The Golf Geek

The Last Post

2011-03-06T13:56:00.000-08:00

This will be my last post on this blog.

I should be writing with heavy heart.

This is my last post on my first blog.

This blog started with a couple of nervous, "hello world" type posts, then became a journal where I chronicled my progress.

It then grew in to something unexpected when I started to record what I noticed as I learned. I'd tied it in to my account on Twitter, and was amazed and delighted by the response from my friends online.

I started to write more and more often, to learn more about effective writing and to think about what could be achieved.

The more I researched, however, it dawned on me that I hadn't perhaps chosen the best platform. I'd opted for Blogger because I'd heard of it, and because my brother had a blog here. But looking around, it became clear other, bigger blogs were using other software. Most blogs were on self hosted sites, and running something called Wordpress.

Now, you don't have to use Wordpress to have a successful blog. PostSecret, for example, is a massive blog which uses Blogger. But with most of the big blogs using Wordpress, simple market economics suggest Wordpress will have the most features and plug-ins available.

As the blog has grown, so too has my desire. It's a serious ambition of mine to coach the mental aspects of golf, but with the limitations of this blog I just didn't think it would be viable.

So I gave it up.

Jacked it in.

No more Golfgeek at blogspot.com.

No more Dr Geek?

Quite the opposite, I'm delighted to say.

I'm back blogging...and on my own site.

Please click on over to DrGolfGeek.com for more questions, insights and even the odd song parody.

Worried about missing the best content from this site? Don't be. I have a FREE eBook which takes the best content from this blog, updates it and bundles it up with some rather wonderful new content...and it's YOURS for the princely sum of your email address.

If I were looking to sell it, I'd be charging $9.95...but instead it's available FREE to anyone who signs up for my newsletter. If you sign up, it's yours to keep...even in the unlikely event of you deciding to unsubscribe.

So what are you waiting for? Head on over to DrGolfGeek.com and have a good look around!

A very Merry Christmas to one and all

2010-12-24T04:45:00.000-08:00

I'm going to take a wee break from posting, I'll be back in the New Year. I'd just like to take the opportunity to thank you, dear reader, for your support and your interactions both here and on Twitter over the last year.

A particularly large slice of gratitude is due to those who've encouraged and mentored me over the last year. Thank you so much!

It's amazing to think how much I've moved forward since this time last year; I'm planning big things for 2011 and think it will be an even bigger and better year. I hope you'll stick around to share in it with me.

Until then, it's a Merry Christmas from all at Geek Grove. Have fun over the festive period and a Happy New Year.

Thanks again

Dr Geek

Choose your own reality.

2010-12-20T15:38:00.000-08:00

The facts may not lie but do they provide the whole truth? Exploring alternate realities may be surprisingly helpful.

We can choose how we perceive any given situation; why not elect to see things in the way that best suits your needs?

Recently friend told me about a long-running argument with his girlfriend; she maintains that "everyone is special" whilst he makes the point if everyone is outstanding, then no-one is. He then asked what I thought.

My opinion?

They're both correct, and in equal measure. Neither has the ascendancy.

Over on the Pro Sports Psychology Forum, Dr E Kingston shows an optical illusion and then provides a set of statistics from a soccer team. He then goes on to give a number of interpretations, all of which are true.

The full post can be found here:

http://prosportpsychsym.wordpress.com/2010/12/18/optical-illusions/

This is a liberating realisation; no longer must we be slaves to our first perception of our situation. We always have options (a friend once illustrated this by pointing out that even if we were to find ourselves facing a firing squad we could choose to have our eyes open or closed! An extreme example perhaps, but true nonetheless)

The crucial question then becomes - what is the best way for me to view this situation so that it leads to my advantage? Where is the positive?

My last post was intended to be light-hearted, but not frivolous. Look at the end - all of these are things I've said to help me find the positive in a round that many would have seen as disappointing. I'm frequently teased for relentlessly seeking the positive, but would I really benefit from negativity? I see it all the time on Twitter - golfers who are way better than the average denigrating their games, talking themselves down incessantly.

To be clear: I'm not advocating attempting to improve through false positivity; I'm not suggesting that you tell yourself things that are untrue but aspirational. You may try that if you wish - but I certainly won't be joining you. Everything I'm saying is true; all I'm doing is examining the facts as they are and then choosing to interpret them in the fashion that drives me forward in the best possible manner. We have a choice in how we interpret any situation; knowing this means we can choose whichever viewpoint is most advantageous.

Or...you could continue to talk yourself down, take the most negative opinion and keep on throwing those clubs.

Just know that if you do, I'll be smiling...it's pretty easy for me to find the advantage in that situation.

Always look on the Bright Side of Golf

2010-12-13T13:57:00.000-08:00

Some things in golf are bad
They can really make you mad
You might end up throwing clubs or even worse.
When your ball's amongst the thistles
don't worry, give a whistle
and this'll help things turn out for the best...

And always look on the bright side of golf
[whistled] do-do do-do do-do do-do
It's the bestest way your game could evolve
[whistled] do-do do-do do-do do-do

If golf seems jolly rotten
There's something you've forgotten
And that's that it's supposed to be a game
When you've made a triple bogey
Or you're stuck behind a fogey
Please purse your lips and whistle just the same...

And always look on the bright side of golf

[whistled] do-do do-do do-do do-do

It's the bestest way your game could evolve

[whistled] do-do do-do do-do do-do

The game might seem absurd,

if your card's the final word

and you're searching in the rough stuff for your ball

Commit to getting better

And brush up on your skill set - a

You'll soon take fewer strokes into the hole...

And always look on the bright side of golf

[whistled] do-do do-do do-do do-do

It's the bestest way your game could evolve

[whistled] do-do do-do do-do do-do

Is golf really worth it?

When you look at it

It can frustrate and torment oh that is true

But outdoors in the sun

Can be a lot of fun

Don't let frustration suck the joy right out of you...

And always look on the bright side of golf

[whistled] do-do do-do do-do do-do

It's the bestest way your game could evolve

[whistled] do-do do-do do-do do-do

(come on, cheer up!)

Always look on the bright side of golf

(everyone's been 7 off the tee, you know)

Always look on the bright side of golf

(at least you've had a chance to work on recovery shots)

Always look on the bright side of golf

(Plenty of putting practice today)

Always look on the bright side of golf

(There's always next week's Medal)

repeat ad nausem until fade...

With apologies to Mr Idle, the other members of Monty Python and Brian.

A silly post, but with a genuine sentiment. I hope it will stick in your head as much as it's stuck in mine. The only downside is I'm likely to send my playing partners daft with all the whistling....

What's wrong with your golf swing?

2010-12-06T13:59:00.000-08:00

Do you really think your swing's good enough?

Why on earth would you? Look at all the bad shots you've hit, those tops, slices and duck hooks you can't seem to eradicate? The times the divot flew further than your ball?

OK, so there's one or two good shots there from time to time. But that doesn't mean you can play; the ball rarely flies exactly as you envision. Doesn't that define a bad shot, even if you manage to scramble some kind of result?

Do you believe your poor shots result from your poor swing which in turn means you're a poor golfer?

Your shots are bad which means your swing's bad which means you're bad.

No wonder you're frustrated.

You need a nice big dollop of swing change, a slice of mechanical practice washed down with video analysis.

Don't you?

I look at things a little differently.

I think we've got this back to front.

After all, there are occasions where you've hit the ball beautifully.

You've experienced that odd little frisson when you return to your senses after an effortless swing to see the ball fly as you intended.

You've hit chips and pitches that have left your fellow competitors slack-jawed with astonishment.

You've done this with your current swing.

So why change? What will you gain from a painful and difficult overhaul of your swing? Do you really think that swing change will lead to you playing better shots than the ones I've described?

Why then do you feel a need to "fix" your swing? Could a "broken" swing really have given you the moments of pleasure described above?

I think not. Here, instead, is Dr Geek's Swing Critique.

Are you frustrated because your best swings aren't good enough?

Or does your frustration arise because your best swings happen so infrequently?

Do you really need to fix your swing?

Or should you be focusing on making your best swings more often?

Starting in competitive golf as a 28 handicapper, I was astonished to find little difference between my best swings and those of 10-15 handicappers.

The difference in our skill level was obvious from our poor swings, rather than our good ones.

There were obvious differences in both skills and scores. The lower the handicap, the fewer the mistakes. Their misses were less severe and less often and even when then found themselves in real trouble they extricated themselves with minimal damage to their scorecard.

Crucially, their misses were much more predictable. This allowed them to plan their shots taking into account the likely reward and risk scenarios.

Most of us are time-poor. We have jobs, families and commitments which mean we don't have as much time as we would like to devote to our obsession.

As I've stated above, major swing changes can take a lot of time and dedication to complete. Very few of us have that time to spare. Although we try to convince ourselves otherwise, it's quite likely life will prevent us following through with it.

So what happens if we fall off the "Swing Change wagon" ?

Let's see if you recognise this scenario...

Disillusioned and desperate, you head to see a new Pro. He might video your swing; he'll certainly point out all you're doing wrong before starting to set it right. By the end of the session your weak slice has become a draw and you're excited. You make time for the range every night for the next week; although work's busy you're fired up with enthusiasm.

You've got another lesson 2 weeks later. You're at the range twice a week by this stage, which you tell yourself is a manageable minimum...and then life gets in the way. Work's busy; family and friends need your time. You're out of the habit; you spend your spare time resting and suddenly it's three weeks since you've been to the range...

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not calling your commitment into question.

It's just what happens to us all. Even golf has to take a back seat sometimes. But what happens to our swings?

If we're lucky...nothing. We regress back to our standard swing and forget what we've been taught...if we're lucky.

What's more likely is that we remember bits and pieces of the information we've been given, but we've lost the teacher's framework, the context. We remember our description of the how the swing felt, not realising we may well have distorted this over time. Effect is mistaken for cause.

In short, we're a mess.

Time lost and financial cost with significant risk of getting worse. Surely there's a better way?

Perhaps we should concentrate on the swings we have rather than the swings we want?

Maybe we should work towards making our best swings...more often?

If I were to play my best shots 10% more often I'd be delighted.

That figure might seem terribly low to you. But 10% more perfect shots means 10% fewer imperfect ones. And that's not even the main benefit. It'd be impossible to hit the ball beautifully 10% more often without significantly improving control of the club face through impact. This means misses would become less severe and more predictable.

You might not need to fix your swing. Scrape away all of the things you've added over the years in an attempt to "improve" and you might just find it's a whole lot better than you realised. It's all too easy to focus solely on your swing and neglect everything else.

Before embarking on a major swing change ask yourself this:

"am I squeezing every last drop of performance from my current ability?"

If the answer's yes, then by all means go ahead and overhaul your swing. But if not, please consider correcting this before taking on a major change.

But you don't have to take my word for it. If you're at all unsure, please feel free to make that change. Particularly if you'll be playing in my club championship. I quite fancy a run at the matchplay stages and would be delighted to see my competition tie themselves in knots.

Seriously though, if you do go ahead and make that change, stay in touch. Drop by halfway through the season and let us know how it's working out for you. I'm always happy to re-examine my ideas in the light of new evidence.

But until then, I know what I'll be doing. I'll be here,working to make what I already have the very best it can be.

Shall we see who gets the most from their efforts?

As ever, I'd be delighted to hear your thoughts should you agree or disagree. Leave a comment down below and let's start a conversation.

Tweet me up @The_Golf_Geek at any time for golf related chat.

A Golf Haiku

2010-12-02T16:02:00.000-08:00

White ball sits atop tee

A hybrid describes frosty arc

Anticipation.

Can bad shots really lead to good golf?

2010-11-25T15:23:00.000-08:00

How I'd rock the range at the Ryder Cup.

It's tragic.

I've devised a range drill I'd love to use at the Ryder Cup. It would astound, amaze and astonish onlookers. This routine would ensure everyone was talking about me.

I'd lure opponents towards the rocky shores of complacency whilst quietly topping up my confidence.

I'd be able to hide a bad session - because my poor shots would often look like good ones.

The only problem? I might not get the opportunity to use it.

I'm all for positive thinking, but at the tender age of 36 it's a bit of a stretch to see me playing in Samuel Ryder's tournament. I shall share it with you instead.

Here's a brief precis: I'd hit "poor" shots. On purpose. Sound good?

It doesn't?

Please allow me to explain a little further.

The unique selling point of this approach is it opens the door to a wide gamut of shots.

Shots opponents, commentators and spectators wouldn't believe anyone would deliberately attempt.

I'd get to stride off the range brimming with quiet confidence yet no-one would be able to understand why. People might start to whisper I'd cracked under pressure. I'd have lowered others' expectations, whilst stealthily becoming more confident.

As I'd be the only person who knew what shot I was planning to create, I'd be the only person who knew if a shot had failed or succeeded. What might in reality be a poor outcome could look like a good shot to the uniformed observer, making any difficulties less obvious.

How on Earth would I achieve this?

I'd devise a way of picking shots at random. I already use a dice rolling application on my phone on the chipping green to ensure I don't only give myself easy shots from good lies. A successful up & down from an impossible position is incredibly satisfying, and my short game and scores have significantly improved as a result.

With this drill I'd develop the concept, using a number of dice to define each shot in great detail. I'd include all sorts of factors in addition to the selection of club, ball flight and target. There would be a "wild-card" which if activated would require a speciality shot (a flop shot, for example, is always fun with a 5 iron) as well as factoring in pushes, pulls and "punched" shots.

Why go to all this trouble?

It's easy to see how this might have the desired effect at a high profile event like the Ryder Cup or The Open Championship. Television in particular is hungry for news to fill the gaps between shots, and commentators would be all over something like this. There's a reasonable crowd around the range at most professional events, so this might even work there.

But is it really relevant to the club golfer?

The benefits given above do not justify such an elaborate regime; indeed, their focus on factors outwith my control is less than ideal. But they're really only fringe benefits, pleasant side effects of a most worthwhile exercise.

My method leads to mastery by cultivating control, creativity and confidence.

I'm aiming to push myself to the very limit of my ability to control the club, instead of booming ego-boosters with my "Big Dog". It's all too easy to fall into the bad habit of "scrape & hit" hitting shot after shot in the same general direction, scraping ball after ball over with your club until your balls are spent. It might be fun, but it's an inefficient way to improve.

With this drill the shots are selected at random. I'll never know what shot I'll be asked to hit next. Much like golf on an unfamiliar course, there is no chance of slipping into a comfort zone.

To succeed, I'll need to divorce myself from outcome and focus on process, just as I have to do on the course. Anyone who's played knows golf can throw up any number of tricky situations. The experience of creating specific shots to order in a pressured environment undoubtedly increases my chance of escaping unscathed.

In short, it simulates golf but adds pressure and a demands a higher degree of technical proficiency - a powerful tool for improvement.

I'll be to spending some time developing this before adding it to my range routine. If you're interested, let me know; I'd be delighted to share.

As ever, I'd love to hear your feedback, positive or otherwise. Is there anything I might be able to help you with? If so, please feel free to leave a comment below, or catch me on Twitter (@The_Golf_Geek). I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

Golf tips and drills won't bring you skills...

2010-11-17T15:29:00.000-08:00

..but games should do it nicely.

We can't really have fun as we improve...can we?

Let me see if this sounds familiar...

How to fix your swing?

After another frustrating round, you start looking for answers.

The quest begins; you scour golf magazines, search the internet and take advice from anyone who offers. There are long sessions at the range scraping over ball after ball, enduring the pitying gaze of other golfers. Doubt floods in and you start to worry you'll never get it.

And then.

Something clicks. You find the "magic" tip. Suddenly you start to enjoy things again. Confidence returns. Golf is fun once more. You're so delighted you share your discovery with anyone who'll listen. You really feel that you've got it.

Haven't you?

Sadly, you don't. It's difficult to pinpoint exactly when things start to slip, but they do. Not to worry, all you have to do is to reapply the magic tip...isn't it? But, much like a sitcom in its fourth season, the magic has gone. An unpalatable truth lies before you.

Your improvement occurred in spite of the tip, not because of it.

It's the boom & bust of tips and drills. The bogus focus on the golf swing as the sum total of golf improvement. A cycle that can repeat in perpetuity, or at least until you throw your clubs into the darkest recesses of your garage.

Frustration is the only guarantee of this approach. I know because I've been there.

This obviously isn't the case when we see a PGA pro. At least then the advice is individualised and fitted to your swing...isn't it?

Not necessarily. Some professionals are married to teaching a system, rather than focusing what an individual might already have. I'm not a golf instructor, so I'm loathe to criticise. However, I'm dubious a complete swing rebuild is what most amateur golfers want or need. Might the frustrations arising from this contribute to the number of golfers leaving the sport each year? It's certainly not a route that I'll be going down.

Or your professional may be keen on video analysis. Again, this is something I'm not sure is as helpful as they may believe. I'm not alone in this; Michael Hebron at Neuro Learning Golf, the Instinctive Golf team and Marc Solomon of Golf Made Simple are prominent doubters.

I started dabbling with golf during an illness enforced absence from work. Progress was slow, but addiction came quickly. I started following the course I've outlined above, peppered with the occasional half hour range lesson. As a return to work loomed I fretted that my hard won skills would dissipate.

But they didn't.

In fact they started developing faster than I'd dared to dream.

Some of this was a matter of reaching the threshold where the ball flew as intended that crucial bit more often...and some was due to sitting down and committing to fitting golf around work and family life.

Some of my development was down to these factors. Some, but certainly not most.

I changed how I practised.

I'd already invested quite some time listening to the Golf Smarter podcast. I'd been very impressed by a number of coaches who appeared to be advocating a paradigm shift in instruction. They wanted to move away from golf's prevalent culture and its limitations. One of their main ideas was to stop the golfer playing "golf swing" and instead get that golfer playing golf. To achieve this, they suggested that golfers start to "practice like they play". This made a lot of sense.

Why should we practice like we play?

Not long before Mrs Geek & I got married, we completed an Advanced Life Support course. This was a very busy course, covering everything from how to press on the chest through passing a tube into the larynx up to delivering the patient to Intensive Care, all over a period of 3 days. It was a mixed group of participants with differing knowledge bases, so the course had a lot of ground to cover.

What's interesting is how this was done. There was a course handbook to be read before we started, then a few lectures and a quick recap of the basics on the first day. But most of the course was running through carefully crafted scenarios designed to cover all of the relevant information.

Repeated simulation of real situations formed the basis of instruction.

The scenarios started off basic, but by the end they were getting more and more complex. The instructors were all excellent at creating and maintaining the correct atmosphere, to the point where you'd feel a genuine pang of sadness any time the dummy "died". As I'm a robust soul and had made no secret of my desire to be an instructor, my scenarios were most complex of all by the end of the course; they even had me trying to manage a situation where a pregnant woman had collapsed into a swimming pool after taking illegal drugs! It was a relief to discover the final test was a bit more straightforward, whilst still covering all of the necessary areas.

It's very different to how golf is traditionally taught.

If we'd been teaching these skills as golf is traditionally taught, we'd probably still be there. We'd be looking at slow motion replays comparing a candidate's chest compressions to an instructors, or flicking through magazines to see how to get the angle of the laryngoscope perfect.

