On Sunday May 29th, Luke Donald won the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, beating Lee Westwood in a play off. The World number 1, (Westwood) against the World number 2, (Donald). By beating Westwood, Donald took over the mantle of World number 1.

Steve Parsons/PA Wire.

Hardly news breaking as it’s now 4 days after the event and his victory and Number 1 status was covered in great depth on television, in the news and all over the internet.

Yet for the average golfer, Donald’s achievement is special and offers us all hope to emulate his achievements in our own small way.

Derek Lawrenson,  in the Daily Mail on Tuesday May 31st, wrote:

“…I had dinner with Tiger Woods then coach, Hank Haney and he couldn’t have been more disparaging about Donald….how can he expect to compete against players like Tiger who belt the ball 30 yards past him on every hole?”

Well compete he does and now he’s rightly World number 1.

How does this help us?

On Saturday I played in a club competition. My partners on the tee were a 10 handicapper and a 2 handicapper. When I found out who I would be playing with on the Friday before, I was a little more than worried in fact I had a very bad night’s sleep.

I could imagine both players hitting their tee shots miles past mine, getting on the greens in regulation every hole whilst I was playing 3 or four shots at least to get onto the greens!

At the first hole, the 10 handicapper drove his ball way left, (ending up on the 18th fairway) whilst the 2 handicapper hit his way right into the rough and the trees.

How, I don’t know, I hit my opening tee shot straight down the middle of the first fairway. Admittedly, I was at least 100 yards behind both their balls, but mine was straight!

Our opening hole is a par 5 and I managed to get the ball onto the green for a 3 leaving me with a birdie putt. The 10 handicapper hit an absolutely fantastic shot from the 18th fairway over the trees, onto the green, 2 feet from the pin, sinking his putt for a phenomenal eagle.

The 2 handicapper also hit the green in 3, missed the putt and sank his second putt for a par.

Me, I sank my putt for a birdie!

On the second hole, the 10 handicapper pushed his drive way right into the trees, the 2 handicapper pulled his way left onto the 14th fairway and again, I hit mine straight down the middle, once again at least 100 yards behind their shots.

Both my partners hit amazing second shots, one scoring a birdie, the other scoring par and I bogeyed.

I was now starting to feel more comfortable. I knew that they could out drive me but that was no longer a problem. I just played my own game and scored reasonably well. They both beat me, the 2 handicapper by 4 shots and the 10 handicapper by 2 shots, but I learned that I should play my own game and play to my own strengths.

Both my opponents had their own problems throughout the round despite their handicap.

So where does Luke Donald come in? When Luke was asked about his lack of distance in driving by comparison with some of the longer hitters and the longer courses, he pointed out that he played his own game and to his own strengths. He just practices putting his drives in the fairway, his second shot as close to the hole as possible and making certain that he is one of the best putters on the tour.

The lesson is, play to your own strengths. Play the course not your opponent. He will have his own troubles.

My confidence in my golf game and my initial improvement can be put down to the programme I have created, and the application of that programme.

But, things do go wrong on the golf course.

A good example was Luke Donald’s performance in the Doral tournament earlier this month. Donald went into the final day in second place, 2 shots off the lead.

The first three days of the tournament, he played in typical Donald fashion. He isn’t the longest hitter on tour, but he is one of the most accurate. One of his strengths is hitting the fairways which allows him to play his unerringly accurate shots to the green.

On the final day, he couldn’t consistently hit a fairway with his drives and consequently missed greens and dropped shots finishing the tournament tied in 6th place.

Donald clearly knew why he was spraying his drives and possibly tried to make  the relevant adjustments during his round to overcome the problem. I expect that for his next tournament, he will have worked on the problem and ensured that he has made whatever necessary corrections to revert to his normal accuracy.

So even the Pro’s who spend hours honing their swing can experience a problem. The advantage they have is  they have the skill to know what is going wrong and they have the support backup of a coach to help them correct the problem off the course.

