Cut To Three, Despite The Knee

UK Handicap; 3.4 USGA Handicap; 3.6

The last week has seen a bit of everything, including, but not exclusive to;

Some volcanic ash; Never mind the hundreds of thousands of stranded people, and the billions lost from the economy, the real impact of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupting was that one of my golf matches was cancelled last week. I didn’t receive any notification that it wasn’t going ahead directly from the opponents, so in trying to avoid a waste of a half day holiday from work, I hastily arranged another of my outstanding matches. I’m kind of wishing I hadn’t – a 6&5 hammering, giving away 9 shots to a player who was 6 over par, meant I had exited another competition and would have had to have been well under par to have even had a chance of competing. Having said that, 5 3-putts in 13 holes didn’t exactly help matters.

A pair of 74s; There were competitions on Friday and Saturday, and I shot 3 over par 74 in both of them, meaning my handicap is back down to 3, but only just. Two consecutive 74s is fairly good, I need to use it as a base to start moving to the next level, which is consistently shooting under par. The Friday round contained 2 double bogeys, and although I could have played a bit better, a couple of sloppy mistakes really cost me several shots. The Saturday round contained a shank, 2 3-putts, and a duffed chip. It was one of those rounds that could have been 80, or could have been 67, as it also contained…...

My first eagle of the year; Which was a great reminder of how the mind can influence perception, it coming after a duffed pitch and all round horrible double bogey on the previous hole;

Thoughts walking down the 17^th fairway; “I’m 5 over par, and I’ve not played that badly. I am a million miles away from being a scratch golfer.”

Thoughts 2 minutes later having holed a sand wedge for an eagle; “I’ve been a bit unlucky today. I’ve definitely got the talent to be a scratch golfer, I wouldn’t hole sand wedges otherwise.”

The more I look into it the more I see that the mind is a bizarre concoction of randomness that will try and deceive you at every given opportunity.

A miserable half; Playing in a first team match yesterday, I lost a foresomes match and halved a singles match. The singles match was a lesson in escapology, as I managed to escape from comfortably winning by doing everything in my power to throw it away. Two up with 6 to play, I lost 13 then got a lucky escape on the 14^th when I should have been pulled back to level. However, from being 1 up with 4 to play, I then missed a 4 foot putt on 15 to win the hole, and my opponent unexpectedly chipped in from 30 yards on 16 for birdie to square the match. The icing on the cake however, was missing a 2 foot birdie putt on 17, and a 4 foot birdie putt on 18, both to win the hole, and therefore the match. I really don’t like playing matchplay golf, that shouldn’t be a problem for the rest of this season, seeing as I’m now out of just about every matchplay competition I was in. I will have to mentally prepare myself for some matchplay later in the year though, as I have competitions at Montrose and Carnoustie that both have a matchplay element. For the time being, any matchplay experiences are forgotten about – negative experiences forever.

More knee pain; The combination of 4 rounds of golf in 3 days, and a lack of rain leaving firm ground, has caused my left knee to get extremely painful again. Just like every other time, I’ve not gone to the doctor about it, so I suppose I should really shut up if I’m not going to do anything about it.

I’m going to lay off practising full shots this week, and work solely on chipping and putting that don’t put any strain on my knee. No competitions this week, but it’s a bank holiday next Monday, so I’ll have one chance to either go back up to 4, or get myself cut again, before my first tournament of the year kicks in the following week.

Mind Power In Action

UK Handicap; 3.6 USGA Handicap; 4.2

Okay, let’s get this out of the way quickly. Yesterday I took 4 putts on the final green to turn an excellent round into a ‘playing to my handicap’ round.

On the back of my mental preparation yesterday, I effectively played 3 games of golf in one yesterday.

The numerical round; I was round in 75 shots, 4 over par, which is the equivalent of 36 stableford points and is playing exactly to my handicap. I’ve scored better, I’ve scored worse.

