The Main Pain Is Rain

UK Handicap; 3.5 USGA Handicap; 2.1

Adjustment Required; 3.1, Competition rounds; 74, Ratio; 0.042

Another week, another baby step closer to scratch.

Nothing changed Monday – Friday, it’s still too dark to practice in the evening, so it was another weekend where I had my only opportunity to play.

My plan to practice all day on Saturday took an early blow when I woke up to quite heavy rain, but I spied a break in the clouds at lunchtime so decided to wander along to see if I could get some practice in.

Fortunately the rain did go off, and I managed about an hour’s practice before it came on again. A 45 minute hiatus in the sanctuary of the clubhouse allowed the shower to pass, and I went back out, but onto the course this time.

I mentioned several times last year that I often play two balls, and have a match between the two of them. This helps me to treat everything as if it was a competitive round, and play everything as it lies – it’s too easy otherwise to give myself good lies, and get out of serious play mode. I just need to remember to use two golf balls with different numbers on them.

I played 11 holes on the course, 22 holes with the two on each hole, and finished 6 over par in total. Nothing spectacular, but my first ball was level par and my second ball was 6 over par.

The *plan* for today was to go to a local range, which has excellent short-game practice facilities, and spend several hours honing my skills on everything 50 yards and in. However, I’m not the most assertive of people, and eventually caved in to playing a round of golf instead, on about the fourth time of being asked.

The weather was much better this morning, and I decided to put in the first of my ten available supplementary cards for the year. I’d been playing half decent yesterday, and with the drier weather I thought I could knock it around in a decent score.

After 9 holes this was looking like an extremely good decision, and I reached the turn in 3 under par. This is massively better than anything I have managed so far this year and, although I sank 3 very good putts along the way, that doesn’t detract from the fact I was hitting the ball very, very well.

Just when you think you have it mastered, something comes up and bites you. Towards the end of the first nine holes it started raining, and by the time we reached the 9^th green it was very heavy, and the temperature had dropped by about 10 degrees.

I ended up playing the back nine in 6 over par, to finish one under my handicap, and to get a reduction of 0.1 to take my handicap back to 3.5. As traditionally happens, the rain stopped just as we were on the final green.

Of the six shots I dropped, four of them could be directly attributable to the weather, which for most of the back nine was utterly miserable. One of the par fours became out of reach, despite two of my best shots, and I hit a tee shot on one hole where pitchmark was actually further than where the ball finished.

There has been quite a bit of rain recently, and the course has been saturated. It didn’t take much rain to re-saturate it again, which made playing very, very difficult. In four years playing at my home club, today was the first occasion I have ever seen water lying on any of the greens, they can normally take as much water as mother nature can throw at them, and they will drain straight away. I also had several lies where the ball was lying directly and wholly on top of mud. People generally imagine playing a golf shot off of grass, but playing off mud, especially around the greens, is a whole different ball game.

There are several attitudes I could have to today, including;

- I blew up, I could have got 0.7 or more off my handicap

- I was only in a good position to start with because I sank some putts

- I was unlucky

- I was lucky

- I played well, but the weather accentuated any loose shots that I may otherwise have got away with

- I played brilliantly considering the conditions

The attitude I will take away is the second last one. I did play well, 2 over par for the back nine, taking out the weather affecting shots, would have been very good and would have got a 0.5 reduction for my handicap, but the conditions meant that any shot that wasn’t bang out the middle of the club, and even some that were, was an instant bogey. These things happen, nothing I can do about it now.

A very quick analysis of my round tells me that in my eyes I hit 22 good shots, 9 average, 6 bad, and 5 that were affected by the underfoot conditions. I hit more good shots than everything else combined. During the week I finished off re-reading the Bob Rotella book I often go back to, and it reminded me that the mechanics of a good golf shot are nothing short of a small miracle. Watch a beginner try and make contact with the ball and you’ll soon see what I mean. For me to hit more of them well than anything else is something I should be proud of, regardless of my standard and the score I end up with.

We’ll give it another go next week, maybe I’ll be 3 under par after 9 again, and the weather will stay fair.

Anyone Got Any Good News?

UK Handicap; 3.6 USGA Handicap; 2.2

Adjustment required; -3.2, Competition rounds; 75, Ratio; -0.043 per round

I don’t have a great deal to say this week, only the one game of golf has taken place and that hasn’t exactly inspired me to wax lyrical about my game.

I had a lesson on Sunday morning, followed by a competition in the afternoon. Now normally I would absolutely advise against having a lesson just before playing a proper game, but with the lack of daylight time available, and the general state of disrepair I found my game in, I didn’t see what alternative I had.

I got quite a lot out of the lesson, which focussed mainly on my setup. As a result, I have changed quite a lot, and to be honest at the moment it feels quite uncomfortable. I am now standing a lot further away from the ball, am doing some checking that my feet and the clubhead are facing towards the target, and am trying to get more of a turn in my hips when swinging. Standing further away from the ball is the most uncomfortable part of it, as it feels like I am miles away from it and have to reach to make contact with it now. The alignment of the clubhead is the most difficult part for me. I normally address the ball with the clubhead open (pointing right of the target for a right-hander like me), when I line the clubhead up correctly with the target it feels like it is pointing dramatically to the left. If I don’t change my swing then I will end up hitting everything left, but the other two aspects of standing further away and getting more of a hip turn should help sort them out.

