More Of The Same

UK Handicap; 3.7 USGA Handicap; 3.1

It’s been another week of mediocrity; I’ve not had any disasters, but I’ve not exactly been pulling up trees either.

I practiced on Wednesday night for a couple of hours, I think I hit the ball okay but I can’t really remember, I’m at that stage of the year where one evening blends into all the others.

I then had a lesson on Thursday, which could have gone better. I understand the changes that were made, and why they were made, but I hit the ball absolutely terribly. Many people, having had a lesson and then shortly afterwards find that they are hitting the ball worse than before, will lose faith and go back to what they know. My opinion is that, if you are paying a professional a not insignificant amount of money for their time and expertise, should have complete trust in what they say and you have to stick with it. One of the changes we made was to weaken my left hand grip. Retrospectively, this makes perfect sense, as my left hand was too strong (the “V” formed between my thumb and index finger was pointing too far right), which is the cause of my bad shot that goes left. The downside of making this change is that, because my swing made an allowance for this, weakening my grip has caused my bad shot to now be a short, right shot. The only way to get round this is to practice, and build up muscle memory of making the right swing, and to that extent I’m going to have a follow-up lesson in a few days time to review what I’m doing and ensure I’m doing it properly.

I practiced on Friday night again, and also went out and played ball 1 v ball 2 for 9 holes. The two balls were 1 over par for the 18 holes between them, without doing anything spectacular at all, and the course was absolutely deserted due to the majority of members being English and therefore watching England’s World Cup snoozefest against Algeria.

There was a competition today, in which I was struggling to get a game until one of the pros, getting ready for Open Championship Qualifying on Monday, asked if I wanted to go out for a game with him, which I was only too happy to oblige.

Once again, I hit the ball terribly, managing only 8 greens in regulation out of 18. However, as often happens in this bizarre game of golf, my short game was suddenly really, really good. During my lesson on Thursday we spent a couple of minutes on chipping, and it was like a moment of clarity. So I’m now missing greens, but I’m absolutely confident of getting up and down. I had 29 putts today, my first time under 30 putts since last July, and the 29 is more down to my chipping close rather than holing long putts.

The end result is that I was round in 75, bang on my handicap, in quite windy conditions. My playing partner beat me by 3 shots, but he gets paid to play golf and I don’t so I can live with that.

I turned down a game at another course in a match tomorrow, as I don’t like the course, it’s slopes are what first caused my knee to get injured, and I need to practice instead. The Club Championship is next Saturday, which I’ll talk about more during the week, but I’ve not actually committed to playing in it yet. I almost certainly will play in it, but I’m actually fairly underwhelmed by the whole thing at the moment. Last year I was really excited by the prospect, I was playing well and I was convinced I would win it. This year I’m making it fairly low-key. Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to win it, but I’m going to have to improve on the 74 and 75s that I’ve been consistently shooting over the last couple of months to stand any chance. A top 5 finish is well within range, but I’d have to be considered an outsider to win it at the moment, despite being the joint lowest handicapped player in the golf club. In a week’s time we’ll know if the work I’m putting in has started to pay off.