Frequent Flyer

UK Handicap; 3.7 USGA Handicap; 3.4

It’s been a busy week, on and off the course, meaning that a) I have a lot to update and b) I am absolutely and completely shattered.

Knowing I was going to be away from Tuesday to Friday, I took the opportunity on Monday to get a quick 18 holes in. I used to quite regularly go out and race around 18 holes in about 2 hours in the evening, but hadn’t at all in 2010 as I’d opted to practice instead. The golf wasn’t exactly stunning, but it got better in the 2^nd half, and it was good to play 18 holes for a change with no pressure, no company, and no waiting.

The most exciting thing about Monday was that when I got to the club I was told my new putter had turned up, so I used it for the first time. The most important thing for me was that the putter was the right length and lie angle, my previous putter was too long at 36 inches, this putter is 33 inches and feels much more comfortable. A couple of photos of the new putter are below;

Tuesday saw my meeting about my knee. I met a very amenable physiotherapist, who after looking at my knee and doing tests from every angle imaginable, came to the conclusion that my knee pain is caused by the joint of the femur and the patella, and the best course of action is to build up muscle around my knee to hold my kneecap better in place. So I still have anti-inflammatory tablets, and now also have these exercises to do, and we’ll review the progress in 3 weeks. The diagnosis ties in with something I have been working on in my golf lessons, namely my weight distribution. Because I use my right leg to bear more weight during my (old) golf swing, the muscle in the right knee was built up more than in the left knee. The swing changes I’m currently trying to perfect should even this out, and build up my left knee in the process.

So bearing my knee in mind, spending over 14 hours on trains over the next 3 days wasn’t the best treatment, but unfortunately I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.

Arriving back in London already extremely tired last night, I then went and played 36 holes today. Sometimes I get so tired that I don’t think I could walk another 100 yards, but the weather in the London area was absolutely beautiful today, and it would have been a shame not to spend all day in the sunshine playing golf.

This morning was a stableford, and I managed to get 37 points, which should get 0.1 reduced from my handicap, although I’ll have to wait until the results are published and the Competition Scratch Score is generated to find out for sure. I played the difficult holes very well, and dropped 5 silly shots on some of the easiest holes on the course. The 18^th (which was my 9^th as I started on the 10^th) saw me get a flyer with my second shot. This means that grass gets caught between the clubface and the ball, and grooves on the club do not take effect. The effect is that the ball goes further than expected and doesn’t have any spin on it so will run further too. It can’t really be pre-empted, it just happens occasionally. Unfortunately, the 18^th hole at my course has out of bounds about 7 yards off of the back of the green. I’ve never seen anyone hit the ball out of bounds in that spot……… until about 11.15am this morning. So there is 2 shots gone just like that, without even hitting a bad shot, and ultimately the chance of having my handicap reduced by another 0.2.

This afternoon was a match for the Tigers team, and I lost on the last hole. My opponent birdied the last hole, I only managed a par after getting another flyer. My shot was dead down the line of the hole, the extra flight and lack of spin took it 20 feet past, much to my surprise. I had two flyers all day, and each one was extremely costly. Looking at my stats, I have only won 2 out of the 8 matchplay matches I have played this season, surprising as I had won 14 out of 21 in the 3 years previously. Despite losing, I hit a fantastic 16 out of 18 greens in regulation (29/36 for the day), and only dropped shots on 2 holes. My putting wasn’t great, but I’m going to practice with my new putter this week.

I am hitting the ball really well now, but I have noticed a worrying trend. When I hit a bad shot previously, I generally recovered to only drop 1 shot. Now, the number of disaster holes (double bogey or worse) is crept up dramatically. In my first 23 rounds of 2009, 12 of them contained a double bogey or worse. In my first 23 rounds of 2010, a frightening 17 of them have contained a double bogey or more. I’m playing really good stuff for 95% of the time, but the remaining 5% is costing me lots of shots. I’m going to go into more detail about this over the coming week (I have graphs and everything, bet you can’t wait for more graphs!), but for the meantime I just need to sleep. zzzzzzzzzzzzz