Progress, Closure and USGA Scratch

UK Handicap; 1.9, USGA Handicap; 0.8

I thought it was about time for a bit of closure on this blog, seeing as my last post back in June was a negative, depressing tale of woe.

The last 5 months have been an overall success, and whilst I did not make it down to scratch on the UK handicapping system, I did get down to a low of 1.6. Although not the original target, on 19th August 2011 I made it to becoming a scratch golfer based on the US system. I managed to maintain this over the following 3 months, reaching a low of 0.0, and it has recently crept up to 0.8 as a consequence of winter golf being a bit more tricky to score in.

In the three weeks following my last post, I played in 5 qualifying competitions at my home course and got cut in all 5 of them, moving me quickly from 3.7 to 2.5.

The target of a playing handicap of 2 eluded me for a couple of weeks, but eventually I made it to 2.4 with a round at my second course of Monifieth in advance of playing in the Montrose 5 Day and Nairn Dunbar 5 Day opens.

Montrose was a good week, I made it to the last 8 out of 195 players, before losing in extra holes in the quarter final. I played well throughout the week but the strain of solid competitive golf every day, moving to 2 rounds a day later in the tournament, took its toll.

I then went up to Nairn Dunbar the following week and, after a nightmare 1st qualifying round where anything that could go wrong did go wrong, managed to put in a good second round to qualify in 25th place. In my first round match I played a home player, playing off a handicap of 4. I played to my handicap but he was 4 shots better than his handicap, resulting in a 2&1 loss. It was just one of those things, playing Nairn Dunbar was a pleasure in itself as it is such a fantastic course.

A couple of weeks later, back at my home course, I made a real breakthrough.
Sitting at 2.1, I was round in 3 under par 68 (net 66), getting me down to 1.6. This round was also an achievement as it was the first time I have ever gone round 18 holes on a full length course without dropping a shot. The scorecard of 15 pars and 3 birdies is now framed in my house, as it has long been a goal of mine to have a blemish free scorecard.
I milled around for the next 3 weeks before going back up to Carnoustie to play in the Craw’s Nest Tassie.

I played the Championship course on the Monday, going round in 72. Yes, that’s right, 72 shots round Carnoustie Championship course. Later in the same month, world number 5 Dustin Johnson and Open Champion Darren Clarke would take more shots to go round the same course. I played really well, and finished with a delightful 4 pars on the toughest finish in golf.
The second round was on the shorter Burnside course on Tuesday, and the weather was just horrific, especially on the second nine holes. The wind was incredibly strong, which resulted in me putting from 70 yards short of the green as it was the only way I could get the ball to stop in a reasonable amount of time. I was round in 75, which was pretty good considering the conditions, and when the overall scores were added up, I qualified in 4th place out of 338 players.

My first knockout match on the Championship course on Wednesday was played in quite a strong wind, and I had the biggest win of the day, 6&5. I was round in 75, which although 3 shots more than my round on the Monday, was one of the best rounds I have ever put together. I was striping the ball as well as I have ever done at this point.

My second round match was played in beautiful conditions, and was virtually over by the turn, I was 2 under par after 6 holes which put me 4 up, and I coasted around from there, eventually winning 4&3.

In the last 16, played in a drizzle and breeze (you may be getting the whole concept of the weather changing every day on the east coast of Scotland), I just didn’t turn up. I was struggling all the way round, and made 3 or 4 cardinal errors from no danger at all, and went down 3&2. I was really disappointed with this, as I know I am capable of much better and the person who beat me, who eventually won the tournament, was playing off a handicap of 4 compared with my 2.

Having said that, if at the start of July I had been told that at the end of the Carnoustie tournament I would be playing off 1.7, would get to the last 8 at Montrose and the last 16 at Carnoustie, I would have said thanks very much.

Since Carnoustie I have lost a little momentum, going up 0.1 on 5 occasions, coming down 0.1 on 3 occasions, and making buffer zone on 5 occasions, however maintaining a handicap of 2 is pleasing in itself as it proves to me that it was not a temporary peak in form, I am a solid 2-handicapper who, now I have maintained it, can focus on getting to the next stage.
This year I played in 72 qualifying competitions, and went up in 36 of them, made buffer zone in 15, and was cut in 21 of them. This compares with being cut on 12 occasions in 2010.
The graph below shows my handicap adjustments in 2011, compared with 2010 in the shaded areas.

Split out by category (up, buffer zone, and down) it looks like this;

My average score at my home course this year has been a record low since I took the game up again in 2007, and has continued my decrease every year (2007; 78.63, 2008; 77.95, 2009; 76.54, 2010; 76.26, 2011; 75.83).

I don’t think it is any coincidence that my golf has significantly improved since I removed the pressure of updating this blog every week. It’s a paradox; I want to share what I am doing, but by sharing it I am making success less likely.
The graph below demonstrates just how my form has turned since the last update;

To that end I am going to close this blog now, and give it one more year to get down to the ultimate goal of 0.4 or lower. As much as I love playing in the week long competitions in Scotland, I am going to cut back on them next year as a) I’m struggling to have enough holidays to play in them and b) the greens at my home course are starting to get better after 5 years of being appalling, so I am going to focus on my home course as this gives me the best opportunity to get cut.

