My Golfing Passion...

3/5/12 Thursday With the continued rain during the week it has been difficult to get out on the course and practise. Continued with using the old blades for anotherrange session on Wednesday. It is not that difficult in essence to hit the ball with them. There is no forgiveness for miss hits and the jarring of the hands and arms soon get me concentrating on doing it right. Today it wasback to the game set and the Bridgestone J36’s are a treat to hit the ball with in comparison.

Practise is all focussed on maintaining the improvement of recent weeks with accuracy and consistency. Hitting in twenty five or thirty ball sessions, not hurryingjust going slow and steady consolidating the successful tempo and rythym. Using a selection of two irons, a short and long one in each session is comfortable with enough variation to encourage the effort to work on gettingthe best results.
Finished the fairway range practise with the driver and very pleased with the accuracy of the 400cc Tolmii ten degree club. The feel of the club in my hands weightand balance wise is terrific. Following on from the Monday ‘smash and walk’ practise round I opened the shoulders up again with the driver to explore the potential for more distance. Nothing spectacular, there is a littlemore reach with the club and the accuracy is acceptable. Importantly the club delivers great feel when playing shots and I can quickly ascertain what changes to make to improve the strokes.

The majority of practise this week has been around and on the green with chipping and putting. Started out maintaining the use of other clubs and dusted the cobwebsoff a Proline Mallet style putter to test my skill on the green. This putter is along the lines of an Oddessy two ball model, which in my hands had always struggled particularly with distance. Many putts would end woefullyshort of the hole previously, this time it was as good as with my regular putter and that is a significant improvement. While it was an interesting and fun practise session it is back in the cupboard having served the purposeof refreshing my attitude on the green.

This Sundays round is the Monthly Medal and will be fun to play in the wind that is starting to get established as the predominant weather feature again. The sixteengolfers for the Handicap Championships match play finals have been decided. My first opponent is a new player who has started on a Twenty Handicap, hits a big ball off the tee and is just establishing the consistency to playhis best. The group of eight I am in has several mid twenties handicappers and two former club champions.

This is not a problem for me but I did have a little laugh to myself considering my confidence. After all even at mybest these guys get the same score as I, when they are having a bad day on the course. What made me laugh was that in considering my status in the group of eight I realised that I was runner up in A grade championship lastseason winning monthly medals and other club competitions also. So I can say the false modesty attitude is out the window as is any perceived underdog status. Will be going out and playing as well as possible and see whatthe results are at the end of each game. Thankyou for your time and attention. “Hit ‘em straight all”