Product Review - Golfers CBD (Part One)

Welcome along to my latest blog. I hope wherever this finds you, it finds you well and you are getting out and playing some golf. We are still in the midst of winter golf and while Royal Ascot Golf Club (my home club) has been playable, that has meant cold temperatures and some wet and muddy conditions. It is a subject I tackled in a recent blog "Winter Golf - Challenge or Chore" which I strongly suggest you read here - Winter Golf - Challenge Or Chore

However I digress. As the title suggest I am doing another product review. This one will be a bit different so bear with me as I explain. The product I am looking at, and indeed the concept itself will undoubtedly divide opinion and some will buy into it and the benefits and others will dismiss this as placebo at best and hocus pocus will no proven gains. I would hope the doubters will at least read what I've got to say, and the results to date, and will perhaps consider giving the product a go and trying it for themselves.

So what is this product, what does it claim to do and what has it got to do with my golf? I am looking at a company called Golfers CBD and in particular their oil and fruit gummies. Who are Golfers CBD? They are a UK based company (head office in Reigate in Surrey) who are selling CBD or Cannabidiol to improve a players concentration, recovery and sleep and even assist in treating aches and pains. As always with these reviews, I haven't been paid or had any remuneration for this review from Golfers CBD, they have had no input into this review and the views within this blog/review are mine, and are independent based on my own experiences and findings.

It is a developing market and with there are a number of other brands out there including one endorsed by Open winner Darren Clarke. However it is the Golfers CBD products I am going to look at. If you want to find out far more about what Golfers CBD have to offer then check out the website here - Golfers CBD website

The health benefits of CBD are well known and by influencing the receptors in our systems we can change how we react to stress, maintain a good mood and execute motor skills under pressure. The ability to influence these reactions, to aid preparation (through improved sleep) and recovery time makes this the perfect supplement for golfers.

The company are very passionate on where they source their CBD oil from. As well as that how much should you take? This can be confusing but the important calculation is the percentage of CBD. Their 1000mg oil comes in a 10ml bottle, this is 10% strength. Golfers CBD say some companies sell 1000mg oil in a 30ml bottle, this is additional carrier fluid so one third the strength at around 3.3%. Or to put it another way you need to take 3 times as much to gain the same benefits from Golfers CBD. You can get CBD oil from a lot of places including Holland and Barrett (a health store brand in the UK) so I guess the moral if you don't buy directly from Golfers CBD (and you can view all their products in their store here) is you need to do your homework and be careful what you are buying.

Golfers CBD have already got some well known names on board with their product including Solheim Cup player and victorious captain Catriona Matthew and they have a growing presence on social media especially Twitter. Check them out here - Golfers CBD Twitter. It may be in your best interest as they have frequent giveaways and so you may be lucky and get a chance to try Golfers CBD for free if you win.

So you've heard about what CBD is, how it works and how Golfers CBD think it can benefit the average golfer as well as elite and professional players. So what has that got to do with me and my golf? Well, I have been trying the oil in the basic level at 10% as shown below

Golfers CBD oil

I have had an inkling to try CBD for my golf for a few months. This may have come from my social media seemingly being bombarded by different companies (big brother is clearly watching) offering their wares. Again, being transparent, I won the oil and gummies in a free to enter draw from Golfers CBD so that has clearly influenced which make I have tried. I have had to pay for the another batch of oil. That said, I had already been drawn to their products via their social media and so they were always going to be the first manufacturer I used.

The astute amongst you will see this is part one of the review. I am planning to use the Golfers CBD products throughout the golfing season and also to see how it helps with sleep and treating any aches and pains (so my glass back will be a prime candidate).

So lets start at the beginning. I have been using the oil for all my rounds since the new year. I take a couple of drops about 15 minutes before I tee off and have been taking a couple more after nine holes. I have not had any golf instruction during this period and because of the freezing temperatures, strong winds and rain we have had in my neck of the woods, any range time has been restricted to two sessions since the new year so I have had to rely on rocking up and playing on the day and not honing my swing in the evenings.

