Best Yardage Book

[Melvyn Morrow]

Bill

That was my answer to your question 'Its must be OK, but it’s not for me'.

A firm No - no distinction, they are both outside help so not for me.

Melvyn

[Eric Smith]

The Kingsley Club has the best I have seen

[Mac Plumart]

I collect yardage books as well.  I love opening them up while laying on my couch at night and going through them page by page and remembering the holes.  They serve as great memory aids.  And great mementos with wonderul memories!

As far as using them on the course, I really like to get a good sense of the yardage I am at by using landmark recognition and the yardage book, then consulting my GPS (Skycaddie for me), then shooting my laser range finder, and finally stepping my distance off using the sprinkler head yardage markers.  I find that taking these four yardage measurements and then using a proprietary formula I dervied which takes into account not only the average distance into account, but also the median and mode distances.  If I then geo-metrically link them prior to getting the mean of those numbers...that is when I feel most comfortable about my distance and then I am ready to begin my pre-shot routine...which of course is modeled after JB Holmes' routine.

Maybe it takes me a little longer than most to play full 18 (8 hours or so), but I feel real confident on my club selections and it seems to be working wonders...I've dropped my handicap from 34 to 33 last year.  Not too shabby!!

FYI...part of this post is true...can you guess which part?

[Melvyn Morrow]

Mac

The 8 hour round seems to reflect the truth, and I expect that was with a cart to keep the momentum up. Seems I might find it hard to keep up with you, although I expect we might meet up on my third circuit of the course.

Melvyn

[Bill_McBride]

I collect yardage books as well.  I love opening them up while laying on my couch at night and going through them page by page and remembering the holes.  They serve as great memory aids.  And great mementos with wonderul memories!

As far as using them on the course, I really like to get a good sense of the yardage I am at by using landmark recognition and the yardage book, then consulting my GPS (Skycaddie for me), then shooting my laser range finder, and finally stepping my distance off using the sprinkler head yardage markers.  I find that taking these four yardage measurements and then using a proprietary formula I dervied which takes into account not only the average distance into account, but also the median and mode distances.  If I then geo-metrically link them prior to getting the mean of those numbers...that is when I feel most comfortable about my distance and then I am ready to begin my pre-shot routine...which of course is modeled after JB Holmes' routine.

Maybe it takes me a little longer than most to play full 18 (8 hours or so), but I feel real confident on my club selections and it seems to be working wonders...I've dropped my handicap from 34 to 33 last year.  Not too shabby!!

FYI...part of this post is true...can you guess which part?

Mac, does your SkyCaddie take into account slope AND wind?

[Mac Plumart]

Oh...you two got me.  I should have said something about a cart and the slope and wind.  Nice one!   

[Chip Gaskins]

I am siding with Melvyn on this one.  Unless you have your name on your bag, then hit it...find it...hit it again.  Leave the book in the pro shop.

[Michael Moore]

I'm quite surprised to learn that all these distinguished private clubs have yardage books, especially places like Old Sandwich and Wannamoisett.  I've always seen yardage books as only really instructive on a course that sees primarily occasional play (i.e. first-timers and guests who play at most a couple times per year).

Tim -

Wannamoisett hosts the Northeast Amateur every summer, a tournament whose participants are good enough to need a detailed map of the course.

[Greg Tallman]

    Give me one with photos.


  Anthony


 

Photos... that's funny.

[Mike_Clayton]

One of the hardest books to do is of The Old Course. You can imagine how many numbers that book needs and the one Graeme Heinrich does for The Open Championship is outstanding - easily the best book the pros work with all year.

[Mark Chaplin]

Jeff Tang - my Machrihanish book is a fused together lump of paper due to one of the wettest rounds ever.

I also have a large collection and dig one out for return visits to save money. Playing a rather misty Royal St Georges a few years ago my strokesaver was reasonably old. On the 14th I couldn't see the green but decided on a sensible long iron lay up to leave a short pitch. Upon arriving at the lay up the green had disappeared. My old book pre-dated the new green set back some 70yds closer to the O.O.B. doh!