Cut To Three, Despite The Knee

UK Handicap; 3.4 USGA Handicap; 3.6

The last week has seen a bit of everything, including, but not exclusive to;

Some volcanic ash; Never mind the hundreds of thousands of stranded people, and the billions lost from the economy, the real impact of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupting was that one of my golf matches was cancelled last week. I didn’t receive any notification that it wasn’t going ahead directly from the opponents, so in trying to avoid a waste of a half day holiday from work, I hastily arranged another of my outstanding matches. I’m kind of wishing I hadn’t – a 6&5 hammering, giving away 9 shots to a player who was 6 over par, meant I had exited another competition and would have had to have been well under par to have even had a chance of competing. Having said that, 5 3-putts in 13 holes didn’t exactly help matters.

A pair of 74s; There were competitions on Friday and Saturday, and I shot 3 over par 74 in both of them, meaning my handicap is back down to 3, but only just. Two consecutive 74s is fairly good, I need to use it as a base to start moving to the next level, which is consistently shooting under par. The Friday round contained 2 double bogeys, and although I could have played a bit better, a couple of sloppy mistakes really cost me several shots. The Saturday round contained a shank, 2 3-putts, and a duffed chip. It was one of those rounds that could have been 80, or could have been 67, as it also contained…...

My first eagle of the year; Which was a great reminder of how the mind can influence perception, it coming after a duffed pitch and all round horrible double bogey on the previous hole;

Thoughts walking down the 17^th fairway; “I’m 5 over par, and I’ve not played that badly. I am a million miles away from being a scratch golfer.”

Thoughts 2 minutes later having holed a sand wedge for an eagle; “I’ve been a bit unlucky today. I’ve definitely got the talent to be a scratch golfer, I wouldn’t hole sand wedges otherwise.”

The more I look into it the more I see that the mind is a bizarre concoction of randomness that will try and deceive you at every given opportunity.

A miserable half; Playing in a first team match yesterday, I lost a foresomes match and halved a singles match. The singles match was a lesson in escapology, as I managed to escape from comfortably winning by doing everything in my power to throw it away. Two up with 6 to play, I lost 13 then got a lucky escape on the 14^th when I should have been pulled back to level. However, from being 1 up with 4 to play, I then missed a 4 foot putt on 15 to win the hole, and my opponent unexpectedly chipped in from 30 yards on 16 for birdie to square the match. The icing on the cake however, was missing a 2 foot birdie putt on 17, and a 4 foot birdie putt on 18, both to win the hole, and therefore the match. I really don’t like playing matchplay golf, that shouldn’t be a problem for the rest of this season, seeing as I’m now out of just about every matchplay competition I was in. I will have to mentally prepare myself for some matchplay later in the year though, as I have competitions at Montrose and Carnoustie that both have a matchplay element. For the time being, any matchplay experiences are forgotten about – negative experiences forever.

More knee pain; The combination of 4 rounds of golf in 3 days, and a lack of rain leaving firm ground, has caused my left knee to get extremely painful again. Just like every other time, I’ve not gone to the doctor about it, so I suppose I should really shut up if I’m not going to do anything about it.

I’m going to lay off practising full shots this week, and work solely on chipping and putting that don’t put any strain on my knee. No competitions this week, but it’s a bank holiday next Monday, so I’ll have one chance to either go back up to 4, or get myself cut again, before my first tournament of the year kicks in the following week.