Last weekend was the monthly medal at Royal Ascot Golf Club. I'd had a practice session the Sunday before where ball striking had gone well and the I'd worked hard yet again on the short game. Deliciously under prepared I think you'd call it. The weather was allegedly going to be showery and there was a tricky wind to keep it interesting. To spice things up further I'd been moved forward to plug some gaps in the draw and not only was I partnering my new winter league partner Mick Mills, but I had no time to warm up and managed five or so full blows in anger on the practice ground. That was it, a couple of putts and off onto the first for a medal round. What could possible go wrong?
The opening tee shot at the 229 yard first could have gone anywhere with no warn up. Instead it was a well struck blow with a hint of draw that was a tad too excessive and it finished up on a bare muddy lie just behind one of the bunkers left of the green. Nothing like a tricky pitch on the opener to remind you about the recent shanks. However I played it to perfection with no sign of the hosel anywhere the ball and it ran to twelve feet. I missed the putt but the net par was a solid enough start.
I found the fairway on the second. As the statistics will reveal later, this was to be a novel experience. I pushed the fairway wood into the semi-rough and my nine iron came up just shy. I was able to get a putter on it and holed it from thirty five feet for a cheeky little birdie. Get in.
The third found the tee shot in the right hand fairway bunker. I played a decent seven iron but it missed right and I was left to chip back to a tight pin. A delicate shot to three feet and a par save. That's why my focus has been on all things short game. I made a mess of the fourth, pulling the tee shot left, missing the green left and I found another bare muddy lie. I had to pitch up a bank to a green on a big slope. It was well placed but ran past the hole and I had a four foot putt back down the slope. I was scared of it and didn't put a good stroke on the putt for a bogey. Still one over after four was beyond my expectations at this stage.
It was two over by the sixth tee, having had some issues on the par five, including missing the green from 160 yards having found a poor lie in the rough off the tee and in the semi-rough after the second. Still the pitching was holding up.
If you follow these trials and tribulations on a regular basis you'll know I've spoken of car crash holes, coming from nowhere, with no sane reasoning behind it, that have scuttled many a promising round and made me miss buffer zones or played myself out of contention. And so it came to pass that the sixth would be one such hole, not for the first time. A horrible tee shot from 174 yards with a hybrid was a huge slice into the trees, lost, although it would probably have been out of bounds anyway, and I'm suddenly reloading. I found the green, just, with the second tee shot but with the flag at the back I had a forty five foot putt. I judged it perfectly but it added up to a double bogey. I thought I was going to compound the problem when I went way left with the same club off the tee on the seventh, landing up on the adjacent third fairway. The hole has a protected environmental area, out of bounds if the ball goes in, which was in my way. I could have played over a large oak onto the correct fairway but I pulled the five wood and from 228 yards took aim. It came up some thirty yards short but it was well struck and I played a pitch of beauty to four feet. Another one putt and a par saved.
I parred the next and a net par at the ninth although that involved another missed fairway, a poor second that flirted with the out of bounds right, and a slightly thinned pitch finished by two putts. Still I was out in gross 40 (+5) and bearing in mind that included that double bogey at six, that was great going as I wasn't actually hitting it well.
My curate's egg of a round continued on the back nine. On the tenth I missed another fairway right, another green right, was too bold with a pitch and had to putt from off the back of the green up the slope and then downhill once the ball found the green. It went four feet past but I squeezed the return in. It's funny how the golfing gods recognise a weakness and then ensure you have to face it again. So far I'd hit a hybrid right off the tee (lost ball) and way left. The eleventh is a par three and the three hybrid was the club. I hit this one straight but thin and low and it barely got above head height but found the narrow gap at the front of the putting surface, and rolled gently off the back edge. I putted up for a fortunate but welcome par.
I got up and down from twelve feet at the thirteenth for another par scramble and another one putt green and repeated the feat a couple of holes later having pulled my approach left at the par five fifteenth. A safe bogey at the sixteenth and seventeenth, both shot holes and therefore net pars didn't cause any panic.
