18 Months To Go

3 days into British Summer Time (BST), and I’ve already used two of those evenings to take advantage of the extra daylight and get some practice in. The S in BST is a bit deceiving, seeing as it was pouring with rain on Monday, and the temperature was 5C (41F) this evening as I hit another 147 balls. There is a certain sense of satisfaction practising when the weather is awful and no-one else is out, if there is any justice, or karma, or (whisper it) even the development of a skill due to repetition, then this should come back to reward me in the summer months.

It occurred to me today that my deadline for getting a scratch handicap is the last day of September 2011; exactly 18 months today. So I thought it apt to do a 3 month review to see what I have done, and what I have learned.

What I have done;

- Played or practised 22 times. Considering that due to snow, work trips abroad, and darkness, there have only been 26 days that I could possibly have played on, I’m pretty pleased with that.

- Bought a new set of clubs. Still early days, still paying for them, but I certainly have more control of the ball than I did with my old set

- Increased my handicap by 0.1. Only played 4 competitive rounds, gone up in 2, come down in 1, no change in 1.

- Got myself a job at the Open in July. This is something to look forward to for the next 3½ months, it should be one of the highlights of the year.

What I have learned;

- You don’t get anything for nothing. I will only get better if I practice, even (and especially) when I don’t want to.

- The mind as well as the body needs trained. Reading Your 15^th Club has opened up my mind to various psychological aspects. All of them make perfect sense, they are very clear in my mind, the first test of them will be when I get in a real pressure situation. The picture to the right is something I have put up in my bedroom, next to other golf items (the item above it is a certificate of an 80 around the Old Course when I was 15). It’s the first thing I see every morning when I get out of bed, so the constant reminder is there of what my goal is. It's tacky, but it works.

- I am mortal. I knew this already, but my left knee has reawakened me to this. It may decide whether I’m able to play golf at all, never mind get down to scratch.

- I was nearly a scratch golfer last summer. Calculating my USGA handicap let me see that I would have got down to 0.9 at the start of August last year. No reason why I can’t do better this year.

How Not To Run A Golf Club

I have blogged previously about how UK Handicaps work, and also about why it is important for a good number of competitions to take place. Unfortunately, my golf club know as much about golf administration as Tiger Woods does about fidelity. I know there is much more to running a golf club than just the administration of the competitions, but it’s a vital aspect, and there is a hint of what’s important in the phrase “GOLF club”. Last year I highlighted 10 issues where mistakes had been made in the administration of competitions, ranging from the wrong CSS being generated, to the wrong trophies being awarded. In fact, it was announced that I had won the club Order of Merit, even after I had proved with documentary evidence that I had indeed not won it. I reluctantly picked it up at the AGM, and made it known that I wasn’t comfortable about taking the credit for a competition that someone else should be taking the credit for.

So far this season there have been at least 3 mistakes, one of which cost me 0.1 on my handicap, and another 2 that cost me a win yesterday.

The most recent incident involved multiple errors.

The competition was meant to be a monthly medal, however because of a mistake in the club diary (one of numerous mistakes that weren’t corrected before the diaries went to the printers) it was played as a stableford. A medal competition favours lower handicap players, as every shot counts, as opposed to stablefords where disaster holes are rounded down to a net double bogey.

The other main error is a bit more complex, and involves part of the CONGU rules known as Clause 23 (Review of Handicaps). There is a player who has been playing well recently, and the person in charge of handicaps has arbitrarily decided to cut his handicap from 16 to 14, under the cover of Clause 23. Because they were playing off 14, they were in Division 1 of the competition and beat me into 2nd place. Had they been playing off their correct handicap of 16 they would have won Division 2 of the competition, and I would have won Division 1. I’m not overly bothered about winning the competition, but it would have qualified me for another competition later in the year.

