Ticking over

It's been a quiet few days. I spent some useful time on the practice ground working on my pitching and reaped the benefits today of several hours on the putting green working on my chipping and putting. Swing wise I've just been trying to work on the better turn as per my recent lesson and it is slowly showing some signs of progress but it's still very much a one step forward, two back sort of thing.

I played with my regular partner Hywel at Ascot against a couple of really nice guys from the Golf Monthly forum today. I started off poorly. I played the first pretty solidly but had a nightmare down the second and was inconsistent up until I made a good five (net four) to win the seventh. I don't mind hacking it around in a friendly game or with Ascot members as they know me and my game but I find it so frustrating when I invite guests down or travel to their clubs to play like a fool. Fortunately it galvanised my game and I started to hit the ball a lot better on the back nine.

It was hard going in the warm sunshine and it looked like the "dream team" were going to struggle after turning one down. However Hywel raided the birdie bank and his approach to a foot at twelve (birdie nett eagle) put us two up. I made a parred the long par 3 thirteenth but lost to a birdie two but bounced back by making a par (net birdie) at the fourteenth. Hywel locked down a par at the fifteenth to go dormie three. I got hugely lucky at the next where I hooked my drive towards the OB (out of bounds) and watched it bounce back into play. I could have done with saving that for a medal round! A safe five nett four was enough to close it out and keep our record against allcomers from the forum intact.

I'm down to play in a small society match tomorrow at Ascot which will be tough going as the weather is set to get even hotter. On Sunday I've a lesson planned and I'm looking at maybe getting the chipping technique tweaked to make sure bad habits aren't resurfacing and then its off to work on the swing.

Total number of balls lost in 2010 = 22