Putt It Out Of My Mind

UK Handicap; 3.8 USGA Handicap; 2.4

Adjustment required; 3.4, Competition rounds; 73, Ratio; 0.047

I’ve played 3 competition rounds in the 2 weeks since I last updated, and I don’t have any good news to report from any of them.

Last Saturday I played in the morning, and the only positive I can think to take away from the round was that I played the first hole well. If the peak of the round is the first hole, it doesn’t bode well for the rest of it. I started hitting everything completely fat. That is, I was hitting the ground before the ball. The most worrying aspect of this was that it was happening even with my tee shots, where the ball was teed up off the ground and I was using a driver. I rely on my driving quite a lot, I’m not the longest hitter by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m normally fairly consistent with it and the more fairways I can hit the better. To put it more accurately, the more fairways I miss the more trouble I am in, as I’ll be struggling to hit the green if I’m off the fairway or get an impure strike (like a fat shot).

This week I had competitions on Friday and Sunday, and I didn’t get the best preparation by being ill all week. I felt better by Friday, but I was still a bit energy sapped.

I’m not going to detail each round individually, but the grand total of the 36 holes was that I was 17 over par, and went up 0.1 in each round.

In total I dropped 20 shots (as I had 3 birdies), so I had a look at what club cost me each of those 20 shots.

Shots with my driver cost me 3 shots, but none of these were in the last 8 holes I played today. I figured out my stance was too narrow again so I made my feet a bit wider and started hitting the ball much better off the tee. If I can keep doing what I was doing towards the end of today then it’s not a problem.

2 of the dropped shots were caused by hitting a 3 wood off the fairway. I’m not unduly concerned about these either, both were from well over 200 yards from the green and they weren’t particularly bad shots.

Iron shots up to a 9 iron cost me 3 shots, which over 36 holes is quite good. In fact, I hit 19 of 22 greens where I was hitting a 9 iron or more into the green. For a change I’m happy with this part of my game.

Wedges cost me 2 shots, with a wedge in my hand I hit 8 out of 10 greens. That is not very good, there isn’t really an excuse for missing a green with a wedge in my hand, and some of the greens I did hit weren’t particularly close to the hole.

1 shot was dropped where there wasn’t a bad shot that caused it, it was just one of those things.

So that’s 11 of the 20 dropped shots accounted for, with the only concern being wedges (on the basis the driving is sorted).

The remaining 9 dropped shots were all caused by 3-putting. Having 9 occasions where I take 3 putts to get down once the ball is on the green is suicidal golf. That’s one every four holes. Although I missed a few short ones, the underlying cause was my distance putting. The greens at my home course, which have long been criticised, are in the best condition in the five springs I have played on them, but I seem unable to judge the pace of anything. A 30 foot putt for me is more likely to go less than 24 foot or more than 36 foot. I’m not overly bothered by the line at this stage, I’d just like to be able to hit it the right distance. I spent 30 minutes practising my distance putting on Saturday, having seen it cost me 3 shots on Friday. After 30 minutes I thought I had it sorted, I was able to putt 3 balls 30 foot and get them to finish within 2 foot of the required length.

Fast forward 24 hours and instead of having three 3 putts, today I had six.

I’m not quite sure how to resolve this. Practice seems like a good idea, but in a live environment you only get one opportunity at each putt, and that involves reading the pace of it. Practising invariably involves hitting the same putt several times on the same line, and getting used to the pace of that putt. I don’t have access to a putting green where I can practice many different putts without getting a rhythm for that putt as opposed to the stroke.

All this is going to have to go on the backburner anyway, as I am out of the country with my work next weekend, so I’m not going to be able to play for 12 days now.

The weekend after next is all systems go, the clocks go forward, at least two competitions every week, practising before breakfast every morning.

The last 3 months have just been a warm up.

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.

Battle of Wills

UK Handicap; 3.3 USGA Handicap; 1.7

Another week of weekend-only golf, and as so many times last year, it was a mixed bag.

I had a match yesterday, a fourball match where myself and my partner play against two people, the best net score on each hole counting. Having coasted to a comfortable 3 over par round in my last game a couple of weeks ago, it was a bit of a surprise how badly I played, shooting 12 over par for the 16 holes of the match.
I left my partner with too much to do, and despite his best efforts, his back must have been sore from carrying me all the way around, and we slumped to a 3&2 defeat. Our opponents played well, but we made it fairly easy for them.
It's difficult to pinpoint where I went wrong, it was just awful all over. I struggled to get the ball off the tee (6 out of 13 fairways), struggled to hit greens (5 out of 16), and struggled with putting (2 x 3 putts and only 2 x 1 putts, both of which were tap-ins).

I hadn't intended on playing today, and didn't want to, but having played so badly yesterday, and been giving a kick up the backside by someone over my motivation, I forced myself to go out and practice for a couple of hours.
This will become a running theme over the next couple of months. When it's cold outside and gets dark early, my warm living room and watching football on television is a much more appealing prospect than going out and hitting golf balls. I have to force myself to do it. This is where I admire the top pros, they put in hour after hour, not seen by the cameras, doing mundane practicing in order to find an edge and give them the best chance in competition.