So there we have it, getting down to scratch in the UK handicapping system is a monumentally difficult achievement. Whilst there are still people who think it is fairly easy (see any number of ridiculous ‘novice to scratch’, ’18 to 5’, ’10 to scratch’ blogs where people are simply deluded in what they think is achievable), I hope most people have seen by the progress of this blog just how difficult it is. I was starting at a handicap of 3, and am happy with progress in “just” getting down to 1.9. Hopefully next year I can take it to the next step and reach the ultimate goal.

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.

If you wish to follow me on twitter I can be found at here.

The Power Of The Web

UK Handicap; 3.3 USGA Handicap; 1.7

The last week has seen me start to enter some of my competitions for next year. It's interesting to see how golf clubs market themselves differently, and the varying degrees of importance they place to their web presence.

Some club websites I visit haven't yet posted the dates of their tournaments for 2011, some have the dates up but no entry forms, and the two that I have managed to enter so far have given a very different user experience.

I posted last year about the race to get an entry in the Craw's Nest Tassie, a 6 day event played at Carnoustie in September. I made it in last year, and was primed for the entry form going live at 7pm last Monday.

As expected, the website started slowing down nearer 7pm as traffic to the site increased, but come 7pm itself the site was barely responding to requests, and I had a nervous 5 minute wait for the entry form to even appear. Wait that long last year and you were on the reserve list.

When the form appeared, I quickly put all my details in and pressed submit. Like before, the site was barely responding and I had the dilemma; is it my connection, my processer or the Carnoustie website. I run my laptops off fast processers and 20Mb broadband, so I suspected it was the Carnoustie site. Fortunately, 4 minutes later, and before I even received a message on my screen, an email popped through to my Blackberry informing me I had been successful and was in the competition. The confirmation screen appeared a few minutes later and I was able to go through and pay my entry fee.

Or so I thought. When I was diverted through to the payment site, it was hooked up to a test server, instead of a live server that could accept real money. It was 22 hours before an email came out asking people who did submit a payment to resubmit on the now correctly hooked-up payment server.
Also, every time I navigated to the Carnoustie website, even if I didn't type anything, I got another copy of the confirmation email telling me I was in the tournament. I ended up with 9 of these emails by the end of the week.
The bottom line is that I got into the tournament, so all's well that ends well. I feel bad criticising Carnoustie about this, because they are trying to make things easier, and I'd give them 10/10 for trying, but in terms of execution, the process was a shambles. I've spoken to people who had to wait a lot longer than I did for the entry form to appear, and it appears that the system was not tested properly before it went live.

The following night I had a look at the Monifieth Links website, as I will be playing in their 18 hole open at the start of August. They have recently gone live with a booking system, it is operated by BRS Golf, who provide this service for over 500 clubs in the UK and Ireland.

I have to say I was absolutely astounded with how good the system is.
Members and visitors alike can view and book available tee times months in advance, and Open competitions can also be booked and paid for online. I entered the Open competition for 2 people, chose my tee time, and paid for it in the space of 5 minutes. No forms to fill in, nothing to send, no waiting about to see if I got in and what my tee time is.

This is a really progressive piece of software, and is obviously used by clubs who are aware of the importance of moving with the times and giving power to the people to see and book what they want. The more transparent clubs are with their availability and ease of booking tee times, the more tee times will inevitably be booked. Tee times aren't a secret, I guess that some clubs feel that they are losing control if everything is visible on the internet. The reality is that clubs don't lose any control, they just pass the functional processing on to the end user instead of requiring staff to do it all for them.

As for the golf itself, another quiet week, hitting 100 balls on Sunday was all that happened, this weekend sees a match on Saturday, and again, due to being dark by 4.30pm every night, that will be it for the week.

2010 Review of My Majors

At the start of the season, I set out my targets for the seven major competitions I was scheduled to play in. The diary changed a couple of times, and I ended up playing in 9 competitions that I would call major.

Each competition had it’s own target, but I said at the start of the season that “the overall target for 2010 is to achieve 2 or more (of the individual targets), or 1 or more if the 1 is the Club Championship”.

So how did I do then?

Worman Sword; Target – Top 12, Actual – No Return

This was a complete disaster, from a cash machine swallowing my bank card and refusing to give it back on my way to the course, to being hit by an errant drive in my first round, to the freezing cold despite being in May, and ultimately not returning a score in my 2^nd round

Forfar 36 Hole Open; Target – Top 6, Actual – Cancelled due to flooding and replaced with…

Strathmore 18 Hole Open; Target – Top 6, Actual – Tied 2^nd

I played really well in this, hitting 14 greens in regulation. I didn’t win anything on countback, but tied 2^nd was better than I could have hoped for when I turned up at the course.

Middlesex County; Target – Top 16, Actual – 30^th

Mediocrity was order of the day here. Two rounds of 5 over par saw me comfortably miss the cut, but improve on the prior year performance.

Club Championship; Target – 1^st, Actual – 2^nd

Another one where I improved on last year, but still fell short of the goal. Having said that, I couldn’t have got much closer, being tied after 36 holes and then after another 4 play-off holes, only to lose at the 5^th sudden death hole. The four years I have played in this I have finished 12^th, 7^th, 3^rd and 2^nd, so if I can maintain the year on year improvement then there is only one place to finish next year.