Firstly, one person should not have dictatorial power over handicaps, Clause 6.3 of CONGU ‘requires a Club to have a Handicap Committee that comprises of at least 3 people the majority of whom shall be members’. This stops one person having absolute power and making mistakes like the one coming up……

Clause 23 is often incorrectly applied, it should only applied in exceptional circumstances, in line with guidance from the English Golf Union (EGU);

"In order to clarify the definition of Exceptional Circumstances the English Golf Union has identified that handicaps can only be adjusted under the following circumstances:

- Impaired golfing ability resulting from extended illness or injury. (1)

- The need to correct a handicap that was allocated at an inappropriate level. (2)

- The return of a series of good scores in Qualifying Competitions within a short timeframe by a hitherto infrequent competitor. (3)

- A number of, probably three or more, good playing performances in Non Qualifying competitions (Better Ball and Singles match play events) by a player who otherwise may not participate with any regularity in Qualifying Competitions. (4) 

The EGU have also announced that scores returned in Mixed Foursomes, Society and Corporate events and social golf must not be used in the adjustment of a CONGU handicap. (5)"

Looking at each point individually;

(1); Not applicable in this case

(2); Not applicable, handicap is active and several qualifying cards have been submitted

(3); Not an infrequent competitor, and recent qualifying competition results are mixed.

(4); Competes regularly in qualifying competitions, and even if he didn’t, there is no evidence of good playing performances in matchplay events

(5); The recent good scores are from social golf, they are not putted out rounds so cannot possibly be used for handicap review. Even if they were all putted out, they would still not qualify as they are not competitions sanctioned by a CONGU member club.

I really hope the player who was cut can continue to improve and reduce their handicap, but this ‘helping hand’ cut was completely against the CONGU rules, and is unfair on all of the other members.

There is a sting in this tale as well. When I mentioned during a conversation yesterday that players shouldn’t be arbitrarily cut against the CONGU rules, I was shouted at by the person who made the cut, in front of everyone present in the bar area, including the visiting team we had just played against. I was absolutely mortified, and it was quite embarrassing for everyone involved. I go to work to be shouted at for pointing out that things are being done incorrectly, I can do without it in my social life too. As a consequence, I don’t want to be considered for the first team any more. From now on, I’ll just play my golf and not get involved with any team or handicap matters and leave the club to either sort things out and administer within the CONGU rules, or continue with the current mess.

Longer term, everything mentioned in this post and the general inability to administer things correctly means that I’ll probably be changing my golf club in the next couple of years. I was speaking to another golf club today, I don’t want the world, but for £1,500 a year I expect the administration to be handled efficiently and correctly.

Not Yet A Tiger

UK Handicap; 3.3 USGA Handicap; 3.8

33 holes have been played today, and my legs know it.

Summer started with a bit of a blip, having moved all of my clocks forward an hour, I was woken at 5am GMT by the alarm on my new phone (BlackBerry). Unknown to me, they automatically put themselves forward an hour, so my phone had been put forward twice.

The round this morning was the most confident round I’ve had in a while. The stats say that I hit the same number of greens in regulation as yesterday (13/18), but today had 33 putts compared with yesterday’s 38. Those 33 putts today still included a couple of very short misses, but in general I felt like I was going to hole each putt, instead of being scared of them. The end result was 1 birdie, 14 pars, and 3 bogies, giving me a gross 73 and 37 stableford points. So all being well, my handicap will be down to 3.3, and I’ve given myself a bit more breathing space from going up to 4, and officially being a Tiger again (for those not in the know, handicap ranges are associated with different animals; Tigers are 4-9 handicaps, Foxes are around 10-18, Rabbits are around 19-28, although there may be regional variations). The new putter felt a lot better than what is now my ex-putter (which was nowhere to be seen around the bin on the 17^th), with it being around 3 inches shorter, I was able to move my shoulders a bit more, instead of being too rigid.

This afternoon was a first team foursomes match, probably my last first team match for quite a while. I played well again, but unfortunately we lost both our game, and the overall match. Towards the 32^nd hole of the day I really started to feel my legs burn, if you consider that up until that point it’s around an 8 mile walk, carrying around 10kg of metal, it’s hardly surprising. Last year I played 36 holes in a day on 11 separate occasions, this year will be around the same, so I need to be able to last until the final few holes.

