P/R=;-)

A cheesy grin keeps slipping onto my face this week as I replay last week's round. I'm delighted to report that after numerous top 3's and a couple of 2nds I've managed to record my first competitive victory in golf. This is of course great news in itself but the manner in which it was achieved is worth recording. As you know, I was very excited by the possibilities revealed by last week's round but having played golf for a wee while now I was prepared for things not being quite as smooth at the start of this round, as there's nothing like high expectations to scupper a round. Or so I'm told! In many ways this was the first time I'd come out with the potential for this but my knowledge of the mental game is good enough to know the pitfalls of such expectations. My intention was to bring the same focus to every shot that I'd done from about the 5th hole in my last round. Once again, I planned to keep a tally of the shots where I'd achieved my goal of being absorbed in the process.

I hadn't bargained for how much difficulty I'd have focusing at all on the first few holes. I was really distracted & couldn't figure out why, until I realised I'd forgotten to take some medication. I rectified this and was soon able to focus once again. The highlight of my front 9 was an up & down for par on the 7th; a lengthy par 5, I'd thinned my 5 wood on my 2nd shot into a fairway bunker, catching the ball slightly thin again with my 9 iron in the bunker (still quite a good fairway bunker shot) sending the ball over the green. into a patch of slightly fluffy rough. I'd short sided myself as the pin was at the back of the green on my side and had quite a cushion under the ball. I took my 60, positioned it so as to use the greater bounce angle (my wedges are the Eidolon V-sole wedges, 48, 54,60 with two bounce angles in the sole, allowing all of them to be as useful from tight lies as they are from fluffy rough or even the sand. Not expensive, they're built to your spec. Please check them out). I then planned my shot, trusted that my rehearsal swing was correct and swung. The ball damn near dropped in on it's 2nd bounce, before spinning to a stop about 3 feet from the hole.

I don't remember too much of my back 9, other than it was into the wind. My playing partner and fellow competitor Bob had been a wee bit down about playing into the wind, which was pretty stiff but I felt I could make some shots and if I focused on making these shots I'd do fine. There was a little nagging doubt that I'd ruined my card as I'd made 15 in total on the 5th & 6th whilst waiting for the medications to kick in, but every time I caught myself thinking like that I simply labelled it thus: "That's the past. Come back to the present" and re-committed to focusing on each and every shot. Even if my card was wrecked (by no means certain, as it proved) I still had my process score to play for, and I wanted to beat last week's score. I also did the same towards the end of the round when Bob (to be encouraging) told me on the 16th tee I'd played one under level 5's on the back 9 and thoughts of the future crept in. I had some bad luck at 16 (ball through green into back bunker against the back edge) and a wee wobble at 17 (lipped out from 2 feet). The wobble at 17 took some thought to shake off, but I managed to do so to get up and down on 18 (slightly mishit my tee shot and got a slightly thinned low fade short of the green, but stuck a great chip that I thought for a second might drop & which ran 3 feet past, leaving me a 3 footer for par and another back 9 of 44. I knew that my 95 would mean I'd be safely in the category 4 "buffer zone" meaning no handicap rise, and that I had an outside chance of a cut in view of the wind (Par is 71, competition scratch score is usually 69 but rises if it's wet/windy). I got in to the club house to discover I was leading my division by 2, but anticipated I'd be knocked off my perch by a later starter. I certainly didn't anticipate a net 70 winning, but I found myself itching to make my excuses, leave our guests on Saturday night to check. Mrs Geek asked if it might be online; this reminded me I'd seen a poster for howdidIdo.com at the club. I registered & discovered I'd won. The advantage of checking scores online is that there is no chance of your fellow member witnessinging your victory dance.

What to improve? Focus over the first 6 holes. There's mitigation this time, but I often start OK then peter out until the 7th. I was in good time for this round and feel missing the medicine dose did contribute, as my game improved as it started to "kick in". I'm going to divide the round into groups of 6 holes, trying to get a similar process score for each.

I made one very poor decision. I thinned into a bunker on the 5th, a pretty deep greenside one and was right up against the face. I had no stance as right leg in, left out (thinking about it now, I could have looked at kneeling with my left), and ended up taking 3 to get out & I was still pretty distant from the hole. I should have taken an unplayable drop, even said I was going to as I approached but still didn't and paid the price.

My process focus score (I'm going to call it as my P-score from now on for ease of reference) was 80%, rising to 84% on the back 9. I think I hit a wee bit of a trance-like state on the back 9, I don't recall anything terribly clearly until about 16-ish; I use a lot of hypnosis/NLP so this trance state is a good thing to get into on course. I seem to be getting better at pointing my putter in the correct direction and I'm going to use a similar target focus on my short game and full shots. I also seem to be getting a much better inner appreciation of my optimal tempo which can only be a good thing

I'm obviously absolutely delighted by this win; I'd been close before and my goal competitively had been just to be in contention (top 5 with a chance to win) at the start of the season. My handicap is now 24.9 with my goal of 24 this year looking like it might be achievable. It might not look that I'm improving but my cluster of scores has focused on the lower end of my range for some time now, and of course this is from the medal tees. What's also different is how I'm getting there as my play is much improved and much more steady. When scoring in the mid to low 90's now I don't feel at the limit of my ability, as I did before. There is a new "low score" in me, and if I keep going as I have been it will come around. Fun times indeed.