GOLF - 2023

[Greenie]

First competition of the year for me as well and my first ever medal. Didn’t realise it was a medal until the first tee - which is just as well as I might not have turned up

Made a concerted effort not to have swing thoughts - just play golf. It was cold and and wind gusting to 30mph - so tough. Happy to shoot 84 - nett 74.

Winner was 67 nett which seems just incredible in those conditions - they weren’t high hcps. But trying to think about it with 120 entrants maybe it’s not so bad. If I played 120 rounds in one of those I will play great, putt everything and get all the breaks as well. So it can happen. You should have to do something special to beat 119 others.

[fourstardan]

Greenie said:

First competition of the year for me as well and my first ever medal. Didn’t realise it was a medal until the first tee - which is just as well as I might not have turned up

Made a concerted effort not to have swing thoughts - just play golf. It was cold and and wind gusting to 30mph - so tough. Happy to shoot 84 - nett 74.

Winner was 67 nett which seems just incredible in those conditions - they weren’t high hcps. But trying to think about it with 120 entrants maybe it’s not so bad. If I played 120 rounds in one of those I will play great, putt everything and get all the breaks as well. So it can happen. You should have to do something special to beat 119 others.

Trouble is if I do do something special invariably I've been beaten by a 22HCP shooting Nett 59 lol

[bodhi]

Sounds like some impressive scoring over the weekend for the point of the season we are in!

We had the last day of Winter League so less formal than the others, still managed an 82 for 34 points. A few highlights/lowlights:

- Birdied the 1st. Always hate doing that as there's only one way things can go after that, and after following it up with a bogey and a double, I wasn't far wrong

- Managed to miss a putt of less than a foot for 2 points on the 7th. I didn't actually "miss" as I hit the centre of the cup, sadly the pin was still in and the cup was full of water after the rain on Saturday, so it bounced off, skimmed off the surface water and ended up 2 feet away.

- Started rehearsing my impact position drill as part of my set up. Trying not to do it just before takeway else I'll end up looking like Matt Woolfe, but is having promising results. Still struggling for proper iron contact off the fairway, got a nice repeatable draw off the tee however.

- Won £4 for nearest the pin on the 18th, after putting a 6 iron to about 5 feet. Apparently after it landed it hit the existing nearst the pin marker which knocked it the inch I needed to beat it by a couple of inches.

- Also lost my first ball of 2023, albeit only after 27 holes in that time. Wasn't even a terrible shot, just took an aggressive line on the 6th - the hole I've posted before - and pulled it slightly meaning it was in the cabbage. Lipped out for a bogey on the same hole though so Player 2 did well

[Ashfordian]

fourstardan said:

Greenie said:

First competition of the year for me as well and my first ever medal. Didn’t realise it was a medal until the first tee - which is just as well as I might not have turned up

Made a concerted effort not to have swing thoughts - just play golf. It was cold and and wind gusting to 30mph - so tough. Happy to shoot 84 - nett 74.

Winner was 67 nett which seems just incredible in those conditions - they weren’t high hcps. But trying to think about it with 120 entrants maybe it’s not so bad. If I played 120 rounds in one of those I will play great, putt everything and get all the breaks as well. So it can happen. You should have to do something special to beat 119 others.

Trouble is if I do do something special invariably I've been beaten by a 22HCP shooting Nett 59 lol

In my experience, wind is one of the few conditions that equalises the field and gives the lower handicappers a chance to win in a competition.

[RayDonovan]

Well done all with the comps starting. We're yet to get onto full course so I'm still unable to put any cards in to establish my handicap.

Hopefully playing Friday if the weather holds out, been a busy few weeks with work and struggled to get out.

[fourstardan]

bodhi said:

Sounds like some impressive scoring over the weekend for the point of the season we are in!

We had the last day of Winter League so less formal than the others, still managed an 82 for 34 points. A few highlights/lowlights:

- Birdied the 1st. Always hate doing that as there's only one way things can go after that, and after following it up with a bogey and a double, I wasn't far wrong

- Managed to miss a putt of less than a foot for 2 points on the 7th. I didn't actually "miss" as I hit the centre of the cup, sadly the pin was still in and the cup was full of water after the rain on Saturday, so it bounced off, skimmed off the surface water and ended up 2 feet away.