I can only report on my results in January since using the CBD oil but in the weekend roll ups, I have come second (and picked up some money) and third several times. I have even won the Sunday roll up (and a nice £75) pot which is something I haven't managed to do in well over two years. In very simple terms I have played under my handicap three or four times and those games where I wasn't under handicap, my scores were still well into the thirties, even though I didn't feel I hit the ball particularly well and struggled with my short game in the wet winter conditions.

There will be those that simply say this is a change in my golfing fortunes and I am simply riding the crest of a purple patch. That's possible, and I'd love it to be true but my form before Christmas and before taking the oil simply wasn't that consistent. If you've read the this blog you'll know that consistency in my golf is not a common theme. There will be some that say this oil is a placebo and by taking it I am somehow shifting my thoughts into a better place. Again, that is a point of view but not one I subscribe to based on what I've seen to date.

I don't have any scientific data to back that up. I'll leave you to look at the Golfers CBD site and see what they say about the products. What I can do is give you my feedback on the oil and how it has affected me. In very plain and simple terms, I have an air of calm when I am out of the course. I have far fewer swing or technical thoughts in my head (a regular problem), and feel I can see the shots more clearly. There is an air of acceptance of the outcome be that a good shot or bad. I am simply playing on an even keel emotionally.

Golf takes time and you can be out on the course for four hours or more. That's a long time to concentrate and every round will present stressful situations and emotional challenges. The Golfers CBD website talks about CB1 receptors. These receptors are moderators of your memory, mood, motor function, perception of pain, stress response and thinking. For the player there are many obvious benefits just in the course of a single round of golf, particularly the positive effect on mood, motor function, stress response and thinking. This is what I have found. I am more positive about my golf and the outcome of the shot, and even if I hit a shocker I can deal with it.

I have talked about playing under my handicap but I can honestly say I haven't played great golf. I have topped shots into a hazard, struggled with the driver and messed up chips. What I have managed is to find a way to get it round, sometimes playing ugly. To do that I have had to accept the poor shots. That is something I haven't done often, and a poor shot would often see me question technique, moan about bad luck or get wound up inside. Taking the oil before a round and after nine has changed all that. My response to poor shots is so very different. There is a calm, something I am struggling to put into a cohesive sentence, but an air of positivity and a mood shift towards thinking I can make the best of any round and situation I find myself in. As I say it's hard to put into words but in practice there has been a real change in my golfing persona. Some who know me would say I am a glass positively empty when I play, not even half full, but since using the oil that has definitely changed for the better.

I have also had the Golfers CBD gummies (see here - CBD Gummies) which have let me have a boost on the way round. I have tried to keep these in reserve but I had a very good round last Sunday (23rd January) and thought I may have been in contention to pick up the pot for a second week running (although a magnificent round well into the forties put paid to that) and started to get ahead of myself in the closing stretch, The gummies helped put me back into a more focused place. What I have tried to avoid is taking the oil and the gummies together too often. While the proof has seemingly been in the pudding with my performances, and the oil in particular has given me a good base line to start this season long review, I don't want to be reliant on taking more and more products to stay at the same level.

I am going to play February cold turkey and not use any of the oil or gummies and see what effect that has on my performance. I will be interested to see if the level of consistency remains (or indeed improves). Will I still have the aura of calm, focus and lack of swing thoughts? It should be an interesting comparison.

So there you go. A very unusual product to review but one that I think you'll hear a lot more about in the next few years as research data and more reviews come through. I can only give you my own thoughts on what I have found and that is there definitely seems to be something in this and that there is a basis to say it has helped my game so far. It will be up to you to decide if you want to give it a go for yourself, maybe after seeing my ongoing reviews through the season. At this point, I am a convert and it has seemingly improved my game.

To finish, I will be giving away a Golfers CBD gift pack in the future and details on how to enter will be in a future review so keeping following this blog. It'll also be on my social media so if you don't follow me on Twitter (https://twitter.com/hackergolfer) please do so. While you are at it please look at my Three Off The Tee youtube channel and subscribe. You can find it here - Three Off The Tee youtube channel

A Golfers CBD gift pack will be given away as these reviews progress - keep following the blog and my social media links

Thank you for reading this review and I hope it has at least given you some food for thought. Don't forget to check out the Golfers CBD website as there is a host of information that may help you. I am really excited to see how this plays out over the course of the golfing season and what impact it actually has on my game. So far so good but lets see what happens and how it helps my game (or not) once the competitions start and will it help me on the Quest For Single Figures? Join me for the next part of this product review soon. 