Aboyne Open; Target – Top 8, Actual – No Return

After 11 holes I was looking at easily hitting target here, only to come across an insanely difficult last 7 holes. The rough was unlike anything I’ve seen in years, I couldn’t keep the ball straight enough off the tee to avoid it all

Royal Montrose Open; Target – Top 10, Actual – 12^th

Close but no cigar here, but it felt like an achievement finishing 12^th. The wind was gale force, and the time I played got the worst of it, standing up straight was a challenge in itself.

Montrose Golf Week; Target – Last 16, Actual – Last 16

Qualifying was a bit of a struggle, I had a pull a few escapes out of the bag in the closing holes, but my last 32 match went as well as I could have hoped. I just didn’t perform in the last 16 match, but ultimately it was a successful week

Monifieth Open; Target – Top 6, Actual – 12^th

Poor start, moderate middle, good finish. Not quite close enough to trouble to engraver, but it was an acceptable performance

Craw’s Nest tassie; Target – Last 64, Actual – 81^st

Ultimately this will go down as a failure, but like the Royal Montrose Open, I didn’t get the best deal in regards to the weather and the draw. I have never played in conditions like those that I encountered in the second qualifying round, and the week had a great finish when I knocked it round Carnoustie Championship in 74 shots off the back tees, getting my handicap cut and picking up some cash too.

So, in categorising the 9 competitions, they come out as follows;

2 x Achieved

2 x Nearly Achieved

2 x Improved on Prior Year but Not Achieved

3 x Not Achieved

My goal was to achieve 2, and I achieved 2, so going by the literal interpretation of my targets 2010 was a success. The fact that I didn’t achieve target in any of the three most important (Club Championship, County Championship, and Craw’s Nest Tassie) takes the shine off it, and also my handicap being exactly as it was at the start of the season is a bit of a downer, but a positive way of looking at it is that I have a lot next season that I can improve on.

Craw's Nest Tassie Consolations

UK Handicap; 2.9 USGA Handicap; 1.8

After the disappointment of not qualifying for the matchplay stage, it was back to normal and trying to play for my handicap instead.
On Wednesday on the Burnside I played awful until I had a good old-fashioned scotch pie inside me which seemed to turn my game around, and I shot 74 to make buffer zone and ensure that my handicap didn't go up.
On Thursday, after a mix-up with the starting times, I eventually played the Championship course, off the back tees, at about 1pm, and played one of the best rounds of my life. A bogey on 2 was follwed by birdies on 3 and 4, and a bogey on 8 meant that I was out in level par. A silly bogey on 10 took me 1 over, but I got it back on 14. Standing on the 17th tee at level par I couldn't believe my luck, but unfortunately I finished bogey bogey, missing a 2 foot putt on the last for a 73.
74 is still my best score on that course by 11 shots, and will probably be my best score for the rest of my living days. With the SSS being 75, a 74 is a rare animal, and effectively means that I have beaten Carnoustie for once, something Sergio Garcia could only dream of in 1999 when he scored 81 and 89.
Having had a disappointing qualifying, it was pleasing to end the week with a lower handicap than when I started, and also to have won some money through my efforts on Thursday. Now I have the momentum it is all about getting cut to 2 - there is still hope left for this season.

The photo is from the 16th tee on the Championship course 'the hardest par 3 in golf' according to Tom Watson, with a rainbow starting from the end of the path and moving up over the hotel at the 18th.

Craw's Nest Tassie Update

The rain that plagued my round this morning passed a lot quicker than expected, so the lower handicapped players who teed off this afternoon (low handicaps nearly all teed off between 6.30-8.30am and 12.30-2.30pm today) had some more favourable conditions after their first few holes. As a result the scoring was much better this afternoon, with many people breaking 80 on the Burnside course, and now the scores are in and the relevant numbers have been crunched, I know that I didn't qualify for either knockout competition.

In the Tassie I was 81st out of 337, with only the top 64 qualifying for the matchplay stages.
In the Maulesbank (handicap competion) I was 79th, with the top 64 qualifying.

So instead of playing matchplay, I'll now have opportunities to play for my handicap in consolation events over the next 2 days, playing the Burnside on Wednesday and the Championship on Thursday. Having set my sights on qualifying for a matchplay run I'm struggling to motivate myself for them at this precise moment, but I'm sure by tomorrow morning I'll be back in the zone of trying to get my handicap reduced a little bit further.

One disappointment to get over is that a par on my last hole today would have got me into the Tassie, and a bogey would have got me into the Maulesbank. My out of bounds and eventual triple bogey 7 gets me into nothing. Having said that, it's too easy to just blame the 36th of 36 holes, there were a good 9 shots I could have taken off my score yesterday (4 x 3-putts, 4 x fairway bunkers, and 1 x double attempt out of a greenside bunker), and a good 4 or 5 today. Hopefully tomorrow will bring more success, and a bit less rain and wind.

Craw's Nest Tassie Round 2

I reckon I have played in the region of 1,600 rounds of golf in my life, but I have never played one in conditions like those that I encountered this morning.

