A load of games and a load of balls

You can study as much theory as you want in order to perform a specific task, whether it be football, physics, or sheet-metal work, but the real improvement comes from practical experience.
This is why I come up with a plan for how many times I’m going to play golf over the course of a year.

I’m not a great fan of playing between November and March, and until 2009 my clubs used to go away when the clocks went back at the end of October, and come out again sometime during March. From monitoring my handicap, I found that after these 5 month spells of not playing, the first 2 months of playing again resulted in my handicap going gradually upwards, before a sustained period of dramatic reduction started. If I didn’t play until the middle of March, then it was the middle of May before my handicap started to reduce, and by that time 25% of the season has already passed. So in 2009 I decided to start playing at the start of February, so that by the start of the golf season (start of April) I was primed and my game was where I wanted it to be.
And you know what? It worked. My handicap was cut in the last week of March, I won a competition in the first week of April, and the handicap was cut again in the first week of May. So I’m going to do the same again in 2010, play in the colder months when I really have to force myself to do it, knowing that it will really benefit me when the warmer weather arrives. And believe me, it really is a struggle to drag my sorry backside out of bed when it’s minus 3 degrees, to go and hit 100 balls in a soggy field when I could be sitting inside watching football on the tv. But it has to be done if I want to get any better.

Overall for 2009 I planned to play 140 times, and I actually achieved 112 games. I count a game as a full 18 holes, or at least 9 holes playing multiple balls per hole, or a minimum of a 90 minute practice session. Okay, so I didn’t play as many times as I had planned, but the bar was set deliberately high; there will always be a time where due to travel, work, or illness, I am not able to play as many times as I would like. 112 games in a year is just over 2 a week, which doesn’t sound much, but bearing in mind I have a full-time job that takes me all around the country I am fairly happy with it.
Without this plan I wouldn’t have even made it to 100 games, and the constant knowledge that I pay £1,500 a year to play golf on my home course reminds me that it makes sense to try and squeeze as much value as possible out of it; that’s the Scottish gene kicking in there.
The captain of my golf club last year played 161 rounds, so my 112 rounds stands up to scrutiny considering that someone who is retired and gets invited to every golf day going, played less than 50 rounds more than me.

The 2010 schedule has 150 games in it, starting at 1 per week during the winter, slowly building up to My Majors where it is either 4 or 5 games per week, then winding down again from the middle of September onwards. If I actually play 150 times I’ll be delighted, and I’ll be trying to achieve it, in all reality if I play 130 times or more then I’ll have given myself every opportunity to achieve the season’s targets.

I reckon that in these games & practice sessions I’ll hit in the region of 15,600 golf balls in 2010, and I’ll be keeping track of this with the little counter on the right of this blog. This is where the whole day job thing gets in the way. Tour pros probably hit at least 15,600 golf balls in a month, it will take me a whole year to do it. However, until I get 6 numbers in the lottery, or manage to get myself fired, it looks like the job is here to stay, so I’m going to have to work around it. The weather is harder to work around though; I couldn’t even get to the practice nets last week as they were covered in 4 inches of snow. A nice, mild, January – March will really help me get up to speed for 2010, especially as I’m going to need at least 2 months to get used to my new irons. Weather gods – despite your previous track record, please take note of this request and do your best.