Instead we ran through the algorhythms so often I could recite them in my sleep, and did so in situations far more complex than we would typically see. This led to a much greater understanding of what to do and how to do it. And it worked for everyone, not just those with the greatest knowledge base and experience. One of the best things was how egalitarian it was, putting nurses, doctors and paramedics on an equal footing.

Most of all, it was a lot of fun.

It's pretty obvious it's different from the traditional paradigm of golf instruction. There's good reason for this. It's an internationally recognised qualification which is paid for by the taxpayer. Almost all of the participants were government employees undertaking paid study time. It's also, as you can imagine, an important thing to get right. The course therefore has a huge responsibility to educate participants fully and in the most efficient way. It's essential the education is both efficient and sufficient. I've never heard anyone who's been on one of these courses dismiss it as worthless.

How does this relate to golf?

If repeated simulation of real life scenarios is an effective way to teach health professionals vital skills, then surely it's an effective way to learn golf? It's certainly improved my game and revolutionised my practice. Instead of aimlessly thwacking balls out into the range before scraping over another ball to hit it in the same general direction with the same club, I'm using special shot challenges which challenge me to hit specific shots to order. This is learning how to control the club, which in time will lead to mastery. Done properly, it makes the range a lot closer to the course. This makes it easier to take your "range game" to the course- a frequent lament of golfers. Quite apart from all of that, it makes practice a lot more fun, which is great for those of us who can't always find the time to play 18 but can squeeze in 40 minutes of practice.

Choose your coaches wisely.

A good coach is wonderful to watch in action. I spent a long time looking for my current coaching team, and I couldn't be happier. Their group sessions are very similar to that life support course. There's a brief discussion of the theory behind the desired actions, a run through the basics and thence to repeated simulation of "in-game" scenarios. This often progresses to harder than usual situations, or the deliberate inclusion of pressure (e.g. make x consecutive shots from y feet). Add in a bit of friendly competition and you have an excellent environment for sporting growth that's fair, fun and fit for purpose.

Increased fun, decreased frustration and the confidence that time spent practising will lead to on course improvement. What's not to love?

Let me know your thoughts. You can catch me on Twitter, but did you know that people who comment on blog posts have a 42% greater chance of being thought attractive by the opposite sex?*

*sadly, this isn't true. But it should be. And I really like what you've done with your hair today.

A cautionary note

2010-11-17T05:47:00.000-08:00

As I start to have a more definite plan for this blog, I've been learning as much as I can. I thus found myself experimenting with Google Insight for Search.

Below is the "interest over time" chart for golf.

The sine-wave like pattern's no surprise - interest peaks around Major championships and the Ryder Cup. Despite the year-long schedule of the main tours, golf remains a seasonal game for most of us.

The really chilling aspect is the consistently downward trend. Each time a Major rolls around, fewer and fewer people are searching the world's number 1 search engine for "Golf". This cannot be a good thing.

Google is the world's largest search engine. It's 1st port of call when we seek information - a sudden increase in searches for "flu treatment" informs Google there's influenza afoot. In the US Google knows there's an outbreak before the Center for Disease Control does. It's therefore not unreasonable to use search trends to gauge public interest.

Don't get me wrong - golf will always exist. Even the Lost island had a course. If the pro tours were wiped out overnight and the major manufacturers spontaneously combusted, someone somewhere would be making clubs. There will always be a market- as long as I have breath in my lungs, at the very least.

The size of that market is what's concerning. If the decline continues there will be a lot fewer courses, clubs and coaches out there. It's not enough to say "something needs to be done" and then wait for someone else to do it.

We have to be the ones to do it.

Golf must do all that it can to maintain the level of participation. Golfers must support their clubs. Clubs must entice & retain members. Professionals must look at maximising their client's return on investment.

We must arrest the decline or face a very different golfing landscape.

Take some time. Work out what you can do to improve the situation. Buy another beverage after your round. Seek out the nervous new members at your club and do everything in your power to make them feel at ease. Cajole your "that's me finished with that stupid game" buddy back onto the tee box.

Above all, treat junior golfers as you would adult members. Make it clear they are every bit as welcome on the course as you are. If they're better than you acknowledge it; let them play through if you're having a bad day. Junior golfers are tomorrow's full members and as such they hold the key to golf's future. We simply cannot afford to drive them away.

The power of "When"

2010-11-07T14:08:00.000-08:00

The secret of the little change that brings big results.

I can put my finger on the day my golf game started to move forward with surprising precision.

You might think it was when I started to hit my driver well. Perhaps when I regularly took fewer than 3 shots from 100 yards and in. Or even when I started playing competitively.

Important as the above steps were, they all came some time after my game started moving forward.

This step fundamentally changed the way I viewed my golf game and indeed my life.

And yet, it's so simple many wouldn't understand its importance.

I stopped saying "if"...

...and started saying "when".

Unconvinced? Consider these examples:

"If I can get my swing to a point where it repeats and is predictable" versus "When I get my swing to a point where it repeats and is predictable"

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you"

"When you can keep your head..."

It takes a future where success is uncertain and failure remains an option and changes it to one where success will happen but is a question of time and effort. For me it was the realisation I was far too motivated and keen to improve at golf for it not to happen. It stopped me saying "I'll never get this stupid game" in my darker moments. Instead I accepted that however far away it might seem, I would get better. That kept me coming back when I might otherwise have become discouraged.

You may be shaking your head as you read this. I can appreciate that this could come across as "positive thinking mumbo-jumbo". All I can say in reply is whilst I understand this point of view, my game has improved significantly after taking this step. It's a step which involves no pain, is easy to make and only you know you've made it.

After all, what exactly have you got to lose?

Are you Lost In Space?

2010-10-29T15:08:00.000-07:00

The remedy is already in your possession.

Imagine you had a state of the art device which could revolutionise your golf. This device would require some calibration, a brief period of trial and error but after this would be the single most important tool at your disposal. It would be easy to use, cheap to run and best of all would be absolutely free.

You'd use it constantly...wouldn't you?

After all, you'd be crazy to pass up something like this. Why on earth would anyone not want to use it?

And yet most of us completely fail to realise such a system is already in our possession.

It's even thought to be older than our sense of smell.

You can't hear what it's telling you because you've forgotten how to listen and it's hurting your golf game.

It's not the sense that tells your arse from your elbow; instead it gives scrupulously precise information on where your arse is relative to your elbow. It's vital for any pursuit that involves moving any part of the body whilst looking elsewhere.

It's the awareness of the body's posture both at rest and on the move, arising from nerve sensors inside our muscles, tendons and joints. Often known as kinaesthesia or proprioception, it doesn't matter what you call it. Just learn to listen to what it's telling you.

Cultivating our awareness of this sense accelerates acquisition of motor skills. How often have you had a swing lesson, spent some time at the range working on what you thought you should be doing only to find at the next lesson you've got it wrong? Would it not be easier to remember the positions our body should be in when we're aware of how those positions feel? Are we not more likely to be able to repeat the great shot we just hit if we train our position sense to analyse and record the movement? Positional awareness is crucial should we wish to influence any complex sequence of movements.

We have in our possession a complex sense more remarkable than any GPS system and yet we're happy to spend significant amounts on gadgets whilst neglecting our intrinsic hardware. Which of these do you think has more potential to improve your golf?

Once again, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for reading!

Go with the flow and you'll feel like a Pro

2010-10-25T16:40:00.000-07:00

Is your shot routine a well-oiled machine?

Think of the last professional golf event you watched. Think of the final round where the TV cameras take more time over the players in contention, rather than jumping around with televisual attention deficit disorder. Think of all the times you watched players complete their shot routine. Now think of the last time you played and the routines you saw out on the course.

Imagine someone has taken the trouble to motion capture the shot routine of the entire gamut of golfers, showing them from initial planning until the initiation of the back swing. Do you think that you would be able to tell the professional from the amateur? The single digit handicap from the lucky-if-he's-28?

I'm confident it'd be obvious to anyone who took the time to look. Even if all of the golfers were replaced with a CGI Tiger Woods.

It all comes down to flow.

This dawned on me recently. I found myself behind some novice golfers during a practice round. Their skill level was immediately apparent, even from 250 yards down the fairway. The time they took over the ball was remarkable; it was obvious they were trying to consciously control every part of their swing. There were too many practice swings to count, and then a very long pause before the backswing started with a jerk and a wobble.

Please don't misunderstand my reason for mentioning this. I wasn't harrumphing about the delay, I didn't put my bitch wings up or stride forward to remonstrate.

Instead I watched, waited and pondered. It really wasn't that long ago that I was there, 18 months at most. My last attempt at a medal round has also shown that I still need to be on my guard. If I'm not playing at my best I have a tendency to slow down and try to think my way through my swing. To date, this has never made the situation any better and usually makes it worse.

Think about it - have you found yourself thinking how to do something that's usually automatic and ended up making a mess of it?

As a student, I had a lecture on the anatomy of walking - a pretty interesting topic, not least because computerised analysis of gait patterns was just starting to be used. (I'm showing my age here; we've now reached the stage when similar technology is being used to analyse the biomechanics of the golf swing).

The really fascinating thing is what happened after the lecture. Not one of us was able to walk comfortably. We were clumsily stumbling, bumping into each other as we tried to consciously control something we hadn't thought about for years. I'll never forget the smile on the lecturer's face.

So if trying to consciously control something as fundamental as walking is a disaster, what then are the chances of consciously controlling our swing leading to a good result?

I was practising chipping a couple of weeks ago, working on trying to get balls into a laundry basket. I realised that my best shots were coming when I set up and swung with swiftly unhurried efficiency. These swings were not rushed, but I'd be focused on my target, swing my eyes back to the ball, feel settled (I thought of it as "half a heartbeat", the lub of the lub-dub) then starting the swing. Once again the focus was on propelling the appropriate amount of energy to the target letting the back swing take care of itself. This was very successful, and results improved still further as I concentrated on making the routine flow as slickly as possible.

In other words, I start my swing before I start thinking. The flowing rhythm through the routine allows me to swing reflexively, with my feeling brain rather than under the clumsy control of the higher or thinking brain. Don't get me wrong, the thinking brain has a role in golf, but it's limited to the initial planning phase of the shot routine. It quickly analyses the factors affecting any given shot along with calculating which shot characteristics give the best chance for success. It then decides on the shot, the club and the aim, before handing over the baton to the feeling brain.

Lynn Marriott and Pia Nilsson at VISION54 probably characterise this best with their Think Box/Play Box concept, going so far as to encourage their players to put down a marker as a decision line whilst rehearsing so that they get used to the discipline of moving from thinking to feeling, of making the decision and then committing to it.

I've struggled with this a bit, as my thinking brain is used to calling all the shots. It's hovering in the background like an IT consultant watching their technophobic partner on the Internet, just dying for the slightest opportunity to take over. By flowing into the routine and executing the shot with swiftly unhurried efficiency, my feeling brain can execute the shot before the thinking brain has even realised what's happened and is still filled with thoughts of the target, by far the most useful place for most if not all of us to park our conscious attention. What do you think most tour professionals are thinking of when they swing? I'm certain that focusing my attention on this area over the winter will yield better results than trying to perfect how I swing a club.

What about you? Is your routine the well oiled machine of the low handicappers at your club? Is it consistent and fluid, running freely from behind the ball to your follow through? Or are you, trying too hard to swing the club precisely through the latest positions in Golf Monthly, or constantly trying to learn how to swing during a round? Can you identify with my experience above?

If you can, why not try it next time you're mucking about chipping. Pick the target, swivel eyes back to ball, tiny pause...then go. Watch the results. Try it at the range if it works in your short game.

It might just be an easy way to look, feel and ultimately play more like a pro.

This is what I'm going to be working on this winter. If you're intrigued and think it might helpful, please give it a go. Please let me know if and how it works for you.

(This post was a re-working of a post that didn't quite work. I'm working through PushingSocial's keys to spectacular blog posts. I can heartily recommend this program and their excellent content. If you're blogging and are new to the game or looking for a way to tzuj up your content, check them out)

A postcard from The Zone

2010-10-21T13:48:00.000-07:00

I've been there and it's even better than we're told.

It's spoken of in terms of hushed reverence, a near-mystical destination, a Golfing Nirvana. Professional golfers struggle to define it, yet in doing so convey a sense of it's magnitude. We read on in envy, not quite able to believe that we are capable of accessing it. We feel that if we ever get there, as soon as we realise it will evaporate, never to return

And yet I've been in The Zone, so many times I've lost count. I've been there before I knew of it's existence, long before I even thought of taking up golf. And yet when I realised what it was, it didn't disappear. Techniques gleaned from golf performance coaches allowed me to consciously extend, explore and enjoy my experience.

Even before discovering it was known as The Zone I was aware that there were certain activities where I could become so engaged I'd reach a state of capability far in advance of what I could ordinarily achieve; where I could, if circumstances were correct, completely lose myself and eventually awaken exhilarated and awash with energy.

One such pursuit was dancing. Long before meeting Mrs Geek, having the Geeklets and discovering golf I enjoyed heading out on Friday or Saturday night to a club. I absolutely love music and have a very eclectic taste, so it didn't matter what was playing. Funk, soul, house or jazz (the best nights were the ones where all of these and more were on the menu) as long as you could dance to it, I would.

Now, I'd never lay claim to being the best of dancers. I tend to dance from the knees up, feet firmly planted to the floor, a writhing mass of arms swaying from side to side in front of the beat. Think of a Martial Artist who's had his feet nailed to the ground, who's fighting off opponents who proceed in a rhythmical fashion and you're pretty much there. I can't do any other style of dancing, it's just this. But what I did have was the ability to totally immerse myself in the music, anticipating it's beat, really feeling it's soul in mine. And it's an incredible feeling; when I tried to describe it to friends I found myself couching it in the same pseudo-mystical terms in which The Zone is described. ("Connected to the rhythms of the Universe" is one comment I took a long time to live down). I wasn't always able to get to this place, but when I did it was worth it. There were definitely times I lost my "mojo" by trying too hard.

Our fear is that the Zone will dissipate as soon as we realise we are there. I'm glad to say this isn't the case. Life limits me to a couple of nights out dancing each year, but I'm able to get into The Zone on almost every opportunity. I was perhaps guilty of trying too hard after first learning of The Zone. This lead to a fun but slightly frustrating night where I'd appear at the gateway to The Zone only to tense up and lose it. Reflecting on that experience, I thought about this tension and resolved to deal with it at the next opportunity. I realised I was tensing my feet and I directed awareness there, uncurled them and relaxed into The Zone. I then also tried a distraction technique I'd learned from Andy Morrison with great success ("Glued Tongue" in case you were wondering; this technique's on the free report from his website, please check it out). Any time I now feel myself losing my flow, I uncurl my toes and pretend my tongue is glued to the roof of my mouth. It may sound odd, but it is of course absolutely invisible to anyone who happens to be watching.

So how does this relate to my golf? Well, I'm still trying to work it out. Although dancing and golf are both motor activities, they're very different. Golf seems very on/off and isn't reactive whereas dancing is all about reacting to the music. You can also choose which songs to dance to, and choose if and when to take a break. However, the sense of rhythm and flow that dancing provides must help in golf and as I've said before one of my prinicpal goals for the approaching winter is to have my routine flowing throughout. I also press my index finger and thumb on my right hand frimly together when I realise I'm there to "anchor" that feeling to that gesture. Some may be sceptical of anchoring, but there's no way it can be harmful, so why not try?

The main benefit though is that I not only truly believe The Zone exists, but I know I can get there and remain there. This isn't some abstract obscure state that only golfing Yogis can access, it's there for us all. Best of all, I know how good it feels. I may not have got there whilst golfing yet, but I will. And when I do you can bet I'll be uncurling my toes and pretending my tongue's glued to the roof of my mouth. You won't be able to see this, of course.

All you'll be able to see is my smile.

A question

2010-10-15T17:51:00.000-07:00

Having had a wee look at my blog stats, it seems that what garners most interest is when I extrapolate from my on course experiences to find generalisable lessons; is this something I should thus concentrate on, or should I perhaps continue to post both personal and more general posts, but promoting only the latter? I'm really not sure, so I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts on the issue.

Visualisation & I

2010-10-14T17:25:00.000-07:00

I wrote my last post rather more quickly than usual, as I was under pressure of time. I'd meant to write and post the night before, but had got caught up in the computer black hole, so I had a very narrow window before Master Geek awoke from his nap. I'm quite happy on the whole, but what struck me was how convoluted my new shot routine might seem. Nothing could be further from the truth; it has in fact been significantly streamlined.

The principal difficulty has arisen because I've read almost all of my mental game advice. Most of my tuition (all of it until I encountered the Instinctive Golf team) was technical advice; Instinctive Golf have added so much more but because these have been small group lessons, there hasn't been that much specifically on the mental game.

So I've been reading about the importance of the shot routine; how it should precede every shot to provide refuge in high pressure situations; and it's components. Almost everyone has been very big on the importance of visualisation and "seeing" the shot before playing. This has led to me earnestly giving every fairway and green my "1000 yard stare" as I try to burn an image of the desired shot onto the landscape before making my practice swing and setting up to the ball. I've written before about the issues I've had trying too hard to get the clubface square, playing with a "downward focus" rather than gripping the club properly, looking at where I want the ball to go & pointing the club there, trusting it's aimed correctly (what I term an "outward focus"). This is what works for me, so it's included in my new regime. Like many high handicap amateurs I get "stuck" over the ball to my detriment, so I've been working on better "flow" through the routine- very much a work-in-progress, but I'm really excited about my new streamlined routine.

What I've totally failed to grasp is how wrong I've got visualisation. Trying to burn a hole in the very fabric of reality by dint of my hyper-intense glare is not only impossible, it's unnecessary, unhelpful and significantly contributing to feeling "stuck" over the ball. For uncomplicated, clear shots all I need is an idea of the shot I want to play and the feeling that gives rise to that shot; this seems to occur for me just on the cusp between conscious and unconscious thought. All I then need to do is make sure I have a good picture of where I want the ball to go, a sense of direction to guide alignment and then setup up with an outward focus, relax, swing eyes from target to ball, brief pause (I think of it as half a heartbeat) then start to swing the club before conscious thought can intrude. The addition of the deep breath with eyes closed, opening at the end of exhalation is an NLP technique from the "Golfer Within" program. I think it helps, and it certainly doesn't hurt, so it stays in.

It's not an overstatement to say that I feel liberated by this realisation. I'm going to be spending quite a bit of time this winter working on my routine, making it second nature so that when spring arrives I've ready to take it into competition. Over-thinking is something I'm always going to have to watch out for, but armed with awareness I'm more than a match for it. I might have some way to go before I can reach Brian (@njGuinness)'s state of #CavemanGolf, but I'm looking forward to travelling along that path.

What are your thoughts and experiences with visualisation? Are they similar or very different to mine? Think I've got it wrong? Let me know - either below or tweet me up @The_Golf_Geek on that there Twitter-ma-jig

The knack of throwing yourself at the ground...

