 90° air temperature, 50% humidity, and 29.00 inches of barometric pressure (typical of a summer day), the air density is .069 lbs. per cubic foot. Reduce the air temperature to 50° with all the other factors being the same and the air density increases to .075 lbs. per cubic foot – an 8.7% increase in air density.

Experimenting with the calculator at 50° with all other factors being equal, we found you have to get to an altitude of 2,250 feet to get to the same air density as a typical Florida summer day. You can see that air temperature does indeed have a dramatic effect on the air density, just as elevation does.

Let’s go to altitude at one mile high. At 90° with the other factors the same as described previously, the air density decreases to .057 lbs. per cubic foot. As an interesting aside, the air density at 0° at mile high elevation is the same as the air density at 90° at sea level.

To sum it up, it’s not so easy to figure distance gains based purely upon altitude alone. We must also largely take into account air temperature, and to a lesser extent barometric pressure. A one-inch drop in barometric pressure is roughly equivalent to going up 1,000 feet in elevation. Humidity’s effect on distance is negligible. Percentage-wise, based upon our experiences playing at mile-high altitude as opposed to sea level, we believe you can figure on roughly a 10% increase with your shorter clubs and a 5% increase with your longer clubs. As the old disclaimer goes, your individual results may vary.

As golf gets more into the scientific age, science gets more into golf. If you are interested in experimenting with the Shelquist Engineering air density calculator, we have provided the QR code for your smartphone.

[GloryDayz]

Woot, playing Ironhorse tomorrow... Got the older son home from college, so the three guys are going to have a golf day at the horse! I don't think the 11-year-old will appreciate Ironhorse, but what the hell, he's nothing but awesome at golf (he's earned it).

[HonestChieffan]

Originally Posted by philfree

This just came to my attention. Nat!

Anyway I'm getting ready to go to Hilton Head in about two weeks. I'm going to play the Robert Trent Jones Course at Palmetto Dunes and also Dolphin Head which was designed by Gary Player and built back in the 70's. Maybe his first course. I'm starting to get stoked.

Image: Not Safe for Work

Amazing places to eat on and near HH. We go every spring for 2 weeks.

[OnTheWarpath15]

Just found out that I'll be witnessing the USA defeat at the 2016 Ryder Cup in person...

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by OnTheWarpath58

Just found out that I'll be witnessing the USA defeat at the 2016 Ryder Cup in person...

[OnTheWarpath15]

Originally Posted by GloryDayz

Pretty stoked. Have Saturday and Sunday tickets.

I've been to the Masters, and now a RC. Probably the end of my Major Golf Event travel - maybe I'll get lucky and a US Open will get close to STL. British Open is a pipe dream.

Could give two shits about the PGA.