The two balls left of the pin were straight putts, sure you'd have made birdie.

I played in a qualifier today, hit it well and scored pretty good. Had a birdie putt on 18 and thought if I made it I would definitely qualify and maybe have lowest scratch round. Only made par but it wouldn't have mattered as I finished 6 off the lead and didn't even qualify. Everyone behind me seemed to save their best golf for today.

I had another good round at Rye Hill on Sunday. I had a fantastic front (bogies, pars and even a birdie) and if I'd kept it up I'd have been in the mid to low 80s. Sadly the back slipped due to fatigue and I ended up on 92. It's got me thinking though. Rye Hill used to be a difficult course for me but recently I've been scoring better there than I do at at my home course. What's odd is that until now I'd always say the reason I like my home course is because it's fairly easy and great for a relaxing round in the evening.

My biggest regret from yesterday was being a bit silly and trying to hit a ball out from the heavy rough and trees. I barely had enough room to stand and swing. It actually started to come out quite well but hit a branch that was actually out over the light rough. It back came down in a place I just couldn't hit it so had to take a drop anyway. I should've done that right from the start. That resulted in a six on a par three - my tee shot hooked because I tried to hit a weak shot with a long club. I also got an ugly eight on a par five after my drive faded between two gorse bushes and my third stroke was thumped into the ground (flies like a top but leaves a ball shaped drag mark).

Still - my putting was good and I did achieve two birdies. I'm definitely finding that pacing the distance to the hole on the green helps me a lot. All my first putts were either in (several of them!) or stopped within a foot or two of the hole.

What balls does everyone play with?

I use Taylor Made Tour Preferred x, always play a number 12 as well.

I usually use them when on the practice area as well but tend to find Dunlop's etc in the rough and end knocking them closer than my own balls.

I seem to fare best with Callaway Supersoft or Nike. I think it's just a psychological thing though. At my level I doubt the ball choice makes that much difference.

I've got a couple of friends who wouldn't dream of using anything other than a Titleist Pro V1. That would be too expensive a way to play golf for me, with the number of balls I lose!

I was talking to a pretty high handicapper the other day and he told he me had lost 7 Pro V1's in his round.

Never really been a fan of Callaway balls but a friend swears by them. I have a big box of Taylor Made Project (a) balls, not tried them yet but they are meant to be very good all round balls at a more affordable price than Pro V1's etc.

These are my balls with my own little logo. - http://oi65.tinypic.com/98evyx.jpg

When I'm playing seriously, Callaway Supersofts. Yellow in summer, white in winter.

But for practice sessions anything in my bag which can be balls I've picked up or lake balls from Amazon.

I'm still using the American Golf lake balls - £20 for 50. Given that I'm losing anything up to 10 balls in a round (depending on the course) it's the only thing that makes sense at the moment.

By my reckoning that cost him around 23 quid!

Ouch. Thankfully I rarely lose more than two and I've had quite a few rounds where I've lost none. Callaway's come in boxes of three so my person rule is never to open more than box per round

I do notice a difference around the greens with the Callaway's as they are definitely softer. however I can't honestly say that it makes any difference to my scoring. However during winter I do notice a difference off the tee and from the fairway. I don't lose as much distance in cold weather. Presumably that does have a positive impact on my score.

But all in all I'm sure it's marginal. The sensible thing to do might be to give up on the Callaway's completely but on the off-chance they are helping I continue to use them when the round matters

I played my club twice this week. Both times the front 9 was great. On tuesday I was only +2 at halfway. Sadly things went a bit wobbly on the back. Not entirely sure why but my putting became poor and my swing became random. Ended up +17. That still means I broke 90 but I'm giving serious thought to booking a 'course lesson' with our pro. I don't know how much he charges but I'm wondering if having someone assess my course management might be useful to help me conquer the back nine.

