Fellini Day

Anyone who is a fan of the Federico Fellini films will know about chance and coincidence. I had a real Fellini day on Saturday. I'd decided not to play in the roll up as it was tipping down and I had a 36 hole competition on Sunday in the Masters (invitational event open only to competition winners in the preceding twelve months).

I'd set out to Sand Martins late morning as they have a superior short game area to Ascot's and it was sunnier than when I'd got up (and saw it pouring down). I got halfway there and the heavens opened so I aborted and came back home, had some lunch and watched the Man Utd game instead. It was a cracking game for the neutral. Once the full time whistle blew I decided to give Sand Martins another and spent a happy hour working on my short game.

When the wife came to pick me up I had a few balls left. Her boss (my wife works at Sand Martins) was hitting on the range so she wandered over to talk to her. My wife's boss (are you still with me?) is the partner of Andrew Hall who owns Sand Martins and is also a top coach and is often featured in Golf International. Now I'm standing there doing my own thing and suddenly he wanders along and starts giving me a couple of tips. Cue a free one hour lesson and some simple but integral swing pointers to work on. Basically my swing problems seem to be path orientated and so he had me trying to hit fades to give myself the feeling of the club being more in front of me at impact.

Surely this was a sign and that his devine words of wisdom would pay off on Sunday in the Masters....