Breaking 80 for the first time...

18/6/12 Monday. Yesterday on a day that the score really mattered I broke 80 for the first time in competition. The score that returned the result for a Monthly Medal win and defending the Caledonian Inn Trophy for a third consecutive win was 78 Gross for a 65 Nett with 26 putts. The practice for the past month has been directed towards putting in a good effort in defence of the title on my part. Before the days play a score of 71 nett was the maximum score I could have to possibly defend the title. After the days play a 69 nett was the maximum that would have won for me.

Considering that the first five holes were played in steady rain on a course that had been soaked for the week prior it was not a day of golfing in premium conditions. Fortunately the prevailing weather condition of the coastal winds on the home track was not at it’s howling gale strength and was manageable. Once again it was not one thing that coaxed the best golf out onto the scorecard either. The preparation over the past months has been following my usual tournament preparation program.

There are no swing, grip or stance adjustments in the game plan, that is the foundation of my golf and has been established by sticking to the coaching direction given by professionals in January this season. Regular practice that makes playing each shot the same as the last one as often as possible is all that matters. The only difference being the clubs used. There was one thing alone that did give my last two rounds the booster that resulted in this landmark score.

As readers would be well aware of my golf philosophy puts hitting the ball accurately before distance. There are some at my own club and I am sure readers as well who have been bemused by my choice of smaller drivers that limit the distance achievable off the tee. There has been no wavering on my part as the need to be accurate with the smaller drivers combines with the need to be consistent with good second shots to score well. That has never meant that I would not return to using a lager driver off the tee and I have been researching various club options to purchase for some time now.

On Friday my purchase choice arrived, several days earlier than expected, which required a hurried change of practise plans to get used to the new piece of equipment. The driver chosen is a Cleveland TL310 Driver 440cc clubhead size. After a twenty ball hit on the range on Friday it was off to the club and a social nine holes in the afternoon chicken run for a 17 point score. The new driver worked well in my hands and the improved distance was already apparent. I had realised over the last couple of months that I had to get another 10-15 metres off the tee and the smaller drivers max out at 220m in the heavier winter conditions. The Cleveland driver immediately delivered that distance even on mishits.

Hence Saturday morning after a 30 ball session on the practise fairway I decided on a trip to Kingston to play in their competition. The nearby course is a little more open to recovery with wayward shots off the tee. It has always been a favoured choice of mine when looking to fine tune my game. Greens are usually faster than the home track and the doglegs make it a course which rewards attacking stroke play, if you have the ability. Got myself around in good order finishing with an 87 gross/74 nett with 35 putts. Importantly the driver was given a thorough work out in a competition and I handled it well. What was especially noticed was the improvement in the set up for second shots on par 4 and 5 holes. The added distance off the tee immediately had a beneficial effect in my golf game.

The improved accuracy in approach shots on Sunday that came from using the shorter irons had a lot to do with the low tally of 26 putts on the day. Instead of getting greens in regulation I had several shots the at were on the fringe of the green and the third shot with the wedge or putter were up and down plays. My satisfaction at getting this score after three seasons of improving gradually is fantastic. There has been times when I was faltering mentally in my attempt to get to a ten handicap and have a crack at a single figure number. Recent scores have not given any hint when this landmark score was going to occur only that it was possible. I did it with ease not scrambling to the tally with a last gasp effort.

Next weekend is the Keith Open Tournament on the 23rd and 24th of June an course I have only played a couple of times and it is back to a new start for another week..

The moment has past and is now consigned to history as a perpetual figure of proof to what I can do in a game of golf. Which brings me to the things that almost happened on the day and that the score does not show. The game was played with no penalties and with a couple of scrambled shots to get on the fairway very few errors in conditions that were not easy to play in. There were three putts that literally stopped a roll of the ball from dropping dear readers. Yes, I have played to a six handicap in a stroke round, it was very nearly a three handicap round! Thankyou for your time and attention, “Hit ‘em straight all”

 Geoff

A Putter change...

17/6/12 Sunday. Golf has been a matter of steady practice for several week now, the benefits are showing in my game off the tee, fairways and greens. Putting is still a work in progress with the change to a mallet ’2 ball style’ stick. Considering that a couple of years ago I purchased the club and it has been consigned to the cupboard until this season there was a lot of consideration put into this decision.

It began as a casual exercise just to mix up my weekly practise sessions that always include using other sticks besides my game day set. The purpose of this is to enforce the correct technique standard of good golf in my game. I do play well enough with the various blades and cavity back sets that get in the bag on these practise rounds and range hitting sessions. The use of the blades in particular sharpens up my ball striking delivering better accuracy and distance to my golf game. The only stick that I never altered in practise was the putter until recently. It was just an exercise in having some fun with a different stick on the green to break up the monotony of hitting balls initially. As with using different clubs in other practise it soon became a technique tuning routine as well.

