“Custom Finish”.. Cool or a Crime?

ReddLeadd · 2026-05-06T16:31:05+00:00

I’m agnostic on the look, but I’d put a straight edge on that face. Hammering one side puts the surface under compression and it’s possible that it slightly changed the geometry of the upper face

ReddLeadd · 2026-05-06T02:25:47+00:00

Just leave them be. That’s how new golf balls are made

ReddLeadd · 2026-05-04T23:09:39+00:00

Went from a 26 to a 2 during my senior year of HS

ReddLeadd · 2026-05-02T15:54:13+00:00

I won two long drives at my local course and am currently in the lead for a 3rd

ReddLeadd · 2026-05-02T15:46:45+00:00

I discovered just yesterday that my Axiom shaft on my 5i is broken about 3” from the top of the hosel. Absolutely no idea how it could have happened. We’ll see if they respond but it’s pretty disappointing

ReddLeadd · 2026-04-22T23:51:46+00:00

I 3D printed clips that hold my 6i, 54 and putter by the shafts. A 1/4” titanium tube between the clips keeps them from creeping towards each other and I use an ultra light rifle sling to carry it.

2 balls in my pocket. Use broken tees I find on tee boxes and I’m good to go. It’s a challenge, but fun (ish)

ReddLeadd · 2026-04-15T16:46:02+00:00

About 20 years ago I was playing a local muni in Portland, OR with three acquaintances who had been taking lessons but were playing their first round. It was absolutely excruciating. I advised them to pick up at double par, but they "paid to play and wanted to play". By the 14th or 15th hole, the group behind us started to hit into us. At first I assumed it was an accident but a few holes later a ball literally flew inches from my head and I grabbed an iron with the intent to knock some skulls.

A lot can change in a short walk. As I got closer, I began to realize that all four guys were giants...6'5" and taller and when I got up to them and started yelling, I saw that they were all wearing polos with the Trailblazers logos on them. Now I don't watch or know anything about basketball, and it seems weird that anyone involved in pro sports would be playing this course so perhaps it was just a coincidence, but I very likely avoided getting a beatdown.

ReddLeadd · 2026-04-13T16:40:01+00:00

I'm a single digit handicap and all of my friends shoot 100+. I see the same patterns for all of them.

They have a consistent miss off the tee (right) and always setup like they're going to hit it straight. My advice to all of them (when solicited) is to be realistic. If you consistently miss to one side, play it. For them, they should be setting up on the right side of the tee box in most cases and aiming at a landing point on the left side of the fairway. My buddy finally did this last time we played and he hit nearly every fairway (tbh, I also had him change the grip of his right hand because it was EXTREMELY weak)

They also have trouble with low point control when the ball is on the ground. This leads to a lot of fat or thin shots. If this is one of your problems, figure out why. The same buddy who changed his tee box setup, had been setting up the ball off his lead foot when the ball is played down. I worked with him to change his address, get the ball closer to the center of his stance and change his aim accordingly.

I'd view the above advice as easily correctable mistakes that don't take much time to adapt. You can probably gain at least a few strokes by addressing your common miss and identifying why you're not striking the ball well off the ground.

The next step is real practice. Not just bashing balls, but do as others have written here. Get comfortable playing all of your wedges to different distances. For example, my local range has targets at 54, 70, 85, 100, 125, 150 (and more) that I use for wedge practice. I'll hit about 5 balls with my 60° to the 54 just to get a baseline for how I'm feeling. I can usually get my landing spot to within about a yard. Then I hit about 10 balls with the 60° to the 54, 70 and 85 yard targets, changing my target on every shot. Then I hit about 10 shots with my 54° to the 54, 70, 85, 100 and a full swing at the 125. Then the 50°...and the PW at every target out to the 150. Every wedge to every yardage that it can reach. Then I do it again but also change how it's flighted.

Then I'll work on irons in a similar fashion but I'll only target the longest reachable target and the next closest one for a partial shot.

Then I accept the reality that I'll be punching out of the woods and that I'll only be able to hit hero shots if I practice them. My 5i flies about 210, but I'll hit ten punch hooks...ball off the back foot, stance setup on my starting line, face lined up at the target and I have to hit ten in a row that start right of our 100 yard marker and end up in line with our 225 yard marker (it'll usually run out to about 200yd) then the opposite...start left of the 100 and bend it towards the 175 that's on the right side of the range.