The physical round; I drove the ball really well, working on my swing has definitely found me quite a bit of extra difference off the tee. I hit 14 greens in regulation, my highest of the year. 3 iron shots were leaked slightly right, and I got a bad lie in a bunker. Every other green was hit, and 8 of them were hit to within 15 feet. My putting was fairly poor, I seemed to have an aversion of getting the ball up to the hole. I only holed 2 of the 8 decent birdie attempts, I’ll work on that though.

The mental round; I have never played a game of golf as well mentally as I did yesterday. I prepared properly, I was focussed for every shot, and was very calm. When I hit one of my few bad shots, it was completely forgotten about straight away. In fact, it crossed my mind that perhaps I hit more greens in regulation, because I knew that if I didn’t hit the green it wouldn’t bother me. I didn’t put myself under pressure of having to hit the green.

When I had a disappointment, I accepted it and just got on with playing the next hole. After a silly bogey on the 6^th hole, I followed it up with 4 solid pars. When I bogeyed the 11^th, I followed it up with 2 really good birdie chances on 2 of the hardest holes on the course. When I 3-putted the 16^th, I followed it up with a birdie at 17.

The 4-putt on the last was just one of those things, it wasn’t a loss of concentration, it just happened. You’d think that after throwing away a good round on the final green, I’d be mad with myself? The thing that surprised me was how little I was bothered about it, and this is exactly where I have wanted to get to.

This is the paradox; I care, everyone knows I care, I want more than anything to be as good as I possibly can be. But I can’t let myself be bothered by things that happen. The best thing I can do in caring about my game is not being bothered.

If I continue to focus on the mental and physical rounds, the numerical rounds will sort themselves out, I am in absolutely no doubt about that. I just need to make sure that every game I play from now on has the same thorough preparation and clarity of thought before and after every shot.

A couple of footnotes to mention today. As of today I have not had any alcohol for 100 days. Me stopping drinking didn’t have anything to do with golf, I just felt like it. However, it has had the knock-on effect of helping my game, as no alcohol = no hangover = clearer mind + less likely to lie in bed not playing golf. I was going to have no alcohol for specifically 100 days, however now that I’ve done 100 days I’m just going to continue, I can’t say even for a minute that I miss it.

Secondly, I was out practising tonight, hitting 6 irons 170 yards into the practice green, when someone (whom I don’t know) came down to the practice green and started chipping balls right from my landing area. I obviously had to stop hitting there, as I could have killed him, but the plain ignorance just absolutely astounded me. He didn’t say anything in advance, just went straight down there right into the middle of where I was hitting to. I went down there to enquire about his decision to position himself there, and after a short civil conversation, in keeping with my attitude of not letting things bother me, I went off elsewhere to hit balls. Life’s too short. Next time maybe I’ll just keeping hitting balls when he appears.

Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance

Firstly, I learned a small but valuable lesson the other day; ten pin bowling uses totally different muscles to golf. As a result, certain areas of my body are in agony when I move in certain ways at the moment. I must remember not to go ten pin bowling again if I plan to play golf within the following 48 hours.

I am playing a stableford competition today, and have been thinking about my preparation for it. I have mentioned in several posts about a book I bought, called Your 15^th Club by Bob Rotella, well I finished re-reading it on Friday having read it for the first time 4 months ago.

The first thing I took from re-reading it is that, in between reading it for the first and second times, I have already adopted a lot of the regimen detailed in the book without realising. This is obviously pleasing, if not a bit freaky, as I thought I had come up with these ideas myself, but maybe they have come from a seed that was planted the first time I read the book?

This blog itself was actually started having read the book. Dr Rotella mentions writing down a journal of good shots, and also writing affirmations. Whilst I have not adopted that to the letter, it did persuade me to start writing about my golf. Obviously in this blog I have to write about good and bad things, however when reviewing I can choose to read only the good things and ignore the posts about bad things completely.

The remaining things in the book, in fact all of the ideas that come across in the book, are common sense. However, they are only common sense when you read them. It’s the sort of “Yeah, I can see why that would help, I’ll start doing that” thoughts. As I mentioned earlier, the seed needs to be planted first.

So, for today, what should my plan be?

