We got quite a lot of rain yesterday and a bit this morning but nothing too bad. I won't get a chance to play this week (day out at the races saturday and recovering sunday!) so need to make sure I get back into it next weekend. I've asked for some winter golf shoes for Christmas so that should help with the conditions.

I've had a quick go on those simulators in the past and they're pretty fun. Wouldn't mind having one nearby to play.

I'm toying with the idea of going out today as I'm on half days for most of this week. We had a lot of rain yesterday but it's been dry so far today. I may just invest in some range time though. Try and nail down exactly what's going on with my driver. I'm pretty sure I know but I need to get the habit programmed in.

My latest golf magazine has a 'back to basics' instruction guide for your swing, so i'm going to try and practice some of those routines just to make sure i've got the fundamentals ok.

It also has a list of 100 greatest golf courses in the UK that I found pretty interesting. There's one not that far from me that is 'only' charging £60 a round during winter - but it has a handicap requirement. I suppose though the last thing they want is people hacking round in 120 . . . .

Well that was enlightening. With the weather taking a turn for the worst I decided the driving range was the better bet. And I've found out how to always hit my drives straight.

Use practice balls and only hit them from the driving bay :-/

I did notice a distinct push that isn't all that obvious from the course but almost all my shots when arrow straight just a bit right of where I was aiming. So I'm not sure what to make of that :-/

Ha ha - yeah I know that one.

I can hit 50 balls in a row straight at the range then then wildly slice my first tee shot out of bounds.

I've been thinking about this while making dinner and I've come up with a theory. It's been a long time since I last used a range and I fell into an old habit of not bothering to aim. Just set up to the ball and hit it. It occurs to me that all that's doing is practicing my natural swing. That probably explains the consistency - my natural swing is a five to ten degree straight push.

I'm wondering if on the course - where I always aim for a particular spot - the fade is because I'm not aligning properly. In theory if I want consistent arrow straight toward the target I should be opening my stance a tad (rotate myself slightly anti-clock about the ball).

But I don't do that. I always try and stand parallel to the target line. So I reckon I must be trying to control direction through my shoulders by creating an outside to in swing path. That would promote a fade.

If I'm right I have to options:

* Learn to point my feet five degrees left of the target when driving.
* Figure out to straighten my drive 'properly'.

The latter is going to be harder to do. I think I need to move the ball slightly forward and strengthen my grip to help close the face faster. I dare say that's possible but re-training my body won't be easy. Plus closing the face reduces the loft and that's not something I want.

On a driving range you have "n" amount of quickly repeated shots with the same club to correct an error and you usually will do so quickly.
Out on the course you get one chance, then walk to the next shot for a few minutes, then wait for your mate to hit his, then you take out a different club..... Etc etc.

I did go to the range a few weeks back and hit 60 balls then next day on the course imagined I was on the range and had a cracking start for about six holes..........
That was only 30+ balls - the next 60+ weren't so good though.
There aren't any trees, ditches, rough or bunkers on a driving range 😳

Actually ours has a couple of bunkers and is very undulating. It'd do a links fairway proud

Sometimes I think it ought to be smoothed out but I suppose it has the advantage of showing you how your ball will react if you drop it on a slope.

BTW: There's a rumour that DS forums will be closing soon. Where are we going to go? There's a few golfing forums around but I've never joined any of them.

It was a long time ago so can't remember the exact details. I know that one of the guys involved was thrown out of the club, another got a ban of several months but he took the huff and left the club anyway. A couple more had written letters sent to them and we were not allowed back at the course for outings for a long time afterwards.

I played 9 holes at Glasgow Gailes earlier this week, fantastic condition and on full greens. The last twice we've played there we have been the only people on the course.

Our course has been closed since the weekend because of torrential rain and it really can't take rain. I mentioned earlier that we resorted to the simulator on Monday.
We turned up at 8.45 today expecting a hard wet slog but were pleasantly surprised.
We've had serious high winds for a few days and today was almost "sunny" so the course was surprisingly playable except for the well know areas that you can take relief from.

The biggest bugbear at the moment is that the crows are in their "silly season" and lifting balls off the fairway and hiding them in silly places under leaves and in puddles a hundred yards or so away - or worse, going off to the trees with them.
You can hear raucously loud shouts all over the course of "Gerroutyouf**ker!" With grown men running about and throwing clubs at them.
We had about half a dozen incidents today but recovered three as we saw where they hid them - little barstewards! 👺

Hang on, what use is a bunker on a driving range?
You don't wander out there and try to swipe it out whilst avoiding a barrage of wayward balls do you?
I'm missing a point here obviously.

Here's an excellent golf forum that I've used for clarification on rules and "disputes" mostly but it has a "Lounge" thread for general chat though I've not used it yet.
http://forums.golf-monthly.co.uk

I have no idea. It's about pitching distance so you can practice pitching into it if you want .