2010-10-14T07:53:00.000-07:00

...and missing.

Douglas Adams thus describes the art of flying in his Magnum Opus, the in-aptly named 5 book Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (if I remember correctly it's in Life, the Universe and Everything although please don't leave angry comments if I'm wrong ;-). He goes on to detail how some flying clubs employ arrestingly attractive nude models or interesting conversationalists to distract the would-be flyer at the point where collision with terra firma appears inevitable.

It may seem odd that this came to me whilst pondering my last round of golf, but occur it did, and I'm going to use the rest of this post in an attempt to explain the relevance.

As I was returning from a break, I felt out of practice and thus didn't have the trust in my swing that had been there some two weeks previously. I'd even gone back to worrying about how the club face was positioned at address, with the result that it all looked strange no matter how I applied it. My playing partners commented on how I seemed to be thinking too much- an occupational hazard for those of us who paid to think. The corollary was that I was taking more time over the ball, leading to impatience around me. The time I take over the ball isn't an issue if I'm hitting it well, but if I'm not then it becomes a problem.

I wouldn't be worried if I took the maximum time allowed to enable me to hit the ball well; playing partners would just have to accept I was entitled to it. However, I'm increasingly coming to think that when I'm playing well I take the least time over the ball, and slowing down becomes part of the problem itself rather than a necessary part of the cure.

This has lead me to experiment whilst on holiday at my parents' house. Their lawn is large, and in poor condition due to lots of moss. This is great as it means they're unconcerned about how it looks after I've stayed (the moss is also springy enough to simulate coarse wet sand thus improving my bunker play ;-). Practicing chipping, I've come to realise that I perform my best when the shot routine is thus:

Stand behind ball, on ball target line to get sense of direction and identify target (& landing spot, as this is a chip, not such an issue for full shot as too far distant); take a clearing breath with eyes closed, open them at the end of exhalation whilst gripping the club. Then walk up to stance, keeping eyes on target. Set up for practice swing beside ball (as it's a short game shot, distance most important; for long game shot, it'd be behind ball on ball-target line as line most important) Swing eyes to where ball would be, start swing just after eyes alight there. Then set up behind ball with eyes on target, swing eyes back to ball and start swing just after they come to the ball.

Results with this have been fantastic on both line and length; I don't think it's accidental that this is also when my routine is at it's slickest. Or in other words:

It's vitally important that I start swinging my club before I have a chance to start thinking.

This way, all of my mind is filled with thoughts of the target and my body can get on with swinging the club at a brain stem/reflexive level, rather than under the clumsy auspices of conscious cerebral cortical control.

This may seem a rather convoluted way to realise that I need to feel the target and trust my body to swing, but it's the only way I've come to understand what I've read so many times before. It really is tricky to stop thinking when you're paid to think at work, and work in a job where a degree of neurosis is helpful, even essential. I often golf with fishermen who marvel at the knots my mind can tie itself in. This is my way around that.

The nice corollary is that, by improving my play by taking less time over the ball, I play faster for two reasons, making me a better golfer and better playing partner. Which can only be good.

This is how I can learn to throw myself at the ground...and miss.

An abortive return

2010-10-14T07:12:00.000-07:00

As I had the weekend before last free, I'd decided to end my self imposed exile from golf, and ease myself in with a medal round. I'd enjoyed my break, and had filled it up with good quality family time to the point where I hadn't really managed to visit the range as I'd planned. I'd thought I'd have been able to have picked things up close to where I'd left them in spite of the lack of practice time.

Sadly this wasn't the case. I should really have listened to the omens when no of my prospective playing partners had turned up, and gone off for a solitary "refresher" round, in which I'd have got myself back into the groove. Even one range session, or a quick practice round on the 6-hole course would have done, but instead I'd ended up waiting to get squeezed in with a 3-ball from another club that plays on the course (members of any of the 3 clubs can sign a competitive card to allow for this sort of eventuality). I ended up with two single digit handicappers and a 10 handicap; this wouldn't have been an issue if I'd been playing to my pre-break form but I was nowhere near. My playing partners were helpful, patient and polite, but after losing a ball off the 11th tee (I'd thought it had flown the gorse bushes when it hadn't, so I hadn't played a provisional ball) I NR'd. I eventually took my leave of them at the 14th, which let me cut my losses and spend some more time with my Geeklets. I'd been quite proud of never having NR'd, so it stung a bit to have done this, but I really hadn't wanted to hold up my playing partners by trudging back to the tee on a day when I'd been playing so poorly.

Lessons have been learned. I'll never return from a break of more than two weeks straight into competitive golf; there will need to be at least one range/practice session or a round on the par-21 course if not both. If I am in the situation where playing partners haven't arrived, I'll weigh up the merits of trying to get a competitive round with the difficulties that come from hanging around getting "stale" on the 1st tee, and if I'm in any doubt I'll play on my own rather than wait for a space. It's also reinforced that if I'm in anydoubt about the whereabouts of my ball I'll play a provisional.

In this case, the lack of practice time probably meant that I wasn't ready to come back and play after my break; had I been ready I'd have found time. I've not played a round since, but I've had a good couple of range sessions as well as a lot of time in my parent's back garden, just working on the interaction of clubface and ball, in clubface angle to path, angle of attack and swing path as well as on my routine. I'm not going to play competitively for a little longer, but do plan to play matchplay competing with friends. I view strokeplay as the pinnacle of the game (the equivalent of a Test in cricket, with matchplay closer to a limited overs match) but want to play for the joy of creating shots for a bit rather than the patient defence of a good strokeplay round.

This round may have been disappointing at the time, but when I look at what I've learned, I can see just how useful it's been in the long run. That really outweighs any disappointment I may have felt in the short term.

Please have a look at...

2010-09-30T03:48:00.000-07:00

A few interesting posts from some of my readers; I really need to update my blogroll, but while I'm getting around to it, please have a look at:

John Graham's Golf Blog; never afraid to be gently controversial, he's a thinker who likes to back up his theories with science and statistics, something too few in golf are keen to do. He's a feel based coach, but he's fascinated by the science behind the feel leading him to be a very knowledgeable and expert coach. Have a look at his posts on AimPoint Golf (and also the D-plane if you're technically minded) He's been instrumental in my blogging, as he really picked up on my first few tentative tweets that I'd posted and encouraged me to continue. Indeed, he's frequently exhorting me to "keep up the good work". I never thought I could have a mentor that I'd never met and that lived in the States, but that's exactly what's happened. Have a look at a recent post from the AMF conference, and another on how he feels golf professionals can benefit from Social Media (first in a series).

He clearly has an eye for talent too (& no, I don't mean me) as his blog also hosts the inspirational and thought provoking writing of Andy Morrison, a former golfer who's career was cut short by injury, he's found a way to share his passion and expertise. Another man I've come to see as a mentor, he offers online coaching at an unbelievably low price. This is about to go up next week, so if you like what you read here, here and here* (and I think you might), get in touch with him now (info@progolfmindcoach.co.uk).

Michael Landgrebe of Confident Golf has also been very helpful. He doesn't seem to have content up at present, but I will keep you posted.

Don't forget 3 good shots for a daily email reminder of your best shots, and now a daily round up of golfing info.

Last, but by no means least, have a wee look at the blog of the Professional Sport Psychology Symposium, particularly this one on golf and how to practice for it.

*in case you're wondering, The Golf Geek has been certified Smiling Assassin Free.
Also, I make absolutely nothing from my reccomendations. The people mentioned above have been very encouraging and helpful but have NOT offered any financial support. This geek's goodwill can't be bought (not that anyone's tried ;-) so you can be confident that these reccomendations are genuine.

Passing time before you die?

2010-09-28T15:34:00.000-07:00

Working, as I do, with older people, it's impossible to escape the truth: life has a beginning, a middle...and an end. Although we spend much of our time in denial, the reality is that our time on this planet is finite, and we can only be certain of this one chance.

Given this, it's odd that as a race we have perfected so many ways to pass time before the inevitable. You could even, if in a slightly darker mood put it even more strongly: we actively waste our limited time on activities that appear to serve no higher purpose. Both the Xbox and Playstation can be cited as cardinal examples of this type of activity.

So is golf merely a way of using up large amounts of our precious time?

Are we just developing skills that are largely useless off the course? That have as little purpose as knowing what button combination releases your character's signature move in any of the myriad of martial arts games available for the afore-mentioned consoles? Is there no difference in us firing up Tiger Woods 10 on the Wii and swinging in our living rooms?

I think not. There are clear fitness benefits and likely positive effects on both physical and mental health from walking round the course, but even putting these aside I feel golf can serve a higher purpose. I feel that the key to how worthwhile an activity can be deemed lies not in how well you develop your skills in that activity, but in what transferable skills you develop. What can you learn that will help you not only in what you're doing, but in the rest of your life. After all, isn't that why meditation is referred to as spiritual "practice"? My understanding (admittedly after only one meditation session) is that it's described as such because you are practicing mindfullness and awareness to help you deal with the trials, tribulations and stresses of everyday life.

This for me is where golf scores highly. There is only you, a club, a ball, the course and through that the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. No opponent is blocking your drives, no goalkeeper guarding the hole. Really, it's just us. And in how we deal with that, we can learn many things about ourselves. How we react to pressure, what we do when we get a bad bounce, how we deal with performing better or worse than we hoped or expected. Through this self discovery, we get the opportunity to either change how we react, or to minimise the effect of the reactions we can't change. And that sounds very much like through golf we can allow for ongoing self-discovery and personal growth. What purpose could be higher than that?

Another thing that comes from working with older people is the realisation that the stereotype of developing wisdom with age, the only really positive stereotype of ageing, is sadly just as misguided as all of the negative ones. However, if we embrace life-long learning and are lucky enough to live a long life with faculties largely intact, we will be truly wise. Mr Penick's books, including his "Little Red Book", are excellent examples of this. I think it's wonderful that golf can be part of the path to lifelong learning and thus wisdom. Care to take a few steps with me along this path?

A time to take stock...

2010-09-19T14:42:00.000-07:00

As we near the end of the season, it's a time for many to take stock and consider their achievements over the summer. Those of us who endeavour to set clear goals have it easier here- if you know exactly what you wished to achieve, it's naturally far easier to see if you've done this, and what areas need more focus, than if you haven't clearly defined what you want.

As you know, most of my goals have been met; the main omission from this (breaking 90) is about outcomes rather than process, and as such would not now feature on my list of goals. It's also clearly "in the post" and thinking about breaking 90 is more likely to militate against it's occurrence, rather than facilitating a score in the 80's.

I would urge anyone in a similarly reflective mood to turn it toward their golf game. Take a full and frank inventory of your entire game, including but not limited to current abilities, your scores, and how you golf your ball. Be honest and kind, without being self deluding (the classic is for us weekend golfers to claim "my short game is excellent" when it's really not- perhaps because we remember only the last short game shot on any given hole, rather than all of them, 0r because we remember our 1 success not where we had difficulties). Accuracy is essential, so it may even be worth keeping stats for a few rounds to get any idea of any trends.

Once we've taken this inventory we can then ask ourselves the $64000 question:

"Given the state of my game as it currently is, and the time I have available to play and rehearse playing, what intervention(s) will have the biggest effect on how I play the game?"

or "If I were a pro, what else might I be trying to do to give myself an edge over the rest of the field?"

If we've done out inventory properly, the chances are that the answer we get will not involve a major overhaul of the manner in which we swing a club. For most of us, the answers will lie elsewhere. This became clear to me when I started playing competitive golf this year. Playing with 10-13 handicaps, I realised there was little to pick between their & my best swings. In some cases my best swings were substantially better than one or two 12 handicappers. What they did do was have fewer swings they were unhappy with, rarely followed a bad shot with a dumb one and had a short game way in excess of mine. Most of my practice time has thus been centred on scoring with attendant benefits to my game and scores.

The other thing that came out of my holistic inventory was the realisation that years of rugby in the tight 5 followed by a decidedly couch potato lifestyle for some years had left me very inflexible. I went to see a physio with extensive golf experience and I've not regretted that for a second. Put simply, the £30 I spent there led to what was by far and away the single biggest development of this season. And in a season where I discovered both Roseanna Leaton (look for Golfer Within mental skills toolkit) and Instinctive Golf, learned how to practice smart in a deep & deliberate fashion and also learned how to shape the ball, this is no mean claim. But, honestly, I could easily have spent £300 on traditional golf lessons without coming anywhere near seeing the same benefit in my game.

There may be things that you can improve with minimal effort that improve your game out of all proportion to the effort you've had to put in. An example of this is my change in breakfast habits if I'm playing a round; I fore go my sugary breakfast cereal for a big bowl of porridge and I've certainly noticed a difference in my energy level on the course. From observing my playing partners, on course nutrition is an area where many golfers could make improvements with little effort paying disproportionately large dividends. It's an area I plan to post a bit on, as there are many well-intentioned "nutritionists" involved in golf, who although meaning well often confuse the situation with information which has at best dubious scientific basis, despite starting with a seemingly logical premise. On course strategy and course management are other areas ripe for harvesting.

So have don't just give your game a cursory glance before setting the same goals down as last year ("fix my slice" "break 90" "don't embarrass myself in the club championship" etc- these are not the best type of goal anyway). Give your game a thorough and testing examination, peer into and clear out every metaphorical nook and cranny. Squeeze every last bit of performance out of your potential. Be the player that seems to win despite seeming less talented on paper than your opponents and fellow-competitors. Time is a commodity; if we manage it properly we can get more from our golf game and indeed our life. Average golf handicaps have not improved over the years despite all of the technological advances we've had in club and particularly ball technology. If we want to buck that trend, we need to start doing things differently. Take a long hard look at yourself and your game, and you might just find a way to feel, play and score better.

Balance

2010-09-19T14:00:00.001-07:00

I found myself taking a bit of a break this week for a number of reasons. We had friends staying over on Friday night, and I wasn't able to get a tee time after 12. I could have headed down to the first tee after they left, trying to squeeze in with a group from one of the 2 other clubs that play the course as anyone can sign a card, but I found myself ambivalent to this at best. I could have tried Keith, but the burning desire that's usually pushing me to play if at all possible just wasn't there. It's particularly unusual as not only was I working last weekend, I'm also working next weekend.

Perhaps, though, it's not that surprising. I've been thoroughly obsessed with golf for some time now, and I've achieved almost all of my season's goals. Given that, it's probably a natural time for a wee break. It'll let my desire build up again, give me some time at the range as I strive to squeeze in my golf "fix" & there's always the 6-hole course the odd night after work. I'm going to finish my current golf book, then perhaps read a couple of novels just for fun.

It won't be a complete break, as golf is too firmly embedded in my life for that to happen. I'll keep working on my putting & my chipping in the downstairs hall (the latter with Almost Golf balls, natch), keep doing my stretches and will continue to use my "Golfer Within" mental skills toolkit hypnosis/NLP before bed. What there will be is more balance. And that can't be a bad thing.

My motto is...

2010-09-16T15:30:00.000-07:00

"Make my score the P-score/ I don't wants my card funked up
Make my score the P-score/ I don't wants my card funked up
When I golf, I want a P-score/ I don't wants my card funked up
Make my score the the P-score/ till that ball goes in the cup"

With Thanks to Parliament, George Clinton & all on the Mothership connection for that one. No doubt I'll be wandering around the course with that on my internal jukebox for the entire round but at least it should help keep me "on message", right?

An encouraging response

2010-09-15T14:18:00.000-07:00

Apologies for not "blogging out" my reaction to my collapse over my final two holes from my previous round. As you know, it was my intention to do so but a couple of things prevented me. Firstly, as is so often the case, life just got in the way. I had a friend staying with us while he did an off-shore course, and I used the opportunity to talk about golf with a real live person late into the night, rather than telling all on here. Work also played a part as I had to work nights for a period. But most importantly, I realised what had gone wrong and it's something I've mentioned on here a number of times. In the heat of the moment I lost it, and paid the price on my scorecard. With time and a bit of distance I realised that what had happened was no more or less than a timely reminder to stay on the path.

So what was wrong? Simple really, and you may well have already anticipated what I'm going to say. As the scores kept going onto the card I became aware that there was a potentially low score looming, and I just lost my process focus becoming instead infatuated with results. In short, I abandoned the mental focus that got me into to that position. As a few disappointing shots got strung together, so I got more and more concerned that the result would be other than I wished. That viewpoint led to me playing "catch-up", which is always a dangerous game. You know what I mean. It was precisely that "catch-up" mindset that led me wandering into the sticky rough to the right of the 17th fairway where I had near-shanked my drive with a 4 hybrid rather than the eminently more sensible 9 iron, and then taking 3 shots to get out of that rough. It's almost always a bad sign when you go to hit a shot with the same club you tried to hit on the previous shot without it even having been near your bag.

I then tried to hit a fade with my driver off the 18th tee (although I know the theory of shot shaping, and can hit a draw almost to demand, lack of range time means I'm not yet fully confident playing fades. I mean, what was I thinking? Oh, that's right, I wasn't) which led to a slice that fell out of the ugly tree and hit nearly every branch on the way down. Not only was it out of bounds, but it bounced into the club carpark. Still, can't have been having that bad a day as I managed to avoid my (and indeed anyone else's) car window.

I'm a wee bit embarrassed by the post I made just after that round as it's usually my nature to deal publicly with the little bumps along life's road with a rueful smile and some humour rather than being quite so honest about how I'm feeling, but that post is an accurate representation of how I felt at the time. I got an awful lot of positive feedback from my excitement and joy when the feeling of process focus finally clicked, so I wanted to be honest and share how I was a wee bit bruised by the collapse.

Time and a bit of distance led me to reaffirm what I already knew at the time of the last post. Bruised or not, the positives from that round far outweighed the moments of madness over the last couple of holes. I'd started well, played my shots, coped with a wee wobble before the turn, played well after the turn and although things hadn't gone as I'd liked at the end, that was due to a problem I'd already worked out how to solve rearing it's head again because my head got turned by the possibility of my record low score- not a bad problem to have, after all. If I'm going to learn to score, this is a vital part of the process. And as I've said, it's a loss of focus, not a new problem.

I got the start of the week off before my nights, and that was great as it afforded me the opportunity to get back out on the course and put my reasoning to the test. Although my club has a tee-time sheet for the Saturday medal, Wednesdays are more ad-hoc. I met up with a couple of guys I didn't know at the club and we headed out. The resultant round was far from perfect - I had a 3 putt from 4 feet on the 16th- but had some incredible high points, including the best putt I've ever hit on the 3 rd, a 30-foot plus putt which scrambled an unlikely par after I'd had to play my second shot from the rough on the far side of the 4th tee.

Most important though was my attitude, which improved significantly. The 3-putt from 4 feet on the 16th was part of a "wobbly" period - my drives which are normally a strength were very shaky, and I was unconfident over the ball. In the context of what had happened on my previous round, I knew how I reacted to this was vitally important. I'd resolved before the round that my goal was to hang onto my process focus. The only way I'd see myself as having failed in any way was if I failed to maintain that focus. I'm pleased to report that after having a 50% process focus on my shots at the 13th, I managed to be process focused for 21 of the 26 remaining strokes. I played the last 2 holes in 8 strokes fewer than I had not 4 days before. My overall process score was 83, giving me a P-focus score of 87%, by far and away my best yet.

