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The Force Awakens...

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ualtim

ualtim

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There has been another awakening. In a Golf Galaxy far, far, away, Tiger has awoken from his slumber of 11 years and won major #15. About 5 miles away from a Golf Galaxy in Naples, FL, ualtim scored a birdy for the first time in 13 years, a far more impressive achievement if you have seen the last few rounds I have played.:D

Striped my Snake Eyes Viper Ti4 driver right down the middle in between the fairway bunkers to 75 yards out. 52* wedge to 8 feet. Drained it center cut on downhill left to righter with my Yes! Carolyne. Apparently, it is listed as the hardest hole on the course. #7 is now my bitch. :D
 
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ualtim

ualtim

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So, with the reawakening, I have been gathering golf equipment again in an effort to maintain my skills a bit. With my success with the Snake Eyes Viper Ti4 430cc, I picked up a 2017 TaylorMade M1 440 9.5* with a Fujikura Speeder 661 Tour shaft and a TaylorMade M3 440 10.0 * with a Mitsubishi Tensei Blue shaft. Digging through my ancient coffin of golf (a travel case from the 90’s) I found some shaft pulls as well as NIP shafts that I had ordered and had yet to install. A Tour Edge Aldila NV pull from a TE driver, a Penley Stealth shaft (made in San Diego) NIP, and an Aldila RIP shaft NIP that was sitting on my work bench all seem ripe for a TM shaft adapter install.

Ping Eye2+ Blue Dot 3-PW and another wedge set PW-SW have all arrived. Once they have been measured, shafts will be pulled and reshafting process will begin.

Sun Mountain C130 (2016) on the way to hold the new acquisitions.

Life is good.
 
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ualtim

ualtim

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A2662B3B-17A7-4D50-985E-2BA0F49EEF79.jpeg
1A4028B3-9E8F-4AF0-9EFD-2971A721EC36.jpeg
First day out on the range with the new bag of clubs.

I decided to pay a visit to Hank Haney’s Golf Ranch at Vista Ridge and it is a nice facility for a morning of practice. Range ball prices are reasonable and the range itself is all turf with bag stands, benches, and places to wash your clubs. There is about 100 yards of water to carry with a series of tiny floating islands to work on your short game. The islands are only 2 to 3 feet in diameter so it is quite a challenge to land on them. There are also two chipping greens and a putting green to work with, but as I forgot to bring any of my own balls to work with, I bypassed that experience today. A nice practice facility that is only a couple of miles down the street makes it just about perfect.

The goal today was work every club in the bag and hit about 10 balls per club to get get a feel for each club and a general idea of the distance each would travel. I started with my PSi gap wedge and worked my up the irons through the 4 iron. The short irons were money and relatively similar to my RSi irons. I had some issues with the 6 iron as I started to get a bit tired so I took a quick break for a drink of water before getting into the 5 iron. 5 iron went well, but my first attempt at hitting a 4 iron in probably 15 years was predictably an uneven experience. There is some work to be done there. All in all, Iike the PSi irons and was pleasantly surprised by the KBS C Taper 105 shafts. They have an amazing feel and I had no issues launching the ball through the entire set. I did bring my lie board, but decided to leave that for another day. By the time I thought about bringing it out, my swing was starting to fall off with the 6 iron and I wanted to spend some time with the long end of the bag.

TEE CBX 18* was money, as expected. Tour Edge hybrids and fairways are second to none. TEE EX10 4W, money. Long, straight, with a nice soft landing. The perfect fairway wood. What else is there to say?

TM M1 460 Driver. Needed a higher tee to see how it will perform. Every strike I had was low on the face.

TM M3 460 Driver. Money. Even with the low tee height, what a wonderful driver to hit. The strikes were mid to low on the face, but it was launching really well. (Twistface at work?). When I shifted the weights from stock position to the far aft positions, there was a noticeable increase in launch height. This driver will probably end up in the Florida bag.

All in all, a pretty good day at the range. The only negative was the fact FedEx was a little late this morning and delivered my Cleveland wedges while I at was at the range rather than before.
 
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Fairwaysplitter3320

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View attachment 31408 View attachment 31409 First day out on the range with the new bag of clubs.