For many of us, we don’t have the immediate recourse to back up support, so it becomes even more important that we uncover for ourselves what causes the problem we are experiencing during our round, so that even if we can’t find the solution in the round itself, we can work on eliminating the fault off the course ready for our next round.

I played with my  mate, Dave on Wednesday last week and during the round started to slice my drives.

Now we all know that slices are caused by having an open club face when it strikes the ball and most high handicappers try to resolve this by closing the golf face at set up or by aiming well left, but these changes just seem to amplify the problem and the result.

I knew exactly what I was doing wrong. My club face was arriving at the ball in front of my hands, thus ensuring that the club face was open. Whatever I tried during the round didn’t work, but I knew what I had to work on, off the course.

The corrections I made allowed me to shoot par in the Saturday, President’s Cup competition which was the subject of my last post.

On Saturday, I never sliced one drive. I did slice a couple of 4 and 5 iron shots, but I knew what I had to do and was able to correct this problem so overall I played consistently well. As mentioned in my last post, my problem is in my lack of ability to play out of a greenside bunker!

Unless we can recognise the reason for faults that occur during a round, we cannot correct it, without recourse to a lesson with our Golf Pro. So understanding why things are happening gives us the great advantage of being able to put in a self help correction programme.

There is so much written about the golf swing. A lot of teachers break the swing down to such a degree that it only helps to confuse. A book I found to be absolutely invaluable was ‘Nail It’ by an English golf Pro, Joe Hagan.

Joe isn’t concerned with the way we swing. His major concern is helping us to understand how to ‘apply the club to the ball through impact’.

We are all aware that clubs have ‘sweet spots’. Joe states, ‘To move a golf ball forward powerfully, we have to apply pressure into the core of the ball with the club’s sweet spot. Because golf clubs have loft, (to get the ball into the air) this pressure can only be effectively achieved with the club shaft leant forward at impact…’

‘Nail It’ goes on to describe in words and pictures how to achieve this.

Ultimately the purpose of the swing is to deliver the club face to the ball so that the club’s sweet spot makes square contact with the ball. Whenever this isn’t achieved, sweet shots and sweet results don’t happen.

Using this information has allowed me to determine what corrections I need to make if a problem persists.

Saturday saw the start of a new golf season. It was heralded by bright sunshine, clear blue skies and a very light cooling breeze.

The last few dry days meant that the fairways had started to dry out allowing the ball to have some run, but the greens were still soft enough to be receptive.

Saturday was also the first serious competition at our club, the grandly named President’s Cup Qualifier, a strokeplay competition with full handicap allowance.

This was the first real opportunity to see how far my game had improved over the Winter.

I had improved, I was convinced of it, but I was still very inconsistent. The only part of my game that was consistently good was my putting. I was now confident standing over a putt and I put that down to  the practice I had put in over the Winter.

Its too easy to argue that the winter conditions, didn’t encourage good consistent golf, but my mate Dave continued to play well within and below his handicap of 14. Additionally, the tee positions on virtually every hole during the Winter had been moved up considerably, making all holes shorter.

Saturday was the first time that the tees were back to their normal competition positions. the effect of this was to dramatically lengthen all holes. For example, our 15th hole is a difficult par 3. In Winter the distance to the green was around 180 yards, but in competition it reverted to 219 yards.

So, how did I do?

I started badly. I took 2 to get out of a greenside bunker and recorded a 7 for the par 5 first. I recovered on the second to record a par.

The third hole, (par 4)  I made another 7 and the fourth, (par 4) I made a 6.

Four holes gone and I had played 24 shots against a par of 17.

But it was early days. I steadied my game and other than another 7 on the par 4 eighth I played very well, finally recording a net par score of 73. I was delighted, especially as one of my playing partners who played off 8 recorded a net score of 78, (5 over par).

Again my putting was my saviour. I recorded a total of 31 putts for the round and sank a number of 5′ putts.

But my main problem is still with shots played out of a greenside bunker. On two occasions I took 2 shots to get out of the bunker, the first and the eighth, so my next step is to work on this.

I came 11th overall out of a field of 120, which was very pleasing and gives an early indication that my golf improvement programme is currently on track!