My accuracy on the green with the Wilson 100 club improved after incorporating the Proline 2 ball mallet putter into practise drills. In close within a two metre radius of the hole the Proline was a major failure in my hands. Not that is mattered it was only being used as a practise tool, yet soon enough purely because of my dogmatic golf attitude I wanted to be more accurate with it. This club has a totally different feel and much less allowance for error when putting. A mishit would go dramatically off line over long or short distances on the green. This began to attract my attention when hitting the ball, the slightest inaccuracy on the club striking the ball would result in a miss to the left or right. Yet the same inaccurate contact using the Wilson 100 would still have the ball going in the hole.

Sure enough the more I worked on improving the accuracy with the mallet putter the Wilson began to feel unwieldy and less responsive. Finally I bit the bullet and used the Proline in a competition and the results were as good as with the Wilson, no damage to the score from inept putting. What was affected was my in close putting, once the practise removed the mishits the Proline went into the bag. This mallet style club always felt so much more comfortable in set up. Combined with the improvements and confidence from coaching in January I was willing to experiment with a putter change.

One thing that is important to acknowledge is that I have never had the ‘yips’, have been rounds where the putter was a major failing but nothing more. Considering that the theory of a golf score allows for two putts per hole, with a Par of 72 on a course that means 36 of those strokes are putts. With that much of an input to a golf score getting your putting right in technique and equipment is of significant importance. At the minute I am confident with either style of putter in my hands and it is not causing any confusion in my game. When now using the Wilson in practise my confidence is already there because of how effective a practise tool the Proline was when first used. Thankyou for your time and attention, “Hit ‘em straight all” 

 Geoff

Junior golfers, how we got players...

13th June 2012 Update; 2011 total Club Junior Golf Members - 4. 2012 (June) Club Junior Golf Members  - 23

Six months have passed since we took action and started a dedicated Junior Golf Program of sorts at the club, as is described below this is not some special super plan. The general apathy of  some members has not altered and that is not a problem. It is fair enough, most people are members to play golf, being a rural club they all work behind the bar or on the course as well. The appreciation of the huge increase in Junior Golfer numbers definitely absolves any perceived apathy.

I modestly (not a trait of mine at all) set a target of 20 junior members as being acceptable for the year, from a town of 1100 people that was a fair enough goal. The responce from parents and obviously people from 8 to 18 years that have became junior members has been great. FACT No. 1 Kids want to play Golf! FACT No. 2 All you have to do is make the effort and they will come and join your club. 

Now the big news, we have got this number before reaching the July School Holiday Junior Come and Try Golf day and tournament  that has been the annual Junior promo period for the past 3-4 years. To know that coming into this period there are 20 juniors who will be joining in plus their friends is a huge result! Thats right kids love playing sport with their mates and the gender break up is approx 80% male 20% female juniors.


Does the work load stop? No, it is time for the match committee now that they have to get out of the comfort zone of having done the usual golf program and organising for the season.

The one hour Sunday morning clinics that have continued since school returned after January were designed to getting the Juniors out on the course playing golf. How simple it was to get the juniors doing chipping and putting then hitting the drivers to start way back in the begining. Then talking about playing golf and the rules while on the practice areas, not lectures but conversations while the juniors were hitting balls. The support of Golf SE with supplying the My Golf Junior kits and outside coaching were all vital to the success at the minute. If anything is as valuable as the involvement of the club members in running  the clinics, the need for qualified coaching is a must. If a club gets a regular junior program up and running they must include an organised professional coaching component.


Importantly this has all happened before the July school Holidays Come and Try Golf day and Robe Junior tournament that has been the annual junior promotion held at the club in the past 4 years. This year we have a large number of kids at the local school who are already playing golf to build upon with the letter that has just gone out to promote the coming Junior event. I would really like to be able to post a report in November that has 30 to 40 Junior Golfers at the club. At the minute we are still taking it slowly as it also requires some changes to how the club usually operates. Next up is for the club match committee to establish a regular Junior competition which has been discussed already among members and I envisage can be seriously looked at after the July events. https://www.facebook.com/robegolfclub


19/12/11 We have started a series of FREE 1 hour Junior Golf Clinics on the Sundays of School Holidays in January. https://www.facebook.com/robegolfclub


This is an evolution of 3 years of unrelated Junior Golf events at the club in that there was no set plan. The beginning was a “come and try golf day” each year on a long weekend also the running of a Junior Golf Tournament in a season. Each of these had varying success in getting kids playing. Come and Try Golf first was a winner every time with 12-20 kids having a hit.


The Tournaments were harder as they clash with other regional and state events and being country based that makes it difficult by location alone. That said in 2011 two juniors came from the SA Riverland to the Limestone coast to play. A long trip to play golf but country golfers are used to that.