I decided to pay a visit to Hank Haney’s Golf Ranch at Vista Ridge and it is a nice facility for a morning of practice. Range ball prices are reasonable and the range itself is all turf with bag stands, benches, and places to wash your clubs. There is about 100 yards of water to carry with a series of tiny floating islands to work on your short game. The islands are only 2 to 3 feet in diameter so it is quite a challenge to land on them. There are also two chipping greens and a putting green to work with, but as I forgot to bring any of my own balls to work with, I bypassed that experience today. A nice practice facility that is only a couple of miles down the street makes it just about perfect.

The goal today was work every club in the bag and hit about 10 balls per club to get get a feel for each club and a general idea of the distance each would travel. I started with my PSi gap wedge and worked my up the irons through the 4 iron. The short irons were money and relatively similar to my RSi irons. I had some issues with the 6 iron as I started to get a bit tired so I took a quick break for a drink of water before getting into the 5 iron. 5 iron went well, but my first attempt at hitting a 4 iron in probably 15 years was predictably an uneven experience. There is some work to be done there. All in all, Iike the PSi irons and was pleasantly surprised by the KBS C Taper 105 shafts. They have an amazing feel and I had no issues launching the ball through the entire set. I did bring my lie board, but decided to leave that for another day. By the time I thought about bringing it out, my swing was starting to fall off with the 6 iron and I wanted to spend some time with the long end of the bag.

TEE CBX 18* was money, as expected. Tour Edge hybrids and fairways are second to none. TEE EX10 4W, money. Long, straight, with a nice soft landing. The perfect fairway wood. What else is there to say?

TM M1 460 Driver. Needed a higher tee to see how it will perform. Every strike I had was low on the face.

TM M3 460 Driver. Money. Even with the low tee height, what a wonderful driver to hit. The strikes were mid to low on the face, but it was launching really well. (Twistface at work?). When I shifted the weights from stock position to the far aft positions, there was a noticeable increase in launch height. This driver will probably end up in the Florida bag.

All in all, a pretty good day at the range. The only negative was the fact FedEx was a little late this morning and delivered my Cleveland wedges while I at was at the range rather than before.
GREAT write up!!!
 
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ualtim

ualtim

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The second day slump.

Returned to the range for a medium bucket and some putting green time today. Per the usual, the second day slump arrived as my tempo was all out of whack as I struggled across the board. It’s a mental thing for sure because not much has changed in less than 24 hours. Instead of taking my time and hitting one shot at a time, my brain was looking forward to the next shot. Brain was getting in the way, so to speak. Once I slowed things down a bit the magic slowly started to return.

I will not judge the new wedges just yet, as they got caught up in the mental maelstrom that was my range session today. I hit quite a few nice 54* shots before the cranial winds picked up so it was not a total loss.

I did manage to get the 7 iron on the lie board once the storm had passed. The mark was pretty much centered on the tape, maybe a hair towards the toe side of center. May end up leaving them standard lie, for now, unless I start seeing a trend to the right.

A little bit of an experiment on the top end of the bag. I was getting similar numbers from my 18* hybrid and my 4W on my Garmin Approach G80 yesterday, so I pulled the 4W in favor of a TEE CB Pro Ltd. 14.5* 3W to see if I could generate a better distance gap. So far, so good. I also put one of my Adams Idea Super 9031 hybrids, 20*, into the bag to see how it performed. It may be coming back into the main bag if the 4 iron does not behave.

The putting green was aerated recently, so it was a bit bumpy for my putting practice. Loving the Cleveland Rho, so far, as it is fairly similar to the Smart Square putter I was using in Florida the past few years. Good distance control and easy to align. The ball rolled pretty much where I aimed it to go, misses left and right were misreads rather than poor alignment. It’s keeping its place in the bag.

Lessons learned.
 

PaPaD

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The second day slump.

Returned to the range for a medium bucket and some putting green time today. Per the usual, the second day slump arrived as my tempo was all out of whack as I struggled across the board. It’s a mental thing for sure because not much has changed in less than 24 hours. Instead of taking my time and hitting one shot at a time, my brain was looking forward to the next shot. Brain was getting in the way, so to speak. Once I slowed things down a bit the magic slowly started to return.

I will not judge the new wedges just yet, as they got caught up in the mental maelstrom that was my range session today. I hit quite a few nice 54* shots before the cranial winds picked up so it was not a total loss.