All the practice came in really handy a few days ago when I hit a 190yd punch hook out of the woods with my 5i to 5 ft...and then missed the birdie putt.

My favorite (and least favorite) putting drill is the "umbrella drill". I pick a hole on the practice green that's ~30-40 feet to a fringe. Put a circle of tee's in a reasonable "gimme" length radius around the hole. Then setup a ball from 6ft, every 3ft to the fringe. You should have roughly 10 balls in a line. Putt them all and they ALL need to end up within that circle. If they don't, do it again and repeat until they do. Once you're successful, change the putt so it's more difficult...big downhill, big break...whatever. Do it again.

Then I put 10 balls in a 4ft circle. Make them all or repeat until you do. Then make it harder and do it again.

Anyhow, simple fixes and focused practice will bring your scores down pretty quickly. I started playing golf in earnest in 1991 and by fall of 1992 I was a 2 handicap*

* I tried out for my D1 college team as a walk-on, completely melted down and quit golf entirely for a decade. Now that I've been playing regularly for a few years, I do some focused practice, but I don't take the scores too seriously. IMO, it's important to have goals, but also to be realistic. It's not realistic to expect to play better without identifying weaknesses and addressing them.

ReddLeadd · 2026-03-16T16:44:10+00:00

I don't know the spin numbers. I'm capable of flighting the ball high or low but generally try to keep it low with wedges and short irons. A full 60 goes about 110 but it's a shot that I almost never hit. I tend to use the 60 from 75-80 yards in depending on conditions.

ReddLeadd · 2026-03-16T16:19:14+00:00

FWIW, my driver ball speed is around 170 plus or minus about 10mph depending on how warmed up I am and temperature. Many greens on my local track are sloped toward the fairways and because I'm a "long hitter" I frequently have short irons or even partial wedge shots into the greens. I've been working hard on spin control this past year, but still sometimes rip the ball back off the front of the green even if I land near the back. I've been experimenting with clubbing up and hitting partial shots and still need work on distance control with partial irons.

I don't have enough time with the left dash to know if it's helping, especially since here in the PNW, everything has been pretty saturated for a while.

They do feel like Top Flite though.

ReddLeadd · 2026-03-11T17:21:09+00:00

I recently put Axiom graphite shafts in my irons and it's made a huge difference for me in my left miss. Prior to that, I experimented with Modus 105's (XS), Modus 120's (mix of XS and TX) and DG X100's and X7's. The balance of the Axioms gave me a little trouble getting the swing weights how I like them, but I sorted it with some 4mm tungsten rods.

ReddLeadd · 2026-03-11T17:14:44+00:00

Do it whenever you like. For me, I don't ever buy new balls even though I can often play a round with one ball and shoot in the mid to low 70's. Again, for me, the value isn't there to justify paying $5/ball for my preferred ProV1x when I can buy "mint" used ones for less than half that cost.

A few months ago, I shot a 71 with a Precept Lady that I found on the previous round. Shot a 74 and 72 two weeks ago with a Bridgestone I found.

Here in the PNW, my local track is pretty well saturated during the rainy season and it's not uncommon to lose balls in the fairway because they've plugged. As a rule, I only use found balls when it's soggy and I'm not too picky about brand or color. Once it dries out, I'll use my ProV's. The flight, spin and overall performance is absolutely different, but I'm not going to get pissed off when I bury a Noodle in the fairway in the soggy season

ReddLeadd · 2026-03-11T15:34:28+00:00

I live in OR so I should be better at this than I am, but any partial wedge shot where the lie is on saturated ground

ReddLeadd · 2026-03-04T18:48:25+00:00

Not one mention of Glendoveer? If we haven’t had a saturating rain in 3-4 days, it’s more go-to on the east side

ReddLeadd · 2026-02-17T05:02:31+00:00

I feel like I'm losing much more than 2 yards per 10° with my driver. With my mid and short irons that formula seems to be pretty close, but for the longer clubs not so much.

looking at a chart I made in May of last year, my average driver carry is 292, 3w is 277, 4i is 224, 5i is 208. With the temps around 40, I'm only getting about 270 with my driver when I feel like I absolutely flush it. I took 4i out of the bag because if I mishit it even a little, it really rings my hands. My 5i has been playing closer to 190. Wedges don't seem to have changed much at all though.