An aspect that I was concerned about today, and was inconclusive, was my left knee. I am pretty certain I have a meniscal tear in my left kneecap, all of the symptoms and tests lead towards that diagnosis. It causes me pain in the 24-48 hours after playing golf. It started last August, and in some cases was incredibly painful. Over the winter it eased, however it has started again now that I am playing more golf, and I have several options;

• Do nothing and hope it goes away (not going to happen)
• Do nothing and play in pain (could be very sore in the summer)
• Go to the doctor and take advice, with a view to treatment next winter (not a quick fix)
• Go to the doctor and take whatever treatment is required (this scares me, as I don’t know what would be required, and I don’t want to be injured and unable to play for a long period)

I’ll see how I feel tomorrow, I have nearly gone to see my doctor about it many times, but keep putting it off as I might not like what he has to say, however it is getting worse and I have to think about my long-term ability to play golf effectively.

A Snap Decision

UK Handicap; 3.4 USGA Handicap; 4.4

I played a friendly match for my club yesterday, the overall match finished 2.5 – 2.5, myself and my partner won our match, which takes my record in matches representing my club to 16 wins out of 24 matches. It is always interesting to go to other clubs and see how they do things, the practice facilities at our location yesterday were absolutely fantastic, the course wasn’t as interesting as my home course, but the subscriptions were slightly less than I pay at the moment. The course also seems to be a lot busier at weekends from what I could gather. Take the course layout and availability of tee times from my course, with the subscriptions and practice facilities from the course I played yesterday, and you would be onto a winner.

Today I hadn’t planned to play, but woke up feeling that there was a really good score waiting to get out, so I made a snap decision to play.

Hit the ball well from tee to green, but three putted the 1^st, 10^th, 15^th and 16^th. I also hit a 4 iron to 3ft on a 201 yard par 3, the ball finished behind the hole and must have missed being a hole-in-one by a matter of inches. I then proceeded to miss the putt for a birdie 2.

It was whilst walking from the 16^th green to the 17th tee that I made another snap decision. To be more exact, I made a decision to snap.

I very calmly put my putter at a 45 degree angle to the ground, stuck my right foot halfway down the shaft, and pushed down with my foot and up with my left hand. The laws of physics then kicked in, and my putter was in 2 bits a few seconds later. I had wanted to do that for months, I already knew that my putter, and my inability to use it, was hampering my game, in fact I blogged about it last month. This just speeds up the process of getting a putter that is more suited to me. Both parts of my ex-putter are now in a bin on the 17^th tee, in fact I might even see them tomorrow as I pass at about 11am. I’ll be using a replacement 33 inch putter that I borrowed tonight, I may not have used it before but at least I know it is the right size for me, and not far too long.

There was no temper involved in this, the putter didn’t break because it had been thrown anywhere, it was a deliberate act to get the putter in 2 pieces so that I didn’t have to use it any more. I was perfectly calm during and after, except I felt like a weight had been lifted as soon as it happened.

I have 36 holes to play tomorrow, starting at 8.06am. As far as my body clock is concerned, this is actually 7.06am, as the clocks go forward tonight at 1am. This is why the last Sunday in March is The Best Day Of The Year. On Friday just passed, the sun set at 18:24, offering no chance to play golf in the evening. On Monday, the sun sets at 19:29. This hour makes a massive difference, I can clock off work at 5pm and get a good 2 hours of golf in, in a week’s time I’ll be able to play 18 holes after work. The season really starts tomorrow, up until now the vast majority of golf has been played at the weekends, now the opportunity to play 7 days a week really opens up. It also means that the hard work and motivation needs to kick in as well.

An Open Invitation

I nipped out of the house this afternoon to go and hit 110 balls (it’s amazing what you can do when you slow your swing down, instead of going at 100mph), but today’s excitement came from a letter I received this morning.

In October 2009 I applied to work at the Open Championship at St Andrews in July 2010. I had been checking the recruitment website each day and submitted my application the day the application form went live. There were loads of jobs available, some were vastly better than others.

Today I got the letter saying that I have been allocated a position, and I got my first pick out of all the jobs available – BBC microphone walker.

