Those ones are incredibly frustrating. My drives had always been wild hooks but as of lately..

- I stand behind the ball, look at target direction.
- Pick out something just in front of ball
- Address the ball - taking wind into account
- Take a deep breath
- And remind myself to hit like a girl lol

Since I started doing that, my shots have been straight~ish and hearing that ping.

For the last 2-3 years my drivings been horrible. Hopefully now I can keep it consistent.

What is it with golf that you can practice and practice and think you've got at least a basic level of golf swing - but then you turn up one day and it's like you've never played the game before.

Almost every other activity you learn the basics and then build on them over a long period of time. With golf even the basics can escape you . . .

Just got back from a golf day at Feldon Valley. We played three ball Stableford with double points on par 3s. My team WON!

Even better my drive was back in the groove. I had three poor drives but two were my old favourite sky scraping hooks. The rest were just straight-down-the-line 170+ yards. My putting was pretty good as well. My personal score was 86 nett plus one I couldn't score (the last one).

A thoroughly good game of golf. I parred a couple of the par 3s and had a couple of other pars as well including the dreadful 6th and ugly 15th

These are the days you remember

it just comes down to the sheer number of moving parts in a golf swing

even the top pros with all their coaching, hours and hours of practice every day to hone muscle memory still have days where things dont go right

not sure this is 100% right as it was a long time ago i read it but i am sure i saw an article talking about margins of error which said that the clubhead travels around 20 feet in an arc between address and impact and if its even just a couple of degrees off square at impact thats enough to miss a fairway

and thats before you consider any technical faults in the swing to begin with or swing plane or whether you maintain good body position throughout

Aye, plus no normal human can alter those once the downswing has started. The most important part of the strike is effectively uncontrolled. You do your best to set things up so that good contact is a likely outcome but once you start back down you're just a passenger

Oh and a lot of golf is counter-intuitive like hitting down to get the ball to go up.

Whoot

Had a great game yesterday at Rye Hill. That's our local championship course (almost 7,000 yds off the yellow tees). I damn' near broke 90! Only reason I didn't was an unfortunate dribble off the 16th tee then a struggle up the 18th fairway. Ended up with 94 even though I was +4 for the 18th.

Putting was pretty good, some fantastic approaches and my driving continues (for the most part) to be straight and true again. If this is how I'm starting summer I may achieve my goal of being below 90 at every course I visit by end of summer.

Played yesterday for the first time since January. Was a Links course with a friend of mine who's a member there.

Bloody lovely weather, perfect conditions, cannot think of a better way to spend four hours!

My game itself was pretty good (for me!). My usual problem is striking the ball well, whether its off the tee or the ground. And yes I played a few duff shots yesterday, but generally I was very pleased with my performance. We played Stableford. He plays off 15, I play off (an unofficial) 25. He wound up with 36 points and I got 34 - so I nearly played to handicap!

I tend to fare better on Links courses than Parkland for some reason - I know it's supposed to be the other way round! Probably because I tend to end up in trees in Parkland and it's a bugger getting out of them, whereas I have a better chance getting out of the rough of Links.

Anyway, I love this game. I really wish I had more spare time to play more. I intend to win the Lotto soon so I can quit work and play more golf!

I played Silverstone GC yesterday. Was very warm but pleasant. Sadly my game let me down a bit. I just couldn't get the green speeds right. My putting and chipping on kept coming up short or long. Compounded by me still not having dialled in summer club lengths. Since the weather warmed up my clubs all seem to be giving me an extra ten to twenty yards. When your putting or chipping is naff you don't want to be consistently at the back side of the green.

Still I finished with 101 which ain't bad for only the second time I've played the course (and first time was 18 months ago). That includes one lost ball penalty which mystified both of us and lousy 18th which was 3 over par.

But as I've said before it's not the score that I judge a round on but my ball work and that was poor around the greens :-/

I played a new course last week (Mill Ride) and for the first few holes it finally felt like things were coming together. I was 8 over after 6 holes, which was putting me on track for my first sub 100 round. However I then had a few sloppy shots on the last three of the front nine and finished on 52 on the turn.

Then the back nine absolutely killed me. I was regularly finding myself still 170 yards out after 3 shots on the par 4s. A couple of maximums ensured that I finished on 115 altogether.

Still, should take the positives. It would have been a decentish stableford score.

Aww, such a shame. Sometimes it can be because you give up but it can also be that the front or back is more difficult. Best thing is to analyse what caused the issues and figure out a fix.

On two of the par 3s on the back-nine at my course I now use two wedges to get on the green rather than trying to get there in one. I can pretty much guarantee to be on the green in two and that's better than needing to chip from the rough or to get out of a bunker.

But I'm going to try a change to my putting after last weekends awful show. I'm going to try putting while looking at the hole. When practising on the lounge carpet last night it definitely improved my distance control.

I had a couple of rounds over Dundonald Links this week. Didnt hit it great the first round but scrambled well. Today I hit the ball like a dream, swing changes are becoming natural to me now but I just couldn't score and ended up two strokes worse than my round earlier in the week.

Overall though, very happy with how it went today as my changes have been pretty long term and I'm seeing a big difference now.