The next thing I need to do is to groove this in, so I am planning on reluctantly spending all day this coming Saturday hitting golf balls. It will be boring, it will be a war of attrition, and I need to keep regularly checking that I’m still doing the right things, and haven’t either slipped back into old methods, or as often happens overcompensate. But if I can put in the spade work now then I will reap the benefits long term.

As for the game I played after the lesson, I scored 30 points, which is 6 over my handicap. Considering that I missed 4 putts of less than 3 foot, and the course was playing incredibly long due to the extremely wet ground and amount of mud on it, actually isn’t too bad. But you get an idea of whether you’ve played well or not, and I certainly didn’t play well. Had I not missed the short putts and scored 34 points, it would have felt like robbery. As often happens after a lesson, there was a real mixture of shots. I hit 5 really top drawer shots, 2 of which were chips (the putts of which I then went on to miss), 2 were mid-irons, and 1 was a fairway wood from 210 yards onto a green. However there were some absolutely abysmal shots, we’re talking beginner shots here. When I get my new setup right it works, but it’s few and far between at the moment until it becomes second nature.

In my vain (bit negative there, who knows what will happen this year) attempt to get to scratch by the end of September, I’m going to start tracking how much I need to reduce by, and how many competition rounds I have left. If this ratio becomes higher than 0.1 for every competition round, then it’s goodnight Vienna, ideally I want to keep it at 0.05 or less. This should be a laugh.

A Four-gone Conclusion

UK Handicap; 3.5 USGA Handicap; 2.2

As was odds-on to happen, I have slipped back up to 3.5, meaning I am now playing off a handicap of 4. As much as I didn’t want it to happen, in a perverse way I like playing off something-point-five, as I feel the extra shot I now get gives me a good slingshot to get a significant cut.

I can’t pretend that I put up any sort of resistance to the inevitable rise to 4, I did it in the most miserable style.
The first game I played after my last post didn’t count for my handicap, which is just as well, because it was absolutely awful. Any time where my first par comes on the ninth hole isn’t going to end up with success. In the end I had one par in the first 13 holes, then 5 successive pars to finish, meaning I at least finished on a positive.

The following Saturday was a handicap counting round, and once more I turned a potentially good round into the obligatory 0.1 increase. After a shaky start, back to back birdies around the turn saw me 2 over par on the 13th tee. I can’t really remember what happened for the next hour, I think I just lost concentration completely, but I know I dropped four shots in four holes. A couple of pars to finish resulted in a 77 net 74, which wasn’t a disgrace, but was two shots too many to avoid a handicap increase.

The following day I had my first club match of the year. For the first time since I started playing golf again 4 years ago, I was the player receiving shots, as I was up against a 1 handicapper. By the end of my round, I had a touch of the Worman Swords. All bad golf is measured on a scale, with the Worman Sword being the absolutely worst golf I can possibly play, so named after my performance at the said named competition last year. It was embarrassing playing as I played, against a 1 handicapper who must have thought there was a 2 missing from the front of my handicap, and I was actually a 23 handicapper who had delusions of grandeur. Anyway, enough said, it was miserable, I was well beaten, the team lost, there is always next year.

The round in which I eventually went up to 4 came Friday past, and once more it was ridiculously bad golf. I totalled 23 stableford points (11 on holes 1-6, 1 on holes 7-12, 11 on holes 13-18), the equivalent of at least 16 over par. It was particularly disappointing as I was playing with two people who will push me this year to be the low player in the club. Going on current form, swing quality, temperament, attitude, natural ability, and just about everything else, you would get long odds on it being me being the low player at the end of this year. However, there is plenty of time for me to reverse this prediction, and I am literally counting down the days (42 currently) until the clocks go forward, and evening practice can commence.

In fact, evening practice might not happen, as in line with a broader lifestyle change, I am contemplating getting into a routine of getting up early every morning and practicing before breakfast. Going to bed at 1am and getting up later isn’t good for the mind, body or soul. I’m not typically a morning person but if I can get into the habit of being an early riser it will make me feel better, more productive, and hopefully a better golfer.

After the major downer of Friday, a couple of people gave me some hints as to why I may be randomly firing the golf ball in all directions.
I got a quick chance to put them into action, as today was the club “3 club and a putter” competition, so I took out a 3 wood, 7 iron, pitching wedge and putter with no expectations.
These lack of expectations look well justified when I was 5 over par after 6 holes, but from somewhere I actually found a bit of my game, and played the last 12 holes in level par. For the first time in several months, I can actually genuinely say without lying to myself that I played pretty well. The fact that I can play with 14 clubs and score 23 points, then two days later play with 4 clubs and score 35 points, is not lost on me. For the first time this season, I was absolutely solid with my putting. I didn’t miss anything inside 8 feet. By the end of the round my confidence in putting has risen dramatically, so I was standing over a putt knowing I was going to hole it, rather than thinking about which side I was going to miss it on. Sounds simple, confidence breeds confidence, but it’s absolutely true and is something I already know, but maybe need to remind myself by taking part in my annual read of various Bob Rotella books.

As things stand, my results show that I am playing stinking stuff, and there is no doubt that I need a lesson (when I can find the funds for it), but there is also an element of confidence simmering underneath, once I can get a few tweaks made in my swing I’ll be back in the game.