Found my swing again

Went out last week after about a month off from playing 18 holes and my front 9 was a shocker. Went out with 45 and 2 shots back from my dad. I was hitting big cuts with the driver and even hitting it onto adjacent fairways. Not fun at all!

Not sure what was wrong but I felt very disconnected from my swing. Made a few tweaks on the back 9 and I then started to hit them straight (and long) again. Managed to make 4 pars in 5 holes and things were looking good.

I was tied with my dad on the last hole (a par 5) and only had 100m to hit the green on my third shot. I proceed to hit the fattest shot ever which didn't make the green and I finished that hole with a 7. Call me Greg.

Highlight: Making birdie on the 200m par 3
Lowlight: Driving my ball OB on the next hole

Alex Miceli Rips into Tiger

Thankyou Stephanie Wei for uploading this gem..

Alex Miceli Calls Tiger Gutless from Stephanie Wei on Vimeo.

Bandit?

The winner from Saturdays competition shot a 64 nett. A 10 handicapper
who played two over off the stick. Who knows if this bloke is a bandit
or just a guy who had a really good day.

I should really give him the benefit of the doubt, but having recently
played with a genuine low handicapper who was initially given a high
handicap makes me a bit sus.

Perhaps the club handicapper has changed to the bloke who started me
off on 11.

Grrrrr!

Sent from my phone

Driver troubles and early starts

Decided on an early tee off at 6:45 am so that I could make a 12:00
lunch. I finished 18 by 11:00 and was home 20 mins after that. I do
love being a member at Hartfield - online bookings for tee times and
course marshals to keep up the pace of play is awesome.

As for my actual game, it was terrible. My handicap recently went down
to 13 despite some patchy play. I think my scrambling is what kept me
from blowing out. But yesterday couldn't be saved. Started off pretty
well with a front 41 off the stick. I then 3 putted the 10th and
scored a triple on the 11th. It was hard to get the momentum back (I
think I'm a streaky player) and I finished with 88 / 75 net.

With birthdays and birth classes for the rest of this month stopping
me from playing comps, i've got plenty of time to work at the range.

Sent from my phone

Go Geoff!

Keeping an eye on the PGA tour website. Hoping that Geoff Ogilvy
notches up a win to start off the season with his new Titleist sticks.

One behind sabatini who is currently 10 under for the day... Crazy!

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One of those days ...

... where I struck the ball great (most of the time) all day, and I scored on every hole (stableford). I had a bunch of 3's on my scorecard and yet I ended up with only 36 points. It's one of those games you have where it fells like you played much better than you scored. To make matters worse, the course CCR was 71 - so I actually played one worse than my handicap. 

I hit 11 out of 14 fairways (78%) so there was nothing wrong with my driving. My GIR was probably about 50-60%. 

So how would you rather play - scoring worse than you played or scoring better than you played?

My preference is to score worse than you played. I might walk off the course confused about my score, but that's better than walking off frustrated with a shonky golf swing .... imo :)

Stroke play stress.

Stroke play is such a different beast to stableford or any other type
of comp. It can get quite stressful when every single shot counts.

Normally it doesn't bother me too much but I was especially nervous
today. I had just gone down a shot in my handicap to 13 and was
feeling like I had to play one shot better than last week to contend
again.

It went fairly well for the first 5 holes but then I shot a triple
bogey. And that just did my head in for the front nine. Another triple
on the back and my energy was gone. I felt tired and couldn't wait to
finish the round.

Oh well, my handicap should go up by one so that gives me an extra
buffer for next week. :)

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New equipment!

Well it's not quite as exciting as it sounds. We've had two weekends
where the temperature soared to 38 degrees. I played golf on one of
them and was throughly beat after the round.

Something that wasn't performing up to scratch was my drinks. They
would just stay cool for the first few holes and then turn into a warm
energy drink...ick!

So this new bag will hopefully keep things cooler and me fresher
during the round.

Melbourne Visit

I flew to Melbourne 2 weeks ago to visit Rare Birdie. The purpose of my trip was to catch up and play a round of golf with an old buddy ..... oh and to see some guy called Tiger at the Australian Masters.

I arrived on the Friday and being 3 hrs behind with my body clock I didn't know how I'd perform on my Saturday round at 4:30am Perth time. I'd be playing at Yarra Bend Golf Course, a public 18 hole course just a few km's from Melbourne central.

Looks pleasant enough when you arrive.


A hole with a downhill approach. There were a few shots like this where there was a big dropoff at the back of the green. Something to think about when making the approach shot.


[EDIT] One other thing that was enjoyable about 'the bend' were blind tee shots that had to be struck over hills and trees. It just adds a little bit of the unknown when you can't see your ball land.

It was quite an enjoyable round of golf and the course was in pretty good condition. The greens were better than what you'd find at most public courses. I managed to shoot 42 points (equal first) that day and part of that was due to a well behaving driver.

Well that was 2 weeks ago and I haven't touched my clubs since I got back, but I'm hoping to have a good round tomorrow with some of the form I showed at 'The Bend'.

