First full 18 of the year...

...last Saturday. It was a difficult day from the outset, as it had taken me longer than I'd hoped to get through what needed to be done; I was really determined to get out though as I'd had to abandon plans to get out the previous Sunday. It was Miss Geek's birthday weekend and although she'd had a party and a friend staying over she was so flat after they'd left I took her out for lunch instead.

Getting to the course around three, it was clear I'd made a tactical error as it's right beside Pittodrie, the home of Aberdeen Football Club and they were at home. With no place to park, I headed for another of the council's courses, a parkland one with drainage issues.

I teed off on the first hole of Hazlehead number 2 course (the number 1 course, designed by no less than Dr Alastair MacKenzie of Augusta fame was waterlogged). It's a 170 yard par 3, up hill, so I hit my 6 wood (22 degree, put in that day to replace my 21 degree hybrid) with a 3/4 swing and got onto the green. As I approached the green, it became clear that all was not well with the green. There were large yellow circles of burned out turf and the grass was at points longer than the fairway. I hit the putt firmly, but it tailed off quickly on the sodden green and ended with a four putt.

This set the tone for a difficult day, not only on the greens. My ball striking was poor, and I zig zagged up and down fairways and hit a lot of ugly shots with reasonable outcomes. You know the sort- pull slices hit slightly thin that manage to run a decent distance. Lots of heavy pitches and skulled chips. And I had more four putts than I've ever had since I started counting my putts. Pushes , pulls and tops abounded with my irons

The result? 103. With 46 putts. Far from ideal really.

And yet, and yet I'm smiling. A lot.

Why? Well firstly, I don't often take anywhere near as many putts. I had only 1 one-putt, and usually have many more. I usually take 32-36 putts. That's 10-14 shots off already, putting me right into the range I want to be in if I'm going to break 90 this year. And I am. The greens were honestly, truly awful. I don't think I've ever played on such poor greens- to give you an idea, they were in poor shape for a fairway, let alone a green. In many cases the hole hadn't been filled on the erstwhile winter greens and these were all in better condition than the actual greens. If I hadn't swapped my hybrid for the 6 wood I'd have putted with that.

I also lost an awful lot of shots with my short game; I was guilty of Lob Wedge overuse syndrome, where the ball just stops w-a-y too short. I'm home alone from the 3rd to the 9th of April so will be heading with wedges and irons to the local pitch and putt after work, as well as putting bootcamp a few mornings before work and some work at home later on.

I also didn't sort out my nutrition and fluids properly, didn't take enough to eat and lost a bottle of water. This is something I need to pay attention to as it definitely helps my concentration. I can't eat anything fatty now (a long story) which rules out a lot of the usual golf snacks/energy bars but last year I made a mix of cereals, toasted oats and dried fruit with good effect although it looks very very weird.

And given I only hit a handful of shots I liked, I ground out a 103, with 46 of those putts. That might not look great, but to play like that and nearly break 100 on an unfamiliar course is very much better than it would have been even a year ago (in fact 16 months ago I had a day like that and scored nearly 140!). With it being only the first full 18 of the year there was bound to be some rustiness too. I'm also going to an Instinctive Golf putting/short game day which I'm thinking will help scoring too.

I'm also starting to feel at ease with the uncomplicated pre-shot routine from Roseanna Leaton's excellent Golfer Within series. It is expensive but has been worth it for my game. I feel that I'm starting to learn how to get out of my own way.

Aiming is also an issue, and I may well need some instructor time to do that (and to start building up my laundry list of FOPs* and how to fix 'em).

But, most of all, I'm smiling because it's golf. My happiness isn't contingent on my performance in golf. I love the game, and enjoy it regardless of how I'm playing. I think it;s easy to fall into the trap of "I'll be happy when I shoot..." (insert next milestone along the way here). I feel it's very importance to realise that as golfers we are all on the Path; the score milestones are just that, markers to show how far we are along the Path. I'll never be at the stage where my golf is finished, where I feel that I don't need to improve any further, so it would be pretty silly to make my happiness contingent on getting to that point. That's a recipe for lifelong unhappiness, and I'm just not ready to be that miserable.



*FOPs: Frequently Occuring Problems