June Update

UK Handicap; 3.7 USGA Handicap; 2.0

It’s been 11 weeks since I last updated, and there aren’t too many good news stories to fill that gap with.

I have played 3 of my major competitions in that time.
The Forfar 36 hole Open was abandoned after I had played 19 holes, due to extremely high winds. Trees were falling over which made it unsafe. I had carded an unspectacular 9 over par 78 in the first round.
The County Championships saw me fail to return a 36 hole score. Had I putted out I would have scored 83 and 85 for 47th place, my worst finish in this tournament.
My Club Championship yesterday again saw me fail to return a 36 hole score. I shot an awful 79 in the morning, and was miles over par in the second round when I unexpectedly lost a ball on the 8th hole.
So Abandoned, No Return, No Return aren’t particularly great results.

I am not enjoying playing golf at the moment. I feel that I need a break, like Sergio Garcia took, to take a step back and focus on why I play golf. In the cold light of day I can think logically. There are many worse things I could be doing than playing golf. I have all my limbs, don’t work 7 days per week, can choose what I do of my own free will. There are literally billions of people who would love to be able to walk around a golf course in the sun at the weekend but can’t because their life doesn’t allow them.
However, whilst on the course I cannot see this and am ruining my, and other peoples, game by insisting that everything is absolutely perfect, and when it deviates from perfect, as often happens very early in a round, my game goes mentally.

I may not get a break because of the number of tournaments I have already committed to, but I really don’t want to play in situations where I am not going to enjoy it.

There is also the wake up call that I have recently seen that I am not nearly as good a player as some of my peers. I am used to being at the top, or within reach of the top, and at the moment I am miles behind the people I used to contend with. This isn’t just in scoring, this is also the quality of strike, and general short game ability. I was outclassed and embarrassed in the club championship as my two playing partners could, put simply, hit a golf ball much better than me. It’s not a nice place to be.
The obvious solution to this is to work harder to get myself up to their level, but I’m not sure I have the desire to do that anymore. This ties in with the reduction in posting frequency on this blog.

So hopefully I will gain some perspective over the coming months, and if I choose to update this blog again it will be with happier tales.

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