Lee Westwood missed the cut at the Qatar Masters in February this year. The World number 1 didn’t just have one day of below par golf, he had two bad days.

After my posts on the way my golf is improving, I played golf with a number of friends and I had a stinker!

I’m not trying to compare my golf to Lee Westwood’s, I’m just making the point that we can and do have ‘bad days’.

I couldn’t hit the ball with any of my clubs, no matter what corrections I tried to make during the round.

I played the first two holes well, but after that  the only parts of my game that were working was my driving and my putting. Thank goodness for my putting.

Normally, when things go wrong, I am able to work out what changes to make to correct the ‘fault’, but Sunday was different. Whatever I tried just didn’t work.

In the end I just put it down to one of those days. We all have them. My partner on Sunday played off 10 and even he was having a very off day.

The key is how we handle these bad days and what we do to minimise the effect this has on our golf going forward.

The Professionals, like Westwood, will spend hours practising to correct whatever fault or faults they identified, so I guess I should do the same. After all the reason my putting has improved is because of the time I have spent practising various putting drills.

But, the weather is cold and wet and the thought of spending anytime on practising outdoors, does not appeal, I’ll leave that to March when conditions normally improve. So instead I’ll continue to my practice regime for putting and I’ll clear my mind of the negative thoughts associated with a bad round so I don’t take it onto the course when I play on Wednesday.

At some stage during the last two years that I have played the course at my current club, I have been able to par every hole. (Clearly not on the same day.) So I know that I am capable of playing every hole well, its just playing every hole well on any given day.

I’ll concentrate on these positives and expect to get back on track during my next round.

I’ll keep you posted.

My golf improvement programme is starting to produce results. I’m playing better golf and more regularly finishing with lower scores.

First things first. In order to improve I had to plan to improve.

When setting a plan there are four basic steps, (basic not necessarily simple!)

1.   Assess honestly where you are now.

2.   Create a clear vision of where you want to be and by when.

3.   Create a step by step plan to achieve your vision.

4.  Take Action!

With my golf, I have a handicap of 20! I don’t often play to it and if I am honest my golf handicap should be between 24 – 26. I tend to shoot around 97 – 99.

My vision is to reduce my handicap to 15 by the end of September 2011 and to achieve this I have created an improvement programme in conjunction with my golf Pro.

We live in a world of ‘instant’. Everybody wants things now. They want to know all the short cuts that produce instant time-saving results. I’m no different, but I have come to realise that instant ‘fixes’ are only temporary and that there is no alternative to hard work and practice.

The first part of the programme was to improve my putting. I was regularly recording around 41 putts per round which means that on at least 5 holes I was recording 3 putts. If I could regularly eliminate the 3 putt holes I would immediately reduce my handicap by 5 shots. End of story, plan achieved!

Not quite. My honest assessment shows that my handicap should be 24 – 26 so reducing my putts per round would still only bring my handicap down to 19 – 21.

So this is only the first step.

The second part of my plan is to chart my way around the course based on my level of ability, not based on the ability of the person with whom I am playing.

I am not interested in getting on the green in regulation, but getting on the green in one over regulation. So on a par 4 for example, I want to be on the green in 3 leaving myself the opportunity of putting for par or for a bogey at worst. Regular bogey golf on every hole would mean that I’m playing to an 18 handicap. (Small steps produce results!)

I still regularly use my driver off the tee but my aim is to keep my tee shot in play. I’m not overly concerned about distance – I’m too old and not as physically flexible as I used to be to think about producing 250 yard plus drives.

For my second shot to a par 4, (second and third shots to a par 5) I want to leave it around 80 – 120 yards from the green so that I have a simple third shot onto the green.

In order to achieve this, I now regularly use an iron for my second shot and have discovered that I can hit a 4 or 5 iron fairly straight and long enough to leave myself the desired distance to the green.

The next part of my plan is to improve my distance control on the 3rd shot, (4th on a par 5) so that I leave myself with a 4′ to 6′ putt for par.