My final score? 91, which I might have let annoy me as I could easily have scored 2 or more strokes lower (I had 36 putts, 4 above my usual), but fortunately my pre-round resolve to only make success predicated on maintaining process focus means that I don't fall into that trap. I had the lowest net score in division 2, scored my lowest competitive score and I'm frankly jiggered if I'm going to allow myself to see that as anything other than a success. I managed to get my handicap index cut by 0.8, meaning that my new handicap is 24.1 - 24 was my goal at the start of the season.

I've now attained most of my SMART goals (specific (or stretching), measurable, achievable & time-limited) for this year. I'm going to enjoy the remainder of the season with one or two new short-term goals, and look forward to making new ones around the turn of the year. I'm certain that these goals have helped give me focus and purpose, and I look forward to stretching myself even more next year. I urge you to set yourself goals, with a broad spectrum (not just narrowing down on score or competitive goals) and see what you can attain. In keeping with my on course attitude, I'm keeping my goals largely process focused, which is why breaking 90 isn't featured on my list of goals.

I'd love to hear your goals, and what you've found whilst striving toward them. Please leave comments below, or look me up @The_Golf_Geek on that Twitter thingy.

A rite of passage...

2010-09-04T14:24:00.000-07:00

...I'm slightly bruised after an on-course experience today that was as painful as it was inevitable, and was perhaps even more necessary. I'm in excellent company as it's happened to most golfers, to almost all of the great & good of professional golf, and although the scores and prizes are different, the experience is the same. I am of course referring to the on-course meltdown, and to my final two holes today in particular.

There were and are many positives from today's round, and I'll talk more about it later in the week. Tonight though I'm just a wee bit sore after playing the first 16 holes in 80, then playing the last 2 in 15, a massive 8 over par (I'd only had 2 doubles to this point). I can't even blame being too wrapped up in score- I hadn't added up my scores until after the 18th, although there was a building excitement as I knew I was playing and scoring well.

Ultimately, this is a very positive experience as I had to play very well (better than I've done) to get to that position.Now mentally I need to work on how to counter the mounting excitement that comes with scoring well. The other realisation is that it's not the initial poor shots that cost me so dearly on those fateful two holes, more the poor decisions that followed as I spiralled into a bit of a panic. Now I've been there it'll be easier to catch myself before that spiral.

I know all of this, and I'll spend some time blogging it out later in the week. But tonight? Tonight it still hurts a wee bit*

*I do only mean a wee bit; it's come nowhere near upsetting my weekend, a long weekend off after a crazy busy period at work. I had a lovely dinner out with my family and parents immediately after, as well as a very welcome chilled evening in with Mrs Geek after they'd left & the kids were down. Golf is a game, no more and no less, and thankfully I've managed to keep sight of that even in the grip of obsession.

Non Judgemental Awareness

2010-08-25T16:47:00.000-07:00

Non Judgemental Awareness is a concept of the excellent Dr Parent, psychology PhD and Zen Golfer extraordinaire. He suggests that when we have a behaviour we wish to change (e.g. result focus to process focus for me, negative self talk for some or even leaving putts short) we make a firm commitment to eradicate that behaviour. Then when we found ourselves doing it, we record that we've done it. We make no comment on it, don't berate ourselves for it, we just record it (those wishing to correct negative self talk who make a mark then berate themselves have to make another mark ;-) and move on. The act of recording it alone is enough to make us alter out behaviour.

A related technique of Dr Parent's is "labelling and return", This is what I do when I catch myself thinking too hard about past or future on the course. I simply state "Your thinking in the past/future. Come back to the present" and this is enough to get me to return to the present for some time.

These techniques are so effective that in the 2 rounds I've been keeping a p-score, it's risen from 67% to 80%. Labelling & return I've used off & on and I'm definitely in the present far more often as a result. The mystical connotations of Zen Golf may put some people off, but I really recommend it as there are some fantastic techniques in there. There's an audio book read by the author, as is it's sequel Zen Putting. I own both books in hard copy and audio book, as I can then listen to them on my commute, otherwise "dead" time with regard to golf.

If you'd like to find out more about anything I talk about in this blog, either use the comments section below or tweet me on @The_Golf_Geek.

P/R=;-)

2010-08-25T15:32:00.000-07:00

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.

Reflection

2010-08-20T16:58:00.001-07:00

It's late, my tee time is 0830 after a busy week, so not a long post tonight, but I couldn't let the week pass without reflecting a little on last week's round. I'm still proud of what I achieved & I'm itching to try to get to the same place, perhaps even further and/or more often tomorrow. I really started to understand exactly what focusing on the process meant and how to get there.

Certain holes stand out. I played a nice drive on the 8th, a shortish par 4 with penal bunkers in front of the green with the flag tucked behind one. I hit a 3/4 9iron in with a fade, but it just ran to the back of the green, 20ft away from the flag, before nearly holing my 1st putt & tapping in. On the subsequent hole, I had pull hooked my drive, and ended up 130 yards out on the wrong side of the fairway. I took my 6 wood, made a half swing and hit a low ball that ran to pin high. Not a shot I'd ever played with that club, but one I knew I could hit & it happened exactly as I'd envisioned. Hit a couple of towering draws with clubs I'd been under-confident with (6 iron & 5 wood) after I'd realised I was getting caught up in the result of the shot to it's detriment thus putting the past into the future.

Trying to measure how many shots I was focused on process really helped, as did committing to a target of 75% on Twitter (67%, for the record, a good solid start). Knowing I'd have to fess up made me really commit to doing this.

I'm reading Extraordinary Golf and I've tried the club throwing drill in the past with good results. I was very impressed with the picture series he shows (will talk more about this later if anyone would like) which illustrate how good a swing we make instinctively when focusing on transferring energy toward the target, rather than the ball being the target ("backswing obsession" may be another manifestation of this). I'm now focusing on swinging to transmit energy to my target. To do this, you need to pick a target & know where it is in space in relation to your position.

I was also struck by the change in my practice swing. Instead of being an "ornamental" flail at the ball, it became a much slower more deliberate movement where I really rehearsed the swing I intended- something I've tried to do before, but by only trying to slow the swing rather than focusing on the process- really mistaking an "Effect" for a "Cause". This is the way forward for me, and I'm really excited. Process target is still 75%. Will let you know how I get on.

PS: I'm so process over results now that I'm not going to tell you I came home in 44 for another 3rd place finish, or that I won my first cash because the boy that came 1st wasn't in the Sweep. I'm not that guy ;-)

A breach of protocol...

2010-08-14T12:30:00.000-07:00

...I'm breaching my usual protocol of Saturdays being golf free after my medal round to make a quick blog post. I'm really excited about today's round. Not so much by the score, a reasonable-to-good 94, as to how it was achieved.

I'm resolved to ignore score on the course, instead I'm focusing on being absorbed in the process on every shot. I was by no means perfect today (I kept a rough scorecard of how many shots I was in the process, will work it out and post later), but I really started to get the feeling of being process focused on a number of shots. I also played creatively, and I'm really proud of quite a few of the shots I managed to create. I also had 6 or 7 2 putts where the 1st putt looked like it might drop, and the 2nd putt was a tap-in. Although I lost my focus and got caught up in results on a couple of shots on 16, I managed to pull it together for the last couple of holes. But by goodness, the tendency to return to a results focus is strong, but this should fade as my trust in the process focus is reinforced. I also noticed that when I alter my initial gut reaction (for example put more or less force in my swing from my initial practice swing) I wished I'd trusted my original instinct. I'm therefore going to trust my first instinct! I'm going to have the very enjoyable difficulty of working out just which of my good shots I'll record at 3 good shots.

Much to enjoy, and to be proud of. I'm excited about the future. The lingering feeling? The feeling you get as you "come to" from focusing on the process of hitting a shot (almost a fugue state) and realise with a frisson of pleasure that the ball is doing exactly what you planned.

This of course means you've executed the shot exactly as planned - because the ball always does what it's told.
(Thanks to Kendal & Scott for that one ;-)

Lessons from the links - 2."The Secret"

2010-08-12T14:43:00.000-07:00

You don't have to spend too long browsing golf web sites before you come across large banner ads suggesting that the secret to good golf scores lies but a click away. Click on one, however, and you'll soon realise that several clicks and crucially your credit card details are required before this information is divulged. The sheer number of these sites means there must be a market for them. I'm very dubious about these claims and yet still find myself tempted in my weaker moments.

This phenomenon is of course not just limited to golf. The Internet is awash with purchasable "secrets" that promise quick fixes without the work and it's tempting to dismiss it as a symptom of that most modern of maladies, the so-called "quick fix culture". I'm not certain this is the case. I think there's a fair amount of evidence to suggest that this is a symptom of human nature, a perpetual victory of hope over experience. If you're in any doubt as to the veracity of this, think of the "snake-oil" salesmen in the Old West, and look at the whole industry around diet and fitness.

It's easy to get confused and you might worry that you'll never be able to negotiate your way through all the available information without either getting ripped off or missing out on the vital piece of the jigsaw, the one that magically takes your game from struggling round the weekly medal to the European Tour, or at the very least the latter stages of the British Amateur.

But fear not, for today, here & now, I am going to reveal, for free, the secret.

The secret is that there is no secret.

There is no magic move that will instantly take 10 shots off your game after an evening's practice. There is no single bit of information that will make a 26 handicapper into a world beater. There is no way to lose weight other than eating fewer calories than you expend over a prolonged period of time and although some devotees of Dr Atkins would dispute that last statement this is indeed how the Atkins diet works. You eat unlimited protein (which seems to fill you up) and fat (which most people find unpalatable in large quantities) and by excluding carbohydrates you limit the opportunity to indulge in more pleasurable fatty foods like hot buttered toast and french fries/chips.

Why then pretend there is a secret? The most obvious reason is that if you can make people believe you have a secret, you can make money from them. We would all love there to be a shortcut for long processes, such as skills acquisition in golf, and thus we're tempted when the possibility is dangled in front of us. The golfing press, and magazines in particular, probably depend on our belief in "the secret" for their very existence. Look at the cover of any golf magazine and you'll find the word "secret"- "secrets of the short game", " the secret to longer and straighter" etc etc. I went quickly from a 4 magazine a month addiction to no magazines at all after I stopped believing in these secrets, and I think many others would too.

There's another reason to pretend there's a secret, one that has nothing to do with people trying to put their hands in our pockets. Often the solution to the difficulties we face and would love to bypass are so elegantly obvious that we quite simply refuse to believe it. Want to lose weight? eat fewer calories than you expend, that's what's at the root of all successful diets, even that of the hideous poo lady (who can no longer call herself a doctor as she #hasnoPhD, Twitteratti ;-). Want to improve at golf? work hard, making sure your focus is on the correct areas (putting, short game, strategy probably ahead of full swing) working with a qualified coach in whom you have faith and concentrating on playing one shot at a time whilst on the course. If you invent a contrived, pseudo-scientific explanation for your "secret" it can often improve your credibility in the eyes of the credulous public, but eventually it only serves to complicate and obfuscate the true picture. In golf this has happened so much that many of us are not at all certain where the true path lies.

I said it was simple; I didn't for a second imply it was easy!

Now, to be clear, I'm not saying that none of the mooted techniques work. On the contrary, I've used some to good effect (Carey Mumford's clearkey and Andy Morrison's "glued tongue", apparently both examples of a "pattern interrupt" in NLPese which have helped me a lot). What I'm saying is that there's an awful lot of snake oil being sold out there from the frankly unhelpful to the slightly more useful but still potentially frustrating old idea dressed in new clothes. We should be cautious of any claims and try to find independent corroboration. One of the reasons I'm so fond of the Golf Smarter podcast is that it allows me to hear a coach discuss their philosophy and techniques in detail, whilst being quizzed by the host. And if there's no corroboration available how significant a secret can it have been in the first place?

As ever, please feel free to comment, either below or to @The_Golf_Geek on Twitter.

I've had a fantastic response to this post, both in the comment below & on Twitter. I've had an interesting back-and-forth discussion with Michael Landgrebe of Confident Golf, who gently explored whether my instruction to "work hard" at golf might have been better expressed. It's pretty clear from our discussion that we're coming from the same place on this issue, so I just wanted to post a wee clarification.

I do stand by what I said- golf isn't easy, and it's a good thing it isn't. If golf were easy we'd never know the joy of achievement that we get from a new low round, or from hitting a draw from a slice lie into a 2 club wind which lands 4 feet from the hole. But golf is a game, and at it's heart should lie playfulness, enjoyment and fun. I've worked hard at my golf, but never once has it felt like hard work.

I have many demands on my time, with family and career, and if golf weren't fun I simply wouldn't do it. My coaches advocate a game which is joyfully creative, and I know if golf ever ceases to be enjoyable for me they will quickly help me reconnect with why I fell head over heels in love with the game. If golf is feeling like hard work for you, might it be time to consider a change in coaching?

Hiatus...

2010-08-10T16:09:00.000-07:00

..well, a brief one for me from all things golf. This was due to a combination of working a weekend, and then heading off to the Tartan Heart music festival (better known as Belladrum, the name of the estate). A hectic work week in the intervening time meant I didn't even get out to practice. This was the biggest break I've had from golf since starting this blog, but to be honest it feels good as I'm really hungry to get back playing. It was also a lot of fun. Although we felt Master Geek was a bit young at 11 months, the festival focuses on being family orientated so we took a very excited Miss Geek along with us, camping in the designated "family" camping area and had an awful lot of fun. I'd highly recommend it to anyone looking for a festival suitable for kids who was able to get up to Inverness.

Although I hadn't been able to get out to practice, I have still been able to get quite a bit of practice in, some of it really quite relevant to what I feel my current focus should be (playing shots absorbed in the process, thus managing to stay in the present). I've hit an awful lot of putts on my downstairs hall. This might elicit a bit of a "so what?" reaction, but my goal was to complete my full pre-shot routine for each putt. This has two effects. Firstly it cements my routine into place, making it more likely that I'll use it in competition and secondly it allows me to perform it more and more slickly as I become more practiced at it, and streamline it by dropping out any extraneous steps. I've also worked on a couple of skills tests - playing between two poles, ensuring that the ball touches neither of them (starting with a 4, then 3 then 2 ball width separation between poles) and also using my putt pucks as a "rebound" tool, to ensure I'm not pushing/pulling the ball; with a bit of practice I can get the ball rebounding straight back form 4-5 feet with regularity- hopefully something that should help hole more 3 footers. I have of course continued with my stretching program (although not when camping!) and my Golfer Within hypnosis and NLP. I can't overstate how much both of these things have helped my game.

What might be less predictable is how much an hour spent at the Belladrum festival is going to help my game. This may well seem an unlikely claim, perhaps the fevered ramblings of one in the throws of delirium tremens following a weekend of bacchanalian overindulgence. All I can say in my defence is that I consumed no alcohol at the festival. There was an area of the festival known as the "Hielan Fields"- a play on words, as Hielan' is the local dialect for Highlands (where the festival is situated) as well as being phonetically close to "healing"- and in this area was a large dome tent from a Buddhist monastery. I happened to notice that they were offering an introduction to meditation, with a session on mindfulness of breathing. This is something mentioned by Dr Parent in both Zen Golf and Zen Putting,and it's something that intrigued me. The session was quite an experience, and it's a practice I think I'll be looking to develop as the sensation of relaxed concentration I found as a result would I think be very exciting to use on the golf course- and in the rest of life. I think y they call it a "practice" as it's looking to develop skills that we can use to stay awake to the present moment more often than we currently do. In short, it's a practice for life.
(I make no claims to be a student of these matters, and certainly don't have a lot of knowledge or experience of them. Should any reader wish to correct or amend anything I've said, please use the comments section to set me straight!)

I've got a few more blog posts up my sleeve, and will be back on the course this week. I'm going to shift my goals. My "playing focus" for the next while will be to stay "awake" in the present moment whilst swinging the club, keeping track of how often I'm absorbed in the process rather than the more complex stat log I've been gathering. (I may still look at the number of putts, and the number of up & downs as I'm hoping to decrease the former and increase the latter, and I'm hoping awareness & measurement will aid this).

I hadn't planned to read too many more golf books, but had to make an exception for Extraordinary Golf and it's attempts to drastically alter the world view of golfers. Mastery by George Leonard is next on this Geek's reading list, followed by Yoga for Golfers. My plan is to have quite a good hard look at flexibility and core strength over the winter months, as my job this year is going to be pretty hectic, which along with the demands of family life and the weather in the North East of Scotland may well limit my opportunities to play 18 holes. I shall of course post a detailed list of my goals and practice plan for the close season as well as the 2011 season when the time comes.

If anything posted above makes you want to comment whether it be to agree or disagree with the above or any other content on the blog, I'd love to hear from you, and to open up a debate. Leave your thoughts in the comment box below!

a "Proper Golfer"

2010-07-25T13:16:00.000-07:00

What makes a Proper Golfer? Why even ask?

I ask because it's common, when asking an acquaintance or colleague if they're golfers, to get the reply "well, I play golf, or try to, but I wouldn't call myself a proper golfer" or a variation of it ("I'm just a hacker"- Fred Greene, the enthusiastic host of the wonderful Golf Smarter podcast, often refers to himself as this, and in fact had one guest really put him on the spot about it). Why do we do it? I say we, because until recently I also found myself qualifying my own golf with similar disclaimers. What benefits do we get from speaking about something we enjoy (in my case it's even stronger than this, I've often found myself referring to golf as "my last great passion in life") in such downbeat terms?

It may have something to do with our fear of other's judgement. What if we tell others we golf, and then we find ourselves on the tee with a 4 handicap? We imagine that they will become infuriated by our mishits and slices and lost balls, rather than being encouraging and helpful. It seems normal for golfers to identify more with their failures than with their successes, and it's easy in golf to focus on our poor shots, 3 putts and other assorted disappointments.

Why do we fear the judgement of others? Putting myself in the position of a 4 handicapper, if I were asking a friend or colleague about golf, it'd be because I'd be interested in talking about a shared interest or even passion, and perhaps playing together. Would I not want to talk about golf with a friend who played off 26? Would I feel horrified if I realised I'd been close to teeing off with a colleague who (*gasp*) didn't even have a handicap?

Oh my goodness, how I pray that'd never be the case. Because I would have turned into something I couldn't look at in the mirror. In fact, if I believed there was any chance of that happening, I would stop trying to improve at golf.

I think our fear of other's judgement is protecting us from something we imagine to be a problem, but in reality it's not. Anyway, our handicap, or the range of scores we usually shoot, give a pretty accurate picture of how we are as golfers. The rest is just unhelpful (and sometimes harmful) noise. Because we don't only say what we say about ourselves, we also hear it. And how helpful is it going to be to hear us talk about ourselves in a negative fashion? I see it sometimes in my friends Tweets, or in their description of themselves in their Twitter biography (calling yourself "a really shit golfer" isn't a great idea, particularly not when you're nearing single figures in handicap terms. Not only is it unhelpful, it's frankly wholly inaccurate!). The ever-challenging and thought provoking Andy Morrison (@amgolfmindcoach) refers to this as the "smiling assassin". I refer to myself as an "improving golfer" in my bio. This isn't inaccurate, and it re-frames a potentially harmful self-view into a positive one that is achievable (& non delusional). I also try on here to first focus on the positives, listing a number of these before going on to one or at most two things I'm less keen on, but listing these as things to improve, and crucially suggesting a strategy that I'm going to follow to achieve this.