Into 2022 - Hoping For A Big Year

Welcome along and first and foremost a happy new year to one and all. I hope you and your loved ones had a great Christmas and that you perhaps got some golf in over the festive period. Even if you didn't I hope 2022 will give you everything you want both in golfing terms and in life in general.

If you are familiar with the Three Off The blog then this opening blog of the year is usually a look back at my golfing year and a nod forward to my hopes and aspirations for the year to come.

So where to start? Well as we all know 2021 was another crappy year in terms of the global pandemic and the impact it had on golf and of course it had an effect when we were locked down. Some of you may be aware I work in an intensive care unit and so not having golf had a detrimental effect on my well being. I wrote about it (read the post Why I Need My Golf) and it absolutely seemed to resonate with so many people around the world. I think I simply articulated what we were all feeling. The only positive that came out of that was it was the most read post so thank you if you read it (still time) and hopefully my ramblings provided a moment of clarity and hope that we'd be back on the course soon.

Covid and golf - Lets hope we can play uninterrupted in 2022

From a negative start, something more positive and my annual pilgrimage to the British par 3 championship. I have been very luck that Champions UK plc have been very generous in helping me as a tiny youtube provider and blogger to get behind the scenes access and a chance to talk to some of the famous faces taking part. If you head over to my Three Off The Tee Youtube channel (and why not subscribe while you are there) there is a dedicated play list covering my exploits (Three Off The Tee Youtube - Par 3 playlist). This year was another great event although not having any spectators did take the edge of proceedings. However it didn't disappoint and junior golfer Will Bailey started his opening round with an ace. He then followed it up on the second with another. To add to the madness his playing partner Pavan Sagoo then aced the second as well. Read the full review of the event here (British Par 3 review)

The British Par 3 - a fantastic event and I'm so lucky to get press passes to cover this each year

Onto the elephant in the room, my golf. I started the year with a handicap index of 11.6 and I finish the year on 13.4. A hefty dent in the "Quest For Single Figures". In my defence I have had a number of serious health issues, not just the mental health problems I touched on earlier, but sciatica which put me out of action for six weeks and I was in hospital as an emergency admission on the 19th of this month.

Clearly as I'm getting older, and qualified as a senior at Royal Ascot on the 16th June, and with ongoing health issues to resolve, "The Quest" is going to be a tough nut to crack. That doesn't mean I am calling time on my pursuit of single figures. What it does mean though is a change of focus. If you do read some of my previous new year blogs this isn't the first time I've said this. What I plan to do though is document my progress more closely and let you know when I find a nugget that works (at least for a while). I am hoping that a journey shared, especially to you high and mid-handicap golfers, will give you some inspiration, you can provide your own snippets of success, and together we can all plot our way to becoming better players.

Will 2022 be the year I complete "The Quest For Single Figures"

Firstly I need to get to work on handicap. Again I would argue that at times I've played better than I've scored. It is a recurring theme. I need to finish rounds off and stop making card wrecking errors. I've had a series of lessons with my long term teaching professional Andrew Piper at Lavender Park Golf Centre and I don't plan to stop those in 2022. We aren't reinventing the wheel, merely looking at my weakest areas and trying to bring those up while trying to tighten the whole game up as a unit. The short game, especially in the wet, muddy winter conditions we're experiencing at the moment is still my golfing nemesis. That is my main focus (again it's a recurring topic) for 2022.

There is lots to look forward to in the coming year. I'll face "The Quest" head on and try to finish the year on a lower handicap. Aside from that I hope to be back at the British Par 3, and I hope to bring you a host of reviews and other content on the youtube channel. I already have a long term review about to start as I look at CBD. CBD stands for cannabidiol and I'm going to look at how it improves (or not) my performance and general well being. I am very grateful to Golfers CBD for sending me a gift pack to try out and I will be running a competition in due course to give a pack away.

CBD - thank you to Golfers CBD for the pack to trial - will it help my golf?

