6/6/12 Wednesday. Six days into the season of winter and the course has became a totally different playing field. Hard to believe after the last five days of rain
and cool temperatures that on Friday it was a balmy 26 degrees with blues skies. The excellent weather conditions touched upon my golf as well, getting par scores on eight of the nine holes played in the weekly Friday ‘Chicken
Run’ competition.
The good weather does not get the lions’ share of the credit for the good result and winning on the day.
The last fortnight of practise with the driver and getting the swing better has significantly improved my golfing. Whilst the immediate goal of the practice was
to establish longer distance off the tee without losing accuracy, the fringe benefit of this has flowed through to all of my shots. It was interesting to notice one thing after doing a slight injury, straining a few muscles,
which came from falling back into hitting the ball with my arms and not the body. The discomfort from this was not noticeable when hitting the ball correctly. In an overview it was akin to the lab rat reward and punishment
experiments. I do the correct swing and the ball flies longer and straight, do it wrong and it hurt. The positive of this for me was the proof that correct technique is a mainstay of good golf.
Fronting up for Sunday’s round was a different situation all together, following steady rain overnight the course was well soaked. The day was overcast, not too
much wind thankfully and the rain fell at various strengths throughout the day. Even with the much changed weather I was still in good touch on the front nine 17 stableford points. The wet weather took its toll on my game
as the round went on. Playing in the rain is not something which is enjoyable, once a season is enough for me and after Sunday that has been done for 2012. Even so the end result on the day had me miss out on first by 4 points
and third place on a countback.
There was a brief moment of disapointment at the competition failure, the fun on the day made up for the taste of defeat. That I threw the game away on the last
hole with having an unfocussed whack and the ball went out of bounds did the damage. Three of the the last four holes were poorly played, the concentration wavered and all I really wanted was to get inside out of the rain.
Always good to get experience under the belt early in the season, last weekends round will be a great preparation for the rest of June. With the Handicap Foursomes 27 hole event this weekend, the third round of the Caledonian
Inn Trophy following on the 17th and Keith Open Tournament on the 23rd and 24th of June. This is going to be a testing month of golf and I am looking forward to the challenge. Thankyou for your time and attention. “Hit ‘em
straight all”
Geoff