In advance of going to the course, basic preparation; checked the weather forecast, ensured I have the right clothing and equipment, and food for the course.

Time preparation; I’m playing at 1pm, so I have a clear plan to get to the golf club at 11.30am, warm up from 11.45am – 12.15pm, have a bite to eat and socialise with my playing partners 12.15pm – 12.45pm, get ready and hit a few practice putts 12.45pm – 1pm.

I’ll make sure that my warm up doesn’t contain any technical analysis, it is purely to get my swing, and muscles, warmed up.

I have already visualised my round; imagined very clearly in my head every shot, taking into account the noises, sights, feelings as I hit each ball.

So what about when I am playing?

When I have a shot, I will only play it when I am ready and have visualised clearly the shot I want to play.

If I have a specific thought, it will be positive. I will think about a generic swing thought if at all possible. If thinking about a target, I will think about where I do want to hit the ball, not where I don’t want to hit it (e.g. “hit it down the middle” is massively more powerful than “don’t hit it in the bunker”).

If it doesn’t go where I want it to, I will forget about it and only think about the next shot. If I miss a green with an approach shot, I know I have practised my short game enough to be confident to get up and down from anywhere.

If I hit a good shot, I will appreciate it for what it is. The mechanics involved in hitting a golf ball successfully towards a target are amazing, I only have to look at a beginner trying to make contact with the ball to realise how difficult it is. I won’t think “About time too” or “I’ll only go and miss the putt”.

When all is said and done, I will appreciate that my score is reflective of how I played. There is no point moaning about a bounce, or the state of the greens, or how much sand is in the bunkers.

Where a good game can become a bad game is when I stop living by any of the above. Maybe I get rattled by a missed putt and replay it over and over in my head. Maybe if I’m playing well I start getting ahead of myself and thinking “What if……”.

I need to keep my frame of mind exactly as it is now whilst writing this; relaxed, positive, almost serene if you like. Do that and I’ll be alright.

Video Nasty

UK Handicap; 3.6 USGA Handicap; 4.6

Another week, another 0.1 added to the handicap. Might have to rename this blog ‘Trying to play like a complete hacker”. Having said that, the 0.1 that I went up Sunday was just daft, and could have easily been avoided. I got to the eighth tee 1 over par, having played really nicely for the first seven holes. 8-11 is an easy stretch of my course, I would always aim to be 1 under par for those four holes. So going bogey, par, bogey bogey wasn’t in the script. All 3 dropped shots were caused by being just a couple of yards off line, on another day they would have all been pars. I battled back from then on, needing a par 4 on the last to avoid the 0.1 increase. Having nailed a drive down the middle of the fairway, I was left with 85 yards to the flag and 3 shots to get down in. I could do this with my eyes closed. However, not this time. For some inexplicable reason, I hit an awful wedge onto the green about 30 feet from the hole, and took 3 putts to get down, having putted really confidently up until that point.

It was one of those ‘I can’t believe I just did that’ moments, but there’s no point dwelling on it, it’s just one of those things.

The game on Sunday was the first competitive game since I saw my swing for the first time. I had another lesson on Saturday morning, and the video camera was brought out as part of it. I haven’t had lessons for over 15 years, and the technology that has evolved since then makes it a completely different experience.

Seeing my swing on video was an awakening experience; there were some things that were much better than I could have imagined (still head on the backswing, good swing plane), but there were some things that absolutely horrified me. I take the clubhead back in a closed position, and I can work on that fairly easily, but the main thing that surprised me was my weight distribution – it is completely wrong. I am right handed, and it makes sense that I should have my weight on my right side on my backswing, and transfer it over to my left side during the downswing. This generates power into the golf shot. I do the complete opposite, I transfer my weight onto my right foot during the downswing. This does go someway to explaining why I haven’t been hitting the ball as far as I think I should be.

