Early progress and good news

The comps at Priors Hall are now well underway and the weather of late has been really kind to us. Unfortunately the first two I entered were not great and added another 0.2 to my handicap. Onwards and upwards is what I stick by and my last two practice rounds have been great with plenty of good ball striking. The biggest set back in my quest at the moment, I've found, is my putting. After each round I use my Golfshot app to analyse my game and the results keep showing that I have far too many strokes on that dancefloor. I find that since my knowledge of my own swing has improved greatly, I can pretty much work out where I go wrong and spend time on the certain areas more on the practice ground. One of the biggest mistakes I seem to make is the old; have a peek to see the balls going to the hole, also I tend to focus on the putter head during the stroke and that tends to interrupt my tempo and give me lots of distance control issues. After a visit to the Golf state of mind website I found some pretty handy tips to overcome my issues, also I picked up some really good putting practice drills to help ingrain consistency, I can't wait to get to the green to try them out.

  Keeping in the positive vein, I recently received an email which I have been waiting for for sometime and that was confirmation of a guaranteed place on the William Hunt Trilby Tour and BINGO it arrived. I'm absolutely buzzing knowing now I have that place and got in at a great looking venue The Foxhills Hotel . The event will be played on the 5th July which gives me just about 2 months to get my game together and hopefully lower my handicap, so time to practice and practice right.

4th place and the exciting new season

Sooo close, but a windy final round gave me 17 points and a 4th place finish in the Winter singles competition. As I probably mentioned, the comp comprised of 10 rounds of 11 holes and your top 6 stableford scores were calculated. I managed to post 7 scores with my lowest being a miserable, frozen greened, snow covered fairway 13 (not making excuses honest). I was really hoping for a twenty something on the last round to wipe out that 13 but the strong wind was a real challenge to play in even the putting was difficult.
     Over my last few rounds and range sessions I have been really pleased with my ball striking, it has felt crisp and accurate, also I have been shaping the ball really nicely when needed, which is becoming a handy asset. I mentioned in my last post about Don Trahans new site swingsurgeon.com, well I can tell you, the first couple of weeks have been excellent (bar a few technical issues, which all new sites have). Dons son DJ has been sending video links from the Sony Open which take you inside the ropes of the PGA Tour professional, also Don is back with his snow covered daily blogs, reminding us of the fundamentals and general tips. All well worth a watch and I really like the direction the new site is going.
     Going back to the end of my last post and I spoke briefly about another (really important) part of my game/journey, The Mental side of Golf. I stumbled across a link to the Golf State Of Mind and after receiving the free Ebook and 5 emails I decided to purchase the program (a snip at £8). It basically came as an MP3 with over 1 hours worth of tips to help you control your thought throughout your round and swing. What an eye opener, I now have a solid, unshakable pre shot routine, which has been allowing me to focus on the positive and feel of my shots rather than the mechanics of the swing. Using this program has also helped my learning of the surges swing as I now trust what I am practicing rather than trying to tweak during the course of a round. I can't wait for this season I feel really positive about my game and the direction my learning is going in........watch out handicap.

Winter competition 2010/2011 final results