- Started rehearsing my impact position drill as part of my set up. Trying not to do it just before takeway else I'll end up looking like Matt Woolfe, but is having promising results. Still struggling for proper iron contact off the fairway, got a nice repeatable draw off the tee however.

- Won £4 for nearest the pin on the 18th, after putting a 6 iron to about 5 feet. Apparently after it landed it hit the existing nearst the pin marker which knocked it the inch I needed to beat it by a couple of inches.

- Also lost my first ball of 2023, albeit only after 27 holes in that time. Wasn't even a terrible shot, just took an aggressive line on the 6th - the hole I've posted before - and pulled it slightly meaning it was in the cabbage. Lipped out for a bogey on the same hole though so Player 2 did well

Ive had holes full of water in a comp....not fun!

[Greenie]

Ashfordian said:

fourstardan said:

Greenie said:

First competition of the year for me as well and my first ever medal. Didn’t realise it was a medal until the first tee - which is just as well as I might not have turned up

Made a concerted effort not to have swing thoughts - just play golf. It was cold and and wind gusting to 30mph - so tough. Happy to shoot 84 - nett 74.

Winner was 67 nett which seems just incredible in those conditions - they weren’t high hcps. But trying to think about it with 120 entrants maybe it’s not so bad. If I played 120 rounds in one of those I will play great, putt everything and get all the breaks as well. So it can happen. You should have to do something special to beat 119 others.

Trouble is if I do do something special invariably I've been beaten by a 22HCP shooting Nett 59 lol

In my experience, wind is one of the few conditions that equalises the field and gives the lower handicappers a chance to win in a competition.

Fourst - just don’t look at the Div 2 scores - it’s the only way

Think medal helps as well - lower hcp less likely to completely blow a hole.

[bodhi]

One thing I forgot to mention is I found a Q-Star Divide on Sunday and put it in play for the last 4 holes, and was properly impressed. The Q-Star is a great ball anyway, but I couldn't get over how easy it was to see out there - just what I've been looking for all winter.

However I've gone to buy some more and they look really difficult to find - can only get them on Amazon for £40 a dozen which is a bit pricey - anyone know if they are still available?

[s94wht]

bodhi said:

One thing I forgot to mention is I found a Q-Star Divide on Sunday and put it in play for the last 4 holes, and was properly impressed. The Q-Star is a great ball anyway, but I couldn't get over how easy it was to see out there - just what I've been looking for all winter.

However I've gone to buy some more and they look really difficult to find - can only get them on Amazon for £40 a dozen which is a bit pricey - anyone know if they are still available?

Which colour?

[bodhi]

s94wht said:

bodhi said:

One thing I forgot to mention is I found a Q-Star Divide on Sunday and put it in play for the last 4 holes, and was properly impressed. The Q-Star is a great ball anyway, but I couldn't get over how easy it was to see out there - just what I've been looking for all winter.

However I've gone to buy some more and they look really difficult to find - can only get them on Amazon for £40 a dozen which is a bit pricey - anyone know if they are still available?

Which colour?

Red/yellow preferably. I've found some Lake Balls, but looking for brand new.

[48Valves]

As this was our 9th tee at the weekend so we had to play somewhere else.



The only place near us and open was Lakeside Lodge near Huntingdon. Which never seems to close no matter how bad the weather. So faced with playing there or not at all, we begrudgingly handed over £30 each to play.

In fairness, the course wasn’t the muddy swamp I remember. It was in fact pretty dry in most places with the odd area of standing water on the fairways and in bunkers and in pretty decent condition. The greens and surrounds however, were terrible. Hitting full shots was fine, anything that required a delicate touch was difficult.

Given the conditions, a 20mph wind, a quad, a double and a couple of hilarious 3 putts my 84 wasn’t too bad. But it was one of those rounds where I felt I played better than I scored.

Next weekend we have our first board comp and first round of one of the club knockouts.

[theguvernor15]

It's an interesting concept the HC system.

At our club it seems to be totally random who wins a comp, typically you can have a 9 HC winning a club champs, by shooting 4 under their HC, which is pretty impressive when you think they've almost played 4 under their HC & they beat all the Cat 1 golfers.

I don't think a 22 HC playing to 18 is that impressive, however they only have to par 4 holes to shoot 4 under, however, in theory based on their ability they're also equally as likely to shoot triples or doubles on multiple holes.

Our club has just announced that they're going to begin reviewing HC's as there is a number of members who appear to have 'engineered' their HC's up to say 18 & have won a number of the weekly stableford events!

