Out and About At Last

Finally, we're back on a fully open course. To be fair it's not in bad condition. It's a little wet in places but the strong breeze of the last few days has really helped it. Mind you that wind was positively Baltic this morning, one of those that goes right through the old bones. Still I was out and it was a chance to finally use my new clubs fully for the first time.

It was only meant to be a friendly two ball with my mate Hywel. He played the London Club yesterday with a group from the Golf Monthly forum and won the money with 38 points off the whites and so I was expecting trouble. However on the putting green waiting to go out we were challenged by two Ascot stalwarts to a game. I was confident my new clubs would behave and that my partner was in form and relished the challenge.

I'm sorry if you're a regular reader but it's a case of more of the same. Good shots in terms of ball striking peppered with some poor approach play and a ropey short game. For some reason I decided my Taylormade Itsy Spider putter needed an outing. Why I don't know as the Rossa had been behaving impeccably but there you go. From the first green I had no real confidence with it (it's already back in the spare bag and would be on the naughty step if such a thing existed for golf clubs). A case in point is the second hole, a reasonable straight forward 535 yarder with a dog left right. I hit a good drive, and pull a 5 wood to lay up in front of the cross bunker. However I pulled it left into the bunker about 105 yards from the green. My Sky Caddy says 118 to the back flag and I hit a lovely clean shot high and true and shooting for the flag. It draws (yes I know, from a bunker, I was scared too) and lands in the greenside trap. I get there and this isn't a fried egg lie. Its fried, and then some. A JCB couldn't have got it out and I walk off with a seven having not struck the ball badly.

I think the simplest and kindest thing to say about my partner was that yesterday must have taken it out of him as he had a shocker. To be fair he's normally fairly consistant and so today was a blip. I was hitting great but missing too many greens and we were 5 down at the turn. On the 10th I hit the fairway and was 147 to the back, into the wind. I took one extra club than normal and hit a six iron. It was a thing of glory and why I bought these new clubs. Perfect contact, with a penertrating flight and a hint of draw. It pitched six inches from the flag and stopped three feet away. The putter behaved for a joyous birdie. The wind really got up on the back nine and it was a slog all round. My driving tailed away if I'm being honest and we were toast by the 15th green.

I'm off for a chipping lesson tomorrow. My teaching pro Grant Sayer is back and fit after surgery and so I'm hoping his CPR on my short game will be the final piece in the jigsaw. I simply have no confidence at the moment and will either hit a sublime chip reminiscent of Seve in his heyday or chunk it in front of me, with the odd thin across the green chucked in to keep it interesting. I need to find more greens. That much has become clear in my statistics for the year (only 15% of GIR this year). However with a half decent short game at least the opportunity to get up and down and score would be there more often. Oh well, there's always next week to look forward to (Medal time again).

Total number of lost balls in 2010 = 6