2017 - The Quest For Single Figures

Let's start at the beginning and be totally honest. My 2016 golf season had such high hopes and aspirations. Winter practice had been diligent and the lessons and hard work were coming together and I hoped to hit the ground running and really kick on and make this the year I got to single figures. Then I was rushed into A&E, my health took a distinct turn for the worse, and basically I've gone backwards in a big way. There has been some lingering effects of my illness. My golf has suffered and I've lost ground in a big way. I'm closer to 15 at 13.9 (14) than 9, having started the year with the handicap at 12 and nicely set to move lower. It hasn't been a very good season.

Fear not, my appetite has not diminished and if anything I'm more certain, more dogmatic in my ability to turn things around and get things moving in the right direction. However even I'm realistic enough to understand that going from 15 to 9 isn't going to happen in one hit or one season. I need to tackle it in stages and the first priority has to get back to my 2016 starting point.

As you may be aware, especially if you are a regular reader (and I thank you for that) I like a statistic. However one thing I've been remiss at doing is keeping a track of my practice sessions. I haven't really got a handle on what I've worked on and whether I'm making forward progress. As you will be aware, I was lucky enough to recently play with Rick Shiels and Peter Finch, two professionals who have their own goal, their Quest for the Open, trying to make it to the 2017 British Open and who have used their youtube channels to plot their progress. Check out my last link (Golf Monthly Forum Help For Heroes Charity Day) for the links to their channels. I was able to pick their brains as we played. I've come up with my own practice plan for the coming winter. More importantly I am going to be far more circumspect and chart my progress, as they've been doing, and see how each area, hopefully improves as we finish 2016 and move onwards to a fresh season in 2017. Hopefully my health issues are almost fully behind me and I should be fighting fit for the new season.

I've not done too much practice work recently but I've started to record my details Winter Practice Diary, Its early days and I'm just getting into it. I had a practice session last weekend at a local range on a very cold day, with a bitter north wind blowing into my bay along with heavy drizzle. I wasn't swing well and so only started my statistics by recording ten drives, trying to hit it between two targets representing an imaginary fairway and trying to hit a green on the range. Usually, from the bay I regularly use, it's about 105 yards and a smooth pitching wedge. In the conditions, it was a full nine iron and although I've called it the "100 yard target", it was actually playing more like 110 yards.

Today (Sunday 13th November) I had more time. Conditions were more favourable and I decided to embark on a putting challenge. It was inspired by a Peter Finch video where he has replicated a putting drill used (apparently) by Jordan Spieth. It's basically 100 balls x 10 different distances. That's a thousand putts! Now as a dedicated (some would say fanatical) worker on my game, that's too rich even for me. Even Peter Finch seemed to find it too much Peter Finch - Jordan Spieth Putting Challenge so as a compromise, I've filtered mine down to a relative bite size chunk and opted for 20 balls per distance. That's still 200 putts per session. That's more putts than I'd normally do in a session but now I have something more structured to work with. It took me two hours to complete the drill. To be honest I did find my concentration wane, especially on the twenty and thirty foot stations, and again on my final session at the ten foot station, where I think fatigue was definitely setting in.

The Royal Ascot Golf Club - my base for some intense putting practice (in not such nice conditions as these

I've managed to get some initial numbers. I was reasonably pleased with my three foot conversion rate, but there was then a big spike downwards, especially at five feet and seven feet. As I moved outwards I expected my numbers to drop. I was pleased to actually make at least one from twenty and thirty feet. The putting green at Royal Ascot has a severe tier through the middle and is relatively narrow and so I was forced to only have two stations at the longer distances (I had been using five per distance before that, two balls per station, so a group of ten putts per rotation times two - clear????) and I was forced to putt down and across the slope making it a harder putt to read and judge.

Without wanting to spoil the outcome of the Peter Finch clip too much (and it's worth a look if only to admire his dedication to the task at hand) I had a similar outcome when I moved back into the closer distances (4 feet, 8 feet and 10 feet) to finish. The longer two were better than the original comparable stations (7 feet and 12 feet) and so it clearly has an impact. It's a long drill and one I plan to only do every month or so depending on the state of the green as winter comes. I have other putting drills I will be doing along the way and I hope this is one area I can see quick, significant and long lasting results and is something I can take out onto the course straight away when I play.

Short game is next on the agenda. Pitching and chipping are still woeful. My chipping conversion is a pitiful 13% although my sand saves are a healthy 24%. I'm happy with my bunker play and that will only get better. I invested a lot of time with my pitching, trying to utilise the linear method. There was some definite forward progress. I'm very comfy with how the method sits mentally but I am finding it hard to take the discipline to commit to it out onto the course. I've booked a series of six lessons with Andy Piper at Lavender Park Golf Centre to utilise over the winter so I fear a fresh approach to my short game and a re-assessment is coming. I have a number of of pitching and chipping drills to utilise that I hope will help. By keeping these statistics and comparing them to the ones I keep when I play I should see some upward trends. That's the plan.

The way I see it playing out in my mind is simple. I will play as many qualifiers as the club run over the winter, weather permitting, and fight hard to avoid going up any further to a fifteen handicap. Should that happen, I'll take it on the chin. It doesn't affect the plan. I'm looking for a fast start and getting back to twelve as soon as I can. Under the guidance of Andy Piper I think we can get my game back to where it was ready to attack this year. I'm also aware that the tone of the recent posts hasn't been overly upbeat. I hope that this is the start of something far more positive. It'll be a big ask to get from where I am to where I want to get and so by splitting in half, makes it a more achievable. I want to harness some positive energy over the winter and feel charting my practice progress and seeing that transfer into some decent winter golf is the way forward. It's still a while until we get to 2017 but the hard work has already started.