As it is, I was glad I made myself practice today, as I hit the ball beautifully, the best I've hit it in months. Being able to strategically place my phone on my golf bag and film myself hitting shots is also a great benefit, as it breaks up the monotony of hitting golf balls. It allows me to work on some things, view a few shots, keeping working on it, keep reviewing, and so on.
Whenever I practice I always like to play 2 holes at the end, and put the swing I've been working on into action, hitting real shots at a real target. Today I hit 3 balls down each of the last 2 holes, and flushed every driver and iron shot I hit.

Today really brought it all back how fragile this game is, the difference from one day to the next, and how confidence can influence perception of where my game is. Yesterday I was on a bit of a downer about my game, today I have seen that I can still hit a golf ball in a straight line and that has given me the confidence that will see me through the week, knowing that when I play next Saturday and Sunday I do have the ability to knock it around in a low number.

Craw's Nest Tassie Round 1

UK Handicap; 3.3 USGA Handicap; 2.0

I’ve played 3 rounds since my last post, each quite interesting in their own right.
Saturday was a competition at my home club, and although very successful, could have been the best ever.

Teeing off first thing in the morning, I found myself at the unheard of position of being 4 under par after 5 holes, having had 4 consecutive birdies from the 2nd. I parred the next 7 holes, missing 2 short birdie putts in the process, and stood on the par 3 13th tee still 4 under par. I then stood on the 14th tee at 1 under par, after racking up an out of the blue treble bogey 6, on the back of a slightly pushed tee shot. I managed to compose myself for the last 5 holes, making 4 pars followed by a tap-in birdie on the last, for a gross 2 under par 69, and 43 stableford points. My best round of the season by some distance, but tinged with a little bit of disappointment in that, had I just hit my tee shot on 13 a little bit further left, and 2 putted for a par, I would have broken the course record, and also gone all 18 holes without a dropped shot, a topic I have talked about before. It turns out that the 13th was the only green I didn’t hit in regulation all day, and instead of it costing me a shot, it cost me 3. However, I think my 43 was good enough to win a competition (if anyone has beaten it then well done to them, they deserve it), and it got a massive 0.7 reduced from my handicap.

I was out first thing as I had to get the train up to Dundee straight afterwards, so that I could play a practice round for the Craw’s Nest Tassie on Sunday. It was quite windy on Sunday, and I enjoyed playing the Burnside course, in good company and in a relaxed mood. The course itself was in fantastic condition, and the greens were as you would expect from an Open venue – fantastic. The golf was alright too, a 75, which included 5 dropped shots on the last 5 holes as I started trying a few different things out.
This morning I played the first round of the Craw’s Nest Tassie, on the Championship course, and I’ll cut to the chase straight away – I shot 85, which sounds a lot, but is actually tied 54th out of the 170 people to complete the Championship course today. The wind was incredibly strong, and was from the south east, the absolute worst direction imaginable for playing this course. Apart from the 4 3-putts that I had, I actually hit the ball really, really well all day, it’s just that Carnoustie Championship in a strong wind is just one of the most difficult courses in the world. I started off with a 3 putt bogey, and then managed to par the next 4, which looking back was some achievement. A few dropped shots followed, but I was standing on the 12th tee 5 over par. The last 7 holes of that golf course are just so difficult, it’s impossible to convey in writing. You won’t understand it unless you have played them. A few examples; 12th, boomed driver, fairway bunker. 14th; boomed driver, fairway bunker. The par 3 16th was playing 214 yards to the hole today as the flag was on the front of the green, I hit a driver out of the bolts and got 20 feet past the flag (I didn’t help myself by 3 putting). The last hole typified the strength of the wind. It was 396 yards to clear the Barry Burn in front of the green today. I hit my two best shots of the day, a driver and a 3 wood, both straight and as long as I could humanly hit both clubs, and my combined distance of them was 394 yards, with the ball pitching straight into the water. Another 2 yards and I would have had a short birdie putt, as it was, after I’d fished my ball out of the water (unfortunately there was a bit more water in it today than when Jean Van De Velde went in for a look so I never got the chance to make a scene), I managed to get a good up and down for a 5. 4 really good shots to get a 5.

I did a little comparison of the round over my home course on Saturday, and my round on Carnoustie today, looking at the club I used for my regulation shot into the 18 greens. On Carnoustie I drove into 4 fairway bunkers, so where my regulation shot was a hack out sideways with a sand wedge (because you can only go sideways from those fairway bunkers), I have used the club that I hit for my next shot.

The graph below shows the variance between the two rounds, and it’s quite easy to see the pattern. Replace a 6 iron on my home course with a driver at Carnoustie, replace 7-9 irons with a 3 wood and 3 iron, and replace a pitching wedge with a 5 iron. The scariest thing to remember is that from the green tees Carnoustie is actually 100 yards shorter than my home course.

In terms of qualifying for the matchplay stages, I’m not in pole position, but I’m not out of it either. One thing is for sure, and that is I need to play well on the Burnside course tomorrow, ideally shooting 70 or less, but certainly no worse than 74. I may have one massive advantage over most of the rest of the field. The weather for tomorrow is forecast to be absolutely awful, very heavy rain and 35mph winds. However, the rain is not due to start until mid morning, and I am teeing off so early tomorrow that I may well be finished without getting wet. If this rain comes (which it will), and the wind stays at 7 on the Beaufort Scale (technically a ‘moderate gale’), then the scoring will go absolutely through the roof. I am praying for it to start the moment I sink my last putt on the 18th green in around 14 hours time.