The 5.45am alarm call wasn’t great to start with, but by the time I got onto the first tee I had been awakened by the wind. It has got progressively stronger all week, from about 20mph on Sunday, about 28mph yesterday, and today it was around 35mph, gusting up to about 45mph. The round stayed dry until we played the ninth, where the anticipated rain started. The remaining 9 holes were the worst conditions I have ever played golf in. Wind I can handle. Rain I can handle. Rain and wind together are just a complete nightmare. Within 2 holes, even with waterproofs on, I was completely soaked, and the grips on my clubs were completely wet. Trying to dry them with a towel had absolutely no effect as they were wet again within a matter of seconds. By the time I played the last it was just a case of putting out and getting off the course, I was as wet as I could possibly have been, and with the combination of rain and wind, on the east coast of Scotland that also means cold, so was absolutely freezing too just to round things off.

As for the golf, it didn’t seem like a game of golf today. There were very few standard golf shots played. Downwind everything was a little chip, landing it miles short of the green and letting it run and run and run. Into the wind it was just a battle.

Some examples of the extremes; downwind on the 2nd hole I drove the ball 345 yards, and that was with it hitting into an upslope on its first bounce. But on the 14th, playing 168 yards today, I hit a 3 wood that finished just short of the flag. The par 4 17th was a driver, 3 iron and a 5 iron for me to reach the front edge of the green, and the 18th was the piece de resistance. Having hit a ball out of bounds, I left myself 120 yards to the flag with the drive of my second ball. I hit a punched 5 iron, off the back foot and hit very well, and it came up about 40 yards short. That’s a full punched 5 iron a grand total of 80 yards. I swear it was actually coming backwards before it came down.

I scored 84 in the end, and that was down to putting like a demon, I holed several 10-20 foot putts today. A total of 169 over the 2 rounds may not sound very good, but it may well qualify for the last 64. There were dozens of people walking off the course as we finished, and anyone teeing off after 9am would be doing very well to shoot less than 90 on the Burnside course, and 100 on the Championship course. We estimated the Burnside had an effective par of 79 today.

There was a rumour that today’s round was going to be cancelled and played tomorrow, with the matchplay being top 32 instead of top 64, but nothing has been confirmed, and if the greens aren’t flooding (which they won’t) and the ball is not moving of it’s own accord on the greens (depends what the wind does), then I don’t see how it can be cancelled when several groups have managed to successfully complete their round. It is still raining now and will remain raining for the rest of the day. So at the moment I don’t know where I stand, but one way or another hopefully I’ll be playing golf tomorrow, when the wind is forecast to drop down to about 20mph again, and it should remain dry.

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.

Craw's Nest Tassie Preview

The Intro

The last of my major competitions of 2010 is the Craw’s Nest Tassie at Carnoustie from September 6^th – 11^th.

The Background

I grew up near to Carnoustie and saw the press coverage of the Tassie every year, thinking it would be great to play in it one year. In 2009 I had a conversation about the tournament with someone from another club, which got me thinking that there was no reason for me not to try and enter it this year.

The Location

Carnoustie doesn’t need much of an introduction, having hosted the Open Championship several times, most recently in 1999 and 2007. Situated on the east coast of Scotland about 10 miles northeast of Dundee, it is a traditional Scottish town with its golf courses within walking distance of the town centre. The town itself is these days very much a commuter town for Dundee, with over 40% of the working age residents working in Dundee. Previously it was heavily involved in the textile industry, with tourism being the secondary source of income for the town.

The location hasn’t helped the tournament in recent years, with severe flooding causing chaos last year. The Championship course was reduced to 16 holes as 2 holes were flooded, and the Burnside course was abandoned and replaced with the shorter Buddon course for the other qualifying round. Touch wood, but the weather forecast is much better for this year, with little rain forecast and light winds.

The Course

The first two days of the competition are qualifying, with one round each on the Championship and Burnside courses. The Championship round will be played from the green tees, making it 6,400 yards, par 70, SSS 73. What makes Carnoustie so difficult is the positioning of the bunkers, especially the fairway bunkers. They are everywhere, and are positioned so well that finding a safe spot off the tee is one of the greatest challenges. Another difficulty is the size of the greens, some of them are absolutely huge, finding the green isn’t good enough, you need to be close enough to be able to get down in two shots. Any round on the Championship course without a 3-putt is a very good round indeed. The Burnside course is just over 6,000 yards, par 68, SSS 70. Although seen as a secondary course to the Championship course, it has some incredibly difficult par 4s, with lengths of 450, 460, 432 and 473 yards. The greens are much smaller than on the Championship course, and with there being five par 3s, good iron play is an absolute must.

The Competition

The Tassie has been going since 1927, and is now a bit of an institution in the amateur golfing calendar, not least for the quest to get into it. Unlike most other competitions of this standing, it is the first 350 applicants that get into the tournament, not the 350 with the lowest handicaps. Over the last two years the average handicap of competitors has been 7.7. This year the 350^th and last entry was submitted 4m 57sec after the website went live. After the two qualifying rounds, the top 64 scratch go into matchplay from Wednesday – Saturday over the Championship course. The top 64 handicap scores who don’t qualify for the Tassie will play in a handicap competition called the Maulesbank Trophy over the Burnside course. Players who don’t qualify for either matchplay competition get to play consolation competitions on the Wednesday and Thursday, meaning that every player is guaranteed 4 competition rounds, with at least 2 over the Championship course (except for the 32 players who get past the first round of the Maulesbank Trophy). There is also a practice round available on the Sunday before, I missed the boat for the Championship course spaces, but am perfectly happy to play a practice round over the Burnside course, as I haven’t played it for quite a few years whereas I played the Championship course last year. The finalists of the Tassie will get 7 or 8 rounds over the Championship course, and 1 or 2 rounds over the Burnside course, all for the £185 entry fee.

