BirdieQueen
Club Champion
- Messages
- 250
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Hilton Head, SC
I've been banging this drum for a while but after yesterday I need to just say it out loud.
My range has those awful thin rubber mats over concrete. Not the nice fiberbuilt stuff, straight-up concrete with a rubber sheet. I was striping my 7 iron, felt like pure contact on every ball. Divot? Doesn't exist, club just skips off the surface. Then my buddy filmed me and I was hitting a full inch behind the ball on half those "pure" strikes. The mat hides all of it. Every single one felt the same.
Went out and played 18 on actual grass Saturday and chunked 6 iron shots in the first five holes. Could not figure out why contact felt so foreign. It's not foreign. I just hadn't felt a real low point in like three weeks.
So if you're grinding drills on mats and wondering why your irons betray you the second you touch fairway, this might be the entire thing. Every thinning/fatting/skulling thread on this board... if you're testing those fixes on rubber you're getting feedback from a surface that physically will not let the club dig. Your hands learn a low point that only works indoors.
Anyone else watch their handicap balloon after a winter of mat only practice? I swear I'm not making excuses but my club's pro keeps giving me the look lol.