A Bit Of Hope & A Lot Of Practice

UK Handicap; 3.9 USGA Handicap; 2.6

It’s a stupid game sometimes, golf, although I should know that by now. A week ago I was in the throes of wondering why I bother, now I’m tuned in and everything I do is focussed on preparing for my last major competition of the year, The Craw’s Nest Tassie next week at Carnoustie.

Having said that, last week was a write-off, or should I say wash-out, when it came to practising. It poured down with rain every evening I had planned to practice. So I played in a competition on Saturday morning without having picked up a club since the previous Sunday. My long game wasn’t exactly brilliant, I hit 9 greens in regulation out of 18, but my short game was pretty good, I got up and down on 7 occasions to score a gross 3 over par 74, which should get 0.1 reduced from my handicap. Whilst there is room for improvement, it was infinitely better than the previous month. Since then I have dodged rain showers yesterday for a limited practice session, and then spent 3 hours hitting balls today.

I have my tee times for the two qualifying rounds at Carnoustie next Monday and Tuesday (one round on the Championship course and one over the Burnside course), and one of them is a ridiculously early tee off time. I am also playing early on this Saturday and Sunday, so in order to get used to the early starts (not my forte) and with the nights drawing in (the sun is now setting before 8pm around here), I’ve decided to practice first thing in the morning every day this week. I did a similar thing in advance of the club championship, and although that didn’t have the best outcome, I felt better for it, and more prepared when push came to shove.

I am only going to practice my long game this week, as the short game practice facilities at my home club are not great, and there’s no point tuning my short game to my home course when the conditions at Carnoustie will be very different. I will instead spend a couple of hours on the practice green at Carnoustie after my practice round on Sunday.

I’ll do a full preview of the Craw’s Nest Tassie later in the week, but one thing worth mentioning now is that the qualifying round over the Championship course will be played off the green tees, making it 6,400 yards instead of 6,900 from the white tees. This doesn’t necessarily make things any easier, as a lot of the fairway bunkers that are just out of reach for me from the white tees will be very much in range from the green tees. So it’s absolutely imperative that my driving of the ball is straight, as landing in a fairway bunker at Carnoustie means an instant dropped shot. If I can get the driving right then the course does become a lot easier, as I’ll be leaving 9 irons into greens instead of 5 irons.

This competition has given me something else to focus on other than my handicap, I had become a bit fixated about it and annoyed by the lack of progress despite the work I’ve put in this season. My latest tactic is to concentrate on my game and leave the handicap to sort itself out, hopefully this will result in me putting less pressure on myself and enjoying the game more.

The Big Easy

UK Handicap; 3.8 USGA Handicap; 2.3

I’ve managed to get back into the practice routine over the last week, having 4 practice sessions and a lesson, which is more practice than I’ve had in the full month preceding.

The lesson went quite well, I’ve picked up a few things that I need to change, but as with any lessons the key part is what I do afterwards. What often happens is that muscle memory builds up, but the thought still remains of what needs changed. So if, for example, one of the outputs of the lesson is to take the club away more on the inside, the muscle memory may have built that up after a couple of practice sessions, but in the next practice session the mind is still thinking that the club needs to be taken away more on the inside, which has the overall result of overcompensating.

I’ve also decided to put less effort in to swinging a golf club. I was practising tonight, and having hit a few shots heavy and a few thin, decided to slow everything down dramatically, and just let the club hit the ball, instead of putting every sinew of energy into it. The end result was that everything was more balanced, the clubhead was meeting the ball at the right place, and after building up the effort a little bit more, but still only about 60% of my previous swings, the ball was going just as far.

What I now have to do is to remember all of this when I’m playing a proper round on the course. All the extra effort in a golf shot gets the combined extra distance of zero yards. I need to make my swing less like Bubba Watson (who, incidentally, I admire in huge amounts) and more like Ernie Els.

I have played one competition round since my last post, a rather uninspiring 79 around my home course, resulting in yet another 0.1 increase to my UK handicap. The damage was all done on my first 9 holes, I turned in 7 over par with two 6s and a 7 on my card. I managed to play the second 9 in one over par, but as so often this season, the damage was already done.

I’m still confident I can reduce my handicap considerably by the end of the season, but I have to take everything easy; both physically with my golf swing, and mentally with the amount of pressure I put on myself before a competition round. There are two chances to put this into action, on Friday and Sunday, hopefully there will be some good news to report by the end of the weekend.

Salvage Operation

UK Handicap; 3.7 USGA Handicap; 2.3

It’s been a very quiet week golf-wise, so much so that I have only played once.

The main reason for this is that, within 2 hours of getting back to London on Monday evening, my hayfever had reared its ugly head and I felt awful, a feeling that has continued up until today.

There are many good things about living in London, but the increased humidity, pollution, and temperature all conspire to make millions of people miserable in the heat of the summer. I had been absolutely fine for the 3 weeks or so that I was in Scotland, but I didn’t need to spend long in the London environment for it to arrive, and once it’s arrived it likes to stay for as long as possible. I do have medication for it, which has helped considerably, I would be unable to do anything without it. The outcome of the hayfever is that I am coughing every 15 seconds or so, and am totally drained, probably due to the energy I use up in coughing so frequently.