I must be misunderstanding this?
On a par 4 your first three shots regularly left you short by 170?
So on a typical 400yd hole your first three shots got you just 230 yds?
That would be a nightmare 😫

Yep, basically. Combination of me playing badly, some heavy wind and very tricky course design.

I seem to be back on form after a mid-week slump. I realised Friday evening that I was tensing up again. It happens to me sometimes - possibly trying too hard. As soon as I started taking a relaxed approach to my swing it became more fluid and my scores recovered. I eventually got so relaxed that my follow through ended up with me tapping my bum with the clubhead

It also improved my putting and the chap I happened to be playing with commented that I had more follow through there as well. A better 40% back, 60% forward stroke.

Anyway my weekly game was back at Rye Hill and for the second time in a row I nearly broke 90. Nearly every hole was bogied, a couple were parred (including the infamous 14th(*) with a second shot to the green that stunned me and my partner). Only let down by an unfortunate lost ball at the 16th and naff drive on the 9th.

One thing definitely worked for me there - laying up. Most of my approaches were from 100 yds and I got on the green every time

(*)You can't really see from that that you're playing down into a valley. My second shot was from a third the way up a bank on the left, over a bank on the right and came to a stop at the top of the green.

Urgh, I had the worst 9 holes of golf of my life yesterday - finished on 73! It was like i'd never played the sport before. I was trying to not get too upset as I was going round but all I could think off was how is it possible to be that bad after so much practice.

I think it's time to email the pro and book some more lessons . . . .

I've had plenty of rounds like this! Once you get into that rut, it's bloody difficult to get out of. It's like I said previously, a huge part of golf is psychological.

Yes, get some lessons. And stick at it! Next time will very possibly be a completely different story.

I think we all go through days or weeks like that. For me as I mentioned before the solution is to relax. To stop trying to get the ball into the air myself and instead let the club do the work. I just practice a smooth, almost carefree swing, and don't worry about where the ball is going until the swing is done.

Last night I broke 80 at my home course for the first time this year (86).

This weekend we're at Adderbury which is my nemesis. I've only broken 100 there once and that was 99. I just hope they'd improved the course since the last time because it was in a poor state.

The funnier side of golf.

"If you absolutely, positively have to par a hole, leave a birdie putt one inch short"

Did that last night. Twice

Is anyone playing in Medals regularly here? If so do you notice a difference between your scoring in fun rounds compared to tournament play?

Just uploaded a short video of my swing. - https://youtu.be/FrN4NmDKEJg

Any advice appreciated.

it varied for me , cant play regularly anymore because of a dodgy left knee and been a few years since i last played competitively

think the thing for me in strokeplay was if i got off to a bad start i would lose focus as i knew i wasn't going to be in contention to win and had probably already accepted going up by 0.1. dont mean i would just give up but just losing that little bit of focus did show.

whereas in matchplay, which is what i would usually be playing in a "fun" game, even a dodgy start could be pulled back so would stay interested longer. the club i was a member at was pretty competitive and even what we called "bounce" games people played to win.

Had another dodgy day at the course yesterday - 122. Part of that was that I forgot my driver so I was forced to hit the 3 wood off the tee - with varying degrees of success.

I've got a lesson book this week so hopefully that can help. Still it's frustrating that after spending £1,000 on clubs, numerous trips to the driving range, over 200 holes of golf this year and an actual lesson that i'm playing worst than when I started.

Your head seems to stay fairly steady. Can you post another taken from the front to see what your weight transfer looks like?

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I managed to break 100 again at my 'nemesis' course but ended up on 99 again. This time it was the 'light rough' that caught me out. It cost me three strokes on one hole. I also duffed a seven iron from the fairway which really annoyed me. It's normally a tricky approach to the green but this time the flag was placed back on the left so well clear of the problem tree that normally blocks things. 135 yards and I duffed it 100 yards, putting me at my weakest distance (can't bump and run, can't pitch ).

But the rough..bah. The course is better than last time but it looks like they are going to keep their grass longer than other courses in the area. Their fairway is almost as thick as most courses light rough and their light rough is pretty much what other courses call 'thick rough'. I mean if your ball is just off the fairway the grass can be more than half way up the side of it. It probably doesn't help that it's a damp course (ex-flood plain) so the grass is always lush and thick.

I wonder if this is the issue I have with it. I'm not too bad at keeping the ball on the fairway but at other courses being off to the side by a yard or two doesn't matter much :-/

Spare a thought for me.
I'm going through my worst spell of bad golf - about five consecutive games.
Can't hit straight, chipping into bunkers, can't get out of bunkers, shanking, you name it
Today I'm playing in a team comp against a nearby club and I've been drawn to partner our best player - 5 handicap.
I suspect he'll be carrying not only his clubs but his partner.
Luckily he's a reall nice guy.
He's 73 and last year "shot his age".
His concentration over the ball is deafening.

I drew him in a comp when I was off 28 so he had to give me 23 shots!
I played to my best on the day but anything from 100/120 yds from green he'd put a stiletto through my ribs every time with his accuracy.
It was actually a good experience.
I took him to the 16th where he finally finished me and promptly said "Bugger the last two, let's go have a beer"!
So we did - at 11.20am

I think we have very different definitions of 'duffing' Andrue

For me, hitting a 7 iron 100 yards would be 'not getting all of it'.

A 'duff' would be topping the ball 25 yards along the ground