The prize fund is around £3,800 in total, which is around 6% of the entry fees, a lot lower than most competitions. However, considering that Carnoustie Links are losing visitor revenue for a whole week, and competitors are getting at least five rounds at Carnoustie, with at least two on the Championship course, for an equivalent green fee of £175, it still represents excellent value.

The Target

As detailed at the start of the year, my target is to get to the last 32 of the Tasssie matchplay. Looking at the previous 2 years results, there are defined lines of who is likely to qualify and who isn’t. In each year the 64^th lowest handicap has had a handicap of 4. Almost all players with a handicap of 1 or less got through qualifying, dropping to 79% of 2 handicappers, 63% of 3 handicappers, then a dramatic drop to 32% of 4 handicappers, 19% of 5 handicappers, and very few thereafter.

Although based on historic data, this is all theory, it’s up to me to perform during qualifying. Whether my handicap is 3.4 or 3.5 won’t make a 31% difference whether I qualify for matchplay or not. In terms of what I will need to shoot in order to qualify, it’s difficult to tell because of the change of plan last year, and the fact that this year the Championship round will be entirely played from the green tees. The weather conditions can make a dramatic difference as well, but based of all the available information at the moment, I will make an educated guess that the 64^th and last Tassie matchplay spot will go to someone with a qualifying score of 153.

I’ll be updating the blog after each round, and the scores will be published on the Carnoustie Links website.

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.

From Monifieth to Home

UK Handicap; 3.6 USGA Handicap; 2.2

After the highs and lows of Montrose, it was time to play Monifieth Medal on Saturday and Sunday, the first time being a warm up for the 18 Hole Open the following day.
Monifieth is very similar to Montrose; east coast of Scotland, lots of gorse, 3 clubs sharing 2 links courses, par 36 out, par 35 back, same SSS, almost identical USGA Course and Slope Ratings (134 and 135, so they are tricky courses).

On Saturday I putted absolutely terribly, and lost a ball on the 9th costing 2 shots, yet somehow still managed to go round in 4 over par 75. Having played the course literally hundreds of times, it’s interesting to come back once a year and see the differences that maybe wouldn’t be noticed if I played the course every week. Because it is links golf, and dune based, the ground can move over a period of time, and slopes that were in one place 10 years have either disappeared or moved somewhere else.

On Sunday I never really got into 2nd gear, and we weren’t helped by the most torrential rain shower I have seen in a long time on the 4th and 5th holes. It only lasted for about 10 minutes, but it reduced visibility to about 250 yards, not because of fog or mist, just due to the density of the rain.

I made several bogeys in the first 6 and found myself 4 over par on the 7th tee. I rattled off 4 pars before hitting into 2 bunkers on 11 and walking off with a double bogey. Managed to make another run of 4 pars before finishing birdie, bogey, birdie for a 76 nett 72.
I don’t know my exact placing but it was in the region of 12th place, which is alright out of over 100 competitors, but not quite as good as my 5th place from last year. The good news is that I played to my handicap, so after a week of narrowing missing buffer zone and going up 0.1 each time, I was able to stop the rot.

This is one area where the UK system doesn’t work particularly well. I have spent most of the last month playing difficult courses, that I don’t know very well, that are set up for Championship play. It is not surprising that my handicap has gone up. The CSS at these competitions occasionally moves up 1 from the SSS, but even if it does, 1 shot is not an adequate compensation for the increased difficulty of playing these courses, compared with either a home player or an easier setup. In Scotland, if there are more than 20 home players and 20 visitors, clubs have to calculate two different CSSs, one for home players and one for visitors. Whilst this is one small step in the right direction, it has not been rolled out to the rest of the UK, probably because it is an admission that the UK system of handicapping is not transferrable from one club to another due to the lack of a slope system.

Playing in these Opens and have my handicap increase also raises another question; If I want to become a scratch golfer, why don’t I pick and choose my competitions to give me the best opportunity of getting cut? I suppose I could do that, but I wouldn’t be very comfortable with it; I’m a firm believer that a handicap should be representative of what actually happens, not some cherry picked competitions. I’ll play in conditions that mean I have virtually no chance of getting cut, but if that makes my handicap realistic then so be it. I’ll also continue to play at other courses, because it’s by gaining these experiences of playing against different, and often better, players, which will ultimately make me a better player if I learn from them, even if the short term outcome is that my handicap goes up.

What I’d like to see on a player’s handicap record is a number in brackets which contains the number of scores submitted away from the player’s home course for the last 12 months. It wouldn’t alter the handicap itself, but it would give some indicator to whether the player is testing his handicap in a wider environment, and whether it travels well, or if his handicap is reflective of his ability only on his home course. Too many people in the UK have a handicap that may reflect their ability to knock it around their home course, but put them somewhere else and their handicap should instantly double.