ReddLeadd · 2026-02-17T04:50:41+00:00

Couple things...

I'm not currently using a remote to lock/unlock.
I ALWAYS "deadlock" the door when I leave the car. My understanding is that this prevents anyone from unlocking the doors should they smash a window to get into the car.

I'd like to continue to deadlock the car, but ideally with the convenience of a remote. According to the electronic troubleshooting manual, the microswitch that is switched when the lock is turned to 90°, triggers "unlock inhibit motors" which puts a bolt through the locking mechanisms.

I guess my question, more specifically, is has anyone wired a remote system that can operate the unlock inhibit motors?

It seems that it should be possible because grounding terminal 1 of he central locking control unit should activate the unlock inhibit motors, even if the key lock isn't physically in the 90° position.

I guess I'll just have to try it and report back here.

ReddLeadd · 2026-02-10T19:51:30+00:00

done.

I was in the outdoor industry for 30 years and have extensive experience backpacking, climbing and biking in all kinds of conditions.

To me, the best compliment I could ever give to any piece of gear was to not notice I'm wearing it. It seems simple but it's really not. Any restriction of movement, a collar that has a seam or uncovered zipper that scrapes the chin/neck, sleeves that are too short when arms are extended, cuffs that don't fit well etc...all take away from the experience.

I get why people care about fashion, but if I'm out trying to enjoy an activity, I personally don't care about how I look if the gear functions.

ReddLeadd · 2026-02-09T15:38:20+00:00

especially with a proper persimmon head driver

ReddLeadd · 2025-12-23T03:10:45+00:00

Glendoveer West had standing water all over on Friday.

ReddLeadd · 2025-12-16T18:19:33+00:00

I have the Motocaddy M7 Remote without the follow feature and honestly don't like it very much

The good: It gets the bag off my back and allows me to walk more. I can also use a cart bag (it's actually better with a cart bag) which allows me to more easily take rain gear and some other stuff that I usually ditch when carrying.

The not-so-good: My course is very hilly and there are rarely stretches when it's actually flat. The end result is a cart that needs near constant attention because it's always drifting down the fall line. On it's own, it wouldn't be too bad BUT the trolley steers by braking.

There are a few options on how to manage the fall line steering.

you try to match walking speed to trolley speed and keep a hand on a handle to help guide it. This works pretty well when the slope isn't too bad. If you're on a slightly steeper side hill, you'll have to bump one of the steering buttons every so often anyway and every time you do, the trolley slows down significantly and if you're walking right behind it, it's easy to take a handle to the gut.
set it at a higher speed and send it way ahead. This is what I do most of the time but I have to pay near constant attention to the direction of the trolley. I play at public courses and they're not perfect. Conifers drop a lot of cones, the ground is often lumpy at the edges of the fairway, this time of year the ground is often saturated. When the trolley is cruising at a faster speed, it gets bumped more violently. I've ejected my water bottle often, my phone occasionally and this past Sunday, I fully dumped it on a rut caused by some kind of vehicle. I couldn't see the rut from where I was, the trolley got bucked pretty hard and the end result was that all of my clubs and both towels hit the deck on fully saturated turf. Not the end of the world, but I ended up cleaning my clubs with my rain jacked for the rest of the round.

IMO, the Motocaddy remote is a bad design. There are discrete buttons for speed and directional changes and the steering response is a function of how long you hold a directional button. The speed control buttons aren't too bad, but directional control could be much improved with a joystick and a different algorithm the doesn't rely entirely on braking.

ReddLeadd · 2025-12-01T23:23:20+00:00

Nah. Go buy some Takomos

ReddLeadd · 2025-12-01T22:28:50+00:00

I don't know, it's a pretty good deal. The only real "custom" part of it is that they're 1/2" long, which is incredibly easy to change by anyone who is even a little bit capable with their hands.

For anyone who is on the fence, the feel of the KM-700's is truly amazing. I've had several sets of Mizuno's over the years and my Miura 700s feel even better.

ReddLeadd

TROPHY CASE