The range in our area features three 4 x 8 plywood sheets mounted two feet off the ground on fence posts at 100, 150 and 200 yards. The 250 is a rondelle, prolly 48 inches in diameter.
In ideal conditions, how many times could you hit one of those targets in 60 ball bucket?
Here’s fessin’ I’ve never done it.
Is clippin a range marker that size on the fly a reasonable challenge?
cheers
hawg1
Hi hawg1,
I remember at the range I used to go to (they sold out and pocketed some nice change) that they had a basket made out of pvc and extra netting…The basket was about 4 ft high and maybe 5 ft on each side on the bottom…They usually left it out there about 150 yards…It wasn’t too hard to hit the basket on one or several bounces, but to fly it in there wasn’t so fasil. So I could only hit it about 8/100 and once or twice on the fly…
Pretty cool Hawg1…this is an area near and dear to the soul. We used to have plywood markers until I changed them out to flags last year. Way easier maintenance that way.
Back in the plywood days we would do that stuff all day long…target practice. Now if you want to really go difficult, what we used to do is to try and have a ball bounce directly down on top of the wooden fence post holding the sign at 100 yards, and have the ball bounce straight up into the air. We started doing that because it got too easy hitting the sign will all kinds of different clubs and trajectory and bounces, or directly at it. We would start out trying to hit the middle “O” on the 100 yard sign…then proceed to the “O” on the right side of the sign with all kinds of different clubs. We got tired of that so started aiming for the top of the post…try that one, it’s fun! So it’s like hitting a 4 inch circle that is 5 feet above the ground at 100 yards. It would be like one of those Corey Pavin plunk shots.
Now we just go at the pins…and on windy days when the flags are blowing…we try and hit the flag itself.
I would say yes, without question…as it is a target game…but the larger question is how many different ways can you do it. 
Made me think of this from one of my favorite movies. 
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUbRW0DSQYs[/youtube]
I would love it if my range had those instead of flags…I was pretty thrilled yesterday to actually hit the 170 flag once while working on some ABS. Only took me 60 something tries though! 
Well, RR, I might hafta spend some time on a range with you…
Last year I likely hit three 60 ball buckets a session, three times a week, or more, from mid April to mid October, trying to hit the 100 or the 150 sign.
Not even a scent of the target.
Sure, the dispersal pattern was consistent, but actually nailin’ the target? Nope, not one.
Funny thing is that our course uses the 4-inch PVC pipe with candy stripes as the 100 and 150 distance markers on the fairway. Since starting ABS, I’ve hit them four or five times (all last fall, still jonesin’ for this winter’s two-story snow drifts to exit stage left) but I’ve never hit a rage sign.
As for pastin’ the left zero instead of the right zero on the 100 marker, well, if I ever do that, folks up my way might hear a hawg squeal.
cheers,
H
We’re open 7 days a week…Just look for a bunch of old dudes, and one youngin’, sitting around with nothing better to do and the customers waiting on themself. 
Don’t think I hit the “O” on purpose. Maybe I did, don’t remember. Hitting the “O” is the point of aim small, miss small. If we aimed for the “O” and missed, we would hit the sign. It’s all about, or a big part of it is, trajectory control. Not too difficult at 100 yards if you keep the same club in hand and dial in a shot after a few repetitions…changing clubs and shots for successive balls…that’s real tough to do.
The 150 marker is harder to get there by bouncing it in as the ground is all bouncy out there and if the challenge is to play a 30 yard low hook into the marker with 3 bounces…the first two bounces might be right at it and on line, but it will catch a goofy bounce on the third and knock it off line…so there is some luck involved.
A long time ago I went to a large organizational picnic at a rifle range in which we leased part of the property for the day. One of the activities was a closest to the pin contest- set at 85 yards. However the pin was set in the middle of a field that grew wild mostly…real bumpy and unpredictable. If you paid $1.00 you received 3 balls and you could play as often as you like and whenever you like during the contest hours which started @ 10:00am and ended at 4:00pm.
Somewhere between eating chicken wings and downing some soda, I paid one dollar and hit one in there about 12 inches with a SW and that distance held the entire day. It was kind of lucky because it did take a goofy bounce to land where it did. The last person of the day, an elderly woman, gives it a try…pays one buck and gets 3 balls. She tees up a 5 iron I think it was…now I’m thinking I’ve just pocketed all that cash. She gets down to the last ball of the day… and damn if she didn’t worm burn and bounce that thing all the way there and ended up inside me. Some things just make one smile
Well, RR, you’ve defined some of the real frustration factor in golf. At least for me, but I’m guessin’ this is pretty much universal.
In pretty much every other sport or activity, I can dial in the aim pretty good. Golf, not so much. It’s like the feed back loop we use for aiming takes the day off.
It’s heartening to hear that nailin’ the marker is an achievable goal, and that not hitting it speaks more to my skill level (or more accurately, lack thereof) than it does to the difficulty of the task at hand.
cheers
hawg1
Yeah it’s way doable at 100 yards once you’re dialed in.
I went to the Buick Open years ago to see a local guy named Ed Humenick play. On a practice day I went over to scan what was happening at the range. The range had this small target green thing to the left side of the range I’m guessing 100 yards or just slightly inside that. There was this guy, don’t remember who it was but it might have been Fred Funk, hitting little medium trajectory shots to that small area.
There wasn’t a marker or anything at that distance. Just a flag. He was really dialed in and hit one after another into that area and if there was a marker there, he would have hit it many, many times in succession…almost machine like.
Tons of feel going on in those little shots, and visualizing too. Maybe a little off the beatin’ ABS path here, but I’ve always felt that in order to control straight, one must learn how to control both sides of crooked first. Kind of like baseball maybe.
If one can dead nuts pull it precisely over the third base line on purpose…and then slam in down the first base line on purpose…then taking it directly over second base should be easier as the hands and body know the extremes in order to find the middle ground. Good stuff Hawg…