Scotland's mini ice age...

...has quashed my plans to practice over the Christmas period. I can't believe that I took my golf clubs from home to the in-laws, back home then on to my folk's place and back to my in-laws. They have been out 3 times- each time for practice with aides that I'd got for Christmas not for "proper"golf , but I do have to face up to the fact that it has been mostly a waste of time.

Or has it? Although I've not done much, what I have done has been quality, and I feel that I'm close to getting my swing to a very good place- the best place it's ever been in terms of impact, plane, tempo and crucially repeatibility; I've been using the "Golfing with your eyes closed" book to work through visualisation, and also worked with Vision54's MYGAME to think through my preshot planning in the "think box". I'm really itching for the snow to clear to allow me get onto the course to try it out.

I'm also really excited about a new hypnotherapy course. I first started using hypnotherapt after my Mum got me Paul McKenna's "Great Golf" video, which was cancelled in the library, for the princely sum of £1. This in terms of cost is by far and away the best purchase I've made in terms of golf improvement, and is up there in terms of all purchases. I've been using several hypnotherapy programs from iTunes, having wanted something I could hear through headphones and that was more portable and versatile than a video. These include Glenn Harrold's Great Golf, one by Darren Mark and the Golf Doctor series. These are all fairly useful and have helped ny game but are pretty general; little work on short game or putting, the scoring shots.

I did a Google search, and came across Roseanna Leaton's "Golfer Within" series. Although more expensive than the other ones, they look very detailed and absolutely fantastic. I toyed with ordering the entire mental skills package, and would have done had it not been just after Christmas, but settled instead on the short game, putting and winning disks. If they arfe as good as I think they'll be, I'll go back for the others. I've introduced her to Fred Greene of the excellent "Golf Smarter" podcast, so hopefully she'll be a guest on there and hopefully I might be able to ask for a cheeky discount for my future purchases!

I've also started using the Powerball, a hand-held gyroscope; they are endorsed by a long drive champion, so we'll see how that goes. Not something I would have bought, but was a gift from my brother and his wife; as I've mentioned above my family's gifts have worked out well before, so we'll see how this one goes. I also got the 5minutes to tee time warm up program, which looks really good; well, it got a good review (a filler piece) in Golf Monthly, but looked underwhelming when it arrived. I did the stretches last night and was very impressed. Although it's meant as a warm-up, I'm not the most flexible, so it might well work as a stretching program, particularly if repeated a few times. Interesting. Hopefully we'll be home soon (we're currently stranded at the inlaws) for Wii Fit+ and a customisable routine...

Goals for 2010

The first of January does seem a good time to record some goals.
This year I want to:

1.Break 90
2.Play in medals
3.Be in contention in a competition
4.Drop handicap by 4 strokes to 24

This may be tricky, Miss Geek and Master Geek are 3.5 years and 3.5 months old respectively, and my golf cannot be at their expense. Not only do I not want this, the fragrant but no nonsense Mrs. Geek would never allow it. However, I got a number of training aides for Christmas, and I will continue to work on short game, putting and flexibility over the winter and try to get out as much as possible over the summer after the kids in bed. I'm working on a number of things in mental game and through Vision54 I've looked hard at how to practice; they also have an online mentoring program that I'm a member of, and I'm goign to use this to track rounds, stats etc.
I'm taking part in the #TTUC, the Twitter Trim Up Challenge, which I'm going to use to help motivate me to do the Yoga and Muscle workouts in Wii Fit & Wii Fit+.

Plenty to be going on with then. As if that wasn't ambitious enough, my ultimate goal is to try to get to scratch, to allow me to attempt to qualify for the senior open, and perhaps even to take part in qualifying for The Open Championship. I have 25 years for this last, with 60 being the limit. The goal is obviously not to be competetive, but to play a part in the oldest and most prestigious of golf championships.

I've also become very interested in the mental game of golf, and this is a thread I'm going to pick at to see where it ultimately leads.

We shall see!