So why am I, a 26 handicapper who's trying to break 90, confident enough to say all of this? It's not because of all the golf psychology and mental game books that I've read- they were enough for me to know to express things positively, but that knowledge is a long way from the confidence to declare myself a "proper golfer". I even found myself wondering if I should post my scores on Twitter, whether my golfing friends on there would think less of me or even stop talking to me about golf if they found out what I scored. Of course, there's nothing in that apart from my paranoia. They weren't even put off by my disastrous 116 in the first round of the Murray Cup.

It was the kindness of comparative strangers that's given me the confidence to not only write all of the above, but to allow myself to acknowledge that I, the Golf Geek, am a Proper Golfer. First the wonderfully supportive John Graham (he of the helpful comments in my comments section, his thought-provoking blog on all things golf ("golf information you can really use") should be on your reading list), when suggesting that others should follow me on Twitter (on #FollowFriday), described me as "another real golfer", and more recently Michael Landgrebe of Confident Golf described me (again on #FollowFriday) as "a fellow journeyman on the path to mastery". After I got over my initial "they can't have seen my scores" nonsense, I realised they must see me as they said. Although both men are supportive and helpful, neither are the type to "blow smoke" or to say things they don't mean. If they hadn't thought that were true, they'd have found something else to say.

Why am I saying this? Well, my intention is not to brag that two influential golf coaches see this geek as a proper golfer. It's more to point out that if I, a fairly recent convert to the game, can be seen in this way perhaps just perhaps more than a few others could be encouraged to "come out" as proper golfers. Cast off the shackles of self oppression and see the possibilities.

So what is a proper golfer? For me, it's someone who loves the game, and is committed to the quest of doing whatever they can to improve within the limits set by life, and committed to learning all of the lessons taught along the way. If we're on that path, what does it matter how far along the road we get? The journey is what matters, much more than the eventual destination. Care to take a few steps along the road with me and see where we end up?

Mastery

2010-07-19T16:43:00.000-07:00

Since taking up golf, I've wanted to master it. I've wanted to be able to shape the ball, have it do what I want, play fades and draws where appropriate, and also playing knockdown shots (very handy on a links course). Until very recently, I'd have been too shy to mention this, even on here, as it would have seemed almost delusional.

Enter Instinctive Golf, Kendal McWade and Scott Dixon. Their clear explanations and demonstrations really made it feasible for me to resurrect this secret desire.

The counter intuitive nature of golf applies strongly to the physics of shot shaping. Kendal discussed how a curling free kick would be struck- foot swinging to the right for a draw, to the left for a fade, and the necessary club face adjustments. They also used a golf club with a mallet head, to show how best to position the club to deliver force in the desired direction (hands well ahead for a draw). Finally, we took a number of swings with a variety of arcs to the right, looking closely at where the club made contact with the ground. The more right you swing, the further back the ball has to go, with the reverse true for a fade. Either way, as you move away from the centre of your swing with the ball, the ball has to move slightly closer to you.

I found this quite easy to do as I instinctively picked up a little trick to help swinging in the desired direction. All I did, after picking my target and setting up, was to pick a secondary "swing" target 10-20 yards to the right or left depending on whether I wanted a draw or fade respectively and focused on releasing energy to this target. This is a simple wee trick that seems to work well (I've used it to get things back on track on the course when my shot shaping has been a bit less than I would like). Have a try- swing to the right with an ever so slightly stronger than usual grip with the ball back in your stance and your hands well forward for a nice draw. Guaranteed to impress your playing partners!

No medal round this week...

2010-07-19T14:12:00.000-07:00

...I gave up my tee time to let Mrs Geek shop early in her favorite store's sale. This was hardly altruism, as it saves us a fortune on clothes for us all. Mrs Geek also works bloody hard with the kids while I'm at work, and she knows that I need at least one round of golf a week to be happy, meaning still more work for her. Then add in all the time I'm Tweeting or Blogging about golf, far less the time I'm thinking about it and even a fairly selfish husband could see that my addiction requires substantial investment from her. This was, then, the very least I could do.

The problem is that I ruined it slightly by moping about the place. My weekend medal round is something I really look forward to, and I miss it when it's not there. Laurence called at 11.45 to let me know there was a gap in his foursome at 12.30, but sadly Mrs Geek was out of mobile range. This intensified the moping, and really started to negate the benefit of the (slightly) thoughtful gesture.

Fortunately I came up with the solution. I'd made a friend playing on the Kings Links in Aberdeen, in my phone as Keith Golf. Keith has a few other sports, and his commitment to golf varies, but he can be really quite addicted. He's been playing quite a bit recently, and I've had quite a few texts asking if I were playing. I hadn't been able to join him, using my weekly golf pass for the medal, so I gave him a bell, and we nipped out for a few holes (planned to play 9, ended up playing 14!). I think this is how I'll cope with the "missed medal blues"- seek to turn disadvantage into an advantage.

I was keen to play well; we hadn't played for a while, and I feel my game's come on quite a bit. Obviously I know if I'm too keen to demonstrate this it's counter-productive. I'm pretty certain that the best way to score well is to forget about score and to focus on every shot in isolation, letting go as far as possible from thoughts of past or future. I set up to hit a comfortable draw on the first tee, and stuck a 250ish yard drive up the fairway with about a 10 yard draw on it. Keith's "wow!" from behind me as I held my finish was vindication.

We played matchplay, and I got to 4 up, when we decided to head for home. I was keen to get back, Keith wanted to play the last few holes. He plays very quickly, and I thought I'd just hit my ball on the way back like him, so lost the focus on every shot. Got to the tee of the last hole, and Keith mentioned I was back to one-up, so he had the opportunity to tie. Once I got over my surprise (I thought we'd finished and were just playing for fun, I'm still unsure of Keith's maths!), I realised this was a good thing. We've never been nastily competitive, but we both like to win. Keith tends to perform poorer under pressure, which is always helpful. Our final hole was a downhill short par four, 267 yards from the tee to the front of the green. I hit another 250 yard draw off the tee, leaving me 30 yards from the pin. I didn't catch my 54 degree wedge pitch cleanly (I should probably have chipped from the down slope, would do if in the same position again), so came up slightly short of the pin, with a 10 footer. Keith played 2 to the fringe, and we had a bit of banter- he felt he had to hole his putt from the fringe, as he was certain I'd get down in two. I joked that I could easily still 3-putt from where I was. That might seem a self-defeating strategy, and not something I'd always do, but I'd managed to "see" the path for the ball, and get a good feel for the pace, sinking the putt into the middle of the hole for the bragging rights.

Things were good at the start, when I was focused on every shot,and again on the final hole. I was trying to shape the ball, without having consolidated at the range, so I didn't play perfectly, and when I went 4-up (and in fairness thought we'd finished!) I lost a bit of focus, and concentrating on my shots took a backseat to catching up. My putting was a bit off, and I think I didn't have my shoulders near perpendicular to the club face (now, I'm not advocating trying to be perfect in an OCD-like fashion, but I wasn't close enough to perpendicular to a square club face). Really pleased with how I played the last to close out the match, always nice to have a birdie, particularly on a par 4 and particularly to close out the match. Pleased also that I managed to perform when I was really quite keen to do well, as this can often be a barrier to good performance.

The biggest benefit of the round? Keith once again has "got the bug" and is joining the Northern. This should mean that we'll be able to get a regular club time- there are always afternoon times available, I'm just not able to take advantage as I've been on my own. All good!

Instinctive Golf

2010-07-14T13:06:00.000-07:00

...those that read the blog with any regularity will be aware that I am an enthusiastic client of the Instinctive Golf team. I travel 131 miles to catch up with them, a commitment they thank me for each time we meet up. They have no need to thank me- they're quite simply that good.

What makes them so good? Quite frankly it's their focus. Instead of focusing on what positions you need to be in during the swing, looking on video comparing swing with a tour player, they focus on results. That's not to say they don't look at things like Posture Grip and Alignment, they do, as they encouraged me to explore a different finesse grip (I'd mimicked Mr Furyk's double overlap grip, Kendal encouraged me to look at a baseball grip using hockey player's split grip as an analogy). What they don't do is focus on these aspects heavily before allowing players on to the fun stuff. They spoke to us for about 20 minutes, showed us a few videos on putting then out for a series of skills challenges - all the while prowling around, quietly correcting anything that was going to unduly hinder us, asking us searching questions and encouraging us to question that which we'd considered a given. They'd also spoken to us about SAM putting labs data, about how Tiger was often 4-6 degrees open at set up, but bang on line at impact. Another key pro, a hard practicing 3 time major winner was always ideally square at setup, but all over the place at impact. This freed us up. I can't speak for the others, but I'd been starting to get a bit obsessive compulsive about my set up. Now I'm looking to get about right, and using things like their skills test and my putt-pucks rebound test to get feedback.

Short game teaching was similar- this time there were a few slow motion videos of impact with wedge, mid 7 long irons, fairway wood and driver and then a discussion on how to achieve this. Then on to the skills test, with Kendal and Scott prowling.

The long game session was revelatory. Kendal reminded us that golf balls do not have volition, and therefore have to do as we tell them. We spoke about the influence of the clubface, and of swing path and how Trackman has belied the myth that the "swingpath sends it and the clubface bends it", how the clubface angle at impact is responsible for about 80% of the ball flight (although the higher the loft the less influence this has) and then he had us swinging with a very shut clubface and swinging hard to the right, then slightly less closed, slightly less right etc. We also spoke about the need for altering the ball position for these changes.

The above is revelatory enough, but it's not even the main benefit from this. It's the start of the road to self coaching that is the real take home from this. After every shot: the questions : "is that what I wanted to happen?" if not "why did that happen?", "did I successfully reproduce my rehearsal swing?" if not "why not? what got in the way?" if yes "why didn't it work?" "what can I change to make it work next time?".

Experiential learning. And a focus on coaching golf, not just golf swing.

It's not an easy path - hence the post on conviction- as it swims against standard wisdom. Many pros are scornful of the Instinctive Golf method "oh, that's how you can swing way". But that attitude needs examination. If one did have a hideous, looping swing worse than Mr Furyk's but if if were repeatable, and you could hit a high draw and low fade and all shots in between, without putting undue stress on the body, how much would you wish to change that swing? I certainly wouldn't. The other thought is that most people, whilst trying to get the clubface coming through the impact area in a predictable repeating fashion will end up swinging the club in what could be considered a classical fashion. It's just that the focus was on getting the correct ball flight, rather than getting into the correct positions throughout the swing and assuming that will automatically produce the desired ball flight.

My parents took up skiing in their fifties, and were enthusiastic participants but found that traditional ski instruction wasn't the best for how they needed to learn; a friend's recommendation led them to Ally Ross, a septuagenarian who went through the physics with them, and explained his frustrations with traditional instruction, as he felt that effect was often being taught as cause. I wonder if that might be the case with traditional instruction; I obviously don't know enough about the physics of the swing to comment on this, but what I can say is that this seems to be the best way for me to learn this.

Hence the 131 mile drive!

The Wisdom of Mrs Geek

2010-07-14T12:47:00.000-07:00

(an occasional series- given that she doesn't golf, this'll be a very occasional series ;-)

"Golf shouldn't be about winning. It should be about continual improvement"

She added, as I gazed at her open-mouthed, "that's what I've picked up from you". I'm absolutely gobsmacked- not at her wisdom, she's always had that- but that she'd listened that much!

95 last Saturday...

2010-07-14T12:01:00.000-07:00

...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.

Lessons from the links - 1. Conviction

2010-07-08T15:27:00.000-07:00

Not the type that follows a "guilty" verdict, but instead the virtue. Having the courage of one's convictions is indeed laudable, but perhaps not something a casual observer would identify as a core requirement for a golfer who intends to improve.

Nothing could be further from the truth, as I'm starting to discover. It manifests in so many ways, and even if you're a confident, determined and positive person, you have to be on guard at all times as the fear and negativity of others can be both pervasive and persuasive.

I recently completed a round with a new playing partner, there had been a space on the board, and we both took advantage. I admire this player- he plays off 13, despite being of senior age, and despite a swing that could be charitably described as idiosyncratic, and a resultant ball flight that, remaining in charitable vein, was a bit of a slice. He golfed his ball in excellent fashion around the course, and had at least 7 up & downs throughout the round. I learned a lot, not least that whatever I think about my swing, it's not what is currently limiting my scoring. Short game, putting and strategy (I've been working on my putting, so this is the correct order of descending importance at time of writing), and forgetting about trying to think technically on the course. I've also realised that, while a good looking golf swing would be nice, an effective, repeating and above all predictable swing would be nicer.

The last few sentences are all very well, but what do they have to do with conviction? Not a lot, in themselves. But this player, who sets up with all clubs like he's about to play a forward defensive stroke to an in-swinging yorker and before starting his swing rotates his left hand through 70 degrees to a much "stronger" position, saw fit to critique my swing all of the way around the course. I must admit it amused rather than irked me, as although I started a bit disappointingly I settled into my rhythm and felt happy with my swing. It's a funny situation after all- one might think that a player with such an individual style might have enough experience of unsolicited swing critique by "Expertise-less Experts"- but no. And he's by no means the only one, the most voluble or the highest handicapper doing this. Marc Solomon, the uncompromising New Jersey pro behind Golf Made Simple, frequently disparages this, and divides golfers into "players" & "monkeys" ( the former reserved those who have a plan, the others following latest fad or magazine craze like the "Tilt into the Xfactor Stack Square to Toe up") An amusingly vitriolic rant of his can be found here , with many more here. It takes a strong person to withstand this constant barrage of well intentioned mostly unhelpful advice, and even if we were to stumble across that which we need to improve consistency, we wouldn't have the requisite faith or conviction and we would be likely to discard it when we're offered still more advice at the first signs of struggling.

It's also difficult to maintain the requisite conviction in one's long-term plan. Golf clubs are full of those who have been at the same level for years, and they don't want to acknowledge that improvement is possible, as this then reflects poorly on them for not having managed to do it themselves. This is their own judgement; I'm well aware that my interest in golf borders on obsession, and others may not be so driven, or have so many commitments that their weekly round and beer afterward is all the time they can spare. The idea of players they can beat comfortably beating them interferes with their sense of self, and they react with negativity to try to dissuade you from your lofty ambitions.

Conviction is also necessary in practice and preparation. I've read a lot about golf, and particularly on how to practice (the answer to this is to practice deep and deliberate practice- see The Game Before the Game and Neil Plimmer's Open Mind Golf blog and in particular his ideas on driving range practice for long game), but it's very difficult to do this when everyone around you is doing very different things, and when you're unconvinced, it affects your motivation & you're therefore much less likelyto practice. This happened to me when I first started stretching, I wasn't convinced it was helping until I saw Karen Young. As soon as I had faith, I regained my motivation.

Conviction is therefore necessary, and can be difficult to come by and easy to misplace. I'm countering this by making sure my coaches and mentors are people I hold in high regard who are happy to be consulted, and by resolving never to follow blindly unsolicited advice. In fact, I'm going to pretend Mrs Geek is talking about wall coverings & soft furnishings, which ought to ensure absolutely none of this information will make it into my brain.

I'm hopefully playing again on Saturday, so normal service should be resumed! Let me know if you enjoyed this, and whether more like this to supplemnent my round reports would interest you.

Two medal rounds in the last week

2010-07-02T09:37:00.000-07:00

...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.

Resolve

2010-06-19T15:23:00.000-07:00

Not something that even my closest friends would have associated with me (unless a motivational boot had been applied to my posterior), but as I was reading the always thought-provoking Single-Minded Golf blog of Adam Sprackling, I found a post on resolve. I was pleasantly surprised to realise as I read he was by and large describing my attitude to golf, and to improving at it. I'm really linking to it here so that I've got it bookmarked should I hit a prolonged slump and that resolve starts to waver. I follow Adam on Twitter (@AdamSMG) and enjoy his tweets, so I've signed up for his newsletter and tipcasts (I'm listening to a lot of golf audiobooks and podcasts, a great way to use the time commuting). I'm looking forward to receiving them, along with my 3 Good Shots email.

Reflection...

2010-06-19T14:59:00.000-07:00

...I'm working this weekend, so no golf (most vexing, as due to a lack of planning I've missed the 2nd qualifying round for the club championship, when I was lying 3rd after the 1st round- I'm hoping next year's schedule might allow me to have a go at it). I've been reading back through the blog tonight (don't have Sky Sports, so no US open for me ;-) and it's been a bit of a shock. Having the blog recording how I feel about my golf at the time of writing means that I can almost travel back in time, but as an observer rather than a participant, and what has surprised me is just how far I've come in what is a relatively short period of time. It's a bit like not noticing how much your children have grown until you look back at photographs from a short period.

One of the most striking changes, and also the most positive one, is that in my original posts I'm more swing focused; it's almost like I'm playing "golf swing" then, whereas now I'm a lot closer to playing "Golf"- the complete entity of which the swing is but a part. I've also been working a lot on my putting, and have found the results-based coaching I thought would suit me best. And no matter how much I knew in theory, I had to start to experience it- walking the walk rather than talking the talk. I've played a number of competitions; I've been in the top 5 twice and my handicap has started to fall. I've managed to identify and start to work on the single most important factor in my improvement (haven't as yet missed a day of Karen's stretches) It's so easy to miss all of these things because they happen inch by inch and it's difficult to remain motivated if you're putting in the work and aren't aware of all your improvement (although this perhaps isn't too much of an issue for me; it seems I'm head over heels in love with golf, and don't view practice as a separate entity from golf and have come to love even the stretches, sap that I am!).

It's therefore been absolutely lovely to have had this wee reflective time to confirm how much things have moved forward. Still would rather have played in the 2nd qualifying round of the club championship or watching the US Open, mind!

Things are improving...

2010-06-17T15:38:00.000-07:00

...95 in the first qualifying round of the club championship, with a third placed finish. It would have been 1st had I not played the wrong ball on the 14th for a two-stroke penalty. Vexing, but it's the type of mistake you make once. We'd been off searching for one of my playing partner's ball, we had a very impatient group behind us (they'd been a bit naughty, they'd squeezed in between times) I rushed up to where I thought my ball was (it was actually about 5 yards away, I hadn't realised group behind had played so hit one of their balls. Heart sank as I realised what I'd done, but thankfully when I went back, I just slid into that trance-like state and when I came too I'd hit an absolute screamer onto the green and got down in two.

Scorecard and details can be found here

I'm encouraged by this round, for a number of reasons. I had no idea what I'd shot, but was aware it was pretty good, and managed to bring myself back to the present after I'd started to wander off into the future. I don't remember bits of the round as I seem to have drifted off into a wee trance at points. This seems to be seen as a pretty good thing, provided the intentions sit well with your core values; think that this is the case for me.

