Climbing the Walls

I'm not a happy soul. I've been laid low with a heavy cold since Friday and had to pull out of the monthly stableford yesterday. I felt so bad I couldn't even summon the energy to go to the range or work on my short game and spent most of yesterday asleep. I'm pretty fed up as I thought after last week there were definite signs of improvement and was looking forward to a good performance.

I have managed to get to the range this afternoon. To be honest it probably wasn't the brightest idea I've ever had as I still feel really achy and weak and so although the quality of the strike was good my direction was a bit off. I tried to focus on making a shorter and more compact swing, partly to try and alleviate the excessive movement I seem to have in my swing at the moment and partly to try make a solid swing despite feeling so rough.

I'll see how I go but hopefully I'll get a couple of sessions at the range this week. The problem I have is that I can never see where the balls are landing in the darker evenings if I hit more than a 7 iron partly because of my dodgy eyesight and partly because the range lighting is never that good. It becomes a real issue if I want to work on my game in the winter. If I hit a driver, I can tell which direction it started in and whether it was moving in the air but have no real idea of how far or where it actually lands so it makes the whole process a bit of a mockery. Of course, there will be times when the course is sodden, it's pouring and there isn't a competition on where I can get out and hit balls in the daylight at the weekend so it isn't all bad.

I've got a game booked at Sand Martins on Friday with Budely (Paul Sweetman). It'll be good to play a different course with him instead of taking each other on at Ascot. We had talked about going away for a long weekend this summer but with Paul being made redundant this went onto a back burner until next year.

My lay-off has given me a chance to read the latest magazines. Of course the Ryder Cup is the hot topic and after much consideration I'm going for a Europe win 15-13. I don't think it will be as easy as many have predicted and feel that Europe will need a 3 or 4 point lead going into the final day singles in order to hold on and reclaim the trophy. I plan to take the bragging rights off Paul early on Friday and spend the afternoon in the Sand Martins clubhouse watching the foursomes. On Saturday it'll be a roll up with the usual Saturday morning suspects and back home for another afternoon ensconced on the sofa. I think I can probably fit a quick visit to the range on Sunday before the singles start after which I'm putting the wife on regular tea making duty and staying put.

All in all then not much to report. I had hoped to be rejoicing in having met my target of single figures after a glorious Summer but as we all know that never looked like happening. Still we are entering the last quarter of the year and so there's still time. I'm already getting frustrated that I can't get any holes or practice in after work now and my lack of a proper golf fix this weekend has left me going "cold turkey". I even had to endure the pain of a trip to several garden centres yesterday despite my protestation of feeling unwell and being laid up in bed. It better not be another winter like last year as there are only so many rows of pansies a man can look at.

Time for another lemsip and a look at the forecast for next Friday.