The game I did play was in a club competition on Saturday, and having not picked up a golf club in 6 days, it was no surprise that I played absolutely horribly. My handicap went up, but by some miracle I did actually manage to hit 13 greens in regulation, and also managed to break 80, albeit only just with a 79. I have absolutely no idea how I managed to hit 13 greens in regulation, as I was unusually very poor off the tee, my hiatus seems to have brought an ugly hook back into my game, and my iron shots felt bad, there was no smoothness or confidence in my swing.

The real damage was done with the putter though, I had 38 putts, on greens that were very poor for the time of year. They were cored and sanded in the third week of July, but 2 weeks later they have not recovered, and having played 8 other courses in July, there was only one course with greens in worse condition, and that was at Stonehaven where they hadn’t been cut.

Having looked back at my scores, 79 is actually my worst score in my last 23 rounds, so I must be playing alright if I’ve broken 80 on 23 consecutive occasions, the problem is that my consistency also hinders me; as mentioned previously my handicap will reduce by more if I shoot a 70 and an 85, rather than two 75s.

I’m at a decision point for my season now. There are 19 opportunities left to play for my handicap this calendar year. 11 of these opportunities lie in the next 7 weeks, with 3 in the following 3 weeks, and only 5 in the last 9 weeks of 2010. By the time the last of the next 11 handicap competitions are completed on 26^th September, the sun will be setting at 6.49pm, and any evening practice will be out of the window for 6 months. So although there are 8 further opportunities to adjust my handicap thereafter, without the opportunity to practice they hold limited value or appeal.

My handicap is now higher than I started the year, and my goal for this year of getting down to 1.4 is but a distant memory. I can either just turn up and play in these 11 competition over the next 7 weeks and see what happens, or I can get back into practice mode and use these opportunities as a chance to salvage whatever I can from the season, and maybe see if I can get down to 2. I’ve decided to go with the latter, and have built into my schedule 11 practice sessions which are aimed and timed at getting my performance back to somewhere near where it should be, to give me the best chance of going into the winter with at least some hope of achieving my goal of scratch by the end of September 2011. If I don’t do this then there is a very good chance that I end the season somewhere between 3.5 and 4.5, which is not acceptable having started the season at 3.2, so I owe it to all the work I have put in so far this year to have a final push to keep this goal alive, if not necessarily kicking.

More Of The Same

UK Handicap; 3.7 USGA Handicap; 3.1

It’s been another week of mediocrity; I’ve not had any disasters, but I’ve not exactly been pulling up trees either.

I practiced on Wednesday night for a couple of hours, I think I hit the ball okay but I can’t really remember, I’m at that stage of the year where one evening blends into all the others.

I then had a lesson on Thursday, which could have gone better. I understand the changes that were made, and why they were made, but I hit the ball absolutely terribly. Many people, having had a lesson and then shortly afterwards find that they are hitting the ball worse than before, will lose faith and go back to what they know. My opinion is that, if you are paying a professional a not insignificant amount of money for their time and expertise, should have complete trust in what they say and you have to stick with it. One of the changes we made was to weaken my left hand grip. Retrospectively, this makes perfect sense, as my left hand was too strong (the “V” formed between my thumb and index finger was pointing too far right), which is the cause of my bad shot that goes left. The downside of making this change is that, because my swing made an allowance for this, weakening my grip has caused my bad shot to now be a short, right shot. The only way to get round this is to practice, and build up muscle memory of making the right swing, and to that extent I’m going to have a follow-up lesson in a few days time to review what I’m doing and ensure I’m doing it properly.

I practiced on Friday night again, and also went out and played ball 1 v ball 2 for 9 holes. The two balls were 1 over par for the 18 holes between them, without doing anything spectacular at all, and the course was absolutely deserted due to the majority of members being English and therefore watching England’s World Cup snoozefest against Algeria.

There was a competition today, in which I was struggling to get a game until one of the pros, getting ready for Open Championship Qualifying on Monday, asked if I wanted to go out for a game with him, which I was only too happy to oblige.

Once again, I hit the ball terribly, managing only 8 greens in regulation out of 18. However, as often happens in this bizarre game of golf, my short game was suddenly really, really good. During my lesson on Thursday we spent a couple of minutes on chipping, and it was like a moment of clarity. So I’m now missing greens, but I’m absolutely confident of getting up and down. I had 29 putts today, my first time under 30 putts since last July, and the 29 is more down to my chipping close rather than holing long putts.

The end result is that I was round in 75, bang on my handicap, in quite windy conditions. My playing partner beat me by 3 shots, but he gets paid to play golf and I don’t so I can live with that.

I turned down a game at another course in a match tomorrow, as I don’t like the course, it’s slopes are what first caused my knee to get injured, and I need to practice instead. The Club Championship is next Saturday, which I’ll talk about more during the week, but I’ve not actually committed to playing in it yet. I almost certainly will play in it, but I’m actually fairly underwhelmed by the whole thing at the moment. Last year I was really excited by the prospect, I was playing well and I was convinced I would win it. This year I’m making it fairly low-key. Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to win it, but I’m going to have to improve on the 74 and 75s that I’ve been consistently shooting over the last couple of months to stand any chance. A top 5 finish is well within range, but I’d have to be considered an outsider to win it at the moment, despite being the joint lowest handicapped player in the golf club. In a week’s time we’ll know if the work I’m putting in has started to pay off.

