On the subject of the "psychological side" of golf....

Last time I played was January or February and previous to that I hadn't picked up my clubs for a few months. I was playing with a couple of friends who were in similar "not played for a while" territory.

My usual preference when playing is to arrive early, do some stretches, take some practice swings and hit some balls on the range if there is one. Also do some practice putting. However, we were running late and in danger of missing our tee time. The pro in the shop said we had to get straight off, or we'd get stuck behind a society and they consisted of about four fourballs.

So we head to the tee to find they're all there waiting to go - all 16 or so of them. STRANGER DANGER - my worst nightmare when it comes to golf, especially on the first tee when I haven't played for months and not even had a practice swing that morning! All three of us are thinking "This is less than ideal" but it's not as if we have much choice but to get on with it! And these guys are chomping at the bit to get started - no chance of them politely stepping away a bit and looking the other way!

So the lowest handicapper of the three of us steps up first. Smacks a driver straight out of bounds to the left!

Next lowest steps up. Slightly better, but slices to the right and lands on the fairway of the hole to our right.

Then it's me. I tried to blank out the presence of these 16 blokes who no doubt all have single figure handicaps (in my head anyway!), never play bad shots and who will be laughing out loud at me in a few moments.

I take my shot. God knows how, but it was a good one. I hit it sweet and it sails a decent distance dead straight down the middle and splits the fairway in two!

My head swelled to about ten times its normal size as I casually sauntered off the tee to get my clubs! I noticed a couple of the strangers even nodding in approval as I went past!

Anyway for the rest of that round when it came to teeing off, all I had in my head was that amazing tee shot I made on the first with all those people watching. Every tee shot I took was great. I have a GPS watch in which you can record details of each hole e.g did you hit the fairway, how many to the green, how many putts etc. I think on every hole apart from one I hit FIR.

So yeah - a big portion is psychological. I was in the zone that day. I haven't played since then - but I'm hoping I can find that zone again next time!

We have an annual comp at our club in which you can only carry three clubs.
A putter is essential - after that it's most commonly a nine iron and maybe a five iron.
I've never forgotten hitting the green in two on the par 4 first hole (and getting par) with two five iron shots.
Normally it's always a driver and maybe a 6/7 and par is a rarity.
I'd just bought a brand new TaylorMade driver and thought "What the hell?"

The problem with the range is you get, say, ten shots with the same club, one after the other, in a few minutes.
On the course you get one shot then a trek to the next shot with a totally different club.
I can always correct a problem on the range after several shots.
Taking that out on the course is another matter.

Oh what a night!



Played 18 yesterday evening starting at half past five. Awesome front nine (which is the old back nine this year which is going to confuse me for a while) +7 when I walked to the 10th. Then it all went a bit wrong. Lost a ball at the 10th (poor light I think, not helped by a wayward drive that put me half way up a bank for a long iron to the green). Lost another at the 12th (possibly a badly pulled PW - not every lay up is a safe thing I guess). 15th was a good drive but then my swing broke. Couldn't hit my 3 hybrid for love nor money which is not good on the longest hole. Lost another ball on the 17th when a slight pull sent my 3 hybrid into the trees (ball probably plugged in trunk, I think ). 18th was a bit ugly but then I've never got on with that hole. It's a par 4 with two blocking fairway bunkers and a raised green which means I have to lay up on my second shot then attempt a 100yd approach onto the green.

I came away with 92 but after the back nine it just felt lousy. Typical for me. The score doesn't bother me as much as the way I was striking the ball. I'd rather finish with a poor score knowing that I hit every ball well than a good score knowing that my striking was off. Hopefully this was just fatigue - I did notice when I got home that I felt drained.

Great effort Andrue. +7 on the front 9 is impressive.

With regard to your last sentence, I get frustrated when I feel like i'm playing well but the scorecard doesn't agree Sometimes it feels like the difference between a good day and an awful one is only 5-6 shots.

I would't worry too much about the back 9. Replay the front 9 in yoiur head and analyse where you saved shots and how you went about it then try to add this to your game.

As for the back 9, pjlut it down to a few bad shots and move on. You said you lost some balls, these shots can easily cost you 2-3 strokes. Work out why you are losing them and see if there is a safer way to play the holes without compromising too much.

I played the front 9 of my local course on Wednesday and yesterday evening.

Wednesday was pretty consistently double bogey on every hole - until I blew up on the par 5 ninth hole (lost 2 balls and finished with a 10). So ended up i with my normal score of 57.

