GOLF - Practise time it never stops...

12th August Thursday. Winter is making it’s presence felt this week with the wind still delivering strong gusts during the day. At least rain has been bearable and not a continual downpour drenching anyone who steps outside. Practice has been concentrated on the short game of pitching and putting drills. Gaining a little more variety with pitching to the green and being able to stop the ball from running though too far past the hole has been a major success. Never really had the confidence to try and play anything but the most basic of shots until recently and still do not vary far from “hitting the ball straight” for the most part. Playing with a conservative frame of mind with regard to attacking golf is still the main base of my game strategy. Improvement in my stroke play now has shots what would have been discarded as ‘too risky’ only a month ago, now I play them. Certainly many golfers would look at my deliberations over shot choice and decide to play what I call the risky one straight away. This is a slow decision for me as I come to terms with being able to play strokes consistently and not mishit as many shots.




I have persisted with last weeks decision and left the Driver out of the bag and used a #2 (16 degree) hybrid off the tee. Losing 20-40 metres distance is balanced with the accuraccy and fairways hit. The perceived effectiveness of this club in the windy conditions was always a reason behind the purchase of the hybrid. Last year I used my #3 Iron, the hybrid gives better distance and burrows into the wind on and off the tee block. As to whether using the driver would be just as effective is not an issue, I am hitting more fairways and that is enough proof for me and not having to create shots from difficult positions is a bonus. There is another factor which is benefiting my game at the minute, adding weight training to me excercise routine.



As written previously the past month has included regular excercise routines using hand grips, chest expander and yoga leg lifts. This week I began a regular weight regime for increased stamina during rounds. Starting off with 20 minute sessions every second day using 15 kg on the bar and three exercises this will become a daily routine in a couple of weeks. Not after any spectacular changes or improvements the results are already being delivered in the first week. The effort to swing a club is barely noticeable and yes I have become consistent with striking the ball and the benefits of this include confidence personally as well as results with the ball.



Putting is still a little bit erratic on occasion but this will be dealt with in time with more practise. Still a little surprised how the transition to the new mallet style putter has evolved and how badly I used this putter previously yet now am much better with it. Through research and reading what other golfers said about changing putters, then opinion of coaches and professionals and their attitude to using new clubs of any type that gave me the idea to seriously do the ‘change putter’ experiment in the first place. It comes down to ‘How little people like change’ the old adage of ’better the devil you know’ also comes into consideration. I am of the opinion that a good number of golfers are monkeys and have no idea what they can or can’t do on a golf course and perpetually sell themselves short. Yes I do make a particular effort to play a lot of golf and am in a position to do so. Yet I have heard many golfers rave on about their game and never act upon what they say is needed to be done, even better is the number of golfers who have had lessons and roundly criticised the coach as not having a clue. When all it has been is they do not want to accept the advice and change how they have (incorrectly) played strokes for so long.



Every golfer is going to do what ever they want to, that is the only fact that never changes in the game.

Thankyou for your time and attention. “Hit ‘em straight all”Thankyou for your time and attention, Geoff