r/golftips

Right now, I’m playing a Titleist T250 iron set that includes a 47* pitching wedge and a 52* gap wedge. My specialty wedges are a Cleveland RTX6 Zipcore 56*, which I love and feel really confident with, and a Callaway Opus 60*.

The issue is that the 60° rarely comes out of the bag, and when it does, I haven’t found it especially useful for my game. I’m much better and more comfortable using the 56° around the greens.

If I ditch the 60°, would 47/52/56 be a solid enough wedge setup? Or would you recommend a different configuration?

14 handicap

Any advice is appreciated.

“I play, but I suck.” This has been my standard answer when someone asks me if I golf. If you’re a golfer reading this and you’re not regularly shooting under, I don’t know, let’s say 95, you’re probably in the same boat. The thing for me is, it’s not like I just took up the sport. I’ve been golfing my entire adult life. Definitely not weekly, and sometimes not monthly, but on average I’d say I’ve been able to play 8-12 times a year or more since my early twenties.

And I suck. I always have.

My father, on the other hand, is an excellent golfer. He’ll say he isn’t because he’s older now and can’t hit the old school monster drives he used to be known for among his golfing crew and the executives he’d play with at work functions and tournaments, but for most of his life, he’s been a really good golfer. The kind of golfer other guys enjoy playing with because he can carry your twosome in Nassau, Skins, best ball or whatever game you’ve concocted with your foursome or group of eight or twelve.

He was a single digit handicap for a long time (if you golf, you know that’s basically awesome) and he tried pretty hard when I was a kid to get me into the sport. If I’m being kind to my younger self, I’ll say I simply resisted. If I’m being completely honest, I’ll say I was a pain in the ass.

I said it was boring. I said it was for old people. I said it took forever to play.

In middle school I probably went out on the course with my dad two or three times a summer. Whatever golf swing I have to this day came from those rounds.

I’ve never taken a lesson. I’ve never worked on my swing. I’ve done nothing other than keep playing every month or so and being awful.

I rely entirely on my athleticism (I’d say above average) and my strength (way above average haha!). You combine those two things and my typical score is somewhere around 105. Maybe 110. I lose tons of balls. My driver is an unpredictable disaster with random bright spots that baffle me.

I played with my father and brother on Sunday. 

A five-drive sequence across five holes looks something like this for me:

1. A slice that goes two hundreds yards to the right, over houses and roads and way out of bounds.
2. A ridiculous pop-up off the top of my driver with four seconds of hang time that lands in the ladies tee box.
3. A line drive directly ten o’clock to my left that never goes more than ten feet off the ground directly into the water.
4. An unreal, absolute bomb of a drive, right down the fairway, maybe 280 yards or more.
5. A pop-up hook that lands out of bounds to my left, barely 150 yards away.

In short: I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.

This all culminated for me in a round last month with two of my nephews.

They’re both just getting into the sport and I was talking to them about playing with my dad growing up. They know my dad. They know he’s a lifelong golfer. We had all just teed off and I hit a classic drive for me: hard slice right out of bounds. Lost my fifth ball of the day.

And my oldest nephew, who is now in his early twenties, said, “Uncle Jon, so you’ve been playing golf for like thirty years?”

“Yeah,” I said, not really thinking about it.

“You know,” he said, laughing. “Objectively, you should be a lot better at this.”

“You’re right,” I said, laughing.

And we all laughed because it’s true.

Then I realized it later: I’m a decent athlete. I shouldn’t be an abysmal golfer.

I know what you might be thinking:

“Finkel, it’s just golf. Who cares?

Yeah. I know. I used to think this way.

In my twenties and thirties, I definitely didn’t care. Golf was one of a hundred activities I did. I accepted being really bad at this one.

But as I’ve gotten older and I can no longer lift in the morning and play three hours of hoops in the afternoon and then two hours of beach volleyball at night, I like activities that dial down the intensity a notch. Things that let me move and be in cool places and that are fun and competitive, but also, aren’t too taxing.

In short: Golf!

It checks all those boxes: It’s a good time. It’s outdoors. It’s away from screens and my desk. I’m in beautiful surroundings with trees and water and hills and sand. It’s challenging and can get the competitive juices flowing. And it’s a great hang with friends/family to just shoot the shit and catch up.

So yeah, I care now.

But one thing I’ve realized lately though is that rounds take way too long when you suck. Conversely, playing well and improving seems like it would be exponentially more fun than hacking and scrambling my way around the course like I do now.

With all this in mind, I have decided to make this… Ready…. Boom:

 The Summer I Got Competent at Golf

That’s my goal: competence.

My partner plays golf, well wants too - he has clubs and a bag that are really old from my parents and they're not what you'd consider great.

He only plays at drive in and not on actual course as he doesn't really have many other golfing friends but I know he wants to get into it.

I wanted to help him get a new set for Christmas but when I go onto sites they sell all the bits separate which is fine but I don't know what he actually needs. Plus I don't really wanna be spending £1000 on something that is wrong or he won't like or a whim when he doesn't play competitively.

Could anyone tell me a rough budget for a newer starter kit for beginner or point me in the right direction please?

I used to rotate between random balls constantly and never really thought much about it, but after playing the same ball consistently for a while my game started feeling a lot more predictable.

Could be mental, could be familiarity, but even putting and short game distance control started feeling more consistent for me.