It was a howling gale for the front 9, and I started quite well on the first hole. On the second, I was on the edge of the green in 3 (not bad into a very strong wind on the 2nd hardest hole) but proceeded to 4-putt. One of my playing partners helpfully pointed out it was a poor hole, but managed not to let it get to me. I struggled with my swing at first, but then slowed it down, concentrating on playing and swinging smoothly and that really helped. After a couple of slightly disappointing course management decisions I made the decision to just try to get the ball to a point just beyond where a good shot from the previous shot would have landed (I'm reading Dave Pelz' damage control, which I'll post my thoughts on later, but apparently if you do that you lose less than a stroke a hole on average). I managed yet another chip-in with my hybrid putt-chip on the 8th (I actually thought it was for an eagle when I hit it, so I'm really pleased I got it thinking that.

I'm pleased with my back 9..2 doubles, the rest bogeys if you discount the two stroke penalty on the 14th. I brought it home, kept it steady and didn't let the silly penalty get to me. Without it, it would've been my first win, and a 93. That's great, as I could easily play that round four strokes better without major work. My stretching has also paid off as I've never been so relaxed and comfy finishing 18.

More and more I feel that I've got the game to break 90 without having to go through significant work on my swing. It's more a case of making more of my swings good swings, making my poor swings better and making better decisions when I'm in trouble. Crucially, I need to make more putts, and get the ball up & down more often. The goal has to be 3 shots at most from 100 yards and in. I'm going to try more bump & runs (might use the hybrid for that too) as that's classically the answer for links golf.

My Putter's been a bit of a struggle getting it to sit right and knowing it's square; my playing partner (the one who helpfully pointed out that 4 putting wasn't very good ;-) made some comment about it not sitting flat. It's got a curved bottom, and is meant to sit square on that; I showed him and he mumbled something about modern equipment- his putter cost 50 shillings, the second one he's ever owned- and clearly suits him. There's a lesson there. My putter (an Odyssey 2-ball SRT) is a good putter, but doesn't totally fit my eye. I was out getting Miss Geek a putter & 7iron from US kids, and she insisted I try a putter on the shop's green. I picked up a 2nd hand "Heavy Putter" the L-3 Medium Weight with a 34 inch shaft, and it just fit. A colleague, teasing me, likened it to Harry Potter with his wand. I laughed, but actually it's not that far off. After sleeping on it for a couple of days, I bought it today. It sits square with no effort, I've always like the half-mallet design, the alignment aides are excellent and suit me, it puts my hands in an excellent position and the weighting in the head and butt of the shaft not only stop me taking it back too far and stop deceleration but also seem to help me weighting long putts appropriately. In short, it's great. A good purchase!

Another thing that was good about this round is that it's thee first time I've encountered a negative playing partner- the one I've alluded to above. He had comments on everything from my putting to my trolley! It amused me rather than upset me, and I just played my game and ignored his tips or at least the ones I didn't agree with. I don't think either of us will seek the other out to play together, but equally neither of us will mind if we get paired together again. Another rite of passage into the golfing world negotiated!

Unfortunately I'm on call this weekend, so if Saturday's the 2nd qualifying round for the club championship I won't be progressing, but good to get up the leaderboard. My handicap's down to 26.4; I feel like I'm starting to get on my way. This seems to be helping, so more blogging to follow

3 Good Shots...

2010-06-11T15:40:00.000-07:00

Many mental game coaches recommend a shot diary, a journal where a player records details of all of their finest shots, the best three of every round, in sufficient detail to be able to put themselves back into the same situation and visualise the shot when they read it back. Thus the player develops their selective memory, celebrating the good and relinquishing their hold on the disappointing shots. This in turn increases confidence, and as we all know, Golf is a game of Confidence.

I got an @ mention on Twitter from @3GoodShots, asking me to have a look at his website. Intrigued (and I must admit not a little flattered to be asked ;-) I toddled along to 3GoodShots. and very much liked what I saw.

I do try to keep all of my best shots in my memory, but even with as good a memory as I have I know there's shots that I want to keep hold of that I have for about 24 hours after the round, and then a lot of the detail's gone. A fellow golfing geek, Nick, kept a shot diary following a Jamie Edwards seminar, but found he never got around to looking it up and rereading it.

An enterprising chap, Nick then designed a website, where one enters the details of ...3 good shots (see what he did there? ;-) and you're sent a daily email with one of your good shots. You then read it, close your eyes and visualise the shot. You add a bit of background to set the scene. Like many excellent ideas, it's the fact that it's blindingly obvious as soon as someones thought of it that strikes you. Ever ready to innovate, Nick's added a "par 18" scorecard, and this uses 9 balls for either long putting or up & down practice, allowing you to chart progress. He's also I believe looking at other ways of recording other aspects of practice, making this site both helpful and unique. I'm keen to see this site do well, as I think I'll find it really useful.

Please check it out- I think you might just like it ;-)

Addendum: I've now had the daily emails for nearly a week, and think that they may be helping; Today's one reminded me of a chip-in, two rounds ago, and I visualised it I felt all the elation, and opened my eyes to find myself doing what can only be described as a "wee fist pump" much to the amusement of Mrs Geek. Joking aside, anything that takes you back so vividly into a moment of good golf can only be a good thing. I'm impressed.

The single most important thing for my golf...

2010-06-11T14:07:00.000-07:00

...I "teased" this a bit on Tuesday's post. On Monday night, some distance from a course, green or range, I discovered what is currently the single most important factor for me if I wish to improve at golf. It's something I always thought of as important, knew I was far from perfect at it and I've already done a few things to try to improve it; however I was unprepared for just how limited my situation was.

I'm talking of course about flexibility. I know I'm not supple- I was a tall teenager, at an age where all you want is to fit in, so you hunch to try to shrink back into the herd. I also played rugby, and finished up playing prop forward as my fitness levels fell (and abdominal girth increased!) what weights I did focused in the main on the obvious muscles and not their opposing groups. Added to that I have a job where I'm often hunched over trying to speak with an older person and you have a recipe for poor flexibility, even if you don't consider my years of lower activity before rediscovering sport through golf.

I'm very lucky to work (day-job work!) with an excellent physiotherapist (thanks Lisa!), and even luckier that she does some shifts for a sports injury clinic with Karen Young, a young, dynamic yet vastly experienced physio who in 2005 was appointed Lead Golf Physiotherapist for the Scottish Institute of Sport, co-ordinating and providing physiotherapy for the male and female Scottish National golf squads. £30 for a 30 minute consultation that over ran substantially. I shudder to think what the medical equivalent would cost privately.

Karen gave me an extremely thorough once over, and found that I have numerous physical restrictions, one in particular (absence of rotation in mid spine, meaning swing is all done by my arms) that's restricting my length.

I have a set of exercises to do, and now do some if working at my desk and needing a quick break. I've undertaken to do a half hour every day, and although I was tempted to aim higher I know what happens if I am over-ambitious; I shall stick to this for a while and perhaps step it up at a later date.

This might all sound like a piece of nonsense, but both Kendal and Scott commented on how rigid I looked at address, and had targeted relaxation as what they thought I should focus on. I had of course found this difficult to do, and now know why this was the case. I therefore think that my flexibility was the rate limiting step of my improvement, so I'm delighted to have tackled it. There is work to be done, but it's amazing how easy it is to motivate yourself when you have the utmost faith in your physiotherapist's assessment.

Some may be wondering why I didn't choose TPI; don't think there's anyone near me, and also would have chosen Karen's expertise over a TPI-certified instructor; this isn't as much a comment on TPI as their goals are for the most part laudable, but I don't feel that even a motivated golf pro with a good knowledge of anatomy and physiology could work at Karen's level following a few courses. If you're a golf pro reading this and disagree, imagine if the tables were turned and she were to go on courses of equivalent duration and then look to teach golfers.

That's not to say don't use TPI as I would have happily gone if they had been the only therapists nearby. All I'm suggesting is that you ask around to see if there's anyone like Karen near you, giving you the option of seeing one or other.

For anyone in close to Aberdeen and keen to see Karen, her biography is on their website. I can't speak highly enough of her.

Enough of this (this was meant to be a short post!) I'm awa' off tae stretch.

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

2010-06-08T16:05:00.000-07:00

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 ;-)

A leap of faith

2010-06-02T13:55:00.000-07:00

I've had a funny week. I went out on Sunday in the Murray Cup, the championship between the 3 clubs that play on the course but hit a miserable 116 in the rain. I'd got distracted, was again rushing onto the tee. The rain just never let up, and I was pretty under prepared. The rain doesn't usually last that long here, but I'd also forgotten there's a difference between playing a competitive round and a bounce round I'd never have completed the latter in that weather. No umbrella, no umbrella holder, no wet weather gloves, and I hadn't tied my waterproof trousers tightly enough so they slid down (think 15 year old skater boy style) so I got drenched. Actually that last point is probably academic as the rain was heavy and unrelenting, so saturation was unavoidable. I've been drier SCUBA diving.

On the positive side- I stuck it out, I finished on a day when many didn't. I didn't attribute my score to the rain; I know it's the same weather and course for everyone and as an outdoor sport the weather is an unavoidable factor. I had a discussion on Twitter with a coach who had inferred I was attributing my score to the weather; he had asked if there were players who were better in the rain. My assertion is that that's not true; I don't think anyone looks forward to it, but there are players who are less affected than others, those that look at something that is unavoidable and think "I'm good in the rain and others aren't" This must be the best way to deal with a situation like this, and I'm going to be one of these players. I'm going to upgrade my wet weather gear, buy a good umbrella holder, gloves and never be caught without my umbrella again.

The main problem was that I didn't have any process, really almost none. Didn't pick a target, didn't make clear decisions, just hit horrible shots. I always had a count of my shots going in my head, focus was on result over process all the way.

A couple of formulae from the late Jack Burke, on this topic.

R/P = 0

P/R = $
( if P=process & R=result)
Emphasise process over result to be "in the money"

So why am I not able to be in the process more? It's not that I haven't mentioned it. I know what I need to do, so why am I not doing it? There's two principle reasons, one theoretical, the other practical, and they relate to each other.

I'd read a lot, and accepted what I'd read, but hadn't fully believed. I was able to regurgitate the theory, but more than that is needed. It's not enough to know, you must believe. I needed to take a leap of faith, to learn how to be totally absorbed in the process. I'm lucky to have got my experience from the Instinctive Golf short game day to draw on.

But that's not the whole reason; after all, I've been out with the intention to be more process focused often and yet not managed to sustain it. So why? Fortunately I don't have to look too far. My practice sessions frequently descend into "scrape & hit", deviate from my original intention and can end up with me just repeating the same mistake repeatedly.

In short, absolutely no focus. And then I wonder why I can't focus on the course?

So I made a plan, and I think it's a good one. I'm going to have two focused practice sessions a week; mostly putting and short game, with the range as a wet weather back up. (I would plan more, but work is pretty busy, Mrs Geek's already taking up an awful lot of slack at home and I'm guilty of making grandiose plans that I stick to for a short time and then when I can't keep up the whole plan goes, so this one is more modest and achievable). I've got a lot of practice plans from both Instinctive Golf and VISION54 that I'll use as well as using Dr Joe Parent's mind training sessions twice a week to improve focus. I'm also going to see a phsysiotherapist with vast experience in golf to look at what physical restrictions I have and for a personalised stretching program. I'm going for an Instinctive Golf long game clinic on the 30th too. I may also try and catch up with Scott Dixon (@scottdixongolf on Twitter) for a more personalised session around that time, perhaps an on course lesson to look at strategy and firm up a practice plan.

Will it work? I don't know but I think it might. I've had a practice session, and went out for a round on the nearby 6-hole par 21 course with a colleague (& hopefully new golf buddy) and hit 26- my best ever score on the course. Didn't even hit my best shots, but had a chip in (for a double as I'd been 3 off the tee ;-) No 3 putts, didn't have to hit 2 short game shots on any hole, but kept in the process very well, and I'm really proud of how I dealt with it when the thought came into my head on the 4ht green and the 6th tee that this could be my best round. In the past I'd either have got excited about it, or thought "oh no I mustn't think about that it'll ruin everything"- a self fulfilling prophecy if ever there was one. Instead, I used Dr Parent's "Labelling and Returning"- I just thought very matter of factly "That's the future. Come back to the present" (no "...or else" addition) and it worked very well.

A leap of faith. It might just work.

A frustrating 48 at Gairloch

2010-05-19T15:54:00.000-07:00

(scorecard and stats here )

...Got out for 9 at the inlaws, and started so well (for me)- Bogey, par, par with two nice consecutive up and downs, and with a lip-out for par (and another up & down) on the first. In fact I managed a 'sandy' on the 2nd, only my second ever. I've added a 42 degree Cleveland Niblick to my scoring arsenal, and I'm loving it. Good for chips from tight lies with a putting stroke, standard chips, pitches and right up to full shots. It's replaced my 44 degree PW, and compliments my Eidolon wedges (48,54,60 degrees)

Trouble started on the 4th, the green keeper chatted for a bit, I set up, felt uneasy, backed off and changed my aim. Deliberately, but was too aggressive (hoping for another par) hit trees, had to take an unplayable as ball was beside tree, dropped ball and it rolled to the bottom of the hill (not sure on the rules on this, will have to check!) was further from the hole, so played it there, down in 3 for a triple.

Round went a bit more poorly after that, had a heavy chip (head up) and pitch at the next two holes, a 3 putt on the next, but came to the 8th with a good score possible. The 8th is a card wrecker lurking. The only par 5 on the course, it's the only true links hole on the course, with heavy reeds and OOB all down the left, and the fairway drops off on the right (although there are other fairways nearby, the course is ingeniously folded into a tiny parcel of land). You can then play over a deep rough filled gully (very deep, both the rough & the gully) cutting the corner, or play to the top off the bluff, where there's a very steep sided hill, with yet more deep rough before the fairway carrys on, dog legging left. Hit it too straight and too far over the fairway, and there is (you guessed it) still more deep rough. And as it's played blind, it's a lost ball more often than not. The green is big and has some wicked borrows, as do all of the greens there. The course isn't long, but it's by no means easy. The course record is apparently 1-under.

My drive just bounced off the right hand side of the fairway into the rough. I played smart out, with a 1/2 9 iron, a bit shorter than I intended. I was just at the gully, and decided to play over it with my 6 wood- usually a club I'm very comfortable with, and feel even my mishits are useable. Sadly the draw of the gully (known to members and myself as 'the hole') was too much. Too keen to hit over, I tensed and topped it in. It landed halfway down, and took 2 shots to get ball out onto the semi rough on at the foot of the hole. A 7 iron (should have played a 6) fell short of the green, then an indifferent chip and three putt for a vexing 10. Nearly redeemed myself a little with a par at the last, but my putt (on intended path and pace) just went over the 'cellophane bridge the horseshoed out, leaving a tap in for a bogey.

Although I'm disappointed with this round, a number of things went very well, and I want to record them. I was in the sand twice, got up and down from there once and very nearly twice. Was thoroughly involved in the process for these shots, and they came out as I'd envisaged. I was in a wee 'dwalm' after they'd been hit, it took a second to connect in my head that the ball I was seeing was the one I'd just hit, a sure sign of being absorbed in the process. I managed to stay in the process (not always as well as this, but still pretty well) on a much higher percentage of shots, my putting is improving and can improve still further, just by doing more of what I've been doing (and so I feel on the right track) I had a number of good chips and pitches, again arising from a process focus. I was aware when I started to go too far into the future (eg when I started to think about what I'd say on here!) and I'm starting to catch that. I experimented with thinking of the riff fro the White Stripes "7 Nation Army" any time that happened (it's very useful to block out the most irritatingly persistent "earworm" tunes) and it was useful.

So what went wrong? Not enough process. Although more in the process on shots, I was still too aware of my scores so far and my potential final score- that was what led me to try hitting over the 'hole' (need a 5 to keep my score good) and then stopped me just taking an 'unplayable' drop when the ball went into the gully. Thinking of the gully as 'The Hole' hasn't been helpful either- would have played a big part in increasing tension before and during my swing, and the head lift that all caused me to top the ball. I should have played safer in the fairway if in any doubt. I was about 180 back- 2 3/4 niblicks would have done it. Putting needs more work but has improved considerably with the work I've done, and aiming and setup with my "gamer" mallet has definitely been improved by a few sessions with the backup blade- having to work out how to set up and aim the blade, getting used to it then swapping back and re-learning the mallet. Found this out by accident as the blade was at my folks' where we'd been on holiday, with no space to take my main bag, so was using a spare bag I'd left there for my brother, now in Sydney (I'll put it back before you come back Euan!). Discovered by accident, but as a method it'll stay in the bag- might even try it with other clubs too (eg less offset irons, different loft driver etc).

I need also to look at how to get out of trouble efficiently and with the minimum of damage. I'm reading Dave Pelz' Damage Control, and will see how that goes. I may also look at Seizo Mazer's Game Sense for this and strategic advice- I like the audio book idea, and also have Zen putting on audio book for the commute.

Instead of getting discouraged, I'm looking at how far my game has improved in the last while. My best scores may not be that much better than last year, but I'm getting them much more frequently and my worst scores are much better. My best shots are again similar, but my worst shots have improved greatly. It would be wrong to lose the faith, I'll keep inching along the plateau until my scoring improves ;-)

See you on the putting green!

No Medal this week

2010-05-16T15:00:00.000-07:00

...as I've been on holiday, doing the tour of the Grandparents' and ending up on what was my Grandparents' croft on the Eilean a' Cheo (Isle of Skye) as Mrs Geek was doing a Gaelic course at the college there with her Mum (hereafter referred to as Granny McGeek). Neither of us goes to see our parents as often as we should, so golf practice was limited. I did manage to sneak onot the Bob Torrance School of Golf's training ground for some much needed putting practice, and practice aiming chip and pitch shots with foam balls in my parent's back garden. I've had recurrent problems with not being able to consistently 'get' what the clubface should look like when it's down square, so I've been working on that. I also picked up my spare putter from my folks', and spent a bit of time on working how to optimise my set up with that, and as it's a blade and my main putter is a 2-ball it's meant that I've had to look at my main putter again, a much needed back-to basics.

I did manage to sneak out last night and drive up to the only golf course on Skye, but this was a washout as I'd forgotten some medication and as my morning dose wore off my game disintegrated. I managed to lose 5 balls, unusual for me these days, and then developed a case of the shanks. Interestingly, I've been involved in a discussion on Twitter, as a mental game coach in training asked another coahc what proportion of poor shots were due to mental errors, and what portion due to physical errors. My feeling is that it's impossible to disentangle the two, they're both present in every poor shot, the proportions vary. My experience with my medication backs this up, as every time I've been trying to hit shots when I've forgotten a dose I develop a case of the shanks, something that is not usually a feature of my game, thankfully. I cut my losses and headed home after the 6th hole, but will return there. It's an interesting course, by the sea at the foot of the Red Cuillin mountains, but a heathland rather than links course, although the two of course play similarly. It's a functional course, not perhaps the best in design but fun to play your way around and the setting is little short of spectacular. There is plenty to marvel at, and it's easy to avoid getting caught up in mechanical thoughts between shots here.

