When It Goes.....It Goes

It was the Jubilee Cup at Royal Ascot on Bank Holiday Monday. It's a better ball event off three quarter handicaps and I was with my usual partner Mike Stannard. I have a certain affinity with this event having won it 2010 with a former Ascot member Hywel Lloyd and enjoying a stout top ten defence with Mike last year in our first event as a pairing. Although the day dawned bright and sunny the forecast was not optimistic and the grey clouds were gathering long before we made our way to the first tee. We were partnered with Colin Osborn and Steve Downey who are regular members of the our normal Saturday morning roll up so we were in for an enjoyable round with some good banter.


On reflection, it all started so well. Too well. I managed to chip and putt for a par at the first, giving Mike a free run at an opening birdie after his superb opening tee shot had found the heart of the green on the 229 yard first hole. It ran agonisingly past. We both made errors on the approach shot to the 2nd and although we secured a nett par, it was a hole we should have taken advantage of. Mike though did make a par at the third to put us briefly up on the card but this was pegged back when my bogey at the fourth was the best we could do. I made a par (nett birdie) at the fifth to restore our advantage and then made an up and down from the right of the sixth green. Surely the short game wasn't firing? Well actually the chip came up some ten feet short and the par was secure courtesy of a clutch putt rather than a simple tap in.

I went on to secure a rare par (for me) at the seventh with a good five wood off the tee and a hybrid into the centre of the green. I even hit the green on the shortest hole, the eighth which is something I'd not managed for a few rounds. I should have made a par at the ninth but missed a two footer after a sublime recovery from deep rough well right of the target. I say sublime, but in truth it was a good old fashioned hit and hope that for once came off. Just for now the omens were looking good as we reached the turn in 19 points. Oh how easily I'm fooled.

The rain started on the tenth tee. Hard and persistent enough to force the waterproofs on. I made another par at the tenth. Usually I get a shot here but off the lower handicap mark this was only enough for a two point tally. Mind you, from where the drive finished short and left it was a good result. My recovery finished just right of the green and I hit a decent chip to within six feet and managed to hole the putt. I came to the fore again on the toughest hole (stroke index 1) the 409 yard dog leg par four that is the twelfth. A good drive was accompanied by a better second and had the greens been running truer I could have been more aggressive with the birdie. As it was they had been hollow tined in the week and were a little unpredictable, especially from short range.
I was the only one of the quartet to find the green at the thirteenth and recorded another solid par and at this stage we were a couple under handicap. A strong finish would see Mike and I well and truly in the mix. And there comes the crux. The astute amongst you will have noticed that a lot of the good scores to date have been preceded by the word "I". Unfortunately poor Mike was having one of those golfing days to forget. You all know the one. Things aren't going great but the harder you try the worse it gets. Frustration creeps in and the bottom falls out of your golfing world. I'm not sure who Mike had borrowed his swing from for the day but it wasn't from a competent golfer and he was really having a hard time.

Some days not matter what you do it is never going to work

I really felt for him. I know from personal experience just how agonising it is when it goes wrong like this. I'm sure if you are are a regular reader of the blog you'll know that much of 2011 was littered with entries detailing the pain and angst of another round that had fallen apart in spectacular fashion. To be fair to Mike, he had spent most of last season carrying me and I knew that he was still trying his hardest over every shot. It's really toughd watching a good golfer struggling with his game. What can you do? I knew he was still trying to find something, anything, to help contribute just as I did in similar positions last year. It is hard watching a mate clearly wishing he was anywhere else than the back nine at Royal Ascot in the pouring rain.

Remember I said the omens were good? Well by the time we'd wandered off the fourteenth green they were in tatters. My tee shot found trouble left. I recovered and put my third just short of the putting surface. No need to panic as I was getting a shot. Mike had got a decent strike off the tee. A little left in the first cut of rough but in a good position to advance the ball somewhere adjacent to the green, This was where Mikes swing went into full and final meltdown by the time he was within spitting distance of the green he had taken too many to contribute to the points tally. Not to worry, two putts from just off the green would do the trick. The first putt just about covered half distance and the second rattled by. Three feet left for a point. I think we all know how it finished. In this format, it's a schoolboy error, no actually more of a cardinal sin, that both players fail to register a point between them on a hole.
I had a real horror down the par five fifteenth. Mike again managed to find a decent position in two but couldn't quite find a way to get the job done. Still his single point was better than nothing. The domino effect took hold and as Mike continued to struggle then my game also began to disintegrate. We found a way of both failing to register a point at the sixteenth. The seventeenth gleaned another solitary point and by the time I'd dumped two balls in the greenside pond on the last our race was well and truly run. I think we were both glad to get off the course, out of the rain and into the sanctuary of the 19th.

Both Mike and I were armed and dangerous

Our partners Colin and Steve were steady, especially on the back nine and came in with a respectable 37 points. Not enough to challenge but far better than our modest 32 point tally which saw Mike and I down in the also rans. To be honest even though I contributed significantly until I hit the golfing equivalent of the wall on the fourteenth I wasn't overly happy with the quality of the ball striking. It hadn't been great the day before in the club match against Caversham Heath but to be honest the opposition were playing poorly and so it masked a lot of the issues. I'm annoyed that the swing disappeared in smoke on the back of one bad drive. Was I trying too hard to compensate for Mike's poor round? Not consciously. I just seemed to lose the ability to hit the ball where I intended. On the plus side, Mike is too good a golfer to be in the doldrums for long and I'm sure he'll find the form that got him to single figures.

As for me, there is still some work to do to get the one plane swing working. I know I'm coming in way too shallow and that the hips don't always turn properly and can start sliding. I guess it's back to the drills I've been shown and trying to get it ingrained. The good news is that I've a lesson booked for Thursday evening and so at least I can get Rhys ap Iolo at the Downshire Golf Centre to cast his beady eye on where I'm at. I managed to find a way to make some good scores on some of the holes over the course of the weekend and so I know I can theoretically score well on each hole. Consistency is the key and during the round I'm not fussed how I put a score together as long as I do. Over time I want to find a swing that is stronger and more robust so that I can avoid these periodic scoring breakdowns. I've got a nine hole playing lesson to use with Rhys and so I'm hoping he'll give me some tips on course management and strategies to cope when the swing goes AWOL.

At the moment we are only just heading into the guts of the season. I'm in a much better place than I was with my game even at the start of the calendar year. Everyone has bad rounds and my bad ones are getting less cataclysmic and I have a better understanding of what is going wrong when it does. I can usually find a way to get it round in some fashion and so with the progressive work I'm continuing to do I'm confident the last five hole meltdown will be a very small blip on an otherwise productive season. As for my partnership with Mike. It's as solid as ever and we'll be back stronger and more determined than ever. We're in the Volvo matchplay and there will be other pairs events during the season at Royal Ascot and hopefully we'll manage to both get it right on the same day for once. Well, you have to live in hope!