Funny Callaway Commercial

Setup issues

Spent some time at the driving range on the weekend to try and sort
out some issues with my game. There were two issues to address:

1) big hooks with the driver
2) high fades with the irons

Started with my irons first and a lot of my shots were ok. They still
had lots of height but just a touch of fade. But I did notice that I
wasn't taking any divots. It was then that I noticed that I had a lot
of shoulder lean away from the ball. Tried making my setup a touch
more horizontal and the change was almost instant. Shots had a better
trajectory and I started taking some nice divots. Such a small change
to your setup can sure make for significant change in ballstriking.

My next item was the hooks with the driver. Didn't make too much
progress with this problem. There is a pretty good chance that I'll
lose a bunch of balls the next time out :)

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Shocker

Had a shocking stableford round on the weekend. It started badly with me turning up 'late' - the groups were actually teeing off 10mins early.

So I had to tee off immediately without even a stretch. Never got into a rhythm for the whole day and my shots were very erratic. Moments of brilliance followed up with truly hacker golf. I lost 4 balls that day, and got to the last hole with one ball left. 

At least my new Reebok "Play Dry" shirt performed well and made me look like a good golfer.

$1 Million Dollars!!

Back from a break

Having had 2 weeks off after the club champs, I came into today not knowing how I would play. I started off well enough with a birdie on the first hole from the greenside bunker. And the rest of the 9 was pretty solid with the irons and putting. It was just the big dog that was misbehaving. A straight drive would be followed up with a wayward one. I guess after some time off I was going to be rusty and it showed in my driving.

Unfortunately I finished the day 2 over my handicap (which has gone up to 14).

Highlight of the day - the Caddyshack burger I had at the 19th. The homemade beef patty was delish!

Club Championships recap

Our club championships were held recently and I was very excited in the lead up to it. It was going to be my first ever club champs, and I knew that the course would be setup for an extra challenge. Playing the course last year (for my card) just before the competitions, I found that the course was playing really long, the pins tucked into corners and the greens were super slick. So that was what I expected this year. The comp would consist of 3 rounds stroke play, then a cut of the top 12 from each division going through to the final round of stroke. I was playing in B-division and my game was average at best leading up the the first round.

Round 1

The day was cold and wet. We did get sunshine for our first tee shots, but the rain soon came after that. And I found myself standing over my shot with hail coming down by the 4th hole. The greens were soggy, I was wet and cold, I couldn't feel my fingers but I was enjoying it for some reason. I didn't play the front 9 well, going out with a 45. But the back 9 was better with quite a few pars. In the end I finished with a score of 77 nett. It was one of those strange days where you feel like you've played well, but it just wasn't reflected in your score. I thought that it would be pretty hard to make the top 12 with a starting score like that.

Round 2

Another cold and wet day was what we played in, but I was still determined to enjoy the day and not give up. It was a solid round with good ball striking and not too many mistakes. It felt good enough to be under par but once again the score didn't reflect how I thought I played. Perhaps I think that I'm better than I really am :)

I finished the day with 73 nett. 6 over for the tournament seemed like a lost cause but having a quick look at the scores of everyone else in my division put me somewhere in the top 20.

Round 3

So being in the top 20 gave me a glimmer of hope. I thought anything under par might give me a chance and I went out with confidence. Once again the round felt great, and I thought that I played my best round in a few months. But for some reason I finished the day with 73 nett ... again! 

I didn't think my 3 rounds were good enough to make the cut but I was suprised to find the next day that I had made the cut. Perhaps I pulled off a Steven Bradbury of sorts. Anyhoo... excitement all round!

Final Round

I turned up knowing that I was probably about 6-7 shots behind the leader and that it would be a pretty hard task to get near that. Our group were probably the guys "making up the numbers". :)

The day started better than expected with a chip in birdie on the first hole. Not bad at all. I finished the front 9 well with a few good pars. By the 10th hole I was 4 under my handicap, and I thought that I might even have an outside chance of top 3. But my good run ended with a 7 on the 11th. I had 2 more 7's coming home and that really hurt. Another birdie on the 17th reduced the hurt but the damage had already been done.

I finished the day with another 73 and 2nd in my division. Not sure how I finished overall but it sure was a wild ride.

Overall it was an enjoyable experience. The pressure of stroke play over 4 rounds, the tough conditions and the solid golf played will not be forgotten.

I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks, hoping that I can carry the good form through and lower my handicap.

Being a man!

A big thankyou goes out to Rare Birdie for implying that I'm a wuss
for not wanting to play in wind and rain.

Well I went out there and had a pretty good game. Struck the ball well
and finished one under my handicap. Eventhough I left a few shots out
there with some bad 3 putts and loose shots. Still good enough for
10th on the day. :)

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Rain forecast

Rain is forecast for this weekend. Now do I be a man and play in the
rain or do I wuss out and stay home?

I really want to get in some much needed competition rounds under my
belt, but not if it's going to be a wet and windy day.

Right now I'm leaning towards not going. Decision would be much easier
if channel 9 would do a decent job of broadcasting The Open
Championship.

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My national ranking

64820..... According to golflink. Not sure if that is good or not but
I'd sure like to improve on that number.

Stuart Appleby king dork?

I think Appleby is a great golfer. But this is the pic of him on the
US Open iPhone app.
What the!?

Bucket of sand

This is the bucket of sand you carry around to fix up your divots from
the fairways. I only used it once today. Not sure what went wrong but
I shot 22 over (9 over my handicap).