Video Nasty

UK Handicap; 3.6 USGA Handicap; 4.6

Another week, another 0.1 added to the handicap. Might have to rename this blog ‘Trying to play like a complete hacker”. Having said that, the 0.1 that I went up Sunday was just daft, and could have easily been avoided. I got to the eighth tee 1 over par, having played really nicely for the first seven holes. 8-11 is an easy stretch of my course, I would always aim to be 1 under par for those four holes. So going bogey, par, bogey bogey wasn’t in the script. All 3 dropped shots were caused by being just a couple of yards off line, on another day they would have all been pars. I battled back from then on, needing a par 4 on the last to avoid the 0.1 increase. Having nailed a drive down the middle of the fairway, I was left with 85 yards to the flag and 3 shots to get down in. I could do this with my eyes closed. However, not this time. For some inexplicable reason, I hit an awful wedge onto the green about 30 feet from the hole, and took 3 putts to get down, having putted really confidently up until that point.

It was one of those ‘I can’t believe I just did that’ moments, but there’s no point dwelling on it, it’s just one of those things.

The game on Sunday was the first competitive game since I saw my swing for the first time. I had another lesson on Saturday morning, and the video camera was brought out as part of it. I haven’t had lessons for over 15 years, and the technology that has evolved since then makes it a completely different experience.

Seeing my swing on video was an awakening experience; there were some things that were much better than I could have imagined (still head on the backswing, good swing plane), but there were some things that absolutely horrified me. I take the clubhead back in a closed position, and I can work on that fairly easily, but the main thing that surprised me was my weight distribution – it is completely wrong. I am right handed, and it makes sense that I should have my weight on my right side on my backswing, and transfer it over to my left side during the downswing. This generates power into the golf shot. I do the complete opposite, I transfer my weight onto my right foot during the downswing. This does go someway to explaining why I haven’t been hitting the ball as far as I think I should be.

Having been given some things to work on, I have played on the three days since. The first game is detailed at the start of this post, the second was a practice session the following day, which started terribly before I realised that transferring weight is a gradual process, it doesn’t have to look as if I’m trying to chop down trees by shifting my entire body weight from one leg to the other in under half a second. Once this notion clicked into place, the shots got a lot better. It’s also worth giving credit where credit’s due. I blogged at the end off last week about how bobbly the greens were at my course, that practising putting was next to impossible, well in the space of 3-4 days they are like different greens, there is still work to be done to them but they have made a massive improvement, the whole course is looking quite good at the moment. Long may it continue.

Tonight I played another course just for a change, my friend is the head greenkeeper so we scooted round in under 3 hours, and for the first time in a long time I can confidently say that I didn’t hit a single destructive iron shot. I was round in 5 over par 76, which isn’t exactly the course record, but considering that it was very windy and I hadn’t played the full course before so wasn’t entirely sure on distances and reading greens, it was one of my best rounds in a quite a while.

I’m getting a sense of déjà vu here, but I’m confident I’m hitting the ball well and have a good mental game at the moment, so sooner rather than later my UK Handicap will start to reduce. Next attempt is this Sunday.

Practice Obstacles

This week has actually contained some half decent weather, so I’ve been out practising on 4 of the last 5 evenings.

In general, I quite enjoy practising most types of shots under the right conditions. The problem is that the right conditions aren’t always possible.

My club is in a fairly landlocked area, there isn’t any additional land available as far as I see it. Even if there was, the need and demand for housing means that any land for sale will be snapped up by the highest bidder, in most cases a developer. There is no disputing that a golf practice facility is not the prime, or most profitable, use of spare land in the Greater London area. There has been some talk about rejigging the course in a smart way that opens up a 250 yard area that could be utilised as a proper ‘practice area’, however this is probably some years away if indeed it ever happens. The only facilities currently available are some nets, a couple of mats, and a chipping green.

The chipping green is fine for practising the short game, but it’s so cramped that if there are two people already there practising then you have no chance. For a practice session hitting shots of more than 50 yards, the nets are no use, as you can’t see where the ball is going, what distance it ends up at, and how it reacts through the air. Hitting from a mat is marginally better than nets, as although you can see where the ball is going, the reaction of the ball is different, and the feel you get when hitting a shot is dulled. Also, hitting a lot of balls from mats, in a similar way to hitting off of hard ground, can alter the loft of a club over time. This is a reason why you should get the loft and lie angle of your irons checked every year.

So whilst nets and mats are perfectly fine for warming up, if I want to properly practice, hitting balls off of grass is the only way that the practice will be productive. The only option available is to go into the rough on the hole that runs by the chipping green, and hit balls from there. This in itself has 3 problems. Firstly, if the course is busy, you have to stop for 5 minutes every 10 minutes to let groups play the hole in peace without me firing practice balls over their collective heads. Secondly, hitting out of rough is not a direct simulation of a course scenario of hitting from a fairway. Thirdly, practising from grass involves creating a lot of divots. If you are practising on a course, rather than a bespoke practice ground, this can have an effect on the long term health of the area being used. I try to accommodate this last one by only hitting from places where people playing the course will not be hitting from, so they don’t have to hit from where I have been practising, and also by always replacing all divots I take (as everyone should always do, whether it be on a fairway or in rough, in competition or socially).

