JohnnyO3478
Well-known member
- Joined
- Nov 20, 2023
- Messages
- 198
- Reaction score
- 372
Thanks for the add ....
Just turned 58 - living in K-ville, TN for coming up on 30 years. Tried golf as a kid in NE Ohio - no instruction. Tried golf as a young adult - crappy instruction, never approached even semi-decent results. Moved on to tennis for about 13 years - hurt my back. Took up cycling (fixes backs to a degree) - did that the next ten years at about a 5,000 mi/year clip - until I developed vestibular neuritis and lost a good portion of my balance. Always kinda hoped that I'd find my way back to golf - as I loved the game - but I just sucked at it. And it always bothered me that other people could play it and I couldn't.
The wife stuck with tennis for long after I left the game - and she had very little interest in cycling. Over the past couple of years - she kept bringing golf up as something we should try together. I slow rolled my response - on purpose - because I knew that once I went down the hole again - I'd be all in. And I wanted to be in the position to be able to say at the first sign of any complaints about my comittment - "this was your idea". Kidding, of course. The wife is very cool about my individual hobbies and never complains about any time we spend pursuing other interests. But she was right - we needed something to do together. So, in the winter/spring of 2022 I acquiesced.
I pulled my old set of clubs down from a very tall shelf in my warehouse and we went off to Edwin Watts to buy her a starter set - by Strata - $500. Then we hoofed it over to the local practice facility, took a tour and joined that. The plan was to hit balls, take some lessons, get fit for good clubs then hit an actual course once we were kinda sure that our presence would not make it suck for the real golfers .....
I think I started playing on a course around the end of June and she was willing to give it a go around Septemberish. We'd do a date night 9 on Friday - then usually play 18 on Sunday morning each week. I started out at about a 30 H.I. and she was about maxed out in the 50s, IIRC. But we were good pace of play folks, right out of the gate, doing everything in our power to not be the slow group. We lucked out with a real nice public course within 2 miles of the house - that also offers a membership which covers all your golf and range time. You have to pay for carts - but we are walkers 99.8784% of the time. So when January came around - we did the family membership (10% off if you pay before Jan 10 ....).
Winter of 2022/23 was a wet one for us. And the outdoor range at the practice facility was closed on all the days I wanted to hit balls, it seemed - and this company called Rapsodo was advertising some fancy new upgrade to their affordable launch monitor - so I started to look around the house - and figured I could do a workable practice facility set up in the garage - for not much more than the yearly membership at the practice place. So I did that.
As predicted - I am deep down the rabbit hole. I practice something or play just about every day. I take lessons at a pace where I think I'm ready to take another step. Unfortunately, with physical limitations and my apparent golf learning disability - I have what can only be classed as maybe a slightly faster slow swing speed and still miss on the toe, and come over the top, and hit a bunch of approach shots left .....
As far as equipment goes - we both ended up getting fit for essentially full bags of PXG stuff. Edwin Watts deserves a shout out - for offering us full purchas price credit on trade for the wife's starter set - and we took advantage of that (got her a Ping bag, an Odyssey putter and her absolute favortite club - Smart Sole Chipper). I am in the process of changing my irons to Cobra Forged Tec X and am going to a wedge fitting tonight - as I lost my 58 on the course last week.
As it stands today - I'm rocking the heck out of a 19 point something H.I. and the wife is down to about 30. She practices zero and takes no lessons and still plays a ton of tennis. We will renew our course membership for 2024.
Just turned 58 - living in K-ville, TN for coming up on 30 years. Tried golf as a kid in NE Ohio - no instruction. Tried golf as a young adult - crappy instruction, never approached even semi-decent results. Moved on to tennis for about 13 years - hurt my back. Took up cycling (fixes backs to a degree) - did that the next ten years at about a 5,000 mi/year clip - until I developed vestibular neuritis and lost a good portion of my balance. Always kinda hoped that I'd find my way back to golf - as I loved the game - but I just sucked at it. And it always bothered me that other people could play it and I couldn't.
The wife stuck with tennis for long after I left the game - and she had very little interest in cycling. Over the past couple of years - she kept bringing golf up as something we should try together. I slow rolled my response - on purpose - because I knew that once I went down the hole again - I'd be all in. And I wanted to be in the position to be able to say at the first sign of any complaints about my comittment - "this was your idea". Kidding, of course. The wife is very cool about my individual hobbies and never complains about any time we spend pursuing other interests. But she was right - we needed something to do together. So, in the winter/spring of 2022 I acquiesced.
I pulled my old set of clubs down from a very tall shelf in my warehouse and we went off to Edwin Watts to buy her a starter set - by Strata - $500. Then we hoofed it over to the local practice facility, took a tour and joined that. The plan was to hit balls, take some lessons, get fit for good clubs then hit an actual course once we were kinda sure that our presence would not make it suck for the real golfers .....
I think I started playing on a course around the end of June and she was willing to give it a go around Septemberish. We'd do a date night 9 on Friday - then usually play 18 on Sunday morning each week. I started out at about a 30 H.I. and she was about maxed out in the 50s, IIRC. But we were good pace of play folks, right out of the gate, doing everything in our power to not be the slow group. We lucked out with a real nice public course within 2 miles of the house - that also offers a membership which covers all your golf and range time. You have to pay for carts - but we are walkers 99.8784% of the time. So when January came around - we did the family membership (10% off if you pay before Jan 10 ....).
Winter of 2022/23 was a wet one for us. And the outdoor range at the practice facility was closed on all the days I wanted to hit balls, it seemed - and this company called Rapsodo was advertising some fancy new upgrade to their affordable launch monitor - so I started to look around the house - and figured I could do a workable practice facility set up in the garage - for not much more than the yearly membership at the practice place. So I did that.
As predicted - I am deep down the rabbit hole. I practice something or play just about every day. I take lessons at a pace where I think I'm ready to take another step. Unfortunately, with physical limitations and my apparent golf learning disability - I have what can only be classed as maybe a slightly faster slow swing speed and still miss on the toe, and come over the top, and hit a bunch of approach shots left .....
As far as equipment goes - we both ended up getting fit for essentially full bags of PXG stuff. Edwin Watts deserves a shout out - for offering us full purchas price credit on trade for the wife's starter set - and we took advantage of that (got her a Ping bag, an Odyssey putter and her absolute favortite club - Smart Sole Chipper). I am in the process of changing my irons to Cobra Forged Tec X and am going to a wedge fitting tonight - as I lost my 58 on the course last week.
As it stands today - I'm rocking the heck out of a 19 point something H.I. and the wife is down to about 30. She practices zero and takes no lessons and still plays a ton of tennis. We will renew our course membership for 2024.
