Okay, let’s get this out of the way quickly. Yesterday I took 4 putts on the final green to turn an excellent round into a ‘playing to my handicap’ round.
On the back of my mental preparation yesterday, I effectively played 3 games of golf in one yesterday.
The numerical round; I was round in 75 shots, 4 over par, which is the equivalent of 36 stableford points and is playing exactly to my handicap. I’ve scored better, I’ve scored worse.
The physical round; I drove the ball really well, working on my swing has definitely found me quite a bit of extra difference off the tee. I hit 14 greens in regulation, my highest of the year. 3 iron shots were leaked slightly right, and I got a bad lie in a bunker. Every other green was hit, and 8 of them were hit to within 15 feet. My putting was fairly poor, I seemed to have an aversion of getting the ball up to the hole. I only holed 2 of the 8 decent birdie attempts, I’ll work on that though.
The mental round; I have never played a game of golf as well mentally as I did yesterday. I prepared properly, I was focussed for every shot, and was very calm. When I hit one of my few bad shots, it was completely forgotten about straight away. In fact, it crossed my mind that perhaps I hit more greens in regulation, because I knew that if I didn’t hit the green it wouldn’t bother me. I didn’t put myself under pressure of having to hit the green.
When I had a disappointment, I accepted it and just got on with playing the next hole. After a silly bogey on the 6th hole, I followed it up with 4 solid pars. When I bogeyed the 11th, I followed it up with 2 really good birdie chances on 2 of the hardest holes on the course. When I 3-putted the 16th, I followed it up with a birdie at 17.
The 4-putt on the last was just one of those things, it wasn’t a loss of concentration, it just happened. You’d think that after throwing away a good round on the final green, I’d be mad with myself? The thing that surprised me was how little I was bothered about it, and this is exactly where I have wanted to get to.
This is the paradox; I care, everyone knows I care, I want more than anything to be as good as I possibly can be. But I can’t let myself be bothered by things that happen. The best thing I can do in caring about my game is not being bothered.
If I continue to focus on the mental and physical rounds, the numerical rounds will sort themselves out, I am in absolutely no doubt about that. I just need to make sure that every game I play from now on has the same thorough preparation and clarity of thought before and after every shot.
A couple of footnotes to mention today. As of today I have not had any alcohol for 100 days. Me stopping drinking didn’t have anything to do with golf, I just felt like it. However, it has had the knock-on effect of helping my game, as no alcohol = no hangover = clearer mind + less likely to lie in bed not playing golf. I was going to have no alcohol for specifically 100 days, however now that I’ve done 100 days I’m just going to continue, I can’t say even for a minute that I miss it.
Secondly, I was out practising tonight, hitting 6 irons 170 yards into the practice green, when someone (whom I don’t know) came down to the practice green and started chipping balls right from my landing area. I obviously had to stop hitting there, as I could have killed him, but the plain ignorance just absolutely astounded me. He didn’t say anything in advance, just went straight down there right into the middle of where I was hitting to. I went down there to enquire about his decision to position himself there, and after a short civil conversation, in keeping with my attitude of not letting things bother me, I went off elsewhere to hit balls. Life’s too short. Next time maybe I’ll just keeping hitting balls when he appears.
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