(continued):Good-bye lead tape

I'm a stats guy. I love perusing numbers to find glaring deficiencies or strengths, so when I kept track of my golf stats this year, the end result was to improve by letting the stats point out my strengths and weaknesses.
I kept track of G(reens)I(n)R(egulation), P(utt's), and F(airway's)H(it). FH came in as my biggest strength as I was hitting 70% of them. P was averaging 34 per round...that's ok, but when I drilled it down, I found out that close to 30% of the first putts were within 6'. Aha! Room for improvement. The glaring weakness in my game was GIR's: less than 40%. That stat has been knawing at my gut, and was my mission to improve as I walked into Golfsmith.

I have been hitting doctored-up Penick irons for over 3 years, and I wanted to see what products they had that would show me improvement. I had an old club in the trunk so they could reference it. They quickly ascertained that I should move up to a forged muscle-back iron. After hitting a few of their demo clubs, I concurred. They fitted me for a new set of Snake Eyes 600XC with TT Lite XL shafts and my favorite Lamkin grips.

We didn't stop there.

On to the putter. They had me hit a few putts with a mallet head as they felt it would eliminate the head-twisting that is going on with my short putts. After realizing that a heavier head did just that, they fitted me with a Snake Eyes Python Pure Balance Model I .

Being a Clubvantage and Golf Rewards member, I was able to get assembly of these clubs done at no cost, and also was able to work a great deal. Loyalty has its perks!

I picked these baby's up last night. After air-swinging them, I just can't believe the difference. The first is that I can really feel the clubhead, the second is how sweet they look at address. As for the putter, I was able to stroke a few on their artificial mat. Gone is the wobbling, and at address I have a greater reference to lining up a putt.

I now have no excuses.

My first chance to play with these puppies will be next weekend with my father-in-law (who by the way is inheriting my old Penick's).

Next weekend is when I start my stats anew. And I will also introduce a new statistic to the bunch.

SW.....

...skins won.


Thanks for reading. Keep it in the short-grass,

JFB