A Change Of Tack - Coming To An Inevitable Conclusion

I have a love hate relationship with golf and right now, it is firmly in the hate camp. My form has deserted me yet again and my swing and scoring is in the doldrums. You find your narrator wallowing in a pit of self pity and misery with his game and he's been thinking. My approach to this needs a fresh angle and I'm changing tack. The premise is still the same. I still have an unyielding faith in my ability to get to single figures. I just have a feeling my approach to this has been all wrong.

I had a lesson a few weeks ago. For the first few sessions afterwards at the range I was striping the ball and everything was in sync and temp was fluid and compact. Sadly my ability to play was severely restricted with the course shut and I didn't really get a chance to get out and try it, real time where it really counts.

Since then, form has been tailing off. I played poorly in Captain's Day in terms of ball striking terms and had to work overtime but managed to score reasonably although it was off the yellow tees and so the course was playing shorter and arguably easier. I played in the roll up the day after. Another round where I was fighting my game from the opening tee shot until the final putt dropped. I've been to the range in the last week to try and get to the bottom of the problem. Back to checking posture, checking tempo and working on a better one piece takeaway, all key elements from the last lesson. And all to no avail.

Range sessions have been unproductive and I'm hitting it poorly. The stock shot seems to be a weak shot right. The contact itself feels fine but it's starting right of target and moving further right. To be honest I'm just a little bit lost right now. It has been Longhurst Cup weekend at my club, Royal Ascot Golf Club. It's a medal format and players choose which two days out of the three of the bank holiday weekend they want to play. I played my first round on Saturday. It was a slog. I didn't hit a single iron shot well. I had managed to drive reasonably, especially early on, but missed green after green. I was fighting the swing throughout and in the end felt like I was playing every shot with fear and trying to steer it. I ran out of luck on the seventeenth hooking it out of bounds and then going for the green at the last from 149 yards, knowing I wasn't hitting irons well and carving it into the lake right of the green. A lay up, and a chip and two putt for bogey (net par) was the sensible option. My total was net 75 (+5) and so another 0.1 back on the handicap and to be honest if it wasn't for some decent chipping and putting in the middle part of the round it could have been a real car crash round.

And here's the thing. I could of played yesterday and got my second round done and dusted. I didn't and opted to spend a day with the wife. I just didn't fancy playing. I slipped out and hit a few balls late in the day but it was terrible. It meant I was forced to play my last round today. I knew what the forecast was and it wasn't good with heavy rain due. I opened the curtains and there it was. I simply went back to bed and haven't even bothered playing. I have never done this before. Can't say I feel great about it but I didn't enjoy my round on Saturday and there was no way I wanted to endure four hours in non-stop heavy rain just to submit a card and get another 0.1 back on the handicap.

I have a lesson booked for Thursday. It was supposed to be an hour working on the short game and giving myself an edge in an area that has been improving of late. It seems now I need an MOT on my swing and something to fix the problem. What that is and where it's come from is something I'll be sitting down with Andy Piper my teacher to find out. We'll be discussing where I go next. I still think lessons are important to my game. I've said many times golf has never come easy and I'm not blessed with natural co-ordination and timing. However I can't keep having lessons, making small forward steps forward and then huge backward strides. Why isn't it sticking and why isn't it working?

And yet I feel I know the answer in my heart already. A guy called Adam Cook took the time to comment on my last post (The Benefits Of Lessons). Thank you for taking the time (and if anything I write provokes you, please feel free to follow his example and post a comment). He talked about "finding positions" in my swing. While I don't agree with that I concede that I do seem to be trying to groove drills and swing changes too often. If I am going to work on my game, short game is where it should be at. I've become a range jockey bashing balls and trying to find a swing that perhaps isn't there. I just need something functional more often than not. Pretty or even technically perfect isn't necessary.

I need to change tack. This approach clearly isn't paying dividends. My handicap is heading north and while I have had degrees of success in 2015 I am no nearer getting to single figures. The biggest rub is that I look around my club and see guys who wouldn't know the way to a driving range or practice ground if you gave them directions. They barely work at their game and yet seem equally as consistent, if not more so than I am. Their handicap in many cases is lower and they hit buffer zones more regularly. Their game seems no better or worse than mine. They simply play more. If I am going to work on my game, it has to be from a hundred yards and in and on the putting green.