I’m on the train back to London now, where I’ll be for the next 4 weeks. As good as the last month has been, with trips to the Highlands, working at the Open Championship, Murrayshall, Montrose and Monifieth Opens, it will be good to settle down in the one place for a few weeks and try and regroup, before making my last golfing trip of the year back to Scotland in September, for the Craw’s Nest Tassie at Carnoustie.

Montrose Matchplay Round 2 (Last 16)

Today I didn’t really do myself justice in my last 16 match at Montrose. I eventually lost 6&5, but I made it very easy for my opponent. 7 bogeys, 5 pars and 1 birdie is not going to get anywhere against a +2 handicapper, who reached final qualifying for the Open Championship this year, and is a past runner up of the Montrose 5 Day Open. Of the 7 bogeys, 6 were avoidable, I just couldn’t do much right from the very start. Having halved the first, I then hit two poor 5 irons go to 2 down quickly. On the 6th, I was in the middle of the fairway whilst my opponent was in a fairway bunker, and I ended up losing the hole to a par 5. Another missed green, this time from 124 yards, saw me 4 down after 7. So 5 down at the turn, and although I managed a brief ray of sunshine with a birdie at the 10th, 3-putts at 11 and 13 saw the end of the match.

Although disappointed with my performance today, it is by no means the largest defeat handed out this week (there was a 9&7 today), and I’m cheered up by several facts; I would have had to be under par just to be level after 13 holes; I reached my target for the week; and I did better than 179 of the other competitors.

A break from golf is required tomorrow, before I get back into the swing of things with an early morning game at Monifieth on Saturday in preparation for their 18 Hole Open on Sunday.

Montrose Matchplay Round 1 (Last 32)

The 32 successful souls who negotiated the 36 hole qualifying for the Montrose 5 Day Open made their first forays into the matchplay part of the competition today, including myself who, after a couple of withdrawals, ended up qualifying in 28th position.

I was up against the 5th best qualifier, one of 5 youth players over from Australia on a sponsored tour, all five of whom finished in the top 32. My opponent knocked together rounds of 74 and 70 in the qualifying so I knew what I was up against before we started.

A horrible thin / shank / push / I don’t know what with an 8 iron on the first was not the best nerve settler, but I got back level on the 2nd. I then went one down again on the third, but once again got it back on the par 5 6th, narrowly missing my eagle putt but settling for a birdie to square the game up.

The next 4 were halved, although I had good birdie chances at 8 and 10 that I couldn’t convert, but eventually on 11 I got my nose in front when my opponent had a visit to the gorse. 12 and 13 saw two halves; a good escape for par, followed by another short birdie miss, and on 14 I seized the moment, when another visit to the gorse for my opponent allowed me to play for a safe bogey and move 2 up.

15 is a long par 5, and with the wind turning, was totally out of range in 2 for me today. So I played a drive left to avoid the fairway bunkers, and a 6 iron lay up to leave me 103 yards to the hole. My opponent hit 2 big shots to lie about 5 yards from the green, so instead of playing for the heart of the green I decided I needed to take the flag on, despite it being only a few yards over a bunker. Fortunately, I caught it sweet as a nut and it landed, stopped dead, and left me with a 4 footer for birdie. My opponent got up and down for birdie as expected, and I held my nerve to sink my putt and stay 2 up with 3 to play.

The 16th saw my opponent hit a pull into the thick rough left, and when his recovery went towards the gorse, that was the end of the game and I had made it through to the last 16 with a 3&2 victory.

I am absolutely over the moon with this win, I’m as pleased as I have been with any round this year. It also means that, barring the Strathmore Open where I was joint 2nd, this is the first of my 7 Majors this year where I have hit the target I set myself at the start of the year. Today I had a game plan, stuck to it, and whilst I didn’t play spectacularly (I was 3 over par), I played good matchplay golf, hitting the right shots at the right time.

So I have a last 16 match tomorrow morning and who knows, maybe even a quarter final match in the afternoon, but let’s just take it one round at a time for the moment.

Montrose Round 2

Another interesting round today, resulting in a 79 to give me a 36 hole total of 157. Starting with a double bogey, having driven into a fairway bunker I thought was out of range, I then had 9 pars in a row, including yet another case of hitting a par 5 in two before 3 putting. I bogied 11, which was fair enough as it was out of range for me, but then proceeded to lose the plot going bogey, double bogey, bogey, bogey. I knew I probably needed 3 pars to finish in order to qualify, so I ended up getting 3 of the scrambliest pars in the last 450 years of golf across Montrose links. The end result is that I have just qualified, albeit in 30th position, and now face one of the top qualifiers in the first round of matchplay tomorrow, who qualified a full 15 shots better than me.
All I can do is give it my best shot, I can break par on that course so just have to hope for a bit of rain and wind and it's anyone's game.

Murrayshall & Montrose Round 1

UK Handicap; 3.5 USGA Handicap; 2.4

Both the Murrayshall Open on Sunday, and the first qualifying round of the Montrose 5 Day Open on Monday, were similar rounds, in that they could have been something special but ended up being mediocre.

