Salvage Operation

UK Handicap; 3.7 USGA Handicap; 2.3

It’s been a very quiet week golf-wise, so much so that I have only played once.

The main reason for this is that, within 2 hours of getting back to London on Monday evening, my hayfever had reared its ugly head and I felt awful, a feeling that has continued up until today.

There are many good things about living in London, but the increased humidity, pollution, and temperature all conspire to make millions of people miserable in the heat of the summer. I had been absolutely fine for the 3 weeks or so that I was in Scotland, but I didn’t need to spend long in the London environment for it to arrive, and once it’s arrived it likes to stay for as long as possible. I do have medication for it, which has helped considerably, I would be unable to do anything without it. The outcome of the hayfever is that I am coughing every 15 seconds or so, and am totally drained, probably due to the energy I use up in coughing so frequently.

The game I did play was in a club competition on Saturday, and having not picked up a golf club in 6 days, it was no surprise that I played absolutely horribly. My handicap went up, but by some miracle I did actually manage to hit 13 greens in regulation, and also managed to break 80, albeit only just with a 79. I have absolutely no idea how I managed to hit 13 greens in regulation, as I was unusually very poor off the tee, my hiatus seems to have brought an ugly hook back into my game, and my iron shots felt bad, there was no smoothness or confidence in my swing.

The real damage was done with the putter though, I had 38 putts, on greens that were very poor for the time of year. They were cored and sanded in the third week of July, but 2 weeks later they have not recovered, and having played 8 other courses in July, there was only one course with greens in worse condition, and that was at Stonehaven where they hadn’t been cut.

Having looked back at my scores, 79 is actually my worst score in my last 23 rounds, so I must be playing alright if I’ve broken 80 on 23 consecutive occasions, the problem is that my consistency also hinders me; as mentioned previously my handicap will reduce by more if I shoot a 70 and an 85, rather than two 75s.

I’m at a decision point for my season now. There are 19 opportunities left to play for my handicap this calendar year. 11 of these opportunities lie in the next 7 weeks, with 3 in the following 3 weeks, and only 5 in the last 9 weeks of 2010. By the time the last of the next 11 handicap competitions are completed on 26^th September, the sun will be setting at 6.49pm, and any evening practice will be out of the window for 6 months. So although there are 8 further opportunities to adjust my handicap thereafter, without the opportunity to practice they hold limited value or appeal.

My handicap is now higher than I started the year, and my goal for this year of getting down to 1.4 is but a distant memory. I can either just turn up and play in these 11 competition over the next 7 weeks and see what happens, or I can get back into practice mode and use these opportunities as a chance to salvage whatever I can from the season, and maybe see if I can get down to 2. I’ve decided to go with the latter, and have built into my schedule 11 practice sessions which are aimed and timed at getting my performance back to somewhere near where it should be, to give me the best chance of going into the winter with at least some hope of achieving my goal of scratch by the end of September 2011. If I don’t do this then there is a very good chance that I end the season somewhere between 3.5 and 4.5, which is not acceptable having started the season at 3.2, so I owe it to all the work I have put in so far this year to have a final push to keep this goal alive, if not necessarily kicking.