The most logical way i think is divisions in the main comps & having a scratch prize, it was always the way it worked when i was a Jr.

I'm currently a HI of 15.8, so play off 16 around my course, a good round for me can be as low as 9, a bad round can be equivalent to a 22/24.

Touch wood, i've been working on my game over the winter with regular coaching & overall, my game is in a fairly good place going into the new year, hoping to get closer to single figures by the end of the season, as is always the way, i can never seem to hook up all areas of my game.

I've had a few rounds with Cat 1 golfers & one of my playing partners is off around 3 & they all say the same about my game, it's just the consistency (easier said than done), i have all the ability in the world, i just can't string it all together on a round.

I personally love a bit of match-play, i find it equally as competitive as i do fun, one bad hole doesn't ruin an entire round, but it also means you have a bit of a chance as a mid-handicapper playing against a high handicapper or a low one.

[Blackpuddin]

theguvernor15 said:

Our club has just announced that they're going to begin reviewing HC's as there is a number of members who appear to have 'engineered' their HC's up to say 18 & have won a number of the weekly stableford events!

That is pretty pathetic IMO and deserves a hefty punishment if proveable.

[s94wht]

Blackpuddin said:

theguvernor15 said:

Our club has just announced that they're going to begin reviewing HC's as there is a number of members who appear to have 'engineered' their HC's up to say 18 & have won a number of the weekly stableford events!

That is pretty pathetic IMO and deserves a hefty punishment if proveable.

Kick him off the tour, Doug!

[oyster]

Blackpuddin said:

theguvernor15 said:

Our club has just announced that they're going to begin reviewing HC's as there is a number of members who appear to have 'engineered' their HC's up to say 18 & have won a number of the weekly stableford events!

That is pretty pathetic IMO and deserves a hefty punishment if proveable.

The punishment is a handicap cut - it's what the new system is so good at.
Unless the club isn't counting these events as qualifiers, but I can't see why they're not.

[RayDonovan]

Problem is you're getting people manipulating handicaps at both ends of the spectrum. Lower for vanity and higher to win stuff.

I played last year with quite a few low handicap players (around scratch) and was distinctly unimpressed with 95% of them. In the good old days, scratch meant something...

[Tycho]

RayDonovan said:

Problem is you're getting people manipulating handicaps at both ends of the spectrum. Lower for vanity and higher to win stuff.

I played last year with quite a few low handicap players (around scratch) and was distinctly unimpressed with 95% of them. In the good old days, scratch meant something...

TBH I wouldn't care about someone lowering their handicap as it doesn't impact anyone but themselves. Sandbagging however does impact others and I'd like to see clubs be able to cut handicaps and ban players from comps.

It would be difficult to prove though I guess as I played with a guy off 45 a few weeks ago and he could shoot under his handicap by quite a few shots just by not hitting a really bad shot that would take him 3 to get back on the fairway.

[DuncanM]

45HC is insane, 28max men's was a good idea, if you can't play to that, then you shouldn't be winning comps.

Where's the incentive to learn to play the game better with ridiculous HCs?

[Ashfordian]

DuncanM said:

45HC is insane, 28max men's was a good idea, if you can't play to that, then you shouldn't be winning comps.

Where's the incentive to learn to play the game better with ridiculous HCs?

Agree. I would go further and implement 80% of hcp for comps with a maximum hcp allowance of 18.

The game needs to use comps in such a way as an incentive for people to get their handicap lower. Most golfers are trying to do this, but there are a number who are happy to sit comfortably on their high handicap, and even a few who sandbag to have a higher handicap for when the comps come around.

[oyster]

Ashfordian said:

DuncanM said:

45HC is insane, 28max men's was a good idea, if you can't play to that, then you shouldn't be winning comps.

Where's the incentive to learn to play the game better with ridiculous HCs?

Agree. I would go further and implement 80% of hcp for comps with a maximum hcp allowance of 18.

The game needs to use comps in such a way as an incentive for people to get their handicap lower. Most golfers are trying to do this, but there are a number who are happy to sit comfortably on their high handicap, and even a few who sandbag to have a higher handicap for when the comps come around.

With only 8 of the last 20, sandbagging is much harder.
Unless they deliberately ‘throw’ 4 out of every 5 rounds, they won’t be able to keep their h/c high enough.