I hope you all have everything you want from 2022 especially in terms of your golf. Thank you as always for reading my opening blog of the new year. There will be plenty more to come (far more content I promise - whether you want it or not!). Please let me now your golfing ambitions and resolutions for the new year, either in the comments section below or via my social media links on the front page.

Coming Soon.....Great Reading, Great Reviews and Something A Little Different

Welcome one and all. I hope this quick preview blog finds you well and wherever you are in the world, your golf is in a decent place and the season treated you well. I will be doing my own review of my 2021 season closer to the new year is the tradition on my this blog. Use the search button to look back on previous years. It may make some fun reading on how this addicted golfaholic had so many hopes and finding out if any came to fruition.

Thank you to everyone that has taken the time to read my inane ramblings and especially those that commented via my social media. Please feel free to click on the links and leave a comment on whichever platform you wish to.

So, to the heart of the matter. I have a couple of great blogs coming apart from the annual review of the year. I was lucky enough to recently win a twitter giveaway by a company called Golfers CBD and so will be talking about my prize and the product.

My prize from Golfers CBD

I'll be doing a product review (as always) but this will be a slightly different one as I'll be using the products over the course of the season, so from around March, and reporting back to tell you how it's going. A huge thank you to Golfers CBD and I am sure their goods will make a difference. If nothing else it will provide a real discussion point. It is actually a product that I've been interested in for some time and had planned to test in due course. The CBD market and its relationship with golf is growing and there are a few names in the market place. I guess the big question will be - DOES IT WORK?

Golfers CBD - Does it work?

As I have said, I think the subject of CBD will create some interesting discussions and as always please use the social media to let me know your thoughts or comment at the bottom of the blog itself.

If that blog is going to be something new topical and provoke interest and discussion, the next subject will split opinion straight down the middle. It is a divisive topic and when mentioned on place like the Golf Monthly Forum (come and join their conversation here) it causes no end of heated debate and argument. So what can be so inflammatory? The answer is - AIMPOINT

For the uninitiated, this is a method of green reading based on feeling the slope of the putt with the feet and using your fingers to calibrate the amount the putt will break. This is called Aimpoint Express although originally it was a chart based system. I have benefitted from being through two tuition sessions with Jamie Donaldson, who is Aimpoint's European senior instructor and works with a number of European Tour players as well as teaching the Aimpoint method to club golfers.

Jamie Donaldson - Aimpoints Senior European Instructor

I have included a video from the Golfshake website which shows Jamie teaching a basic Aimpoint read. Watch it here (Jamie Donaldson Aimpoint Read)

Again, it is a topic I have visited on many occasions on this blog including this post which includes a video I did at my home golf club to give you the reader a mid-handicapper demonstration. I strongly suggest you click here to watch it. (Aimpoint Demo)

Having said all that, I am planning to give you an update and to show how easy it is to use in a real time situation and dispel some of the myths, especially about it being a cause of slow play. I have to reiterate, although I've been taught by Jamie Donaldson, I am not a tutor and only showing it as an example of something that has definitely helped my game. If however having said that and you'd like to know more there is lots of information on Jamie's website

So then, plenty of interesting stuff coming soon. I hope you'll enjoy all the blogs heading your way as well as the Aimpoint video coming to the Three Off The Tee youtube channel which you can find here (Three Off The Tee Youtube Channel). Again, there's loads of great content on there already so head over and check it out. While you are there don't forget to subscribe. The more people following the channel the more opportunities I'll be able to start offering to you in 2022.

Thanks as always for reading. I hope this blog whets your appetite for what is to come and that you'll be a regular visitor to the blog in the future as well as delving back into the old blog. In the meantime, stay safe, enjoy your golf and I'll talk to you through this blog soon.

Click, Watch And Share

 Hello. Just a quick post to remind you that I have an in depth review of the new AD333 golf ball from Srixon that you can read here - AD333 Review

There is also an on-course video review of the ball you can enjoy here - AD333 - Mid-Handicappers Review It is also a great opportunity to subscribe. Please also give the video a thumbs up. That makes a massive difference and really helps

Finally I need to remind you that there is another blog you need to be looking at. Go to New Blog and while you are there make sure you share the link with your golfing friends. It would really help grow the channel

As always your support is greatly appreciated