This was done purely as a must do activity initiated by the club captain, what it did was give the club a base to develop more from. Next came the regional Golf SE school coaching clinics which another golfer has volunteered to do after getting involved at his home club and seeing the number of juniors who do want to play golf coming out on the course. Hence we have the Primary School students doing golf activities at the school and then have a class trip to the course to do the same activities on a golf course plus play a few modified holes.


Hence at our club which has 2-4 junior golfers who occaisionally have a hit with parents, and play a few rounds of club golf and no junior golf competition at the club we were aware that there was an interest in golf among the juniors in the town and region. The next step was for another club member to see this interest and see the “market” which was there and develop an action plan. Then put the information to another member (Club Captain) who then contacted the regional golf assoc. who supplied a junior golfing kit. Then two members who are parents volunteered to help out and a letter was sent to the local school to be sent to parents before the end of year and on Sunday we have 10 kids turn up for an hour on a Sunday morning to hit golf balls for fun. Following the easy golf exercises supplied with the kit, starting inside with putting and the rubber balls. Then outside with the 7 irons, the kids had fun several were very good at basic golf skills in fact.


The result is that by the end of January when school returns from 1 hour on Sundays I expect the club to have a core of 10 (at least) junior golfers who we can organise a comp for when before there was nothing. It was from a combination of Golf Assoc. support, club committee support and members doing things that they are good at, besides playing golf that is. IE Organisation, Networking, Coaching, Marketing, Promotion.


It did not happen overnight, it was three years in the making from a disparate group of individuals who all “Did Stuff” off their own back in club activity. The key word is “activity” it is a task that for volunteers relies upon good spirit and generosity as well as Association support. Volunteers are not employees, they do not have to do anything unless they want too. There is a “market” for want of a better word, out there for junior golf. All of the statistics, analysis, data correlation is good reading and valuable knowledge. Like all information it does nothing except feed minds and sit there being available. For clubs it has nothing to do with a money focus, that is for businesses. By encouraging the Junior Golf activity the flow on of new golfers, new members all can benefit the club professional and the general club environment. Importantly it has given the club a future. We want to develop and encourage golf, that is in our club constitution.


Any club can start to do it as well. All you have to do is stand up and say “I will do this…”


UPDATE on the school holiday Junior Golf ‘Clinics’.
At the first junior clinic on the Sunday before Xmas we had a turn up of 10 children from 7 to 12 years old. A quick breakdown of how we are running this follows, School Holidays free 1 hour ‘try golf clinics’ 9.30 to 10.30 am Sunday for local residents children. Using the Golf Kit supplied by Golf Aust. with the coaching handbook of activities.
Then a two weekend break before the next one yesterday, (Xmas day and New year day) Another turn up of 8 children and apologies from parents who are away on holidays and will have the kids back next week. We now have 13 plus children involved in Junior golf and 8 have joined as members. It is actually the tip of the iceberg as there are more interested. Run by volunteers it is a fine line between enjoying doing the development and it becoming a chore. Hence our club goal was always to get a group interested to begin with and fortunately it is not too large simply because we are not actively chasing more. That can wait until school starts again and we as a club have worked out a program.
Nothing special is being done in the clinics, 7 iron and putters in the kit with the various items give plenty of activity flexibility. It rained on Sunday so a quick setting up of the ‘kit rings’ and a 8 hole putt putt course was created inside the clubhouse, using the rubber balls in the kit. Which once a few rounds were played chairs were added as obstacles and this fun of doing the same thing was maintained. All the while we circulated among the kids putting helping with the swig etc.
At the same time the club professional is running separate coaching clinics for children. Lol probably correcting all of the errors we are teaching the kids. Most of the kids in the one hour clinics are getting proper coaching which is a benefit for what we are doing, simply providing a type of game activity. Hence next weekend it is time to play on the course for the juniors tee off at the 150m marker and play two or three holes. The whole point is to let them have fun enjoy having a hit and the use of loosely formed ‘games’ has established an interest in playing golf. By pure chance we have chosen not to keep scores or establish anything of that ilk. To bloody hard to have to count at that hour on a Sunday, hence no competitive base has evolved except the one each kid has to improve themselves against the last hit they had.
Tonight at our monthly committee meeting this will be reported on. The match committeee will be organising a meeting to arrange a Junior Competition in the coming season. It is going to be modified version of golf at this stage. We have no interest in encouraging the juniors to play full competition at the minute.This will evolve and when they ask to play the standard length course we will do that. Sticking to the “Have fun hitting the balls” approach with a basic form of game education is working.
As well as adding junior members to a club that had two previously both in their late teens. We are now going to involve a new input of parents to the club who appreciate a game that is relatively injury free to play, does not require travelling 100km to play each second week like local footy. The kids can go play at the club any time during the week outside walking and enjoying themselves with or without the parents coming along.

Robe Golf Club



Thankyou for your time and attention, Geoff

Playing in the rain...

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