95 last Saturday...

...and I'm pleased. Not so much with the score, but in how it was achieved. I did my best to focus on every single shot individually, and whilst by no means perfect it was a lot better than previously. I didn't keep a record of how many shots, but feel it was somewhere between 2/3 to 3/4 of shots- a target to beat. Circumstances kind of compelled me to focus on my results or at least my score for a little while, as when I went to record my stats on my phone after the second hole I realised I couldn't find my phone, and that I must have left an iPhone in my car. I wasn't sure if I'd left it on view or if I'd tucked it away, and was worried that it might lead to my car being broken into. This forced me to evaluate my score, to see if it was worth continuing given the risk of a broken car window & a stolen phone. Although I decided that it was worth continuing (rightly, as my phone was safely out of sight) it meant that I'd had to evaluate my round and score early, moving me from a process to a score (or outcome) focus, meaning that it was difficult to put that evaluation out of my mind and concentrate solely on a shot focus.

And I mishit a few shots, perhaps slightly more than usual, and had an OK day with the putter, with a number of up & downs but also one 4 putt. There's certainly room for improvement there, but I did get up & down 4 times for par, and once for bogey, which I'm delighted with. I had been having some difficulty with my putting routine, as I'd been lining up my putts with my left hand only on the club, then adding my right, but I found that I was altering my aim when adding the right hand. Watching the Scottish Open over the weekend, I noticed a number of players lining up putts with only their right hand before adding the left. I've been trying this, and it seems to be helping quite a bit. I'm also trying to sneak onto a putting green for 20 minutes to half an hour 3 mornings a week before work, and also managing a bit of short game practice. I'm really pleased with how my putting and short game feel have improved in a short space of time, and this is the way to lower scores.

I've been at an Instinctive Golf long game day, have been shown the basics of shaping the ball. I'm going to talk more about this in the next few days, but I was shaping the ball really quickly, and loving the freedom. This persisted until about the 7th hole last week , and then became a bit sporadic. The interesting thing is I was then able to revert to my usual swing (expecting the ball to land within a "V" from my starting position) and got pretty good results.

In short, although the score is reasonably good (one of my better scores from the medal tees) the score itself isn't what I'm happy about. In fact, I'm slightly disappointed with the score, but absolutely delighted with how my process is progressing, and it's pretty easy for me to see me playing 7-9 shots better in the near future by improving my adherence to the process, and by putting a little bit better (hopefully taken care of with my refinement of my putting routine). I'm going to improve my process, and I'm certain if I do that I'll improve my scoring.