I did manage to get the 7 iron on the lie board once the storm had passed. The mark was pretty much centered on the tape, maybe a hair towards the toe side of center. May end up leaving them standard lie, for now, unless I start seeing a trend to the right.

A little bit of an experiment on the top end of the bag. I was getting similar numbers from my 18* hybrid and my 4W on my Garmin Approach G80 yesterday, so I pulled the 4W in favor of a TEE CB Pro Ltd. 14.5* 3W to see if I could generate a better distance gap. So far, so good. I also put one of my Adams Idea Super 9031 hybrids, 20*, into the bag to see how it performed. It may be coming back into the main bag if the 4 iron does not behave.

The putting green was aerated recently, so it was a bit bumpy for my putting practice. Loving the Cleveland Rho, so far, as it is fairly similar to the Smart Square putter I was using in Florida the past few years. Good distance control and easy to align. The ball rolled pretty much where I aimed it to go, misses left and right were misreads rather than poor alignment. It’s keeping its place in the bag.

Lessons learned.

Would you summarize? I'm too lazy to read all that.
 
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ualtim

ualtim

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Back in Naples, FL to visit the folks.

A little bit of range time yesterday that went amazingly well considering I had not touched a club since June. For some strange reason, I can chip and pitch again after struggling with it that last several time I visited the practice green. It’s best not to ask questions and analyze it, just accept it and move on. :D

Played the back 9 this morning and shot a 46 which is an amazing score for me. I had a great stretch of golf on 11 through 14 where I went Par-Bogey-Par-Par. Probably the best stretch of golf I have played since the 90’s. Hit a great drive on 18 leaving me center of the fairway 180 yards out from the pin, but pushed a hybrid right of the green into a hummock of trees which resulted in 3 more shots to get out of jail. Still, one of my best rounds in a long time and played with the same golf ball all 9 holes.

A little bit of humble pie. Bought a Garmin Approach G80 in the spring and brought it down to Florida with me. It has a measure shot feature. Those 230 yard drives are only going 215-220 yards. That 200 yard 4W is only going 190 yards. Fairways were a bit wet, but GPS don’t lie.;)

Tomorrow will be the test. 9 more holes scheduled and the dreaded second day slump looming.
 
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ualtim

ualtim

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Wedge game fell apart today. 54 on the front 9. Back into normal form.
 
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ualtim

ualtim

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Out at the range today to test out the new sticks. A little disappointed as I pulled into the Hank Haney Golf Ranch as I thought the cooler temps would keep the place fairly dead, then I saw the flags and banners, PGA Junior Event taking place. The range was still open, but crowded so there was not a quiet end of the range to be found.

I started with the TE Exotics CBX Iron-Wood 7 iron to get the feel of the new iron set and was impressed. Great feel and sound, awesome forgiveness, and you could tell when you mishit by sound and ball flight more so than feel. Never hit a shot that provided any jarring impact or stinging sensation even though the temps were in the 50’s.

I worked my way up the set staring with the AW up through 5 iron hitting a handful of balls with each. Nice high ball flight with a slight fade, the shot I am hoping to groove. I played some of my best golf with that shot and almost completely quit the game when I tried to correct it as I lost any kind of control/consistency. Yes, I am losing some distance with the high ball flight, but at least I know where it’s going and have a good idea how far it’s going to travel.

Moved into the TEE CBX hybrids. Just money, pure money. Enough said.

Moved into the TEE CBX 3W 15* off the deck. Yup, just as expected, money.

Moved into a driver comparison test: TM M3 460 10.5* with a Mitsubishi Tensei Blue shaft regular vs. TM M3 440 10* with an Adila RIP 70 Stiff (had the shaft ear marked for another club, but bought an adapter to put it into the M3’s). Both clubs have been shortened to 44 inches and I added a 12 gram weight to each club to maintain the swing weight (each club now has 3 movable weights with the stock weights in the back corners of the tracks in a high launch/high MOI position with the third weight in the back of the center slot.) Both M3’s performed as expected. The 460 launched high with a slight fade. The 440 launched lower with a similar slight fade. The wind was coming mostly from the left across the range so it was hard to say how much of the fade was wind aided, but I was liking what I was seeing. The 460 is ear marked for the Florida bag, and the 440 will stay in Texas to fight the wind.

All in all, a good day at the range.
 

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