Wardy

The winter golf over here in the UK has been great so far. Temps in the morning are still about 3-6 oC, but we've had a lack of rain where I am and therefore the course is still great to play on. Only annoying bit about winter, is having to put extra layers on, which hampers your swing so much!

Thing with golf is, you won't notice that your fatigued as you expend energy at a much slower rate over a longer period of time. Guess if it were that, you'd be absolutely knackered after the round? Feel the need to sleep straight away after a round? Could just be your concentration. Sometimes I find my best golf is played when I'm totally relaxed and not 'trying too hard', but this normally only happens when playing with mates. Competition always brings out a different side in people though!

The last scratch golfer I was paired with in my monthly medal last month. He shot a 68 (-4) and he's only 19 as well! In contrast, I shot a 97 that day, but he wasn't bothered at all by that.. they just tend to focus on their own scores. At my club, all the good players are really friendly and helpful and give you tips when going round as well.

Could be fatigue? Alternatively, your course's back 9 could be harder.

My Average score is about 86-92 (didn't understand the sand figure either, so left that out - FYI my sand percentage save is 42% average): AVERAGE SCORE Relationship CATEGORY 71 75 79 81 85 89 91 95 99 GIR 12 10 8 7 5 3 2 0 0 Strong % Fairways 81 71 61 56 46 36 31 21 11 Weak Iron Accuracy 80 68 53 47 33 20 13 0 0 Good Putts per Round 29.0 30.3 31.7 32.3 33.7 35.0 35.7 37.0 38.3 Weak Pitch/Chip/Sand 5.1 7.4 9.8 10.9 13.3 15.6 16.8 19.2 21.5 Strong Birdies 3.2 2.4 1.8 1.5 0.8 0.1 0 0 0 Strong Pars 11.8 10.3 8.8 8.1 6.6 5.1 4.3 2.8 1.3 Strong

Had a nightmare weekend for my golf. Competition 1 - Turkey Trot (3 clubs & Putter) - Bottom of my league with 22 stableford points Competition 2 - Monthly Medal - Would have come bottom, but didn't register a score on the 18th hole. Been doing a lot of swing changes recently and it's costing me bigtime, whilst I learn them!

List... - Asked for a Garmin G3 GPS device - Will be getting a Trolley for free(!) as my dad is upgrading to an electric one - Some more winter gear for those cold range sessions in the evening - Nike Summer golf shoes (going really cheap @ ~£40-£50) - won't be able to use them for a while, but there you go

- Getting my 1st birdie on holiday. Chipped in from about 20yards and continued to roll and roll and then went in - Getting my 1st Eagle. Great drive to centre of fairway, 2nd shot 5i to pin high, but just off green. Chip in that again, rolled a lot and just went right round the hole but snuck in the back somehow! - Winning my 1st competition and also getting a birdie on a Par3 so winning more money! - Chipping in from 50yards - Playing against someone in competition who shot -4 for the round. Incredible to watch, especially considering he is 19. - Beating my dad for the first time in doubles match-play recently Best of all, but not really a 'moment' - getting my handicap down from 26>17

I've had 1 recently: 1) The halfway back position of moving your hands parallel so the club faces upwards, without hinging your wrists until after this point. This has totally changed my swing and I now understand the 'feeling' of having an open clubface during the backswing

Apart from technique, I think you have an issue with your confidence. The fact you know that you make blowup holes is probably sat in your head and can imagine that this destroys you out on the course and not your skill level. I think working on your mental recovery from bad holes is key to having a good round and also helps you to enjoy golf more. The fact you mentioned that you want to quit, says to me that you probably struggle with a 'give up mentally' once you've had this said bad hole(s). Speaking from experience, I very rarely get angry out on the course and have worked on this issue. Last week for example, shot an 8 on a Par4 and then followed it with 3 par's. For me that is about controlling your mental state and being able to recover and forget the horror holes.

I created my own excel spreadsheet which records: - GIR - FIR - Driver Accuracy (if fairway hit) - Hybrid/Wood Accuracy (did it go to intended target) - Iron Accuracy (same as above) - Chip/Pitch Accuracy (same as above) - Total Putts - Putting Average - Bunkers - Sand Saves - Scrambling - Overall Score Then it does a seperate sections for: - Score Summary (birdies, par etc) - Shot Summary (number of shots with each different type of club e.g. 30 putts, 1 penalty, 8 hybrid shots) I then throw this into an 'Overall' summary, which gives me my averages since I've been recording. I've got conditional formatting formulaes that works out whether I've reached my current targets e.g. 8 FIR - Green if 8+ or Red if Normally do this on the Monday after a weekends round. I just plug all my shots into it and it works out all the above. Finding it really useful to see where I need to improve! Example below:

This week I've worked on my halfway back position. Quite amazed at how much better the contact is just from moving hands parallel so club faces upwards, without hinging the wrists. Now understanding the feeling of having the clubface open during most of the swing. Next week will work on the halfway back position to ensure the club is pointing to the target each time To clarify:

Communism at it's finest

Yeh he's a good player by the looks of it. Looks incredibly calm / no emotion type character, bit like Duffner actually

Shot 87 - 43 & 44. My best short game ever I think and only took 29 putts, which for my handicap is very good I thought! Still only 3 GIR and 6 FIR though, Driver needs improving a lot

Stensons 2nd shot on the 18th yesterday... incredible. Thanks though Stenson, you've won me a lot of money this year Really great to see someone else just pop out of no where... Dubuisson. Played amazing last week in Turkey and unfortunately had a bad back9 yesterday, but a great talent in the making

The commentary is good over here in the UK and you'll get less adverts as well. Stenson is on the charge and backing him to win this. Good to see Rory up there as well and a lot of other Brits!

Took to the range last night and made some massive improvements on my short game with your help! Connections felt clean and for the 1st time ever, I was seeing some massive backspin come in and that was with the range balls

I watched the whole of the final round yesterday and was amazed at how little fairways Wood's hit! Fair play to Dub who held his nerve well, considering he hadn't won as a professional. Stenson was incredibly unlucky in that round as well and Poulter could of run away with it after lipping about 5 putts out

Great post mate. My chip/pitch shots are normally very high, but I've just had a swing change as I'm too steep and trying to incorporate this into my swing. Been causing me big problems recently as the grounds soft and causes me to hit fat. I definitely play the ball too far forward in my stance as you've noted with the high-high trajectory, so will watch this and also check I'm not flaring my feet out too wide!

I had a major slice, then a minor fade. Fixed both by working on my swing plane. Have completely changed my swing in the last few weeks and by eliminating the steep swing I had, I only ever draw the ball or the odd hook

Now you know how us brits feel when watching all the PGA Tour events / 3 Majors

I think G-Mac uses them, so don't see why not

Booked a lesson to sort out my swing plane. I'm way too steep and can't play in the soft conditions as I'm hitting 60% of my shots fat!

I'd love to have this problem