I’ve not done this job before, but basically it entails walking around the course with a group of players, carrying a microphone pack, picking up the noises, conversations, and feeding them back to the control centre. It will be hard work, 10 hour shifts for 5 days carrying a heavy microphone pack, but I’ll get paid £60 per day for the effort. If I went as a spectator for all 4 days it would cost me £240 and I would be stuck behind the ropes. Instead, I will be paid £300 to walk around St Andrews Old Course, inside the ropes with better access than the spectators, listening to professional golfers and their caddies. I am absolutely delighted with this, I’m going to do as well as I possibly can whilst there with the aim of getting one of the final groups on the final day. The chance to be walking up the fairways with the players on the final day of the 150^th Open at St Andrews is quite exciting.

Even if for some unknown reason it’s not as good as I imagine (I can't see that being the case though), I am going to the Highlands of Scotland for 3 days with a friend the weekend before the Open, playing 5 absolute gems of courses, the cost of which is………. £300. I think I know what will fund that.

Warm Up Act

UK Handicap; 3.4 USGA Handicap; 4.2

I have only played once this week, it was today in the last group game of our Tigers Fourball Better Ball group stages. We won our match, and it was a record equalling game from my perspective.

I had gone back to lifting weights this week, the schedule having slipped recently, and noticed some definition in my arms and shoulders for the first time. Nothing spectacular, I guess most people wouldn’t notice the difference as I look fairly normal now as opposed to ‘rake-like’, but I definitely noticed muscles that weren’t there a couple of months ago.

Another thing I did today, for the first time this season, was to warm up properly. The vast majority of amateur golfers stand on the first tee having done nothing to warm up the muscles they will be using over the next 4 hours. I can totally understand why a lot of people don’t warm up; it means arriving an extra 30 minutes before teeing off, the hassle of having to mess about with clubs and practice balls, and it’s not nearly as much fun as playing a real round of golf. I started doing a proper warm up during last year, and will try and complete it religiously before playing this year. It’s important to recognise the difference between practising and warming up. It’s easy to get the two confused, as they both happen on either a practice ground or in practice nets, and involve hitting golf balls in succession with a variety of clubs. The warm up is exactly that; it is to warm up and loosen the muscles, and get into a rhythm, it is not to practice technical aspects. If you need to practice then that needs it’s own time, 20 minutes before playing is not a good time to solve swing problems. My warm up is fairly simple, some basic stretches followed by 10 x pitching wedges, 10 x 7 irons, 10 x 3 irons, 5 x drivers, and 5 x 60% pitching wedges. 40 shots in total, utilising a range of clubs and different muscles.

So having done my weights during the week, and a proper warm up before starting, everything was primed for a great day.

The record I ended up equalling was my joint worst net score in the three years I have kept a database of scores on my home course. I’ve had worse gross rounds, albeit when I was playing from a handicap of 5 or 8, but after taking my handicap into consideration I have never returned worse than today’s total; 25 stableford points.

36 stableford points is the equivalent of playing to my handicap, every point below that is 1 shot over my handicap, so today I was 11 shots over my handicap, taking my handicap of 3 into consideration means I was at least 14 over par gross.

I don’t want to analyse it too much, it was just generally pathetic. I will try and focus on the positive that I had a 2 on the 3^rd hole. No matter what else happens, if I have a 2 on my scorecard then I have something positive to take away. The warm up will stay, as will the weights, I’m not stupid enough to say after one bad round that they were the cause.

The fact we won our match by 2 holes was as much due to our opponents, and my partner playing marginally better than me (he counted in 6 holes, I counted in 3, we both counted in 4, and we lost 5). At the end of our group matches we have won 2 and lost 1, whether it is enough to qualify for the semi finals depends on other matches being played, and will come down to a countback of some description.

This week involves nothing Monday – Thursday due to being away with work, then a club match on Friday at a course I’ve not played before, and 36 holes on Sunday.

Next Sunday is officially ‘The Best Day Of The Year’ (reason to be explained in the near future), but ironically could also be a day of failure, due to having my handicap increase to 4, and playing 36 holes in one day being the first big test of my physical shape for this year.

Theory Queries

UK Handicap; 3.4 USGA Handicap; 4.0


I had my coaching today, and it was a bit of an eye-opener regarding how little I know about the theory of short game. I have never had any lessons or coaching in hitting the ball from 100 yards in, so I now have lots of things to work on.

