The not so obvious reasons to get a range finder
Written by: Tony Korologos | Sunday, June 11th, 2006
Categories: Golf Accessories • Golf Equipment • Miscellaneous
Categories: Golf Accessories • Golf Equipment • Miscellaneous
There are OBVIOUS reasons why a range finder will help, mainly getting the yardage to the flag.
BUT after testing out a few (and deciding on the pinseeker) I’ve thought about it and there are MANY ways other than just yardage to the flag that a range finder can help your game.
Pace of play
If used correctly, a range finder can speed up play. No searching for sprinkler heads or markers and pacing yardages off.
Conversely if used incorrectly or too much they may slow down play.
More fairways hit
I often blow my drive through doglegs. I’m not a “bomber” in today’s sense but I can knock it out there fairly far. Using a range finder to determine if I should hit driver or what line I should hit my driver on could be a big advantage. More fairways hit, lower scores.
If my drives go 280-300 and the dogleg is 255, that means pull a 3w or take some off the corner. Confidence in knowing what shot to hit, more fairways, lower scores.
Lay ups and carries
Yardages to hazards or targets other than the flag: Say you want to lay up short of a water hazard or ditch or something like that? You can get an exact yardage to the front of the hazard and take a club or two less. You can get a yardage to clear the hazard and take a club or two more.
The most important reason to use a range finder
This could be the most important reason to own a range finder: KNOWING EXACTLY HOW FAR ALL YOUR CLUBS GO. I could see hitting lots of shots on the range and the course and then shooting the ball when it comes to rest to determine the EXACT yardage all your clubs go.
For instance I conveniently have the following numbers for my irons: LW 100, SW 100-110, GW 120-125, PW 140, 9i 150, 8i 160, 7i 170, 6i 190, 5i 200, 4i 210, 3i 230 etc…
Now those are really “convenient numbers” aren’t they? They are all base ten basically. But if I were to take a 7i and hit say 30 shots and shoot the average I could come up with a fairly exact distance my 7i really goes. I bet it isn’t exactly 170 yards. Maybe it’s 167. Maybe it’s 175?
So take that information onto the course. The pin is exactly 180 yards away. But the front of the green slopes away from you. The front of the green is 175 yards. After shooting my 7i I determine it goes exactly 175 yards. I choose 7i, hit the front of the green and the ball rolls down to exactly pin high.
That kind of data could only be determined with a range finder, or spending hours pacing off shots on the range. You can’t really pace off shots like Bobby Jones used to because you’d either be killed by other golfer’s shots on the range, or kicked off by the marshall.
Conclusion
Some more “traditional” or “old fashioned” types may poo-poo range finders but they’re just another advancement in the game of golf like balata and steel shafts were in their day.
I think when used properly range finders can increase the pace of play and give the player better data on his game. Having more confidence in club selection and distances can only help the player’s confidence and help him execute good shots which go the right distance. For most amateurs especially, distance is a big “unknown.” Most amateurs come up short on the majority of their approach shots.
HOG vs Golf Discussions – what should we bet?
I voted in the current poll that Phil Mickelson will place higher than Tiger Woods in the U.S. Open. Xtremecruiser, admin for golfdiscussions.com disagrees.
We have a bet but we’re not betting money.
What should the stakes be?
Dual polls and posts here and at GD.
Fantasy week 19 results
Last week we had a tie for the fantasy results. Kieth and yaya both had 160. Rather than a tie breaker, Golf Dust has agreed to send prized to BOTH of them! They both win a Golf Dust Tune-Up Kit.
Everyone click through here to the sponsors below so they’ll see some traffic and want to sponsor our league next year!
By the way, it’s still not too late to join and get in on tons of great prizes!
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Titleist TourV TourX ProV7 ProV7X
In a forum thread over at The Sand Trap, Eric has shown a poll that Titleist has for naming the newest version of their ProV1 and ProV1x balls. Check it out here.
Less flash, more meat and potatoes
Boy I’d like to have the budget some golf sites seem to have for hiring flash programmers. Flash is that really fancy program for displaying web graphics and animation you see on sites like TaylorMadeGolf.com, Titleist.com and BenHogan.com.
Now those three sites I picked because they’re all great brands and sites AND their flash loads pretty fast. I have a pretty fast internet connection and TM’s site loads in about 10 seconds, Titleist’s in about 5.
The problem
The problem I have with some sites is they’re throwing in too many bells and whistles and leaving out the meat and potatoes. Well the meat and potatoes may be there, they are just too hard to find or take too long to get there.
A good example of flash overkill is Erica Blasenberg’s site. She’s cute and the design of her site is very cool, fine. BUT the damn site with all it’s fancy animation, color changes and other somewhat senseless bells and whistles takes a whopping 1 minute and 21 seconds on my fast internet connection to load. That’s 1:21 before I get to a “main menu” or main page where I can select content. If you want to view her site, start it loading and run out an pick up lunch. When you get back it will be ready to go.
Like I said, I have a fast connection. If you are on a dial up connection Erica’s site could take 5-10 minutes to load. Who wants to wait that long? She’s not THAT cute. 🙂
From her main page it’s another whopping 45 seconds for the fancy animations to cease and for her photo gallery to appear.
Erica’s site is the equivalent to a 6 hour round of golf on a nice course.
SEO
“SEO” stands for “search engine optimization” and flash is a bad thing when it comes to that. The search bots (google, yahoo etc) can’t read the content inside flash movies. Google’s bot won’t see all your great content if your whole site is a flash movie and therefore you may not get a high search ranking.
Of course TM and Titleist have very high ratings anyway because they’re big companies. But smaller sites may run into problems.
The rant comes to an end, for now
Give me some content and ease off on the fancy animations. They look cool but they’re a waste of time and bandwidth.
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