Murrayshall was in very good condition, the greens by all accounts were significantly better than a year ago. The layout of the course is still baffling, several holes have massive, mature trees, right in the middle of the fairway. They are the only thing that helps keep the course protected. The yardages on most holes are way out as well, which is something I’ve not really come across much. The course is not the 6,489 it says on the card, it is actually 6,201, and that is based on the values I have measured in their own course planner. Measuring from the very back of the tee to the very back of the green, and in some cases still adding a few yards on to the total, is not an accurate way of measuring the course. The point should be from a couple of yards forward from the back of the tee, to the absolute middle of the green. If I was Murrayshall, I would remeasure the course, maybe move a couple of tees forward a bit, and make it a difficult par 71 instead of a joke par 73.

As for the golf itself, I horseshoed for birdie on the 1st, 90 degree lipped out on the 2nd for birdie, and 3 putted from 15 feet for par on the 3rd. So instead of being anywhere up to 4 under par after 3 holes, I was level. A few disasters later and I was out in 4 over par. I played a little bit better on the back 9, fittingly I finished with another lip out for birdie on 18th (my 5th of the day), overall I could only scrape to a 6 over par 79. This was a bit disappointing considering I had hit the ball well, but the curse of the daft shot loomed large again.

Monday was the start of the Montrose 5 Day Open, which has a field of about 190 players and involves 36 holes of strokeplay qualifying, before the top 32 go into scratch matchplay over the Wednesday – Friday. There are also handicap matchplay sections, but I’m really aiming for the scratch tournament.

I was standing on the 9th tee at level par, which on face value seems alright, but is tempered by the fact that in the first 8 holes I had missed three putts of 4ft or less. I was hitting everything beautifully, I hadn’t missed a green in those first 8 holes and had stuck several approach shots very close, I just could not sink the putts. This was purely my fault, the greens, and indeed the whole course, are in fantastic condition, and my putting stroke seems to be alright, I’m just having difficulty reading the greens. I’m putting too much break on some putts, and not enough on others.

With the prevailing wind at Montrose, you need to have a few shots to spare standing on the 9th tee, as it gets monumentally more difficult from then on, particularly 9-11 and 16-17. I didn’t help myself by having a shank on 9, and taking 2 shots to get out of a fairway bunker on 11, but I steadied the ship from then on and, apart from missing yet another short birdie putt on 14, played fairly solid stuff. The end result was a 7 over par 78, which if repeated this afternoon should be enough to get me into the scratch matchplay section.

With around 155 of the 190 players having completed their round I was sitting in tied 22nd position, I would expect my position at the end of round 1 to be roughly tied 26th. Like Murrayshall, I’m able to count up the chucked-shots-away-ometer and it comes to 6 for Monday – 4 putts within 4ft, a shank, and a shot that didn’t get out of a bunker. These 6 are the difference between yo-yoing between 3 and 4 for the rest of my days, and actually making progress with my handicap.

I’ll give it another go this afternoon, and hopefully I’ll be able to report my success at getting into knockout matchplay from Wednesday.

Club Championship Post Mortem

Whatever I write now, or in the future, will not change the outcome – I lost the Club Championship on the fifth playoff hole. But my inability to sleep tells me I should get the post-mortem out of the way sooner rather than later, so that I can forget about it quicker and get on with things.

As mentioned in a previous mobile post, my first round score was 79, including a spectacular mini-collapse over 5 holes in the back nine where I went from 1 under par to 7 over par. As it happens, my playing partner and eventual winner, let’s call him R for the sake of repetition, did exactly the same thing and played the same 5 holes in 8 over par to go from 1 under to 7 over.

I made a conscious decision between rounds to get away from the golf environment (I three putted 4 of the last 5 greens), so instead of having a break in the clubhouse, went up the road to the local high street and got my lunch there. I had to do it, as I needed to come back fresh, knowing that somehow I was only three shots off the lead.

It didn’t have an immediate effect in the afternoon round as I three putted the first green in the afternoon for bogey, meaning that I had three putted 5 out of 6 greens. In mitigating circumstances, and as previously detailed, some of the flag positions were absolutely insane, not in a negative way, but just incredibly difficult. Most players were struggling with them, but I think that’s exactly how it should be, the course is meant to be set up difficult for a Club Championship, and it certainly was. All of the tees were as far back as they could possibly go, and the course was the best and most challenging condition I have seen it in the 3 ½ years I have been playing it.

After the initial blip I steadied things and was level par after 9, only to take a treble bogey 7 on the tenth hole, from the middle of the fairway 140 yards from the green.

Once again I came back with a birdie straight away, and the lead changed hands between the three of us in the final group several times.

I was two shots behind after 34 holes of regulation, and stuck my approach shot to 1ft for a birdie on the 35^th hole, which coupled with R’s bogey meant we were level going down the last. A couple of regulation pars later and it was time for a playoff.

I looked at my score later and it was 3 over par 74, the best 18 hole score of the day, with that stupid treble bogey. I played the other 17 holes in level par. As things turn out, I also for the first time this season exactly hit both my targets for greens and putts – 14 greens in regulation and 32 putts.

