A Lull In Competition

UK Handicap; 3.5 USGA Handicap; 2.8

After the excitement of last weekend, it’s back to a relatively mundane next couple of weeks. I went out last night and played 6 holes with 2 balls each, it wasn’t up to much and I wasn’t particularly focussed. I was grateful for small mercies, as whilst playing last night, and having hit a drive perfectly into the middle of the fairway right in full view of the clubhouse, I had an almighty shank. The ball zoomed off at a 45 degree angle into some trees, and I was left being thankful that at least I didn’t do that on Saturday, and no-one saw me do it last night.

Another silver cloud on an otherwise gloomy horizon (that sounds more depressing than intended) is that after Saturday’s results I’m back as the lowest handicapped player in the golf club. I’m not sure how long it will last for but it’s satisfying anyway, although to be fair there aren’t too many clubs where the lowest player is off a handicap of 4. In some other clubs I’d be struggling to get into the top 10 players with a handicap of 3.5.

The focus for the next month will to be to continue to try and eradicate the thing that has plagued my season so far – the disaster holes. On Saturday I played 37 of the 41 holes in 2 over par, but the remaining 4 holes were played in 10 over par. I can’t expect to win much with two double bogeys and two treble bogeys on my card. Three of these four disaster holes were from absolutely perfect locations in the middle of the fairway, the other was a par 3 where my tee shot was only marginally left of target. I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s obviously not sunk in yet; I need to be prepared to accept a dropped shot, instead of chasing an impossible par and ending up dropping several shots. I had 6 birdies on Saturday, so I’m evidently capable of getting the shots back if I drop one.

Having just found some form, it’s disappointing that I’m not going to have many competitions in the next 10 days to try and work on getting the handicap down to somewhere near where it should be. There is one this Sunday, then 2 the following weekend, although both are on courses I haven’t played in at least 15 years so I don’t expect much from them, and then I have no competitions the following week as I’ll be at St Andrews working at the Open Championship.

It’s not until 23^rd July that I get a good run at competitions, and I have 5 consecutive days where my handicap can be adjusted, the first two at my home course, followed by an Open competition the following day in Perthshire, followed by two strokeplay rounds the following two days at Montrose.

So in the next month there are 8 opportunities to get my handicap reduced, but only 3 on my home course, the other 5 will be extremely difficult to get my handicap cut in, simply because I don’t know the courses very well at all. Having said that, my best round of the season so far, at Strathmore, was on a course I’d never set foot on so with a positive frame of mind who’s to say I won’t end July with a significantly lower handicap than I currently have.