I’m determined that this blog isn’t going to contain technical instruction of the mechanics of a golf shot, but there are many things that I need to consider now. Up until about 10 hours ago, I hit every pitch the same way, with my normal stance and swing as a full iron shot, without much thought to anything else. I now have to consider all of the following depending on the lie and conditions; 1) my stance width, 2) my stance direction, 3) the angle of the backswing, 4) the position of my hands at address, 5) the angle I hit the ball at, 6) what club to use, 7) how the ball will react when it lands, 8) what hand controls the golf shot. A lot of these things are common sense now that I know them, it’s just a case that if I’ve never been told what to do so have just made it up as I go along.

Another couple of subjects to wrap up the week;

My UK handicap has gone up to 3.4. Although the competition results haven’t been published my handicap has been adjusted upwards for a competition a couple of weeks ago. This means I’m one bad round away from going back up to a handicap of 4. This doesn’t faze me, as I know it will only be a temporary blip, but I’ve been playing off of 3 since 13^th June last year, it would be a shame to spoil that run with a short sabbatical to 4.

Secondly, I’ve seen a few other blogs about people trying to become a scratch golfer (most started after this one I would hasten to add). It goes without saying that I will compare the other efforts to mine, and there is one thing that stands out a mile.

I am trying to take 3 shots off of my handicap over a period of 2 years, whereas some of these people are trying to achieve ridiculous goals, like getting down to scratch from double figures in the space of a year. In the US handicapping system, this is theoretically possible if you go and do nothing else other than hit golf balls for a year and have at least $40,000 spare. In the UK handicapping system (as most of these other blogs are) this is virtually impossible. If a player scored 5 under their handicap, or level par if playing off less than 5, in every round (which is a near impossible target anyway), then it would take the following number of rounds to get down to scratch; A 9 handicapper would need 26 consecutive rounds, a 14 handicapper would need 30 consecutive rounds, and an 18 handicapper would need 33 consecutive rounds.

Maybe I’m being far too conservative, and getting down to scratch really is as easy as some people are making out, but I genuinely think some of these people have bitten off more than they can chew. A more realistic target would be to halve their handicap in a year, that takes 6 or 7 consecutive rounds in the scenario detailed above, regardless of handicap, in order to achieve that goal. There is a big difference between ‘going round a golf course in level par’ and ‘being a scratch golfer’.

That Friday Feeling

UK Handicap; 3.4 USGA Handicap; 4.0

I am a lucky person, and I should remember that when I’m moaning about trivial items like my wedges not being as crisp as I would like. I have a job that allows me to work from home most of the time, and appreciates that sometimes I’ll work lots of hours at unusual times. But the flexibility works both ways and sometimes I’ll be able to shut down my laptop, go and play golf, and maybe catch up with work again later in the evening.  When I was younger my dad would take every Wednesday afternoon off work during the summer to play golf. I loved that concept, of playing golf when everyone else is working, and always wanted to have a similar situation. Whilst not happening every week, I now have a similar situation, and it seems to have fallen on Friday afternoons. Over the next 6 months I’ll probably work less than 50% of Friday afternoons and be playing golf on the rest. A Friday afternoon playing golf is probably my favourite time of any week.

The first of these Fridays was yesterday, when we played a fourball better ball match. Readers with good memories will recall that myself and my partner lost our first game with a fairly abject display, but this time we managed to sneak a win by 1 hole. What made this match very unusual was that 17 of the 18 holes were halved (15 in pars, 1 in birdie and 1 in bogey), only the 6^th hole was won. I have never played in a match where anywhere near 17 holes were halved. I don’t know what caused this bizarre run, I suppose when you get four low handicappers (2 x 3 versus 2 x 5) on poor greens then most holes can be expected to be halved in pars. I was round in 75, which I was quite pleased with, especially as the 4 dropped shots were all for daft reasons, and there were also a couple of birdie putts that went awry too. Our final group match in this competition is a week on Sunday, a win there and we will be right in the mix for qualifying from our group.