If it was closer the pro could holds lessons in it but from memory it's something like 100 yards so that doesn't make a lot of sense.

I think that the AGM before last they mentioned moving the driving range and 10th/11th fairways around so maybe it was once part of the course. It's hard to imagine though as the 10th/1st and 11th/2nd fairways are on two sides with the 17th/8th tee and 16th/7th green on the other.

It's an odd shape for someone to have just plonked it in the middle of the range.


Worth a look. On various searches I've also turned up golfwrx which might be worth a look.

Or maybe not. Looks like it's a pay to join forum :-/

Does anyone use the discount tee time websites and find many good deals over the winter

There's a lot of links courses near me which rarely use winter greens so you can get some great deals over the winter and still get to play the full course. Dundonald often pops up at £25, quite expensive for winter golf but it's the new home of the Scottish Open and is a fantastic course.

Another nice one near me is Rowallan Castle, designed by Monty and recently hosted a Euro Pro tour event but it's had a few drainage problems on some fairways which they have been trying to sort out. It's a super course and only £12 at the moment. It's quite unique in that is a 19 hole course and also has 2 castle's.

Oooh, that's better. Especially after last week. Went round Rye again off the whites and this time managed 99. Could've been better but we caught up with a dreaded society so for the last six holes there was a lot of waiting around and irritation.

My driving is definitely back up to form. The answer is to not just look at the ball but to think solely of hitting it with the club to the exclusion of all else. Doesn't seem to have any affect on my irons and hybrids but I didn't have one bad drive all day.

Golf Wrx is 99% free with the clubwrx members forum being the only section you can't access. All other topics from equipment,lessons and general chat are free. Mostly very knowledgable people and a great site in general if your a golfer

Yes, we've been using teeofftimes and golfnow quite a lot this year (mainly the former). We get some very good deals - though it's got tougher finding a tee time now with the loss of light.

We've agreed that £30 is the most we'll pay for a round, which is limiting us a bit at the moment but still managing to find the odd decent course.

Has anyone heard of the Nitehawk torches for finding balls in the dark? They have uv bulbs in them which makes the cover of balls light up in the dark

I deal with them quite a lot and they sent me a new torch recently which is a lot brighter than previous versions. Tried it out the other night and in two hours walking round my local course found 157 balls.

how many were yours originally ?

Now now, don't be nasty. It can't have been more than 130. 149 at the most

I'm at at an ex-nemesis course (Adderbury) on Sunday. Might give the old stats gathering toy a try for a laugh. I've kind of sworn off since gather stats during winter seemed pointless but after last weeks half-way decent round maybe I should give it a whirl

Absolutely none. I did find numerous balls with the same person's initials on them though, mainly Dunlops and Donnays.

I'm waiting on a couple of balls arriving from Taylor Made. They are commemorative balls made specially for Dustin Johnson and Justin Rose to celebrate their US Open and Olympic victories this year. They look fantastic and for a collector of unique and logo balls like me they will be treasured.

i had a ball that was signed by seve and lee trevino at the 1984 open

had walked around with them during one of the practice days for a few holes, back then you could get pretty close to the players during the practice rounds, the two of them were great together and trevino would talk to anyone and they gave both me and my mate a signed ball

not sure what happened to it, think it got misplaced during one of my moves over the years

A Signed Seve ball would be fantastic. Have you seen the balls on the Scottish golf museum website? He has an amazing collection of memorabilla.

I have a few signed balls. Duval, Leonard, Furyk and sone lesser US tour players but they were just balls I got signed rather than their own.

Only ball I have belonging to a tour player is Zach Johnson, a very nice guy and I also have a signed ball from Damian Lewis.

tbh i am not really that big on memorabilia, altho i do wish i had taken better care of that ball

that was a really great day tho, just seeing them up close and getting the chance to chat to trevino, he was having fun with his caddie at one hole. he got to his tee-shot and turned to his caddie and asked what club it was, the caddie checked his yardage book and said a 4 iron. trevino asked for his 1 iron and knocked it onto the middle of the green, he then dropped another ball and asked for a 7 iron, again knocking it on to the middle of the green. dropped another ball and said "ok give me the 4 iron" which he again hit onto the green, turned to his caddie and said "yep you were right" and then gave us a wink and started laughing.

So I managed to get round 18 today - just about, it was pretty dark by the 18th. Actually it was good golfing conditions in general, not too cold, ground fairly dry and little wind. We played a course that was excellent back in summer and ok today but the greens were really struggling and lots of moved tees.

Had one of those days were I was consistently poor but I was in good spirits. I was the most consistent off the tee i've been all years but everything else was a bit rubbish. I think the 7th hole summed up the day when I hit onto the green from the tee and ended up 6 feet from the hole. This gave me an excellent chance to make my first birdie of the year, however I somehow managed to three putt!

I'm hoping the weather is decent over Christmas as I'm taking time off work and hoping to get round a couple of courses that are too expensive to play during the week.