Has anyone ever had a course lesson with a pro?

just reading the comments about losing balls reminds me of something

i was on a golf holiday in spain with 7 mates, a couple of them were real beginners. one of the courses we played was up in the hills above Marbella, called Monte Mayor iirc and was pretty insane. it actually had a local rule that if you managed to find your ball when it was more than 3 metres from the fairway you got a free drop back to the fairway, thats how rugged the terrain was.

one of the beginners was playing as my partner and he had lost a ball on each of the first 6 holes, we got to the 7th tee and it had a big carry over a canyon just to get to the fairway. he had tee'd up and before he drove i stopped him and said i had an idea, i picked up his ball and threw it into the canyon saying "well we all know you were gonna hit it there anyway so i saved you the effort"

I was walking my dog alongside the 1st couple of holes at Royal Troon this morning and seen a shiny ball sitting on the sand about 20 yards ahead of me. Obviously one that had went right off the first tee. I walked over to it hoping it was one of Rory's, Adam Scott's or one of the other guys who had been on the course yesterday.

Reached the ball and it was a Donnay

Now that's how you defeat your nemesis

Played Adderbury today and went round in 89, without losing any balls. It was a bit odd because every approach either stopped short on the fringe or went past and ended up on the back fringe. I don't think I hit one green in regulation

Luckily my bump and run was seriously on form and I just ended up one putting almost every hole instead

Ended up with a collection of bogies, a couple of double bogies and a couple of pars.

And the same ball in my pocket at the end that I started with

I played 18 yesterday for the first time in a month. I hit 125, so still pretty bad but at least i'm getting under 130 now.

My big problem is that pretty much one out of two of my long shots (driver - 6 iron) is some really hooky mishit that swings rapidly left. It's why I'm losing so many balls. The issue I have is that I can't work out what the difference is between the good shots and the bad ones. I'm following a clear set up and concentrating on the basics of my swing and it seems to me that i'm doing the same thing each time. But one shot goes straight and the other is completely wild - there's no middle ground.

Every time I go to the range I'd say that 6-7 out of 10 of my shots is fine and the others go a bit left or right, but nothing bad. I can get through an entire 100 balls on both the matt and grass and not hit a single wild shot.. The same when I have my lessons; the pro gives me tips but is generally positive. But then I hit the course and the crazy hook comes straight back.

Not sure what to do at the moment, I probably need some drills I need to go through.

A left hook would suggest club face closed at contact (causing the 'left' part) but either swinging on the target line or possibly in to out if it's a really bad hook (in both cases the head is sliding past the ball so imparting anti clock-wise spin which causes the curve).

http://www.wikihow.com/Fix-a-Golf-Hook

Are you generally using a driver from the tee on par 4's and 5's? If so, have you considered putting it away for a while and teeing off with something else? Even a 7-iron if you feel happier and more confident with it.

When I first started playing, I'd automatically reach for the driver on the tee whenever my lower-handicap friends were. I'd find I was wild off the tee and so after my very first shot I was in trouble. You're never giving yourself a chance to be in the hole if you're wild off the tee. Obviously, the error you make is going to be exaggerated with a driver, compared to an iron.

It might seem ridiculous to you to tee off on a long par 5 with a 7-iron (for example) but look at it this way. After your first shot, would you rather be 150 yards or so closer to the tee having hit a reasonably straight shot? Or would you rather be over 200 yards closer to the hole, but having to hit out of rough, trees or even out of bounds and hitting again?

I know what I'd prefer.

I actually haven't used my driver for around three years. I've found myself a hybrid that I generally hit well. If it's going wrong though and I've hit a couple of bad shots, I put that away and tee off with a 7-iron (feel happier with that than a 5 or 6). It's a tough call to do that sometimes and can feel like a "backward step". But it's a good tactic if things are going wrong.

You're a high handicapper. Club selection should reflect that. I rarely if ever choose the same club for a certain shot that my low handicap friends would.

I've played a few rounds without the driver or any woods and my scoring is similar, I just have a mental problem with my tee shots in general. When I say i'm hitting them wild left I mean that they ball barely goes 70-80 yards before it goes at a right angle out of bounds. So even when i'm hitting a 7/8 iron off the tee I can lose the ball. Put the ball on the fairway 140 yards form the green and i'm pretty confident of getting there. Put me on a tee with 140 yards to the start of the fairway and I have no confidence of making it.

Actually on Saturday I left the driver in the car for the first 9 holes and then went and got it after I hit 66. The second time round was an improvement as my one out of two tee shots that went straight were 220+ yards straight down the fairway.

BIB should read "hole".

Noticed it too late to edit.


Sounds like a lot of it is "in your head" then - as golf so often is!

If that's the case, you've just got to stick at it and get over that.

