Thursday, July 12, 2012

Naracoorte Winter Tournament coming up...


12/7/12 Thursday. A busy week has kept me on the road travelling and that has kept me away from the keyboard following the past weekends golfing. Last Saturday with the coming events at Naracoorte starting with tomorrows 27 hole Winter Tournament round I headed off to reacquaint myself with the course. Not one that I have tasted much success on, in fact it has been perhaps one of the main motivations for making the effort to improve my game.

It was an enjoyable day with the company of playing partners and my fortunes on the game side were mixed. In the same manner as the first round at Keith several weeks ago it was all about having fun and getting aware of the course challenges. This time the score was one less than at Keith a lowly 24 Stableford points and instead of the long drive I won the NTP. Off the tee my drives were a mainstay of the positives from the day. The problems came on the greens which when last played were affected from lack of water and were becoming very benign. This trip the greens were back to the difficult challenge of my first visits to Naracoorte. Struggling with the putter was not a concern, the poor short game chipping and from one hundred metres in was.

The following day at Robe was the final round of the John Leake Trophy and I needed a 37 or better to be in the prizes, finished with a score of 35. The only wipe on the day came on the first hole with a lost ball, came back well and on the eighth hole was putting for three points lipped out and missed the next putt to end up with one point. The lack of time taken cost me at the end of the day yet it was a good day overall and finished in the prizes for the day in third place.

Of all the mistakes made it was confidence that began to suffer when playing many shots. The pull to the left with irons mostly and to a limited extent off the tee had me rattled. The problem is it happen no more than four to eight times in a round but every one of those ads another stroke to my score and in the case of the first hole on Sunday a lost ball penalty. Wednesday I had a coaching session at Drummond’s Golf West Beach with Glenn Roberts and repaired the damage mentally. More importantly I now know what is the cause of the fault and how to work on the improvement.

Tomorrow the tee time of 9.18am has me leaving at early morning for the 100 km plus trip up to Naracoorte. Had a wander around the home course this afternoon after getting back this morning and all was fine. Looking forward to the challenge of Friday’s round and see if I can step up.
Thankyou for your time and attention, ‘Hit ‘em straight all”

 Geoff