This week has been fairly quiet on the course, as it’s only the start of April, give it another 6 weeks and finding a space to practice will be a mission in its own right. I’ll get on with it as I will make it my drive to practice, regardless of the obstacles. It is just an eye-opener when I visit other courses and see the wonderful practice facilities the vast majority of them have available to their members.

Having hit about 500 balls on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, I decided to practice putting tonight. This is another area that unfortunately is a problem. Firstly, I have to make a confession. I hate practicing putting. It is so boring and repetitive. It sends me to sleep after a couple of minutes. At least with everything else there can be variation, hit some wedges followed by 4 irons followed by bunker shots followed by tee shots. With putting it is just putt after putt after putt after putt. If anyone knows any drills to make putting practice even moderately interesting, please use the comments at the bottom of the post to let me, and the rest of the internet, know. Having made that confession, there is another reason why putting practice can be awkward. I practiced for about 10 minutes tonight then had to give up, as the greens were so bobbly that I didn’t have a clue whether I was doing things right or wrong. I could hit a perfect putt from 4ft and it would snake all over the place and miss the hole by several inches. I don’t want to dwell on this as it’s a sensitive topic in the golf club, and has been for several years now, but the bottom line is that the greens are not very good when compared with other courses in the area. I heard a county player call it ‘lottery golf’ a couple of weeks ago, which is a fairly accurate summary. In a remaining optimistic / straw clutching manner, I hope that when I start playing other courses in tournaments next month, I will appreciate the smooth greens more than my fellow competitors, as it will be a welcome relief to trust my skill, rather than luck, on the putting greens.

I have a coaching session tomorrow, followed by a game on Sunday. With the confidence I have gained this week, both from practising regularly and from re-reading the Rotella book to reaffirm my mental game, I’m hopeful I’ll be a 3 handicap again sooner rather than later.


Edit; In case anyone looks at the hit counter at the bottom and wonders why it has gone down, this is because I am now counting visits, instead of pageloads (e.g. one person may load several pages whilst visiting, this should count as one visit instead of a separate visit for each page they view).

The Plate Spinning Continues

UK Handicap; 3.5 USGA Handicap; 4.8

My golf has become just like a circus act in many ways recently. You could make this argument for many reasons; it can make you gasp, it can make you laugh, and there is always an element of danger just around the corner. The real act that it has started to portray is the plate spinner’s act; each part of my game is a plate, and I’m trying to keep all the different plates spinning at the same time. I can’t take my eye off of any individual plate, or it will come crashing to the ground.

In the last few weeks I’ve been concentrating on the chipping and putting plates, as they were in difficulty. Over 6 rounds I averaged 36 putts per round, and there were lots of fat or thin chips. Now that I’ve spent a bit of time focusing on these plates, they are now spinning with renewed vigour; my last 3 rounds have averaged 33 putts per round, and I have not played a fat or thin chip in that time. Problem solved. Well, actually no, because no sooner have I sorted this problem than my tee shots and irons into the green have gone completely off game. When I was struggling with my putting, I was at least hitting an average of 12 greens in regulation (G.I.R) per round. Now I have the putting sorted, I have gone and hit 9 and 5 greens in regulation respectively in my last 2 rounds.

There was one round in the middle (last Sunday) when I had both the putting (33) and long game (13 G.I.R) in synch, and all the plates were in control and I could enjoy it. That game needs to become the norm rather than the exception, in fact seeing as I always aim for 32 putts and 14 G.I.R, I still need to shave off a couple of shots, but the principle was there; there was no one part of my game destroying the round.

The game I played yesterday was consistently awful, there were no disaster holes, it was just regular bogeys all the way round. When you only get 3 shots to play with all round, starting bogey, bogey, bogey, bogey, bogey, par, bogey, bogey isn’t particularly inspiring.

Having done some analysis of the bad shots, I’m confident the lesson I have scheduled for Wednesday can easily resolve this. Other than my driver, there is no one club that was giving me major problems – I was missing greens with them all. What was interesting to see was that of the 13 greens I missed that weren’t down to the conditions or course management, 11 of them missed left and 2 right. This actually makes me feel a bit better, as it is quite likely there is just one thing I am doing wrong, if I was missing greens because of a combination of every type of bad shot (fats, thins, pulls, hooks, pushes, slices, shanks, and so on), then I would be quite worried. However, the vast majority of misses are pulls, so it could be something as simple as my alignment.

The bottom line of these plates starting to slip are that I have gone up 0.2 to 3.5, which means I am now playing off a handicap of 4 for the first time in 9 ½ months. My US Handicap has also gone up dramatically, as I replaced a one under par 70 from 20 rounds ago with a pitiful 84 from yesterday.

I’m sure things will pick up again when I get the irons and driver plates spinning properly again, I just need to make sure I don’t take my eye off of any of the other plates in the meantime.

18 Months To Go

3 days into British Summer Time (BST), and I’ve already used two of those evenings to take advantage of the extra daylight and get some practice in. The S in BST is a bit deceiving, seeing as it was pouring with rain on Monday, and the temperature was 5C (41F) this evening as I hit another 147 balls. There is a certain sense of satisfaction practising when the weather is awful and no-one else is out, if there is any justice, or karma, or (whisper it) even the development of a skill due to repetition, then this should come back to reward me in the summer months.

It occurred to me today that my deadline for getting a scratch handicap is the last day of September 2011; exactly 18 months today. So I thought it apt to do a 3 month review to see what I have done, and what I have learned.

