The second round of the Murray Cup..(101)

Thankfully the weather was better this week, and although a touch damp golf was a lot more of a pleasant experience. The weather last week led to a very high number of walk-offs, and I turned up to find my partner hadn't. This wasn't an issue as the next golfer to turn up was David, a chap I'd met in the previous round as the groups rejigged to accommodate those who had a burning desire to be otherwhere. David's an enthusiastic ad supportive 13 handicap, and after I'd fessed up my lack of tournament experience on the first green, he happily kept me right, and was always keen to see the positive in any situation, much like I try to do. Both of us look on golf as something that is enjoyed regardless of score, so it was a lot of fun. It quickly dawned on me that he'd read Zen Golf, and we chatted a little about that. I'm looking forward to meeting him again out on the course.

Because of the rain (I usually use Sengyma's GolfCard on my phone) and the fact my long game didn't really fire at all on the front nine slowing us down a fair bit, I didn't keep any stats on the round. This is a bit of a shame, as I'd love to have seen my putting numbers. 3 or 4 up and downs, a chip in on 18 for a "sandy" and only one 3-putt (An annoyingly dribbly little push, a tired effort from 2-3 feet on the 17th). I hit 3 pars, and had a really good back 9 45.

My front 9 wasn't quite so good at 56- once again a slow start. I was on the tee sharp, but not early. I know I keep saying this, but this time there's a little mitigation. Mrs Geek was out at a friends Hen Night (Batchelorette party for American readers) and as my parents were visiting, I picked her up in town at 2am. And of course because I knew I was up early I found it pretty tricky to get back to sleep- typical!

I used my full routine for almost all of my shots, and picked a target for about the same number. My putting, what I'd worked on most in the week, was excellent. I sunk a number of 8-10 footers, and had others that weren't far away.

What to improve? I made a number of poor decisions; often my 6-wood is great, even from semi rough but it didn't work well for me, and there were a number of shots where I didn't reproduce my practice swing by either trying too hard to hit it pulling me out of position or by coming out of tempo, into a quickening swipe. I tried for too much out of the rough on a number of occasions, and my plan is now to aim for a place just ahead of where the previous shot would have finished, had it been a good shot.

Although I had a chip in and a few up and downs, had my short game been more consistent my front nine wouldn't have been quite so high, and my back nine would have been even better. Chipping is the next focus for practice. I think a large number of my chips will be using a hybrid with a putting stroke, and I may explore using putt-chips with other clubs (my Niblick, 7 iron etc) and as I'm playing links golf I'll need to work on my bump and runs- tried one but not a great idea to try a shot you haven't rehearsed on a competitive round, but hey ho. If you've finished learning, you've finished living, so I'm glad I'm still learning lots.

I'm also having a wee bit of difficulty remembering my shots- largely because I was often so absorbed in the process, but also because I didn't review the feedback post shot, something I'm keen to add to my routine (this should only take a quick second or so of holding the follow through and assessing the result)

My brother (the Law Geek- sorry bro, but anyone who blogs on international law with such gusto merits the title!) has suggested that perhaps not every post has to be quite so long, so I'll leave my posts on www.3goodshots.com and what I got up to on Monday night (if that's not enough of a tease, I believe that it's probably the single most important step to allow me to improve at this game). I also promised Mrs Geek I wouldn't be up too late blogging and it's quarter to one already, so I better get off to bed. I'm really starting to enjoy the process of blogging, and do feel it's helping with my journey in golf improvement, and have been really quietly pleased by the helpful and supportive feedback I've received, both on here and on Twitter. Thank you- you know who you are ;-)