Their website can be found here

I also manged to get out today for 9 holes at Gairloch, where my in-laws reside; my score can be found here. It only tells part of the story. I put my first drive out of bounds, but after that played solidly and only just missed a 5-foot putt for a 5. I then started to play really quite well, not in the zone but near enough to catch a brief glimpse of what it could be. I was calm and relaxed, playing swiftly but unhurriedly, and none of my putts missed by much, but unfortunately I wasn't able to block out the excitement of potentially scoring well, and with this hope came the undercurrent of fear.I don't know what came first, the decrease in quality of my shots or me slowing down, but whichever initiated it, they exacerbated each other and exasperated me (not actually that much on the course, but I feel keenly that I had an opportunity to get a good score) I got ahead of myself, and although I did bring myself back into the present, I didn't manage to banish the twin demons of hope and fear entirely. The 8th at Gairloch is one of the 2 "links" style holes and is for many a place of poor memories, poor shots and even poorer course management decisions. I was guilty of all 3, although I feel I can keep the memories at bay. I pulled my drive into the left hand rough, but avoided the gully of lost balls and the maram grass at the side of the hill, but aimed and played my six iron poorly. I was looking to get to the top of the cliff that overlooks the contiunation of the fairway as it approaches the green, but hit it right. Not a push, just a too-casual aim, and I found myself with a sloping uphill lie but with the ball beneath my feet. I then chose to try a 6 wood, rather than hitting say a half 9-iron up to where the second shot should have been played, and pull hooked the ball into some thickish rough, took a further 2 shots onto the green and then three putted. Hit my tee shot at the 9th into a bunker, had to stand outwith the bunker and reach down for a ball well below my feet on a downhill lie. Left first one in there, second came out about 2 feet, and then chipped and 2 putted.

I can't be too upset. Given how things looked and felt last night, I'd have quite happily taken a 47 for 9 at Gairloch the next day. I had a lot of putts that weren't far away and that's getting better. I'm (starting) to get more conscious of trying a shorter back swing but without stiffening up. I had the feeling of playing fairly effortlessly and smoothly. Although I perhaps didn't handle the feeling of a round going well particularly well, I didn't disintegrate and I hope to have many more chances to deal with that feeling- after all, if it comes more often it means that I'm getting better, playing better and scoring better. And I'm improving as a golfer. Bit by bit, in a fairly attritional fashion but there is forward movement. I'm also really pleased that I put last night's poor round aside and didn't let it affect my game. Fatigue may also have played a part - had a fun but exhausting weekend of the kids to myself, and had driven for 3 hours before playing; Hadn't drunk enough and was really hungry by the time the 8th hove into view- all things that are easy to remedy when I have my usual bag and trolley, as I'd just packed a pencil bag to save space.

So what to change? Missed a couple of putts from short distance (I'm fairly certain deceleration is the culprit) so I'm going to hit consecutive 3 footers at home, aiming to reach 25 or so. Hopefully I'll be able to get out onto the putting greens too, a couple of nights to try things like spiral impossible, never up never win and other putting drills from Instinctive Golf. I'd been keeping up my stretching but fatigue has limited me the last couple of nights so will readdress that from Tuesday at the earliest. I'm starting to really think about how to setup and aim consistently with all of my clubs, putter to driver; I've also replaced my 44(!) degree Pitching Wedge with a 42 degree Cleveland Niblick, a hybrid scoring club. This compliments my Eidolon wedges (48,54,60 degree) rather well, and I practiced chipping with it off of tight lies. Seems to be best to use a putting stroke for short chips, standard chip for longer ones; the putt/chip works rather well from tight lies. The other thing to do is to keep an eye on my routine, to do my best to keep the amount of time taken fairly constant, and fairly swift in keeping with my behaviour style.

Home tomorrow hopefully, and I'll drive my wife daft by making a small detour to the club to get my name down for next Saturday's medal...

(Interested in trying to apply theories, practice drills and to talk about them with other golfers? Try the Golf golf and more Golf blog. I'm happy to hear any suggestions anyone may have for ideas to try out in that forum.

Saturday 8th of May: 99 (Medal, Kings Links)

2010-05-12T16:01:00.000-07:00

Details of the round can be found here

Another blowy day, and an improvement of 5 strokes on last week. My back 9 was pretty impressive by my standards, pretty solid "bogey" golf, with a par on the last. My putter hadn't really been firing on the front 9- more on that later- and as I made the turn I realised that I'd been tight and tense on the greens, and that more than anything was affecting things. I gave myself a little shake, accepted that I hadn't worked enough on putting technique or touch & feel drills during the week, and that on the course wasn't the time or place to sort it or to remonstrate with myself (there is also mitigation, honest!), but what I could do was relax and hit putts free from tension and as smoothly as possible. This worked very well for me- got a 4 at the very tricky 10th (elevated tee, elevated green with harsh bunkering and linksy gorse nastiness in the gully between) and played much better. Only slight blemish on the back 9 was a triple at the 17th; was by the green in 3, then thinned a chip way past the flag from a tight lie (for a moment I thought it might hit the pin and drop in or at least slow a bit, but no. Was annoyed as I usually play the Hybrid chip from that sort of lie, but had hit a poor one on the 15th, turning a look at par into a double bogey 7 so went for a 9 iron chip) Then I tightened up over the putt back, and three putted. Sank an 8-10 footer on the last for a scrambled par though, which made things look brighter. Sand play was pretty good, always out in one apart from the first. Although stats show lots of missed fairways, that's not all the story; many of the misses on the back 9 were where I was in semi rough, at a reasonable distance with a fairly clear shot; I may stop recording these as missed fairways as I'd rather have that than hitting a fairway 20 yards off the tee after popping the ball up). I didn't start the round well so I'm really proud of the way I stuck in to get a reasonable score- playing to my handicap for the first time in competition, on a day where one of my playing partners (18 handicap) NR'd, and the other (12) scored 95.

On the downside, I started poorly. I got to the club at an OK time, but as the other lads weren't there, I got caught up reading waiting for them and as a result we were rushed onto the tee- no stretching, no quiet time, no playing the preparatory NLP mp3, nowt! Still, drove the green off the first tee. Sadly it was a duck hook onto the 14th green...

I also hadn't done any putting preparation. I'd had an appraisal at work, an annual review, and because of illness my last to had been difficult; I was thus anxious about this one and spent a long time preparing. Although it went very well, it used up a lot of energy, so not much putting practice was had. And by the time I got home on Friday I was exhausted, so didn't really prepare.

I missed stretching on Friday and the following Monday, and only got a half set done before the round.

On the whole, though I'm pleased. Pleased with how I golfed my ball around the back 9 the back 9, at the way I changed my state, at how I hung on despite it not going well, at the par putt after the 3 putt on 17, at being able to accept my putting as it was and then focus on maximising how I used the stroke I have. No technical thoughts to speak of on the course, and I was unhurriedly swift. Kept energy on a much more even keel with fruit, sandwich and low fat cereal bar, and drank more water.

What needs to improve? Putting- short, long and lag. I am a wee bit frustrated that I'm making the same mistake repeatedly- I want to be making new mistakes! This therefore needs work. I don't want to be saying this after my next medal round (not the 15th, as I'm on holiday) so will use this as a motivator if I'm ambivalent to going out when I have the opportunity. My preparation was also poor on the day (again something I said last week) so will lay things out Friday, and get to the club earlier. Need to find a way to get into focus before the first tee, rather than muddling on into the middle of the round. Have added a Cleveland Niblick (42 degree) in place of my 44 degree PW (!- what business does a PW have being 44 degrees? it's a piece of nonsense just done to say clubs go farther...)

Because this handicap is coming down, like it or not!

Right, I'm off to stretch before bed. Toothbrushing exercise before brushing teeth...

If you're interested in joining a golf group where we try out ideas and theories and then discuss them, please have a look at http://ggandmg.blogspot.com, or have a wee search on Twitter for the #ggmg hashtag; join our conversation!

Toothbrushing Exercises

2010-05-05T15:39:00.001-07:00

I read about an interesting concept: the toothbrushing exercise. This refers to things that you accept will just have to happen for things to be as you want. After all, if you don't brush your teeth they decay and fall out. I didn't manage to stretch on Monday, but after hurting my back yesterday, I figured I had to. I want to acheive a lot in golf, so with only taking the game up in my thirties I have to look after myself so stretching has to become a toothbrushing exercise. There will be others. What's yours?

First Medal Score: 104

2010-05-02T14:48:00.000-07:00

You might think I'd be disappointed with that score, and you would be right. But not in fact that disappointed. Yes, it's at the upper end of my usual range; yes, I want to do better. But frankly I was just too happy to be out to be upset, and I'm finally getting to play with (and watch) battle hardened golfers. And I like what I see.

There was also an awful lot to be happy with. I was pretty nervous about the first drive, particularly as there was a bantering group behind us on the tee. Fortunately Laurence and Charlie noticed this and asked if I wanted to go first- the first of many things for which I'm grateful to this pair. I hit a reasonable shot- a little shorter than usual, a little right of where aimed but this wasn't due to an open club-face as it would usually be. We were playing into a strong headwind. It's not unusual to have wind on the course- after all, it's a links course in the North East of Scotland- but it was in the opposite direction to the prevailing wind. Second shot fell short, third was indifferent, then a chip and one putt for a respectable 5. A good start.

Things went wrong on the second. A drive shorter than my usual, again into the wind. I was about 190-200 out, and therefore decided to play 2 iron shots into the green, in accordance with my pre-round plan. Given the wind and playing from an sharply uphill lie I hit a three quarter 8 iron, and then went to hit a similar 9 iron. I wasn't happy over the ball...but still hit the shot; what Dr Joe Parent describes as an "anyway". As usual, the result wasn't good. I hit a dribbly little top into a bunker, short siding myself. First shot left the ball in the sand, second took way too much sand and only just popped out with a chip and a putt for a 7. I started to get a bit down on myself- we were finishing a hole just before the group ahead tee'd off, so time was not an issue.

Crucially, I didn't see this and didn't realise my focus had gone from the shot and 'feeling' the club-face onto the ball onto not embarrassing myself and not holding things up. From a positive to negative focus, with predictable result. I shanked the next tee shot, a 4H(24 deg) to a par three, into tall grass, put recovery into a deep bunker, hit w-a-y too hard off the back of the green, onto a downslope then hit without deciding between a pitch or a chip, fluffed it, hit a chip with my lob wedge rather than go back to get a more appropriate club before hitting first putt way past and four feet wide, then getting down in tow more.

If that last paragraph seems breathless and rushed, that's because it was. I wasn't stopping and taking my time to focus and think, just wanted it to be over to get finished. But even with getting an 8 with all the time these shots took we still had to wait on the next tee. I deviated from my plan as I'd decided I was going to come out of that particular bunker sideways; whilst it may be OK to deviate from a plan it should only happen after some thought something that was definitely lacking.

Fortunately, I caught myself on my way to the next tee. I realised I was scurrying, hunched over, the body language and gait of a man who wanted it to be over. That's not the way to be on the 17th tee, let alone the 4th. I stood tall, put my shoulders back and loped my customary lope with a smile on my face.

I'd love to say that magically sorted everything out, but of course it didn't. The wind was still blowing, the course was substantially longer from the Medal tees and I was regretting leaving my 6 iron out for a 9 wood. But it made all the difference to my attitude and perception, and I started hitting shots that got genuine approval from my playing partners. It was really interesting to see them. My game is improving, but often they weren't hitting shots that were much better than mine, but they were making better decisions on shot and club selection. It feels a bit like learning to drive a car - once you pass your test you start learning how to drive. I feel like I can really move forward from here, that it might not take too long before scores start improving.

I was out in 57, and came back in 47. I focused much better on shots, and hit some lovely shots into the greens. Despite taking my putter too far back and decelerating (the thing I'm working on this next week!) giving me some difficulty controlling my putts, I putted reasonably well. I did have a few misses from short range, but a shorter stroke will sort that. I largely stuck to my plan, played lots of 3/4 and full 9 irons into the greens with good success, largely held onto my focus apart from the odd shot here and there and it never even occurred to me to think of mechanics between shots. Of the things I've started working on after the Instinctive Golf day, I seem to have adopted the baseball grip without too much distress, my club was almost always square and I seem to be starting to be a bit less rigid at address. The last of these is what's giving me the most difficulty, but it's coming into line. It's important to remember I've only been working on these for a fortnight and I've not been at the range once (although I have hit a few balls in the playing fields near home), so this is really very promising.

What will I change next week? Well, I'll be trying to get to the range to try out my 9 degree driver. The 12 degree is too high for a windy links course, really. The 9 wood will come out of my bag, as it's probably too high to consider, and I'll leave the 24 degree hybrid in. I will try to get out to the 6 hole course with my 4 & 5 irons, as if I can start to hit these reliably, the lower flight they offer means that they should probably be considered for the bag, although I suspect next week will be too early for that. And I do love my 6 wood. I'll be working hard on maintaining focus, and not being quite so rushed onto the first tee. I'm going stretch every day this week, and before the round too. I'll add a bit more variety and fruit to my on course snacks, and drink water more frequently. I'm going to change my plan so that I'll be hitting more full/three-quarter 9 irons into the green. But not that much, really.

At home, it'll be putting, putting, putting, with me trying to explore making a shorter, more positive stroke. If anyone reading has any suggestions on how to accomplish this, I would really appreciate it if you'd leave a comment.

I'd like to finish by thanking my playing partners, Laurence and Charlie, once again for taking me out and offering advice and tolerance. Cheers boys, same time next week?

Putting practice

2010-04-27T16:26:00.000-07:00

...So many games, so many ways to train. I've been working on a straight putts between two long thin cylinders set two balls apart, then hit between without touching, and also using PuttPucks as a rebound tool. Hit it from 3-4 feet and try to have ball coming directly back to you (ie no push or pull).

My current favorite is one from the Instinctive Golf Team- Putting Stack- very similar to Dr Joe Parent's game to develop touch, except in reverse- set up three markers. All balls must go from the first marker to between the two others. The first should be as close as possible to the back marker, and all subsequent balls must be behind this, not touching or overlap whilst being further on than the second marker. I made it more difficult tonight by increasing the gap between first two markers but this didn't prevent me smashing my precious record of 6.

Happy days! But ask me after the medal......

How to break 90

2010-04-27T15:43:00.000-07:00

With thanks to Jason Sutton, @onplanegolf and the Golf Guru. Jason's blog can be found here with the details on how to break 90 here (episode 4a). The main gist is below.

"When a player wants to go from 99 to 89……They must do three things. For those of you who follow my blog, you already know this but it is worth mentioning again. 1) You MUST drive it in play….you don’t have to be perfect but you have to eliminate penalty shots during a round….2) No 2 Pitches and chips/you don’t have to hit every pitch or chip close but you absolutely can’t miss the green from 40 yards and in…..3)NO 3 PUTTS! You don’t have to make everything but you can’t three putt. Distance Control is king when it comes to putting. I don’t care if you can’t read a green better than Ray Charles. If your speed is good, I can guarantee you will limit your three putts."

Now 90 is my goal figure, my target for this year. The interesting thing for me is that I've been able to get into the low 90's without adhering to much of this- how much is therefore possible when I train myself to do all of the above? Exciting times.

I'm also very excited as I've had a further "lightbulb" moment. I met a lad out on the Links on Sunday, who had previously played to a low teens handicap in his early teens- I'm always envious of those who learn gold young and who therefore have more natural abilities, and he commented on my alignment. In fact, my alignment with the target line was fine; I just had absolutely no clue what constituted a "square" clubhead, and thus had some challenging ball flights. Every so often I'd get it right by accident/automatically but after a few good shots would start to worry and it'd be away again. After both Keith and the Instinctive Golf team's intervention I explored what worked, and now get the feel of being absorbed in the process, almost "feeling" the ball onto the centre of the clubface. When putting I now at times get so absorbed I am looking at where the ball was for some time after it's gone.

Despite not lining up any club correctly on Sunday, I scored a 94. Short game had improved but not enough up and downs- the next frontier. Managed to have a couple of looks at birdie and one at Eagle (first par 5 green in two!). My first medal round at my new club on my old course. I'm very excited about this.

Currently my 5&6 I are out of my bag, replaced with a 24 deg Hybrid (4H) and 27 degree 9 wood. Perhaps not ideal for Scottish links golf in the wind, but I found a good bit of success playing it low by gripping down, and playing ball back in the stance. I may lose my nerve and remove my 9 wood for my 6 I but we shall see.

I'm going to commit a shot strategy for the King's Links to paper over the next few days, and will undoubtedly have some more thoughts on last Sunday's round and my upcoming Debut Medal,as I'm very excited.
.

Instinctive Golf

2010-04-24T16:25:00.000-07:00

I've been neglecting the blog of late as deadlines and work take centre stage. I've managed some practice, and finally got an in with a golf club (Thank you Laurence, and thank you so much Sheila for the introduction. I owe you one!), so it's not been entirely golf free but the blog has been a casualty. I'm absolutely beat tonight, so this won't be a lengthy post (there will be more early in the week on" how to break 90" and observations of my own game) but I couldn't go any longer without praising the people at Instinctive Golf. Empowering, inspirational and as knowledgeable in teaching as in golf. Absolutely fantastic and a day that started to teach me how to "walk the walk". Kendal McWade is a master of asking the right question, encouraging you to find the right answers in yourself, and Scott Dixon a worthy master practitioner. I will write much much more on this subject but just had to record that. They will be who I will go to further my education, and will encourage those seeking tuition for gifted children to check them out. Brilliant. They can be found here. Check them out, it's free to register and there's some very interesting stuff.

Practice swings...

2010-04-07T16:57:00.000-07:00

...before or beside the ball? Different people do and recommend different things for this. I do both, although on different shots, never on the same shot. I'm quite pleased with my system and the reasoning behind it, so I thought I'd share.

Essentially it boils down to what is more important in the shot; if it's a shot where direction is more important than length (e.g. a tee shot, long approach shots), my rehearsal swings are fom behind the ball on an extension of the ball/target line, whereas if it's a shot where distance control is premium (putts, chips and pitches spring to mind) I make my rehearsal swings beside the ball.

36 holes...

2010-04-04T15:45:00.000-07:00

...this weekend, and much to think about. Will go into the rounds in a bit more detail at a later date (although perhaps not quite so much detail as last night's post) but had a few observations I wanted to note down.

On today's round I had a disappointing start, and in fact lost a ball on the first hole. I went back and started again, something I regret. It's just not golf, and if I had broken 90 it wouldn't, couldn't have counted. It's not something I'd do again. Fortunately I shot 96 so that wasn't an issue, but it could have been and I'd have been absolutely gutted if I had - not something I want to feel on breaking 90. 35 putts, 40 the day before.

Even with that mulligan, I started poorly, and had also done so the day before. I need to start focusing when starting the car, and thinking about the first tee.