Bogey golfer here looking for a simple downswing drill I can keep coming back to every season at the range. Not trying to rebuild my swing or chase perfection, just something reliable and easy to repeat over time. Driver and/or iron play.

So many videos and tips are out there. Simple is definitely better for me.

What downswing drill or feel has actually helped you the most long term?

Everybody says the same thing, work on your short game if you want to improve. The problem is if you don't have a consistent full swing you are chasing everything OB, setting yourself up in bad positions, and chunking and thinning balls all round. This is a miserable experience. Even if my full swing is still not good enough to avoid duffs and multiple OB's, it still is not enjoyable. I don't care what my score is, if I can't get consistent and solid contact I will not have fun and ultimately will not continue to play. So this is my suggestion instead, get the full swing very consistent. If you can do a consistent full swing, then your pitch and chip shots will be much easier as a lot from the full swing transfers over. I would rather have good contact with low dispersion and a high score than a lower score and multiple duffs and huge dispersion, but a great short game. So, that means I have more fun which means I continue to play and practice which means my short game gets better. The alternative is not to play as much because an errant shot with a full swing is way more frustrating than an errant shot with a pitch, chip, or putt. I'm not saying to completely forget about the short game, I'm saying to focus mostly on getting your full swing consistent and then to heavily focus on short game.

How to make your practice on the driving range worth more

I see it with my students all the time. ‘ Davey, I’m striking it well on the range, but when I get on the golf course, I suck.’

Practicing on the driving range can work great for you game, but there are a couple things that are fundamentally different then playing on the golf course. To begin: most of you reading this practice from mats and not real turf. Which will give you less feedback on bad or good strikes. I will help you with some points, which can help you practice better on the driving range and take that good practice with you to the golf course.

1. Practice with purpose.

A lot of people practice without purpose, they get a drill from their Pro and when practicing by themselves they have absolutely no idea if they do it wrong or right in their swing. Practice with purpose is THE way to get better. There’s a couple ways you can do that, for example: make videos of yourselves, so you can make sure you actually make adjustments compared to your ‘old’ swing. Or build a station in which you have to do your new swing correction right, or you get punished. For example: place a headcover in front of the ball around 2 clubheads away. When hitting a driver and you are working on hitting it more in the upswing, hit the ball and miss the headcover, so you know 100% you are striking the ball in the upswing.

2. Aim

Golfing mats in general are square, which we people have the tendency to stand parallel to. When standing on a mat, make sure you are always well aware of your target, so you don’t actually try and hit it towards a target that’s not parallel to the mat. But even better, make sure you putt an alignment stick or a club down on the ground which will help you with a target line.

This will also help with feedback on setting up your feet, knees, hips and shoulders parallel to the target line. Since you don’t have any reference out on the course first try this with help of alignment sticks, and after that try and play to random targets. So you can actually train your alignment instead of just whacking balls to the same target.

3. Impact

Driving range mats give way more room for error then turf, hitting the ground before the ball on a matt can still result in a decent strike and/or shot, where on turf the ball would lose a lot of distance.

So if you struggle with impact on the course and not necessarily on the driving range, this will probably be the issue.

I like two things to train impact on the driving range. The first one is use chalk, make a line of chalk in front and behind the ball, see if only the one in front of the ball is gone when you’ve made your swing. Are both of them gone or only the one behind the ball? Betcha, the strike on the course would have been worse than on the driving range.

You can also use a microfiber towel, which you place about 1.5 ball away from the ball you are trying to hit. Mis the towel and hit the ball, is a good way to see if your strike is good. You can make this easier and more difficult by moving the towel closer or further away from the ball.

Hi all,

I'm a 14 handicap looking for some advice on the top end of my bag. My current setup goes PW down to 5-iron, and then I jump to a 3-hybrid, 3-wood, and driver.

I love my 3-hybrid and find it incredibly versatile but also easy to hit it well. Naturally, I assumed a 3-wood would slot in nicely to bridge the gap between that hybrid and my driver. How wrong I was. I just cannot hit the thing to save my life.

What's the play here? Do I grind it out and try to learn how to hit a 3-wood, swap it for a 5-wood and see if that’s any better, or just ditch it completely, accept the gap between Driver and 3H, and add another club elsewhere?

Any insights appreciated thanks!

I'm 54 years old (M). I played golf quite a bit in my teens and 20's, but only sporadically after that. It's been probably 3-4 years since I last played a round.

I was laid off from my job recently, and decided to get back into golf now that I have lots of spare time. I got myself a set of clubs (Callaway XR), and on Monday went to the range to hit a large bucket of balls. It took about 20 shots before I was able to get the ball off the ground, but by the end it was starting to come back to me.

Holy cow, it's 2 days later and I'm still sore lol. Shoulders, forearms, upper back, abdominals, inner thighs. I feel better than yesterday at least. I have a lesson with a pro scheduled tomorrow morning, as I want to make sure I do it correctly from the beginning this time around.

I was really hoping to do a lot of practicing this week, but it's obvious that my body will need some time to get up to par, so to speak. Any advice for getting back into the game, getting a decent amount of practice in, while not making myself stiff and sore (or worse yet, injured)?

UPDATE: thanks for the fantastic suggestions so far, much appreciated! My takeaways from your feedback:
- Weight training
- Stretching regularly and warming up before play/practice
- Walking/cardio
- Take it easy (ideally, I've got 25 years of golf still ahead of me, no need to rush)