What I have done;

- Played or practised 22 times. Considering that due to snow, work trips abroad, and darkness, there have only been 26 days that I could possibly have played on, I’m pretty pleased with that.

- Bought a new set of clubs. Still early days, still paying for them, but I certainly have more control of the ball than I did with my old set

- Increased my handicap by 0.1. Only played 4 competitive rounds, gone up in 2, come down in 1, no change in 1.

- Got myself a job at the Open in July. This is something to look forward to for the next 3½ months, it should be one of the highlights of the year.

What I have learned;

- You don’t get anything for nothing. I will only get better if I practice, even (and especially) when I don’t want to.

- The mind as well as the body needs trained. Reading Your 15^th Club has opened up my mind to various psychological aspects. All of them make perfect sense, they are very clear in my mind, the first test of them will be when I get in a real pressure situation. The picture to the right is something I have put up in my bedroom, next to other golf items (the item above it is a certificate of an 80 around the Old Course when I was 15). It’s the first thing I see every morning when I get out of bed, so the constant reminder is there of what my goal is. It's tacky, but it works.

- I am mortal. I knew this already, but my left knee has reawakened me to this. It may decide whether I’m able to play golf at all, never mind get down to scratch.

- I was nearly a scratch golfer last summer. Calculating my USGA handicap let me see that I would have got down to 0.9 at the start of August last year. No reason why I can’t do better this year.

Theory Queries

UK Handicap; 3.4 USGA Handicap; 4.0


I had my coaching today, and it was a bit of an eye-opener regarding how little I know about the theory of short game. I have never had any lessons or coaching in hitting the ball from 100 yards in, so I now have lots of things to work on.

I’m determined that this blog isn’t going to contain technical instruction of the mechanics of a golf shot, but there are many things that I need to consider now. Up until about 10 hours ago, I hit every pitch the same way, with my normal stance and swing as a full iron shot, without much thought to anything else. I now have to consider all of the following depending on the lie and conditions; 1) my stance width, 2) my stance direction, 3) the angle of the backswing, 4) the position of my hands at address, 5) the angle I hit the ball at, 6) what club to use, 7) how the ball will react when it lands, 8) what hand controls the golf shot. A lot of these things are common sense now that I know them, it’s just a case that if I’ve never been told what to do so have just made it up as I go along.

Another couple of subjects to wrap up the week;

My UK handicap has gone up to 3.4. Although the competition results haven’t been published my handicap has been adjusted upwards for a competition a couple of weeks ago. This means I’m one bad round away from going back up to a handicap of 4. This doesn’t faze me, as I know it will only be a temporary blip, but I’ve been playing off of 3 since 13^th June last year, it would be a shame to spoil that run with a short sabbatical to 4.

Secondly, I’ve seen a few other blogs about people trying to become a scratch golfer (most started after this one I would hasten to add). It goes without saying that I will compare the other efforts to mine, and there is one thing that stands out a mile.

I am trying to take 3 shots off of my handicap over a period of 2 years, whereas some of these people are trying to achieve ridiculous goals, like getting down to scratch from double figures in the space of a year. In the US handicapping system, this is theoretically possible if you go and do nothing else other than hit golf balls for a year and have at least $40,000 spare. In the UK handicapping system (as most of these other blogs are) this is virtually impossible. If a player scored 5 under their handicap, or level par if playing off less than 5, in every round (which is a near impossible target anyway), then it would take the following number of rounds to get down to scratch; A 9 handicapper would need 26 consecutive rounds, a 14 handicapper would need 30 consecutive rounds, and an 18 handicapper would need 33 consecutive rounds.

Maybe I’m being far too conservative, and getting down to scratch really is as easy as some people are making out, but I genuinely think some of these people have bitten off more than they can chew. A more realistic target would be to halve their handicap in a year, that takes 6 or 7 consecutive rounds in the scenario detailed above, regardless of handicap, in order to achieve that goal. There is a big difference between ‘going round a golf course in level par’ and ‘being a scratch golfer’.

Short Game Woes

UK Handicap; 3.3 USGA Handicap; 4.2

Another two games this weekend, and I feel worse about my game than I did at the start of the weekend.

Played in a stableford competition early on Saturday, and manage to provide everyone with entertainment by taking a divot off the first tee that started a good 6 inches before the ball. Somehow I managed to scramble a par, after leaving myself 190 yards to the green instead of the usual 90.

After 11 holes I was 3 over par, and had 3-putted 4 times. I lost my game completely after that, a very similar game to the previous week. Finished with a total of 6 3-putts, and missed the handicap buffer zone by 6 shots. It is pretty soul destroying hitting greens (although not particularly close to the hole), and knowing that once every 3 holes a shot will be thrown away by taking 3 putts to get down.

On Sunday I practised for a couple of hours, then played 9 holes on the course. It was pretty mediocre stuff, as well as having putting problems I have now developed issues with my chipping, hitting one shot fat a total of about 3 yards, followed by a thin shot that zips and trundles past the hole at a high speed. Repeat process for about 45 minutes, and slowly simmer.

To that end, I have decided to get my first lesson of the year next Sunday. The irons are alright at the moment, nothing more, my short game is appalling, and my putting is like watching a horror movie. The only positive thing in my game at the moment is my driving, everything is going long, with a nice little draw on it.

