Standing tall again...

Wednesday 19/1/11 A little surprising to see a fortnight has passed between posts, even though the golfing has not stopped. There was a week long hiatus due to an injury sustained on the 9th of January while playing golf, of course.Following the same pre-Tournament Conditioning routine as last year for Southern Ports has been very effective. I am particularly chuffed with having scored the following 88,87,94,83,86 over the past 5 competition rounds. In general the practise and competition golf played by myself is spaced out to feather the various weaknesses from injury my body has sustained over the past 20 odd years. In preparing for the Southern Ports tournament and having to play 3 x 18 hole rounds in 5 days I make a specific effort to do this twice (December and January) before the actual tournament in the first week of March. Not usually a problem, this past month though I played several extra social rounds with visitors which unfortunately resulted in not giving my body enough time to recover.




As much as my current physical fitness is a huge improvement on 12 months ago, the chronic torn muscle injuries in my back cannot be repaired. To cover that I have strengthened the associated areas and still make a particular effort to “give it a rest” to take away the strain of repetitive use, which acerbates the injury. Unfortunately by being a “dickhead” and on the 2nd last hole of the day deciding to give the Tee shot a little more power, I over reached my capability and strained the old injury. So bloody stupid, was having a good round and swinging well, still managed to finish with an 86 yet the injury that I did to myself took me out of a 1st place finish. Ended up 3rd on a countback, no regrets but a well earned lesson to maintain concentration all the way through a round.



The benefits after this have been substantial, I have a very optimistic approach to life that’s got me this far, “taking the positives from any negative event affecting me.” In this case after 3 days of discomfort, there has been times much worse in the past, the ice, rest, heat treatment followed by a massage on Wednesday had the healing process almost complete. Only practised pitching and putting to Saturday and have played 3 x 9 hole rounds and back to 41-42 off the stick at the minute and no golf today. Can just feel a few tight spots and twinges in the injured area so time for some common sense rest.



The BIG bonus has been from “taking away a toy” in punishment for the stupidity that caused the injury. Not using the Cobra Driver off the tee since then, the 15 degree Shark XLT No. 3 metal needed some serious use as well and the loss of 20-40 m off the tee has been replaced by accuracy and consistent distance. Not to forget a much better swing tempo using a smooth easy golf technique not “seal clubbing” tendencies. The injury has stuffed up my long iron-mid iron progress yet with 6 weeks to go I should be able to get back on track with the plan to improve accurate approach shots and hit greens in regulation. Cannot see me going out of the “B” grade for the tournament now with the past 4 sub 90- results and can only practise more to be able to put in 3 x low 80 rounds in the tournament, if not break 80 to have a crack at winning the grade. Thankyou for your time and attention. “Hit ‘em Straight all”, Geoff