I’m writing this one in retrospect as things got a bit hectic with life in general, but I made some notes over the course of May 2025.
Buckle up, because this one is a bumpy ride!
May started with renewed optimism. I could see that my golf game was going in the right direction with a few of my end of April performances.
But as we all know, Golf has a way of humbly grounding you, and far better players than me over the course of history have experienced this. Now, I’m not saying I have figured this game out, that would be stupid, but I thought I had figured my own game out.
My on course issues are still the driver at this point. I know I’m not putting in enough practice at the range with that particular club, but as I have pointed out in recent blogs, I never have done, and I know that’s not good enough. So I decided that when I’m out on the course practicing and the course isn’t busy I will hit 2 balls off the tee with my driver, and try to find something. I know this may not be the perfect approach, but it’s a different one, and at this point in time I’ll try anything.
The main reason for the frustration is the fact that I never qualified for our Club Championship this year. I was beaten on a countback! Myself and one other player were both tied on the same score, with the exact same two round scores as well. The committee decided that the best way to sort this out was to do a countback on the lowest score we were both tied on.
Now the only issue I have is that the qualification process is over 4 rounds on 4 different days. My best and the other members’ best scores were shot on different days, with different conditions etc.
My issue is that both scores cannot be judged on their individual merit, however I had to accept the decision. I thought we could have had a prelim/playoff to see who qualified, it would not have interfered with tie dates for the main competition and would have added a bit of excitement or drama, but that wasn’t to be, so i qualified in 1st position for the 2nd class competition. Not the end of the world to be fair.
So I took that one on the chin, had a good look at my game and decided to use it as fuel to make improvements and hopefully it doesn’t happen again next year.
The most important golf shot is the next one.
A case of the "unmentionables"
I also think I have pointed out in recent blogs that my good form traditionally doesn’t kick in until July, but I was hoping with the good work that I have been putting in, that the game/form might have kicked in a bit earlier. But that’s golf, you don’t always get what you deserve, but you can keep working away and hope that the bigger picture makes sense.
Another issue I experienced in May…the dreaded Shanks, yip i said it. I know some people dont like hearing the word, but fuck it, ive said it.
Some of my rounds were blighted by at least 2 per round, but the effect it had on all other chip shots was a less than cautious approach to chipping. I know this is a phase, I know it’s a technical thing as well. But you can’t hope to shoot a good score if you are petrified of getting up and down from a missed green. I was even scared to practice wedge shots on the range for the remainder of the month. I thought that if I ignored the problem it would go away. Burying your head in the sand with any issue in life is the surefire way to make it worse. I should know.
This wasn’t my usual “Lets address this issue straight away” approach. I hid from it, refused to acknowledge it, in the vain hope that one day it wouldn’t be there. How wrong was I?
Anyway, the great thing about this month, I got the opportunity to play at Turnberry. Home of the “Duel in The Sun” and all the other rich history the course is famous for world wide. It was a charity event for a small charity called “Callumns Cabin” and it was an absolutely great day with a few mates, we had a great laugh and the experience was outstanding.
Arriving for check in, checking out the pro shop, having breakfast, using the practice facilities. Just a superb day all round. Hit 2 shanks on the practice chipping area, here we go again.
Anyway, the format was “Best Nett Score” and we shot a respectable -10, but nowhere even close to being in the top 5. But that wasn’t the point of the day.
On the way home I kept thinking about my chipping and decided something needed to be done about it. I never fixed it for another 2 weeks after this, but when I did…the cocky confidence game back. I used to tell my friend “Its cool if i miss a green i can get up and down from absolutely anywhere…even a bush!”
Now this was just posturing, but from the books I have read about psychology of Golf it’s better to tell yourself this than the opposite. Oh and by the way I’m also the best putter that ever lived, and the best iron player in history. I know I’m not, but I would rather try to convince myself of that than accept the reality that I’m just a 14hcp hacker. These statements will become much more important in the future.
The pre-shot routine is the only thing keeping me together
I’m still sticking to all of the pre-shot stuff I have implemented into my game, still reading books and more specifically chapters of the books to ingrain even better mental habits during my round.
So it’s the end of May and instead of going down my HCI has crept up to 13.8, still lower than last year at this point, but I feel it’s time to knit all this work together into a more consistent golfer.