Today was the next stage of the Mail on Sunday competition, and we had been drawn away at the course that borders our course. Despite being literally next door, I had never played it, so was shooting a bit blind. After a nervous start, I really started to find my range, and played my best tee to green golf for a long time. There was a spell for about an hour where I felt invincible, I knew exactly where the ball was going before I hit the shot. This coincided in a 4 hole run of birdie, par, birdie, birdie which took me from 2 up to 6 up. I eventually won 6&5 (on another day it could easily have been 9&8), unfortunately I was the only player to come in with a win and we lost the overall tie 4-1. I was 1 over par for the 13 holes of the match, 2 under par from the 4^th tee onwards.

The last couple of weeks have reminded me how important state of mind is on a golf course. Last week I felt terrible about my game, now I feel great about it. Looking at the stats, I hit as many greens last week as I did this week, but this week I was hitting the greens a bit closer to the flag, and as a result I wasn’t taking 3 putts to get down. My irons were also going where I wanted them to go, rather than 20 feet left or right of where I wanted them, and that boosts confidence with every shot.

I read a Bob Rotella book called Your 15^th Club over the winter, I think I need to read it again this week to reaffirm what I learned and keep it in the front of my mind.

I still have a lesson booked for tomorrow morning, as even though I’m hitting the ball exponentially better than I was a week ago, there is never a good reason for cancelling a lesson, as there is always something I can learn, develop, or tweak. If I’m serious about getting down to scratch then I need to call these sessions with a pro ‘coaching sessions’, for all states of play, rather than ‘lessons’, that only happen when I’m not playing well.

Short Game Woes

UK Handicap; 3.3 USGA Handicap; 4.2

Another two games this weekend, and I feel worse about my game than I did at the start of the weekend.

Played in a stableford competition early on Saturday, and manage to provide everyone with entertainment by taking a divot off the first tee that started a good 6 inches before the ball. Somehow I managed to scramble a par, after leaving myself 190 yards to the green instead of the usual 90.

After 11 holes I was 3 over par, and had 3-putted 4 times. I lost my game completely after that, a very similar game to the previous week. Finished with a total of 6 3-putts, and missed the handicap buffer zone by 6 shots. It is pretty soul destroying hitting greens (although not particularly close to the hole), and knowing that once every 3 holes a shot will be thrown away by taking 3 putts to get down.

On Sunday I practised for a couple of hours, then played 9 holes on the course. It was pretty mediocre stuff, as well as having putting problems I have now developed issues with my chipping, hitting one shot fat a total of about 3 yards, followed by a thin shot that zips and trundles past the hole at a high speed. Repeat process for about 45 minutes, and slowly simmer.

To that end, I have decided to get my first lesson of the year next Sunday. The irons are alright at the moment, nothing more, my short game is appalling, and my putting is like watching a horror movie. The only positive thing in my game at the moment is my driving, everything is going long, with a nice little draw on it.

The other positive item is that I don't appear to have gone up 0.1 for my game last Sunday, no results have been published, so I can only imagine that due to the lack of entrants, and the playing conditions, that the competition was declared void and the handicaps haven't been adjusted upwards.

Water Torture

UK Handicap; 3.3 USGA Handicap; 4.1

I played my first competitive game in a couple of weeks today. There was a stableford competition on so I went to the golf club at 7.45am, and ended up watching rain fall for 4 hours. In the end, 4 of us decided to brave the elements at 12.30pm, and after a bit of drizzle for the first 5 holes, it cleared up and was actually quite pleasant, although very cold.

As for the golf itself, I hit 8 greens in regulation out of the first 9, however 21 putts after taking 19 shots to hit the greens meant I was out in 4 over par. The back nine was a combination of waterlogged lies, cold hands, and a bit of a loss of interest, I only hit 3/9 greens in regulation and came back in 6 over par.

Looking at how the irons performed, of the 7 greens I missed, 3 of them were due to my driver and 2 were due to my 3 wood, so only 2 greens were missed due to bad iron shots. Having said that, I struggled with judging distances with my irons so I wasn’t exactly peppering the flag on the greens I hit. This will take a bit of time to get used to as I get the feel for the right distances with the new equipment.

My US handicap has risen dramatically, and will continue to do so, looking at the scores that are due to be replaced in my next few rounds, I think I will reach at least 5.0 before starting to reduce rapidly again.