The other positive item is that I don't appear to have gone up 0.1 for my game last Sunday, no results have been published, so I can only imagine that due to the lack of entrants, and the playing conditions, that the competition was declared void and the handicaps haven't been adjusted upwards.

Shiny New Irons Have Arrived

I got the call I’d been waiting for this afternoon, my irons had arrived.

A quick phone call to my boss, and 15 minutes later I was standing in the pro shop of my club looking at my new clubs.

Although it was getting dark and there were heavy showers coming and going, I couldn’t resist going out for 45 minutes and hitting some balls.

I hit a few 7 irons, and then moved onto my 5 iron. I gave a spontaneous reaction when I hit my first 5 iron and felt it coming off the clubface and rising, straight as an arrow, into the February gloom. The reaction rhymed with clucking bell, I won’t go into any more detail.

I then hit 21 pitching wedges from 100 yards out, 15 of them went within 10 feet of my target. There were a couple of squiffy ones in there, however the squiffy ones all had the same cause of squiffyness, so I reckon that’s a swing mechanic I need to work on.

I feel really confident hitting these irons, a large part of that is down to the notion of having new equipment, and part is down to the equipment itself. They even look really cool sitting in my golf bag with my wedges. This is now a golfer’s golf bag, instead of just a collection of golf clubs.

I’ve put myself down for 36 holes on Sunday, I’d never normally do that in February, but I like the feeling I get when I hit these irons so I want to do it more often.

Four Seasons In One Day

This weekend has seen visits from weather from all around the year, including snow, blazing sunshine, hail, winds, and heavy rain at various points.

Due to its unpredictable nature, I decided not to play the course today, but to practice instead, giving me a quick escape route to the clubhouse should it be required.

As I’m expecting a new set of irons this week, I concentrated on hitting my 2 new wedges, and my new 3 iron. It’s difficult to tell how far I’ll hit them between April and September, as it’s currently 15 degrees Celsius (27F) colder than it will be then, but I measured my sand wedge at 79 yards, my gap wedge at 90 yards, and my 3 iron at 185 yards. Due to the saturated ground, those are about the carry distances too as the ball simply isn’t running. The 3 iron (I don’t know whether to call it a 3-iron, Fli-Hi or driving iron, it’s not a conventional 3 iron as it has a much thicker sole, but I think I’ll stick with that name for the time being) goes high and straight, which is a big change from my old 3 iron which didn’t go very high, and as a consequence I often hooked it.

The wedges have been a new lease of life for me. I now have a gap wedge for the first time, which fills a big gap (excuse the pun), as previously I didn’t have a club for shots between 70 and 110 yards. This may sound a bit straightforward, but the new wedges actually go where I’m aiming and the distance I’m trying to hit it. Maybe this is because Titleist Vokeys are some kind of super wedge, or more likely my old wedges were holding me back, due to them being 11 years old, not fitted correctly for me, with virtually no grooves left, and completely worn grips. I’ve never been in the position of having the right clubs for me in my bag, 4 months ago the entire contents of my golf bag cost £200, next week the contents will have cost £885. Money isn’t everything, but you get what you pay for, and having the right equipment will take shots off of anyone’s game.

With this in mind, and remembering that it’s been my putting letting me down over the last year, I went and chatted to the pro for 15 minutes about putting. Having done a few checks, it’s become blindingly obvious that my putter is more of a hindrance than a help. It is 36 inches long, whereas I should be fitted for a 33.5 inch putter, and the lie angle is completely wrong, meaning I often have the toe of the putter in the air when I hit the ball. The weights within the putter are not set correctly either, and although it was cutting edge when it was made, that was over 20 years ago, and time and technology has moved on considerably since then. So it looks like I could be shelling out £100 for a new putter as well. I’m not one of these people who has a bad round and decides to change their equipment, in fact I don’t get it when people go through 6 putters and 8 wedges in the course of a year. Once I get the right gear, fitted for my game, I’ll stick to it; the problem at the moment is that I have totally the wrong equipment to start with. It will be hard to say goodbye to my original Ping Zing, as it’s the only putter I’ve used for the last 14 years, but it is time to move on.

When I’ll get to use this new equipment is another story, looking at the current weather forecast it certainly won’t be within the next 5 days.................

A Cold Start To 2010

Went out this afternoon and hit my first golf balls of the year.
It was an inauspicious start, with my first tee shot being a good strike before taking a sharp bounce left and going in a stream. Things picked up after a few holes and I got warmed up and finished with 5 consecutive pars. Overall I was surprised with how well I hit my irons.
However, the scoring was irrelevant today, as the course was virtually unplayable.
This became apparent when I hit a beautiful 8 iron on the 3rd hole, which pitched pin high and 4 foot left of the hole. It then bounced 40 foot into the air off of the frozen green, and its 2nd bounce was 20 yards past the hole off the back of the green.
So I cut my game short, and retreated to the practice nets to hit 70 balls, at least I didn’t have to worry about where they were going to end up.
Below is a picture of a bunker on the 5th hole, it’s full of ice and is a good representation of what the course was like.

It’s made me think that for the next few months I need to get scoring out of my head, and concentrate on just hitting the ball well. The short game is virtually impossible to practice on frozen ground, so I’m going to concentrate on my irons in the practice nets until the ground thaws. Only then can I work on the chipping and putting, instead of trying to practice chips that will only come in handy in the Siberian Open.