A little help please?

Okay, I think i've taken my game as far as I can without learning the mechanics of the game. Which I don't want to do just yet as to be honest I don't understand the whole HWI or calculating thing, or even the math involved in it.
But i'm pretty good at judging the wind without the whole tile counting thing. I literally just see the wind and adjust as I feel appropiate from the player's point of view (as opposed to the birds eye view) and I pretty much get it right 90% of the time. So wind, I can do.
It's judging the power that I can't seem to get. Either I tomahawk too far and don't have enough spin to make it or I fall short and spin further back. Occasionally I get lucky and succeed, but mostly I tend to be way off on either side of power or end up jumping or niking a toma hio. After jumping DI hole 2 20 or so times I figured 7 to be the safe amount of spin.
Now though I just cannot get the power right. There was a point where I could chip in 95% of the time with a normal 6i shot. Then I started trying to toma bs chip in to push my records up. And now fo some reason I can't do either. I know it's my power judging that's the problem.
So can anybody explain, preferably without the aid of sums, how I go about judging my power?

*Edit* Please note, i'm not after spoon feeding. That's the last thing I want. I'd just like a tip or two on how to judge, not know but judge, how much power to use. Getting better through my own hard work is important to me lol.

craig1984:

Okay, I think i've taken my game as far as I can without learning the mechanics of the game. Which I don't want to do just yet as to be honest I don't understand the whole HWI or calculating thing, or even the math involved in it.
But i'm pretty good at judging the wind without the whole tile counting thing. I literally just see the wind and adjust as I feel appropiate from the player's point of view (as opposed to the birds eye view) and I pretty much get it right 90% of the time. So wind, I can do.
It's judging the power that I can't seem to get. Either I tomahawk too far and don't have enough spin to make it or I fall short and spin further back. Occasionally I get lucky and succeed, but mostly I tend to be way off on either side of power or end up jumping or niking a toma hio. After jumping DI hole 2 20 or so times I figured 7 to be the safe amount of spin.
Now though I just cannot get the power right. There was a point where I could chip in 95% of the time with a normal 6i shot. Then I started trying to toma bs chip in to push my records up. And now fo some reason I can't do either. I know it's my power judging that's the problem.
So can anybody explain, preferably without the aid of sums, how I go about judging my power?

*Edit* Please note, i'm not after spoon feeding. That's the last thing I want. I'd just like a tip or two on how to judge, not know but judge, how much power to use. Getting better through my own hard work is important to me lol.

First off, kudos to you for figuring out that 7 spin is ideal for Tomahawks.
I can't think of way to do choose power properly without applying a little basic math here and there.
The most simple way would be to work with percentages on your powerbar (assuming you don't do that already). What you do is, simply figure out the exact distance your ball,phoenix,comet travels at given percentages (preferably 80,85,90,95,100% as these are easy to hit) on a hole without elevation (e.g. North Wiz Hole 1). From those numbers, you can derive how much further your ball travels per percentage (probably 3-3,5y for 1W).
What you have to keep in mind is that elevation doesn't affect your power 1:1. 5m of positive elevation for a 80% Tomahawk will actually affect your ball a little more (meaning that you've got to hit harder). As it seems that you aren't much of a spoonfeeding fan I won't go any further into detail, it's up to you to figure out more or less precise factors for elevation. Try to stick to 1W for now so you don't get confused as other woods require other power-rules.

Also, don't forget to adjust power according to your ball lie :
95% - +4y
90% - +8y and so on

^This works only for Woods afaik.

 

For other tips:

-Remember that EVERYTHING affects how far/short your ball goes, including the wind and its strength, your ball lie (this is flat off the tee though), the spin of your ball, the club you're using, etc. As a general rule of thumb, some factors will have more of an effect the higher your club while other factors will have less of an effect the higher your club, so once you get those down, that's a great start.

-Practicing on DI, while completely acceptable, is not as practical as practicing on an easier course with much smaller numbers to work with. For the most part, the higher level courses can be very unforgiving sometimes due to stronger winds, bigger elevation differences, and overall harder places to shoot from, from what I've noticed. Baby steps never hurt.

I think that's the biggest things of advice I can give you. I personally go by a combination of birds' eye view and judging from the third person perspective myself. It never hurts to see it from both sides, you know? XD

If you can judge wind already you're ahead of me

But anyway, on the topic of tomahawk distances, the approach I have been using is sorta like this (just to give you something to start on):

- I always use 90 - 100% power to keep the power % vs actual distance travelled corrections down to a manageable 0 - 5y range. For 3W I've learned that 90 - 100% power shots usually go about 5y further than the distance you selected, for 2W it's about 2 - 3y. You'll either need to ask someone with more accurate numbers or test it for yourself if you want the exact power % vs actual distance travelled corrections. A hint is that above 90% you usually end up with more distance than you selected and below 90% you usually end up with less. Again, varies with which club you're using. For irons in the 90 - 100% zone it's about 5 - 8y for the longer irons and >10y for the shorter ones.

- For elevation the distance correction factor is smaller than 1 for tomahawks, i.e. if you get a pin of 210y +5m the distance you need is less than 215y, ditto that 210y -5m needs more than 205y. The exact factor isn't so important so long as the actual distance you get from your shot doesn't exceed the pin's distance by more than 1 - 2y (that's how far your spin will go with 7 spin, depending on the green slope). In simpler words, if the green isn't sloping by a lot you'll still BS it in if you land up to 2y behind the hole.

- For the big elevation differences of >5m keep in mind that a 2W will be affected much less than a 1W (higher ball arc clubs have lower ball arc correction factor for the same elevation difference, i.e. the shorter clubs need less ball arc correction).

 

For clarity, the 1st correction I mention is the power % vs actual distance travelled correction, which is dependent on the club you're using. The 2nd correction is the one I use to adjust the distance I need to select based on elevation difference, and the 3rd is an additional adjusting factor to account for the ball arc. The ball arc factor is especially apparent if you try to chip the -20m or +10m elevation par 3s

PS: I guess you could combine the 2nd and 3rd corrections that I make, but because of the way I learned to play the game it's the method I use. It comes from the way I process the data to come up with a shot, which goes 1. check distance required 2. select club to use 3. adjust the power/HWI accordingly for the selected club.

Thanks for the tips/info, much appreciated :) I'll let you know how I get on with it after a lot of practice :) Thanks again.

Alright so looks like you have the opposite problem of me lol. I can get the power right 95% of the time and always miss 1 yard to the side. So I can give you a few tips but I kind of need to show you a few things to and I like showing ppl stuff more IG lol.. So if u still want some help add me my IGN is Reo