My short game is rusty; my pitching is a lot more consistent, but just need to get the distances down. Chipping needs a lot more work on the stroke, as well as distances. Too often I'm hitting a short game shot, then needing 2 putts (or more). At the moment, even with the ball reasonably far away I'm getting the putt very close; if I can get even a bit closer most of the time that should mean a few more putts holed. I really want to get to the point where I feel there's a chance of getting up and down whenever I miss a green in regulation, I feel that the most important thing for my scoring is becoming a master of the short game; this isn't just about the old "drive for show, putt for dough" adage; when I did Carey Mumford's behaviour style test I came out as a "persuader", the dominant style of the extrovert. That suggests that I won't get the ball to fly straight all of the time, that I can play "Army" golf (Left,Right,Left) but be saved by an aptitude for the short game. And my experience backs that up; often I was in a position to make a decent score despite not deserving to, and just a bit more short game sharpness would have seen me save par (Given my handicap, that's effectively a birdie). I also like the idea of being the type of player that constantly who looks like they're out of a hole but grinds out a score due to their short game mastery- that would be pretty cool.

After writing last night's post I was in contemplative mood, and wrote down a few thoughts, and worked with half swings of my irons. I had a few relaxed and effortless swings that flew well, and I stopped to think what I'd done differently in these swings. I realised that my grip had been very light, lighter than I thought it needed to be, but it produced these lovely swings. It seemed that it made it an awful lot easier to avoid flipping the club.

I putted for a bit and hit a few chips before going back to check it out, as often what I think has made the difference turns out to be something that happened coincidentally but fortunately not in this case. I finally seem to be getting the hang of setting up square with my irons too. My drives now tend to be a pull, pull-draw/hook; I'm going to experiment at the range with using that swing but hitting the ball from the inside, which will hopefully straighten out the flight, although it's easy enough to aim for thankfully.

I managed to string a few good holes together today, and got the fear that comes with not wanting to mess up that run. I started second guessing my club-face aim, hit a power shank (the slicing equivalent of a duck hook) then did the same into a bunker. I'm glad it happened as I need to know how to deal with it if I want to score well. My plan is to use the ClearKey "Never Eat Shredded Wheat" if I'm at all tense prior to a shot or if anything is interrupting the flow of my routine. I'm also going to use it without fail after every poor shot (eg shank). Limiting damage to less than one shot on average if at all possible.

Family is away this week, so it's short game bootcamp for this geek up at the local pitch and putt. None of the proper practice greens are open yet, so that'll be where focus my practice. I feel if I can improve my pitching and also my 1/2 and 3/4 irons that should have a good knock-on effect with my irons and ball striking in general and also work on my aiming, something I often do poorly. It's not uncommon for me to think I've pulled a shot and then check my aim with a club across my legs and realise I've hit it exactly where I was pointing.

Putting wasn't the best again; on Saturday had 40, Sunday 35. I paid attention to what was happening though, and realised I was decelerating. I then tried to stop doing that and of course the ball sailed past the hole, so by the end of the round on Sunday I was taking the club much less far back which started to improve things. I think it's likely that this was the cause of deceleration in the first place. Going to do some work in the breaks in the Masters- although it's on the BBC so no ads, the host broadcaster does of course have them so there are large gaps. I've got putt pucks to use as a rebound tool, trying to get putts to bounce straight back after hitting the pucks, which I'll use as well as a putting cup.

Oh, and I sank a thirty footer for par on the 18th, most gratifying!

A lot to ponder, and some things to do. Hoping the practice greens are open soon.

First full 18 of the year...

2010-04-03T15:43:00.000-07:00

...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

Interest and Commitment

2010-03-24T16:43:00.000-07:00

There's a difference between interest and commitment. If you're interested in something you do it only when it's convenient. When you're committed to something you accept no excuses; only results.

-Kenneth Blanchard

I'm a happy geek...

2010-03-24T14:54:00.000-07:00

...it's not only Hannibal Smith who loves it when a plan comes together. Even the fact that Master Geek appears to be teething and is sitting on my knee at 10.30pm restricting my typing to one handed cannot deflate me.

The amazing thing is that my breakthrough had the most inauspicious of beginnings. I had a pretty lousy day at work, and came home in a mood that refused to lift, despite the best efforts of Mrs Geek. Around 9pm I realised I wasn't going to achieve much, and after some none too subtle hints from Mrs Geek caught up with some angry comedy. I felt a bit bad that I'd not managed any practice but knew that the chances of me managing anything productive were slim.

And yet...the mind is a strange thing. Without realising it, I must've been mulling over this and marrying it to this. As my mood lifted, I had an urge to try this out; My downstairs hall will tolerate anything up to a half swing with anything up to a five iron (this was discovered the hard way. The money to pay the handyman to fix my dents came from my golf fund. The fact I'm still alive to tell the tale tells you how much of a saint my wife is ;-)

Because I've started to practice deliberately, trying to feel my swings, it was easy to feel the right arm extension through the ball and the downward hit; I realised this is what I did when I hit the pitch shots I was happiest with. I then added Terry Koehler's instruction to look at the front edge of the ball if you want to get that crisp, "trapping" strike (more of Terry's instruction can be found here)

I then tried with my eight and five irons, and this was also very promising. I initially used a more pitch-like swing, with the upper and lower body more synchronised. From my time at the range, I know I hit it further if I swing with more of a whip-like action (I feel my lower body turn start first, my upper body lagging a bit more). I did this, and results were again good. To be honest, I'll wait and see which swing is more consistent at the range; I'm pretty sure I can get past the macho nonsense and go for accuracy over distance with my irons. I tried again tonight, and the feeling's still there. And it feels good.

I discovered John Graham (@JohnGrahamGolf) and Jason, the Golf Guru (@onplanegolf) on Twitter, and both are remarkably good teachers.The key for me was the concept that flipping came as a result of "stalling the pivot" and the video evidence both of John's and Jason's showed us exactly what they meant- any ex-golf magazine tip junky knows that "scooping the ball in the air" is bad, but not many can tell you exactly what that means, let alone the way to cure it demonstrated in Jason's blog (John also has drills to stop flipping; he is incredibly involved in the technical aspects of golf, but also very passionate about the need for awareness, something often missed by the more technical teacher).

My suspicion is that, although it may often seem that there are many different theories and ways to swing, a great deal of the variation is due to the same things being expressed in many ways. A truly great teacher won't rest until they have found the correct way to express this so a student gets it (the archetype of this might be the late Mr Penick). Twitter seems to have a number of these teachers, who will not only share their knowledge but also engage with those wishing clarification. I'm a subscriber to the Golf Smarter Podcast too, and there are a great many interesting coaches on there too and the 45 minute average is a good length of time to form an opinion on the methods and theories proposed.

As if that wasn't enough, I had a great run on the putting "leapfrog" to develop putting "touch"- not only did I have my highest score, and my first run with no balls short, I then followed it with a score of 7, with the eighth just sliding past the back marker.

A good couple of evenings all in all, from an inauspicious beginning.

It's been a while...

2010-03-22T14:25:00.000-07:00

...life gets in the way of golf far too often. However, I've had some progress. I've had some sessions at the range, using the practice "challenges" suggested by Neil Plimmer and VISION54; these give deep practice, and I do my best to use my full routine on every shot, also picking a target.

I've also been doing putting drills at home- Dr Parent's putting games for touch and feel (his game for touch is suggested in slightly different forms in a few of the blogs I'm following), as well as the "ladder out/cluster back drill" (hit putts, with ball going twice as far each time, and then back to starting point. Do it with eyes closed for an even bigger challenge)

That's the good points. The bad is that I haven't done enough of it yet. Not nearly enough. There is mitigation- I took golf up during a long period of illness, with lots of time off work, nearly three years. I've been returning to work, and am trying to get to full time. I'm getting there, but tired. However, I need golf now, and will try to accommodate it around family life as much as I'm able. With it getting lighter at night this should be easier. Mrs Geek is being fantastic, but I can't ask too much of her; will try to make my medal rounds early Saturday mornings for example.

Have managed at least one practice a week but will try to up that to 2-3 times. Encouraged by results on the course though.

In the past I've had real issues getting my club down square, pushing and pulling the ball to the point where I was almost screaming in frustration. I stared and stared at it until it looked ridiculous whatever I did, like when you spend too long looking at a word and it's alternative spellings until they look like hieroglyphics. And every time I thought I'd got it down, it'd start happening again, and again and again.

And then I decided to forget about it- went for what I term an "outward" focus. I would go through my new routine (from the wonderful Golfer Within series of Roseanna Leaton's) which is select target, abdominal breath whilst blinking once then slow programming swing behind ball, then stepping into my setup, putting club down whilst looking at the target. And then not changing position, not even a little bit. Then one last look at the target, place tongue just behind teeth and focus on keeping it in place, relaxing feet and turning back to the ball, then immediately starting my swing, rather than my old habit of trying to stare thee ball into submission. I have in the past used a clearkey with excellent effect, but I'd started to rush my last one (easy-peasey-lemon-squeezy) and thus my swing, so the tongue trick is taking the place of it just now; I may substitute the phrase "Never Eat Shredded Wheat" if the tongue trick loses it's magic.

Results with this are absolutely fantastic. I feel very positive about this season. Goals include: 4 off handicap and breaking 90. I'd also like to experience the pressure of being in contention in a competition, so I think Stableford competitions are the best chance of that.

I'm also invovled in some very interesting discussions on Twitter (@mightyalmac). Should you happen to chance upon this blog, feel free to look me up.

Statistics tell us that the average handicap has not decreased in 20 years, which probably constitutes a rise in real terms given improvements in clubs,courses and balls.

I am determined to buck this trend- I will improve!
(of course, there are likely to be frustrations along the way- I hope to chronicle these with a degree of humour and humility, but will settle for one out the two ;-)

Tried to get out for a round...

2010-02-17T14:21:00.000-08:00

...but weirdly, many flags had been taken out of the holes. I'm not entirely sure if this is jus a consequence of municipal course golf or if it was to protect the course- it was either pretty soggy or I've suddenly become the master of backspin. (hint: it's not the latter). Course was closed today, so went to the range. Did Neil Plimmer's 18 shot challenge, which went OK but did far too much scrape & hit. Started to have my old weird aiming issues- pushing my irons, pulling my woods, but think now I'm starting to get the better of it. My focus needs to be outwards, at the target, not downward at the ball/club interface. This seems to help.

Got back to the range this evening (unheard of luxury- had parent's evening at Ms Geek's nursery, slid off to range after) and just concentrated on trying to make free swings focusing on the target. Herein the future lies for me at present. Have made a few other discoveries, but want to explore them a little more before blogging them.

Have become part of a fascinating golf community on Twitter; I'm really excited about this and have already learned a lot. So much so I've added this blog's URL to my profile. Now all I need to do is write some more...

to be continued!

Scotland's mini ice age...

2010-01-06T11:20:00.000-08:00

...has quashed my plans to practice over the Christmas period. I can't believe that I took my golf clubs from home to the in-laws, back home then on to my folk's place and back to my in-laws. They have been out 3 times- each time for practice with aides that I'd got for Christmas not for "proper"golf , but I do have to face up to the fact that it has been mostly a waste of time.

Or has it? Although I've not done much, what I have done has been quality, and I feel that I'm close to getting my swing to a very good place- the best place it's ever been in terms of impact, plane, tempo and crucially repeatibility; I've been using the "Golfing with your eyes closed" book to work through visualisation, and also worked with Vision54's MYGAME to think through my preshot planning in the "think box". I'm really itching for the snow to clear to allow me get onto the course to try it out.

I'm also really excited about a new hypnotherapy course. I first started using hypnotherapt after my Mum got me Paul McKenna's "Great Golf" video, which was cancelled in the library, for the princely sum of £1. This in terms of cost is by far and away the best purchase I've made in terms of golf improvement, and is up there in terms of all purchases. I've been using several hypnotherapy programs from iTunes, having wanted something I could hear through headphones and that was more portable and versatile than a video. These include Glenn Harrold's Great Golf, one by Darren Mark and the Golf Doctor series. These are all fairly useful and have helped ny game but are pretty general; little work on short game or putting, the scoring shots.

I did a Google search, and came across Roseanna Leaton's "Golfer Within" series. Although more expensive than the other ones, they look very detailed and absolutely fantastic. I toyed with ordering the entire mental skills package, and would have done had it not been just after Christmas, but settled instead on the short game, putting and winning disks. If they arfe as good as I think they'll be, I'll go back for the others. I've introduced her to Fred Greene of the excellent "Golf Smarter" podcast, so hopefully she'll be a guest on there and hopefully I might be able to ask for a cheeky discount for my future purchases!

I've also started using the Powerball, a hand-held gyroscope; they are endorsed by a long drive champion, so we'll see how that goes. Not something I would have bought, but was a gift from my brother and his wife; as I've mentioned above my family's gifts have worked out well before, so we'll see how this one goes. I also got the 5minutes to tee time warm up program, which looks really good; well, it got a good review (a filler piece) in Golf Monthly, but looked underwhelming when it arrived. I did the stretches last night and was very impressed. Although it's meant as a warm-up, I'm not the most flexible, so it might well work as a stretching program, particularly if repeated a few times. Interesting. Hopefully we'll be home soon (we're currently stranded at the inlaws) for Wii Fit+ and a customisable routine...

Goals for 2010

2010-01-01T09:13:00.000-08:00

The first of January does seem a good time to record some goals.
This year I want to:

1.Break 90
2.Play in medals
3.Be in contention in a competition
4.Drop handicap by 4 strokes to 24

This may be tricky, Miss Geek and Master Geek are 3.5 years and 3.5 months old respectively, and my golf cannot be at their expense. Not only do I not want this, the fragrant but no nonsense Mrs. Geek would never allow it. However, I got a number of training aides for Christmas, and I will continue to work on short game, putting and flexibility over the winter and try to get out as much as possible over the summer after the kids in bed. I'm working on a number of things in mental game and through Vision54 I've looked hard at how to practice; they also have an online mentoring program that I'm a member of, and I'm goign to use this to track rounds, stats etc.
I'm taking part in the #TTUC, the Twitter Trim Up Challenge, which I'm going to use to help motivate me to do the Yoga and Muscle workouts in Wii Fit & Wii Fit+.

Plenty to be going on with then. As if that wasn't ambitious enough, my ultimate goal is to try to get to scratch, to allow me to attempt to qualify for the senior open, and perhaps even to take part in qualifying for The Open Championship. I have 25 years for this last, with 60 being the limit. The goal is obviously not to be competetive, but to play a part in the oldest and most prestigious of golf championships.

I've also become very interested in the mental game of golf, and this is a thread I'm going to pick at to see where it ultimately leads.

We shall see!

Been a while...

2009-12-31T18:33:00.000-08:00

...but I'm back, armed with a notebook, nore thoughts on how to learn and some increasingly defined goals, along with having signed up for #TTUC, the Twitter Trim Up Challenge, and I may well put this URL on my twitter profile to see if I get some traffic; the group seems very nice and supportive & I've picked up a few followers-always good.

It is 3am, though and will need to get up with kids in the morning so will stop playing with new notebook and get to sleep!

Practice Plan

2009-10-26T17:20:00.000-07:00

Just spent most of the evening drawing up various practice plans on 6x4 cards. Really unsure as to the ultimate purpose of this- is it to aid improvement or is it in fact a way to feel like I'm working at golf, even though I'm not, a bit like those entire evenings spent drawing up incredibly elaborate study plans that I knew would never be followed? Time, and scores will tel, although I'm a bit concerned that the use of three different ink colours indicates at least a touch of the latter...

A little background...

2009-10-24T14:49:00.001-07:00

Perhaps it might be an idea to give a bit of background. I'm a 28 handicap golf addict, a family man who is absolutely determined to improve or to die trying, and this is an attempt to chronicle my successes and let's face it failures and frustrations along the way. Hopefully with a bit of humour and humility.

I still can't quite believe I'm as smitten with the game as I am. I tried the game in my teens after moving to a town where seemingly everyone played and hated it. Mostly it was because I had no natural ability, and absolutely no patience to persist with a anything that looked like the ratio of fun to work was unfavorable. But it was also the seemingly endless silly little rules, which at the time seemed to have been made up by my playing partners on the spot with the sole purpose of making me feel even more uncomfortable and out of place (this may in fact have been the case; they were enjoying my discomfiture a little too much). Even now, although I recognise that much of the etiquette of golf is absolutely necessary to ensure all enjoy it (replacing divots, being quiet when someone is playing a shot) there is an awful lot of nonsense that some people take very very seriously. I don't tend to wear jeans, even on the courses that allow it, but this is simply because I believe denim isn't a great material to walk around wet grass in, rather than a belief that civilisation will end if Levis are sighted on the Links.

But it's funny how life goes. After resisting the overtures of many friends I finally succumbed to trying it, and this was at a time I was realising, after abandoning partying following the birth of Miss Geek, and just coming out of the the early, all consuming phase of parenthood, that I had no pastimes or hobbies, nothing just for me. Mrs Geek also encouraged me, something she now professess to regret.

And I loved it, despite confirming my lack of natural ability. I was then off work for a long long time with a bizarre, chronic abdominal pain thing (still ongoing). This meant that although there were some days where I couldn't do anything, there were many others where Mrs Geek was at work and Miss Geek at nursery that golf really helped take my mind off what could be wrong, as this was at a stage where several unpleasant diagnoses were being bandied about, and it really really helped.

And then it snowballed, on and on, to a four magazine a month, lessons every week addiction. It's evolved- I realise now that magazines are an often harmful distraction, finding a helpful tip is a bit like panning for gold you have to sift through an awful lot of mud before finding a nugget- but it's never left and has even intensified. I've listened to about a hundred hours of golf podcasts, read countless books and even managed to converse with really interesting and thought provoking teachers. I hope to share some of that, chronicle my thoughts and responses and see how they evolve over time. I'm also hoping people will read, and contribute their thoughts and experiences, but we'll just have to see what happens.

The Golf Geek goes mobile!

2009-10-24T13:26:00.000-07:00

Alright, so it's only the second post (and the first that isn't just a title) but I'm excited. I thought my posts would have to come from my computer, and was concerned that I would struggle to shift Mrs Geek's fingers from Bejewelled Blitz on the laptop. The fact I can do it from my phone massively increases my chances of keeping this up.

Managed a range session today, my first since Master Geek was born some 6 weeks ago. My delight was slightly decreased by Mrs Geek spending a bit longer than anticipated at the supermarket but managed to offset this by wangling 50 free range balls entirely by accident. Then got onto the range to find driving rain and a wind so fierce that it took my 5 iron to reach a green 110yards into the wind. While I'm not the longest hitter with my irons I can generally rely on another 40-70 yards with this club...

Was glad the balls were free, ended up doing scrape and hit, a habit I must get out of, but today was not the day for standing thoughtfully behind the ball before going through a full pre shot routine. I was glad to get out, and I think it's probably best to leave it at that.

First Post: Could of course be the last...

2009-10-23T12:57:00.000-07:00

New to all of this, will have to see how it goes...