Show of hands.

Who thinks their average score doesn’t reflect the quality of their ball striking?

If that’s you, you’re not alone.

No, you’re ball striking isn’t worse than you think and your mechanics aren’t that bad either.

But you sometimes waste a shot on par 5s, have a tendency to underestimate your iron yardages and don’t always recover from an errant shot when you need to.

If you’ve been playing for a couple of years you understand that it’s one thing to hit good shots on the range and another to do it on the course.

More importantly, you’re beginning to realize that playing the golf course requires some strategic thinking.

It would be great if improved ball striking was enough to take your game to a new level, but golf demands a bit more if you’re going to play to your potential. So smart golfers learn how to play the percentages, recover from wayward shots and prevent disastrous holes so their scores begin to match their potential.

David Leadbetter’s Taking it to the Course attempts to show you how.

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It’s a raging debate that’s reached epic proportions. Well, maybe not epic, but there is a debate that continues about which rangefinder is better, GPS or Laser.

Both have their adherents, and both rangefinders have their place. The trouble is, which one should you carry?

If you’ve had a tough time deciding, Bushnell felt your pain and created a unit that encompasses the benefits of both.

Getting accurate yardages is crucial when you need to pull the right club on an approach; and if you’re playing a new course walking off yardages is not an option. A good GPS or Laser rangefinder is indispensible for getting the right number with as little fuss as possible.

Of course, you have two technologies to serve up the numbers. Laser units are preferred when you have a clear shot at the target and want precision distances. But when your line of site to a target is obstructed or you simple want a long distance yardage to a par 5 pin placement from long range GPS units excel.

The real question is, does Bushnell’s hybrid unit perform both functions well, or will you be forced to deal with tradeoffs and performance downgrades?

With the opportunity to combine the two technologies in one compact package let’s see how the new Hybrid Pinseeker performs.

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Beginning golfers are exposed to a lot of advice for buying golf equipment. You may have read your share of it here. Generally I try to stick with the fundamentals; advice that stands the test of time.

But a fundamental rule that’s stood the test of time is that nothing stands still, everything changes.

After you’ve been playing for a while the clubs you started out with will lose their effectiveness.

As you might have guessed, you’ll probably be looking at a complete equipment overhaul: driver, fairways, hybrids, irons and even wedges. Not a big surprise since improvement for players at this stage can come quickly.

When that happens you’ll want to focus on several club fitting areas to make sure you get the most out of an equipment upgrade.

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The kiss of death when it comes to golf equipment is designing clubs that try to be all things to all golfers.

While not exactly targeted at every handicap level, the R11s are aimed at a broad spectrum of players.

But TaylorMade is nothing if not good at creating buzz over a new product introduction; naturally, players are lining up for a chance to play them.

Loaded with technology features, the R11s claim to deliver increased distance, accuracy, forgiveness, feel and control. As an equipment geek I’m a compulsive tester, so I’m a sucker for irons that promise to do all of the above.

The clubs I tested came with stiff Motore F1 75 graphite shafts. I chose gaphite for two reasons; graphite shafts are much  better than they were a few short years ago, and I’m betting players like me who want a distance increase might opt for them.

Priced competitively at $800 with steel shafts and $1000 with graphite, they should appeal to players who liked the CGB Max but had a problem with the price tag.

So now that TaylorMade’s sold you on the R11’s benefits, let’s see if the irons live up to the hype.

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Yes… and no.

Some of it depends on how you install them,  some of it on the golfer’s swing and subjective preferences.

Talk to a lot of low handicap players and they’ll explain why using the same shaft throughout your iron set is critical. More often than not, they mean heavyweight shafts.

In fact, they’re almost militantly against anything but heavy shafts in their irons, including hybrids.

I even switched to heavy steel shafts earlier in the season to regain some consistency in my ball striking. And it worked, but at the expense of a few yards; noticeably in the long and mid irons.

That’s exactly where you don’t want to lose distance.

As it turns out, Leith Anderson recently wrote a couple of articles outlining the benefits of lightweight graphite shafts in hybrids here and here.

In fact, he’s been matching hybrid long irons with light weight Matrix Studio 64 iron shafts with 5 through PW iron sets shafted with KBS C-Taper iron shafts.

Counterintuitive, but apparently effective.

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Ever wonder why some golfers shoot low scores while others struggle? It’s the million dollar question right? What’s the secret sauce?

If you slave over your golf game it drives you crazy to watch someone beat you with faulty mechanics and marginal talent.

Naturally, you keep wondering why this happens.

And if you’re not careful you’ll look in all the wrong places for a solution.

But if you’re honest with yourself you’ll realize it’s not your equipment or mechanics that need changing.

It’s your approach to the game.

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