A Chance Spurned

Yesterday saw the first competitive outing of 2012 in the January monthly stableford at Royal Ascot. The course was in good condition for the time of year and given the heavy deluges it suffered last week. I'd played on Saturday in the normal roll up and hadn't played too badly in patches. The swing wasn't as fluid as it had been in recent weeks but I hadn't had a chance to practice, primarily due to the gale force winds and torrential rain. I know I'm keen but even I draw the line somewhere and there was no mileage hitting the range and bashing balls in those conditions.

The new positive and forward thinking Homer wasn't deterred and I was looking forward to the competition. I'd been drawn with John Munday, a good player off 5. I'd recently played against John in the 1st round of the Winter Knockout (4 ball better ball pairs). We'd narrowly beaten John (who wasn't very well on the day anyway) and his partner thanks in main to the consistency of my wing man rather than any earth shattering contribution from me. The third member of our ensemble was gentle giant Mike Goodwin, playing off 11. I've played with Mike a few times and he's impeccable company. All was set for a good game.

In truth, I never really got going. A net par at the first was followed by a par at the 535 yard second. I didn't really hit a solid shot on the hole and par was secured courtesy of a fifteen foot putt. I made par at the third. Again it wasn't pretty with poor contact on the drive and approach and another single putt from eight feet. It couldn't last and a huge block right off the fourth tee lay the foundations for a bogey although there wasn't really an excuse for missing the green from the position the tee shot finished in.

After that, the wheels fell off mid-round. I hit a shocking tee shot on the par three sixth hole and deservedly lost a ball. No points there. I followed that up by missing the green right on the shortest hole on the course, the 139 yard par three eighth. I could only get the bunker shot out onto the lip of the trap and although I played a good recovery from a tricky lie I couldn't hole the six footer to rescue a point.

Out in fifteen points, it was scant reward for the good start I had made. I really hadn't made a decent swing and it was the same story at the start of the back nine. I chipped and putted to rescue a par at the tenth and then hit my tee shot some twenty yards wide of the target on the par three eleventh. I rescued a net par. A thinned drive into cabbage on the next put me on the back foot and I did well to make a net par again. After that it was a tale of too many poor drives, being out of position and never giving myself a chance to recover any of the lost ground. Even a good chip and putt for par at the seventeenth didn't really help and was followed by a hooked drive and an annoying double bogey for a solitary point to finish.

The seventeen points on the back nine would point to a decent second half performance but it was a long way from that and was an exercise in recovery play on almost every hole. It was a real struggle. In the end the final tally of thirty two points was good enough for ninth place in division two. The real disappointment was that level par, thirty six points, was good enough to win the division. That should have been well within my compass. The only redeeming feature was the fact the the Competitive Scratch Score (CSS) went out from par 70 to 71 (+1) and so I managed to hit the buffer zone and so there was no handicap increase. There wasn't too much of a breeze, it wasn't particularly cold and the course wasn't saturated so I've no idea why scoring was so high.

So why did it go so wrong? I really don't know if I'm honest. I hit it respectably enough in my pre-round warm up and the ball striking on Saturday wasn't as bad as the competitive performance. The swing just felt way out of sync, too long, too quick, not in the right position on the back swing and I was definitely losing spine angle and coming out of most shots. A cacophony of disasters. I'd like to think it was down to not hitting any balls last week but I'm sure that is too simplistic an answer. I felt on Saturday I wasn't staying down on the shot and noticed it was impacting my distances with each club. When the swing had been flowing pre and post Christmas the ball striking was much purer and I was hitting it further. I'm sure its the old problem of an over swing which is moving everything out of kilter and I can't get the club in the right place at the top of the back swing. From there everything is a compensatory move and frankly I'm not talented enough to recover the club into impact on a regular basis.

On the plus side I scrambled pretty well and for once my short game was free of inhibitions and could flow. My putting was pretty solid less one missed two footer on the thirteenth but other than that I holed out well and made some good longer putts too.

The way I see it, if I can still accumulate a respectable points tally and be within touching distance of a top three finish playing as badly as that it actually bodes very well once we get the game back on track. With the old swing (pre Plane Truth and switching to a one plane set up) there would have been even more moving parts. Even when it wasn't going well I knew what I was trying to do going back and coming into impact and beyond even if I couldn't quite manage to recreate what the brain was telling the body to do.

I wasn't alone in seeing it as a missed opportunity. Poor John double bogied the seventeenth which would have given him a tie for the top spot in division one. However from my own perspective it was a golden opportunity to start the year with a top free finish and a handicap cut. I'm off to the range this week to focus on getting the club in a better position on the back swing and a feeling of it pulling left and turning on top of the ball on the way through. I've proved it is in there and the things Rhys my teaching pro is getting me to work on are correct so I have total faith in where we are going. I just need to replicate it. I need to bear in mind it is still only a month since the changes started and it was the first competitive round so maybe, just maybe, I've been lulled into a bit of a false sense of security with the way I played over the Christmas break. We can all do with the odd wake up call and reality check from time to time and maybe this was mine.

As long as I can get the ball striking back at the range this week we've not got much to worry about. It's just so frustrating when the winning score was so low that I couldn't have brought even my B or C game to the party which would have been enough. Next week is another round. I'm hungrier than ever now.