Having been given some things to work on, I have played on the three days since. The first game is detailed at the start of this post, the second was a practice session the following day, which started terribly before I realised that transferring weight is a gradual process, it doesn’t have to look as if I’m trying to chop down trees by shifting my entire body weight from one leg to the other in under half a second. Once this notion clicked into place, the shots got a lot better. It’s also worth giving credit where credit’s due. I blogged at the end off last week about how bobbly the greens were at my course, that practising putting was next to impossible, well in the space of 3-4 days they are like different greens, there is still work to be done to them but they have made a massive improvement, the whole course is looking quite good at the moment. Long may it continue.

Tonight I played another course just for a change, my friend is the head greenkeeper so we scooted round in under 3 hours, and for the first time in a long time I can confidently say that I didn’t hit a single destructive iron shot. I was round in 5 over par 76, which isn’t exactly the course record, but considering that it was very windy and I hadn’t played the full course before so wasn’t entirely sure on distances and reading greens, it was one of my best rounds in a quite a while.

I’m getting a sense of déjà vu here, but I’m confident I’m hitting the ball well and have a good mental game at the moment, so sooner rather than later my UK Handicap will start to reduce. Next attempt is this Sunday.

Practice Obstacles

This week has actually contained some half decent weather, so I’ve been out practising on 4 of the last 5 evenings.

In general, I quite enjoy practising most types of shots under the right conditions. The problem is that the right conditions aren’t always possible.

My club is in a fairly landlocked area, there isn’t any additional land available as far as I see it. Even if there was, the need and demand for housing means that any land for sale will be snapped up by the highest bidder, in most cases a developer. There is no disputing that a golf practice facility is not the prime, or most profitable, use of spare land in the Greater London area. There has been some talk about rejigging the course in a smart way that opens up a 250 yard area that could be utilised as a proper ‘practice area’, however this is probably some years away if indeed it ever happens. The only facilities currently available are some nets, a couple of mats, and a chipping green.

The chipping green is fine for practising the short game, but it’s so cramped that if there are two people already there practising then you have no chance. For a practice session hitting shots of more than 50 yards, the nets are no use, as you can’t see where the ball is going, what distance it ends up at, and how it reacts through the air. Hitting from a mat is marginally better than nets, as although you can see where the ball is going, the reaction of the ball is different, and the feel you get when hitting a shot is dulled. Also, hitting a lot of balls from mats, in a similar way to hitting off of hard ground, can alter the loft of a club over time. This is a reason why you should get the loft and lie angle of your irons checked every year.

So whilst nets and mats are perfectly fine for warming up, if I want to properly practice, hitting balls off of grass is the only way that the practice will be productive. The only option available is to go into the rough on the hole that runs by the chipping green, and hit balls from there. This in itself has 3 problems. Firstly, if the course is busy, you have to stop for 5 minutes every 10 minutes to let groups play the hole in peace without me firing practice balls over their collective heads. Secondly, hitting out of rough is not a direct simulation of a course scenario of hitting from a fairway. Thirdly, practising from grass involves creating a lot of divots. If you are practising on a course, rather than a bespoke practice ground, this can have an effect on the long term health of the area being used. I try to accommodate this last one by only hitting from places where people playing the course will not be hitting from, so they don’t have to hit from where I have been practising, and also by always replacing all divots I take (as everyone should always do, whether it be on a fairway or in rough, in competition or socially).

This week has been fairly quiet on the course, as it’s only the start of April, give it another 6 weeks and finding a space to practice will be a mission in its own right. I’ll get on with it as I will make it my drive to practice, regardless of the obstacles. It is just an eye-opener when I visit other courses and see the wonderful practice facilities the vast majority of them have available to their members.