Last night started really well. I parred the par 5 first hole with five text book shots - well the lop onto the green could have been more accurate from 45 yards but that would be splitting hairs. I was doing ok, mainly bogies, up until the 7th hole when I drove to within 40 yards of the green but then fluffed my pitch into the water. I was so annoyed that I just couldn't maintain concentration after that. Hit two 10s in a row to finish on 57 again

Something that helped me a lot was playing the percentages. It's not easy but basically the idea is 'Only play shots where you are reasonably confident about the result'. That doesn't mean give up golf

It just means that if you're 150 yards from the green you should not be reaching for a 5 iron. Layup with a SW then use another SW to get to the green.
If there's a tree that you might hit when trying to get out of the rough - play to the fairway instead.
Or if your flight path to the green means getting close to a tree, lay up on the fairway.

The basic idea is to eliminate penalties and reduce difficult shots. For instance for quite a while I struggled around the edges of greens especially if they were sloped. So I just made sure to lay up around 90 yards from the green because approaching with my wedges meant I'd avoid the problem.
Option 1: 150yd iron. Goes a bit off course. Attempt to chip onto green from edge. Fail. Try again. Done but not ideal. Two putt and out. 5 shots.
Option 2: 90yd iron. Lands pretty much where I want it. 90yd iron. Lands on green, not too far from pin. Two putt and out (maybe one putt sometimes).4 shots. Maybe 3.

I don't always do it it's worth noting that my troublesome back 9 was because:
* 10th - My drive was a bit of a slice and ball ended up short and half way up an embankment. I then thought I'd 'have a go' and tried to use my 3 hybrid to get to the green. I lost a ball. I should have just knocked the ball back onto the fairwary with a 7 iron. I'd have lost a stroke but that's better than losing stroke and distance
* 17th - Ball was left of fairway on slight dogleg left. I tried to skim the edges of the trees and instead smacked the ball at 100mph into a trunk. I should have just aimed for middle of fairway and used a 6 hybrid. Point of fact I wasn't in range of the green anyway so it was always going to take two strokes to get there. I ended up with stroke+penalty when a safe play might have cost me nothing at all.

Anyway I played last night (and my buddy joined me which was great). We only played the back 9 but I did quite well.

Yeah, I understand the theory and need to stop the ridiculous 'hail mary' attempts from 200 yards out.

However my issue is that i'm no more consistent at hitting a 90 yard pitch than I am a 150 yard 5 iron. If I thought i had a good chance of laying up then landing near the pin I would do, but i'm more as likely to scuff the shot out of the rough and/or top the ball 20 yards along the fairway. At least when I pull the 5 recovery out I know that i'm going to get at least 120 yards closer to the hole 9 times out of 10.

I'll give an example:

So yesterday I drove on the 5th hole a bit leftwards and ended up behind a tree with no view of the green. I considered knocking back out on the fairway but then I'd have over 180 yards to go. So instead I got my 5 iron out and attempted to play a very speculative low draw shot around the tree. I hit it more right that I wanted though and it didn't draw, so I ended up on the adjacent fairway about 120 yards away from the hole. However in my mind that was a better result as at least I was 60 yards closer than I would be

This is great advice, especially for the higher handicappers..

Think of it this way:

If you're off 18 you could for example get 10 bogeys (so why go for the tricky 1 in 10 green in regulation shot when you could lay up and still have chance of par)

3 double bogeys and 5 pars and you would come in 2 under!

If you start playing this way then you increase the chances of some of those 'safe bobeys' ending up as a par due to one putting and some of those pars turning into cheeky birdies..

of course, all very easy for me to say from my desk!

How are you aiming? I ask because back when I used the range a lot I used to just step up to the ball, get myself side on to the target and swing. That ain't aiming and the result was that my balls went all over the place.

Now I walk up to the ball, work out a line to my target and try and find something (flower head, bit of mud, leaf) on the ground a couple of inches ahead of the ball that's on that line. Then I hover my club over the ball and the mark and site down the length of the club to verify the line.

If that all looks good only then do I take my stance and swing trying to ensure that my club head goes over the mark after it's hit the ball. As soon as I started doing that my fairway work improved immensely. Not only better aim but thinking of that mark improved my swing.

Any fairway is a good fairway unless local rules say otherwise. Ours says that crossing from 16th to 17th is fine but not 17th to 16th.

And of course there's this.

That's a good tip - i'll try that one.

Though I'm still at the basic part of just trying to make a decent connection every time. Despite the tips from the lesson i'm still duffing something like one in every shots on the course. I'll practice a bit more and then book another lesson to get some tips.

