Two medal rounds in the last week

...and two scores up at the top end of my range, vexingly. It's hard- I know I'm a better player than I was even when I first started playing medals- my putting's a lot better, and I'm more flexible thanks to my ongoing stretching program. But still consistently good scoring eludes me.
(My two last rounds can be seen in detail here and here)
My handicap has gone back up by 0.1. I'm starting to get a little frustrated as I'm playing some really good shots, but there are more than a few high scores on the card.

There's multiple reasons for this. (in golf, isn't there always?) Firstly, because I know I've improved my expectations have risen, something that just about every coach of the mental game thinks is a bad thing. I've once again become focused on the outcome of a shot, rather than letting myself get absorbed in the process, a feeling that I've experienced a few times with the Instinctive Golf team, and by trying to perform deep, deliberate practice (I've got better at this, but still don't practice as often as I'd like, but work & family life have to come ahead of what is, one must remember, a game). I've been concentrating on my putting, and my putts per round have come down, but my short game shots too often are unsuccessful, necessitating either multiple shots, or making it difficult to 2-putt, let alone 1-putt. Every so often I shank an approach or short-game shot, which throws me off quite a bit (I seem to hit a lot of shots near the hosel, meaning that the club moves away from me on the downswing. Kendal McWade pointed this out on Wednesday, at an Instinctive Golf evening at Dalmahoy, which I shall post more about in the next few days). Despite trying to wade through Dave Pelz' Damage Control, I still find myself trying too hard for too much following a poor shot, often to the detriment of my score. I need to be more realistic, and more amenable to taking a penalty drop for an unplayable ball more often, as I often play from frying pan into the fire.

Too often, I'm either afraid or hopeful over the ball, neither of which are conducive to good golf. I really need to make my rehearsal swings less ceremonial swishing of club through grass, and more of a realistic rehearsal of the coming shot, that I try to recreate on the actual swing. I also seem to get out of tempo if I'm too concerned with the outcome- a playing partner identified that I was "lifting my head". I think that this is more often an effect of a poor swing, rather than a cause of the poor shot, but I feel sometimes I'm too fast with my upper body, leading to my head coming up early, but my Instinctive Golf experience tells me this is just a "story" I've told myself. This may be true or it may not, but thankfully the resultant action, that of swinging more deliberately and at a slower pace, brings better results in general.

On my last round, I tried to keep a score of how many shots I was committed and focused on the process. The problem with that was the lack of clear definition- was I examining commitment or process focus? With that lack of clarity, as always, it led to a muddying of the results. Both lack of commitment and outcome focus are issues, but the larger issue by far is the outcome focus, and part of me wonders if my commitment issues come from an over attachment to results. In any case, the course of action is clear- over my next few rounds I'm going to aim to be focused on the process for every shot, losing myself in that little fugue that comes when one is focused on process, looking for that feeling of "coming to" whilst holding the follow through position and realising the ball is travelling (hopefully) some distance in front of you. I'm not going to get down on myself if I don't manage it on any given shot, but when I record my score I'll record also how many shots I was focused on the process, and trust that this non-judgemental awareness shall lead to me being focused on the process the majority of the time and then all of the time.

I feel good about this, even if progress is not quite as I'd hoped thus far. When I met Mrs Geek, and we started dating I had a quiet certainty that we would be together, even when she had other suitors, and this quiet certainty managed to quash my usual faintly neurotic meanderings. I have the same quiet certainty that my game will improve.

One thing from my last round (26th of June) that I just have to share. On the 7th, a long par 5 from the medal tees (I've got near the green in two once in the past whilst downwind from the yellow tees, but the whites are 80 yards back) I hit a good 250 yard drive into a cross wind. With over 200 yards to go, I decided to go with an 8 iron, to the derision of my playing partners. I then hit a three-quarter 9-iron through the back of the green (next time I'll play 9-iron, 9-iron). I was standing over my chip for some time whilst playing partners holed out, and I clearly visualised the path of the chip. It was on a slight down slope so I was careful to set my spinal angle to 90degrees to the slope before playing my favorite chip- the putt with my 24degree hybrid, straight into the hole. I'm slightly embarrassed to have to fess up to a wee fist pump and a loud "YES!" before calming down. I'm going to do this more often. The striking thing is that for every shot on that hole I was calmly absorbed in the process. Perhaps this is an indication of the shots I can play when I do this.