But here's a paradox, perhaps part of my DNA. I have a lesson and work on my game and move a little way forward. If I don't work on my game and then chop it around I feel I need to go back out and work harder on my swing. Perhaps I need to practice smarter and better. If I don't work on my game I don't play well. At least that's how it has always felt in my mind. We have winter on the horizon (sad but inevitable) and so playing opportunities are reduced to weekends and even then only if the great British weather permits. Does that mean I sit about and resist going out and working on my game? Do I use the dark months to re-evaluate my target. Is single figures even realistic any more, especially as a handicap of 13 beckons. Sitting here, morose with the rain auditioning at my window, the answer is still a YES. A change of tack is necessary and as I've alluded to it has become almost inevitable. Single figures are still achievable.

Something has to give. I've decided I'm still going ahead with my block of lessons over the winter. The work I've done in 2015 to date with tempo in particular has paid some dividends allied to the better takeaway it does give a swing of fewer moving parts.....when it works. However the biggest area has to be translating what I can do on a range onto a course and that into low scores and handicap cuts. To this end I'm absolutely certain I've over thought this now and my equation of working on technique equalling better golf is incorrect. Good technique is essential, hence the need to work on a smoother tempo and swing. However getting my head right is even more important. I need to clear the junk, de-clutter my golfing my mind and play with freedom on the course while bringing my range game with me.

This should be an interesting challenge for my teaching professional but one he seems up for. He seems convinced, like me, that we still have a single figure golfer in there. I just need to look at a fresh way of tapping into him. To this end, range sessions are being restricted to one per week on the full swing. No more than that. I'll play every opportunity I have over the winter. I usually baulk at playing on temporary greens in the winter as they are usually stuck on the edge of a fairway, are impossible to hit into effectively with an iron and it become a lottery to get it close with a chip or putt on frozen and rutted ground. However I'll be swinging the club, not having any technical thoughts and can use it to work on short game and driving, two areas that can always be better. If the weather is totally inclement any additional range work will be looking at distance control and pitching, looking to improve accuracy with short irons (8 iron down to sand wedge).

Having read this post so far, please don't get the idea it is all doom and gloom. Yes your narrator is frustrated with the state of his game and the fact that in hindsight I should have submitted a second score yesterday and posted a total (I've effectively no returned having only put one card in). However, with a lesson to come this week to cure all that ails me, I have a great opportunity at the weekend to reignite the flame with a strong showing in the "Masters". It's an invitational event open only to competition winners at the club over the last twelve months. I'm in courtesy of my win in the June stableford. I don't think the swing is far away. Laughable when you consider how I hit my irons on Saturday (and at the range last week and yesterday) but every time I've seen Andy Piper for a lesson it has been a quick tweak, a bit of remedial work and away I go. The problem has then come over egging the pudding and grinding it out on the range to get the changes to bleed into the swing. The first and second sessions post lesson are usually very good before it tapers off. This has to change.

The equation is simple. More play, less practice, certainly on the long game. Short game still needs work and that area of the game is now my main focus. Others seem to be playing and improving and I am working on my game and not doing so. Change of tack. Fresh approach. It can't do any harm.

So what can you the reader derive from all this waffling? Nothing more significant than I've reached a turning point in my golfing pursuit of single figures. I didn't enjoy my round at the weekend and perhaps this odyssey has become all encompassing. Golf is suppose to be fun at this level. I am always a glass half empty sort of guy. Always have been. That said I do normally enjoy my game and there's always something to bring me back. On Saturday there were some good up and downs and so the chipping and clutch putting is getting better. I drove reasonably well in places. See, not all bad. In fact, the chipping in particular is coming along nicely.

Let's see what Thursday and next week brings. No point looking back. Single figure golf doesn't come without effort, some set backs and disappointment along the way. Time to take stock, reassess and try a new way. I see it as an inevitable change of tack and I'm back under full sail again.