Yeah, that will come. Just bear in mind that hitting off a mat is not the same as hitting off the grass. I struggle with mats now because of that. One thing helped me was learning that taking a divot doesn't hurt. It helped me get over my fear of hitting the ground.

The good thing is (or seems to be for me) that once you have a reliable swing you never lose it. I've been trying different things for a year now and haven't managed to destroy my swing yet. Good job too - it took nearly two years to get reliable. Time was when it was a gamble whether I'd get the ball more than a dozen yards on any swing.

Remember that closer is not always better.

If you know your distances then getting the ball to somewhere you can hit a full shot may well be better than just trying to get it as close to the green as possible.

I would rather be hitting a full 52' wedge from 95 yards than taking something off a more lifted club from 40-50 yards.

Professional golfers alway take divots.
However, they alway strike the ball first and the divot follows.
Club players, especially higher handicappers, mostly take the divot prior to striking the ball.
It why you often see a bloody great divot taken with the ball having gone very little distance.

I hit my best every 18 hole score yesterday - 100. I was one long putt away from breaking the ton. To be fair, the course was only a 69 par and it had a few 'easy' par 4s (where I was 30 yards from the green after my drive), but i'm still happy. I struggled to find any sort of swing on the front nine but managed to restrict the damage to double and triple bogies; then I hit 2 pars and 4 bogies on the back nine.

Nicely done!

I had a bit of a scruffy round myself not helped by the weather. It started off cool but warm in the sun then just became variable. At various points during the round I was wearing: Just a t-shirt. t-shirt and pullover, t-shirt and waterproof jacket, t-shirt and body warmer. Was on my third glove by the end with the other two too wet.

I scored 100 but could have done better. I took a gamble at one par 5 (playing percentages - what does that mean then?) when my second shot went straight instead of fading (so glad my fix chose that time to work) and I ended up blocked by a hedge. Fluffed the strike and nearly broke my neck rescuing the ball from the stream behind the hedge. On another hole my second shot dumped me into the trees and I three putted one par 3.

I spent most of the winter working on getting my arm plane and shoulder plane paired up. Not something that can be changed overnight and it's taken quite a while but it's been worth the hours i've put into making the change.

Been on the course the last couple of days and scored reasonably but the swing felt good and feedback on my swing 6 months ago compared to now is positive.

I've been in the exact same situation however the outcome was different lol. Approaching the 17th tee-off, 6 guys were setting up to tee off. and there was 3 of us. They said at the 18th they'd let us ahead, so they tee-off at 17th and they smack the balls down the fairway... fast forward to the 18th. We tee-off, the 1st person hits it, fairway.. 2nd person hits it, just to the left on the edge of the fairway/rough. I tee off, feeling the pressure on me... my mate nicknames me Mr. Origami for these sort of occasions...

I buckle, I melt it and it goes WAY right lol. Hit my 3rd, goes 60 yards in front me being a Par 4... take my 4th short with my 3 wood... all eyes on me lol, I melt it and goes way left onto the adjacent fairway LOL. I throw the towel in and walk away hanging my head in shame lol.


What watch is it you use?


I use this setup - has improved my hitting but my swing plane is still needing a lot of work.


Been playing for 3 years give or take, still trying to break 90 LOL!

It took me four years to break 100 anywhere except my home course. But since then for the last eight months I've been below 100 on almost every round regardless of where I play (apart from one local course which somehow keeps catching me out).

I've broken 90 three times but only at my local course. My best ever round was 82. It was a Saturday so I was all set to saunter into the club house and tell everyone how well I'd done. Then as I was packing my stuff into my car a text message came through. It turned out that one of the pro-shop guys had broken the course record. With 62.

So I just slunk home and did my drinking there :-/

(http://www.cherwelledgegolfclub.co.uk/clubnews.html) - search for 'Steven King'. Mind you - there's been some debate about whether his clothing meets club rules. the shorts in particular seem not to be in the spirit of gentlemanly attire

Has anyone got videos of their swing? May be helpful so others can give advice after seeing swings etc.

I was back down the local course yesterday evening playing the back 9. It was possibly the worse few holes of golf i've played in years. I stopped scoring after the 6th hole but by that point my best hole was a double bogey on the first. . . . . .

I really should have just gone down the range to practice my swing. My driving was absolutely woeful.

Was there a pattern to the direction of your drives?

No, completely random. 30 yard duffs along the ground, shots 100 yards in the air and 100 yards forward. Wild slices, poorly hit hooks. Each one was different.

What's frustrating is that when I played on Sunday I hit almost every drive the same way - long and pushed out to the right to varying degrees. So not always staying on the fairway but not far away.

A friend of mine calls these shots "Angel Rapers".