The format for the playoff is 4 holes, and if the scores are still tied after that then it goes to sudden death. As it was, even if the playoff had been sudden death right from the start we still wouldn’t have been separated, as we halved all of the first 4 holes in regulation pars. We both had chances to win it, but the putts just didn’t want to drop. My best chance was a slight lip-out on the first playoff hole.

The fifth playoff hole was the first hole on the course again, and having hit my driver 3 times down the fairway already on that hole during the course of the day, I stuck with it. This time however it came out of the heel of the club and into a stream about 110 yards from the hole. There was about 1/6 of the ball above the surface of the water when I reached it, and having looked at the options for taking a penalty drop and seen that they were not good, I decided to play it out of the stream. Fortunately my golf shoes are still waterproof and the water level was just below the top of my shoes, and after a couple of prayers and an explosion of water, I had moved the ball 90 yards towards the hole into a greenside bunker, although still about 20 yards from the hole. R was safely on the green for 2 with an almost certain 4 on the cards, so I knew I needed to get up and down. I hit a good bunker shot, the distance was perfect but the clubhead was slightly closed and it went about 9 feet left of the hole. I was left with a putt on the same line, but shorter, than the putt I had on the first playoff hole. I hit it well, it looked in with a couple of feet to go, so much so that I started walking after it to pick it out of the hole, only for it to veer right at the end of it’s breath, and lip out exactly as it had done on the first playoff hole. Game over.

So that in a nutshell is how I lost it. I’ve played 4 of my 7 major competitions this year and I have not achieved one of my targets yet. R played well and deserved to win, he will win many more club championships as he has quite a big learning curve, I don’t have many more chances to win it so need to grab every opportunity I can, which I didn’t today.

I’ll finish with some pros and cons about today, maybe they’ll help me see things in an objective light;

Pros;

- My handicap was cut, probably to 3.5

- I won some money (I really couldn’t care less about this, you don’t play a Club Championship to try and win the cash prizes)

- I conducted myself in a dignified manner in adversity and defeat

- I went down fighting (this pleases me, I was 1cm away from getting the best par 4 of my life, and I was down and out after the 7 on the tenth hole, only to fight back again)

- 29 of 41 holes were par or better, including 6 birdies

Cons;

- I didn’t win

There are more pros than cons in there, unfortunately the con carries more weight than everything else combined. As has been said about 200 times now since I came off the course – there’s always next year. Say it enough times and I might start to believe it.

Playoff result....

I lost on the 5th extra hole, there's always next year! (As I've said to about 50 people in the last 10 minutes through a forced smile).
More details to follow, probably tomorrow.

In a playoff - Arggghh!

4 hole playoff with one of my partners from today. Shot 74 this afternoon, we tied on 153.

Club Championship Round 1

The absolute sublime and ridiculous in the first round. All 3 of us in the final group birdied the first hole, and on the fourth tee I was 1 under par and a clear last of the 3 - the first 3 holes consisted of 6 birdies and 3 pars.
I was 1 under par after 11, and then the wheels came off completely. A double bogey on 12 was followed by a par, but then I went bogey, double bogey, triple bogey, all of which were 3-putts, just to add salt to the wounds.
My playing partners also succumbed to the 3 nasty flag positions, we played the par 3 15th in 7 over par combined, having played the first 3 in 6 under par combined! Some of the flags were in unbelievable positions, but it's the same for everyone I suppose. I finished things off with a stupid 3 putt on the last for a 79. Ridiculously, I am only 3 off the lead in 4th place, but I'm going to have to play exponentially better than the 11 greens and 36 putts from this morning to have any chance.

Club Championship Preview

The Intro;

The fourth of my major competitions of 2010 is the Club Championship at the golf club which I am a member of.

This is a 36 hole strokeplay event played this Saturday.

The Background;

This will be my fourth year playing in the Club Championship. Last year it was experimented with playing over 2 days, 18 holes on Saturday followed by 18 on Sunday, however this year it has reverted back to 36 holes on the one day. In the three previous years I have been 13^th, 7^th, and 3^rd. My score has improved by 5 shots each year, from 161 in 2007 to 156 in 2008 and 151 in 2009.

The Course;

The course is one of the longest in Middlesex, at over 6,500 yards. There are 6 par 4s over 400 yards, and a par 5 which is one of the longest holes in Middlesex. Because this competition is open only to club members, knowledge of the course isn’t that big an advantage as all of the competitors know it well.

The Competition;

The maximum field is 60 players, although this year it looks as if only 40-45 players will be taking part. The groupings are done in reverse handicap order, so I will likely be out in the last  group.

The winning scores in the last 3 years have been 150, 148 and 150. Last year I shot 70 in the first round, only to collapse spectacularly in the 2^nd round to shoot 81 and lose by 1 shot. That was a disappointment that I can’t really adequately convey through this medium, I hadn’t done myself justice and I knew it.

The Target;

The only way the day can be considered a success is if I win, although that is a long shot currently. In 2009 there were 3 players playing considerably better than everyone else in the weeks leading up to the tournament, and those 3 people finished 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd. This year there are a couple of people scoring better than everyone else in competitions, and I am not one of them.

All I can do is try my best and see what happens. I have the ability, as do many other people in the competition, it’s a case of performing on the day.

Updates will appear here at about 2pm and 7pm on Saturday.