I have to admit I knew I'd kept the scorecard ticking over and so a par or a bogey would put me in a strong position and definitely in contention. I was perhaps a little nervous over the tee shot. In my last round I'd fired it way right towards the out of bounds and got very fortunate that it came back and I could cobble a double bogey. This tee shot was also right, not struck that well and came up short, right and in a very so so lie. I wanted to aim down the left side of the hole, assuming the lie and the left to right shape I'd had all day would move it back towards the centre or right edge of the fairway. Instead I hit it left into heavy rough and from there it was full scale panic mode. In the end I did well to make another double bogey seven. It left a nasty taste. However I'd carded a respectable 42 gross (+7) which meant I'd gone round in 82 (+12) for a nett 69 (-1). It could have been so much be so much better
October 2015 Medal Statistics
In the end, I came third in Division One, by a single shot and if I had made par instead of double on the sixth or last I'd have won. Of course that's all if's and but's and to be honest as you can see from my fairway and greens in regulation statistics wasn't something I really deserved. I really didn't play well all day and rode my luck enormously. However I only had twenty eight putts and my par scramble was 35% so you can see where the score was constructed. I did manage to win some cash from the roll up kitty which softened the blow of that double bogey. Best of all though, you will be pleased to know that your narrator enjoyed a 0.3 handicap cut as I was one under the competition scratch score (CSS). This means I drop from 12.5 (13 handicap) back to 12.2 and back to a twelve handicap again.
I really enjoyed playing with Mick Mills and although he didn't have a great day, there was enough between us to indicate that we could become a rather tricky proposition for whoever we are drawn against in the Winter knockout.
I wasn't happy with my ball striking and I could have played on Sunday but instead tried to hit some balls in practice and work on takeaway, posture and tempo, all the things I've been trying to improve in my lessons with Any Piper all summer. There was some glimmer of improvement but I wasn't happy but rather than continue bashing balls I wanted to focus on short game again. I was still having issues with the pitching. Those of you that have been with me all the way on this monumental journey towards a single figure handicap will remember I was using a fairly new and somewhat unconventional method for chipping and pitching called the linear method (Linear Method) which utilises the bounce of the club more and rotates around the front leg. Stack and tilt (for those that know of this) for the short game if you will. I've tried really hard to change to a more orthodox approach but having now started shanking I've reverted. It produced immediate and improved pitching results from around the sixty, forty and thirty yard distances. I even took it onto the putting green and re-introduced it into my chipping. Again, confidence soared as I holed a few and put most very adjacent with this method. It's something I intend to take out this weekend in the roll up and trial again.
As usual where does this leave everything. Well I hit the range this week. There were some shanks in the full swing early on, perhaps caused by a rapid tempo courtesy of a full on day in work. It did improve and I had to work hard on the posture again. All my shots still had a left to right arc but these were more Colin Montgomery like fades as opposed to anything to destructive. The quality of the strike on the whole was much improved. In my mind, with limited competitive play to come in the next few weeks it's the perfect time to start the winter work, especially short game and while I have these shanking issues on the pitches I'll persist with the linear method. Funnily though, when I reverted to a "text book" method after a linear session it was much improved. I'm hoping one will bleed into the other.
I'm back of twelve. Back in the game and somehow ground a score out. Yes I do think it was there for the winning but if I can get it round hitting it that poorly imagine what I can do going forward. I am a happy golfer
These numbers (are you still with me?) are testament to a lot of hard work and grinding it out in the short game area. The longer swing is definitely more robust and has less moving parts than at the start of the year. It has improved although the only fly in the ointment has been greens in regulation down at 19% this year from 26% last year. Fairways in regulation have stayed steady down from 44% to 43% this year. Not really good enough but that can be fixed.
All in all I'm glad to be back in the game but still not happy I let a good chance slip by again. Still, in it to win it and all that. On the plus side I'm happy to give you something a lot more positive to read and peruse. I'm a glass half empty type of guy by nature so finding nuggets of good fortune sometimes comes hard. Not this time. Play badly, putt and scramble well and pick up a few quid of the usual suspects. Not a bad result all things considered. Back in the game.
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