I'm lucky in that my driver is actually one of my most reliable clubs (a standing joke with my friends because on one memorable occasion it wasn't) but I agree with what you're saying here. One of the reasons I did a lot better on Sunday was because on two holes I went with a shorter club. Not for reasons of accuracy but simply to ensure my second shot was safer.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.00.../data=!3m1!1e3

On this one A good drive from my could actually reach the stream. But even if it comes up short you're left with a mid-iron potentially struggling to get up and over the solitary tree or the group on the right. So I chose to 'lay up' at 170 yards instead of driving to ~200. That left me with a 7 iron over the solitary tree which was do-able. as it happens the wind was blowing quite strongly from the left of this view so I was able to aim to the right of the tree and have the ball drop nicely in front of the green. Sadly it than ran all the way across and ended up half way up a bank at the bank. But my return bump and run stopped a yard from the flag so I parred it anway

I look forward to the days when I worry about course management. Currently it's just hitting the ball cleanly each time

Well they're not unrelated. For instance I still can't pitch from inside 80 yards so I take care to ensure that the ball is either outside that range or close enough to the pin to let me bump and run. But if that wild hook affects all your clubs off the tee then you need to get it sorted as it's difficult to come up with a strategy that avoids tee shots

My typical hole is now like this:

Par 4 (380+ yards)

Either:

Driver hit 200+ yards down the fairway.

Then massive hook out of bounds or into deep rough.

Walk up to where ball was lost. Hit 120 yards close to green

OR

Massively hook drive out of bounds or into deep rough

Walk up 100 yards and hit recovery - usually 150 yards straightish.

Hit close to green for 4.

THEN

Knock onto green for 5.

Two putt for 7.

On a bad hole I will hit the tee shot and second shot wild left and so get down in 9.

I ignore the occasional wild shot but if I was hitting them wild that often I'd suspect I was trying too hard and in particular that I was trying to control the shot during the swing.

When things start going a bit wrong for me I make sure to break the process of making a shot into three distinct parts.

Planning.
Aiming.
Swinging.

The most important thing for me is to isolate the aiming phase from the swing phase. Once I know where I want the ball to end up I pick the club to use then work out the line and (as I've said before) reduce it to a spot on the ground just in front of the ball. From that point on I forget about the target. It all becomes about getting the club head to strike the ball and getting the club head to move over that mark. I won't even glance at the target prior to starting the swing.

As my Golf Shop Pro says "You'll never be happy playing golf, something will always let you down but every round you'll hit one shot that will bring you back the next time" 😀

I recently put in a card of 112 off the whites in a medal.
Two days later I shot 87 off the yellows in a "social" match - my previous best was 92.
Since then I returned 99 and 108 in medals.

Today I played a "Vet's" match at home against a visiting club.
My partner and I won 4 and 3 but one of our opponents got a hole in one on a 150+ par 3.
We were all over the moon and the word went around rapidly.
Bottle of Scotch on the bar afterward.
He'd been playing 20+ years and never had one - he rang his wife on the course to tell her.
She's a far superior golfer (10HC) and never had one!
Priceless and lovely to witness first hand.

That's the dream isn't it - that one perfect shot is worth more than a 100 good rounds

Has anyone here had a longish shot go in? The best i've achieved (that I can remember) is 40-50 yard bump and runs that have run in. No long pitches yet.

I've had a hole in one at what was then the 12th at Cherwell Edge (now the 4th). It's not particularly long though, about 140 yards.

The bottom green is the 3rd. The top right green is a spare for when the 4th is too wet.

It's not a hugely difficult hole but the tree on the left can catch a wayward shot and the bunker on the right is deep and cruel. What I liked most about my hole-in-one was that I actually said to the chap I was playing with at the time "I think I'd better club down on this one today as I'm playing long". The ball promptly landed on the green, bounced once and rolled a yard into the hole

Mind you a couple of weeks ago the pin was at the back and I said to my partner "This green is always a bit damp especially this year. I'll club up to a seven and it'll stop with a plop". Somehow I found what must have been the only dry bit of the green and my ball scooted off and nearly reached the 5th tee

The spare green is actually quite fun and tricky. You have to thread your ball between two trees (the grey one where there's some white mud visible (that's a stream)). If you catch either tree the ball will drop, land on a gentle bank and roll into the stream. During the winter I think I made it to the green three times. About 10%