Having hit about 500 balls on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, I decided to practice putting tonight. This is another area that unfortunately is a problem. Firstly, I have to make a confession. I hate practicing putting. It is so boring and repetitive. It sends me to sleep after a couple of minutes. At least with everything else there can be variation, hit some wedges followed by 4 irons followed by bunker shots followed by tee shots. With putting it is just putt after putt after putt after putt. If anyone knows any drills to make putting practice even moderately interesting, please use the comments at the bottom of the post to let me, and the rest of the internet, know. Having made that confession, there is another reason why putting practice can be awkward. I practiced for about 10 minutes tonight then had to give up, as the greens were so bobbly that I didn’t have a clue whether I was doing things right or wrong. I could hit a perfect putt from 4ft and it would snake all over the place and miss the hole by several inches. I don’t want to dwell on this as it’s a sensitive topic in the golf club, and has been for several years now, but the bottom line is that the greens are not very good when compared with other courses in the area. I heard a county player call it ‘lottery golf’ a couple of weeks ago, which is a fairly accurate summary. In a remaining optimistic / straw clutching manner, I hope that when I start playing other courses in tournaments next month, I will appreciate the smooth greens more than my fellow competitors, as it will be a welcome relief to trust my skill, rather than luck, on the putting greens.

I have a coaching session tomorrow, followed by a game on Sunday. With the confidence I have gained this week, both from practising regularly and from re-reading the Rotella book to reaffirm my mental game, I’m hopeful I’ll be a 3 handicap again sooner rather than later.


Edit; In case anyone looks at the hit counter at the bottom and wonders why it has gone down, this is because I am now counting visits, instead of pageloads (e.g. one person may load several pages whilst visiting, this should count as one visit instead of a separate visit for each page they view).

The Plate Spinning Continues

UK Handicap; 3.5 USGA Handicap; 4.8

My golf has become just like a circus act in many ways recently. You could make this argument for many reasons; it can make you gasp, it can make you laugh, and there is always an element of danger just around the corner. The real act that it has started to portray is the plate spinner’s act; each part of my game is a plate, and I’m trying to keep all the different plates spinning at the same time. I can’t take my eye off of any individual plate, or it will come crashing to the ground.

In the last few weeks I’ve been concentrating on the chipping and putting plates, as they were in difficulty. Over 6 rounds I averaged 36 putts per round, and there were lots of fat or thin chips. Now that I’ve spent a bit of time focusing on these plates, they are now spinning with renewed vigour; my last 3 rounds have averaged 33 putts per round, and I have not played a fat or thin chip in that time. Problem solved. Well, actually no, because no sooner have I sorted this problem than my tee shots and irons into the green have gone completely off game. When I was struggling with my putting, I was at least hitting an average of 12 greens in regulation (G.I.R) per round. Now I have the putting sorted, I have gone and hit 9 and 5 greens in regulation respectively in my last 2 rounds.

There was one round in the middle (last Sunday) when I had both the putting (33) and long game (13 G.I.R) in synch, and all the plates were in control and I could enjoy it. That game needs to become the norm rather than the exception, in fact seeing as I always aim for 32 putts and 14 G.I.R, I still need to shave off a couple of shots, but the principle was there; there was no one part of my game destroying the round.

The game I played yesterday was consistently awful, there were no disaster holes, it was just regular bogeys all the way round. When you only get 3 shots to play with all round, starting bogey, bogey, bogey, bogey, bogey, par, bogey, bogey isn’t particularly inspiring.

Having done some analysis of the bad shots, I’m confident the lesson I have scheduled for Wednesday can easily resolve this. Other than my driver, there is no one club that was giving me major problems – I was missing greens with them all. What was interesting to see was that of the 13 greens I missed that weren’t down to the conditions or course management, 11 of them missed left and 2 right. This actually makes me feel a bit better, as it is quite likely there is just one thing I am doing wrong, if I was missing greens because of a combination of every type of bad shot (fats, thins, pulls, hooks, pushes, slices, shanks, and so on), then I would be quite worried. However, the vast majority of misses are pulls, so it could be something as simple as my alignment.

The bottom line of these plates starting to slip are that I have gone up 0.2 to 3.5, which means I am now playing off a handicap of 4 for the first time in 9 ½ months. My US Handicap has also gone up dramatically, as I replaced a one under par 70 from 20 rounds ago with a pitiful 84 from yesterday.

I’m sure things will pick up again when I get the irons and driver plates spinning properly again, I just need to make sure I don’t take my eye off of any of the other plates in the meantime.