I started this blog by stating that my improvement programme is starting to produce results. Since I have been practising my putting, my average putts per round has consistently been between 30 – 36 putts per round. As a result of the practice I have put in, I am confident over the putt.

Over the last 2 rounds I have record 32 and 34 putts per round and adding in my other strategies I have scored rounds of 91 and 89 on our par 73 course. Small steps can lead to great things.

Well, after a frantic day of transfer activity yesterday, Fernando Torres has left Liverpool FC. For those living in caves with no access to any form of media, he’s joined Chelsea for £50,000,000.00.

I’m not entirely sure what my feelings are regarding this move. There is some disappointment tinged with anxiety, but there is also the feeling that if he didn’t want to play for us, we are better off without him.

For the last season and a half, he hasn’t really contributed much to Liverpool’s cause. Last season he seemed to spend much of the time being injured and this season he’s spent much of the time looking totally disinterested and wishing he was playing for someone else.

I can understand his frustration. He joined Liverpool wanting to play at the highest level and to win major trophies. The fact that Liverpool are likely to spend another season trophy less and not competing in next years’ Champions League can only fuel this frustration.

His leaving won’t have any repercussions on the remainder of Liverpool’s season. We are out of all the Domestic competitions, and how Chelsea fair this season won’t have any impact on Liverpool’s remaining games… with one exception, this Sunday’s game.

Liverpool ironically play Chelsea at Stamford Bridge and it’s likely to be the first match that Torres plays for his new club.

In essence, the result, should it go Chelsea’s way, won’t make a dramatic difference to Liverpool’s end of season position in the Premiership, but it would be very galling to witness a Chelsea win orchestrated by Torres, even more if he scores.

Still, we need to look forward with some hope. We have spent around £60,000,000.00 on 2 new players and we have to hope that they will make a positive impact on the team’s performance and results.

Over the last 2 or more years, Liverpool have purchased a number of players who haven’t added to the quality and skill that Liverpool fans have come to expect from their players. But in the main these players have not been household names, so their lack of any notable contribution to the team’s creativity and potency, has not come as a surprise.

Andy Carroll and Suarez come with significant reputations, so our hope becomes ever greater. Like all good thrillers, let’s wait and see what happens in the next chapter!

(All photos copyright Liverpool FC)

Sunday was a catalogue of missed opportunities!

It started with England’s one day cricket match with Australia in Melbourne. England recorded a score of 294 all out in their 50 overs. Their innings was remarkable for how badly Australia bowled and fielded and the general consensus of opinion was that England’s total should have been in excess of 300.

Still, 294 was a very high score and the chances of Australia reaching and overtaking that score was as remote as Jeremy Clarkson becoming Prime Minister heading the Green Party!

Yet, that is exactly what Australia managed to do. They not only exceeded England’s score, they also only lost 4 wickets!

A definite missed opportunity!

The second match was the Liverpool/Everton football derby at Anfield. The great Kenny Dalglish was once again the Manager of Liverpool and whilst his first 2 matches had both ended in defeats, this was his first home match in front of 40,000+ adoring fans.

Liverpool’s season so far has been a catalogue of disappointments, but ‘hope springs eternal’ as Alexander Pope wrote in his, ‘Essay on Man’. So we all expected a transformation that would resurrect our season.

Liverpool started well and the first half showed a fluency and creativity that has been missing all season. Even Fernando Torres was showing signs of the genius, endeavour and pace of old. This culminated in a wonderful goal for Raul Meireles scoring his first Premiership goal for the club. Unfortunately a series of missed chances meant that Liverpool went in at half time only one goal up.

As Andy Gray said in half time summary, Everton were woeful and whilst Liverpool should have scored more than the one goal, he couldn’t see anyway of Everton scoring if their first half performance was replicated in the second half.

Everton came out to play in the second half,  and within 6 minutes of the start of the second half had scored 2 goals! The match ended in a 2-2 draw and yet another missed opportunity had gone.

I played golf on Sunday with the Sunday morning club, where we have a friendly competition, with each of us putting £3.00 into the kitty and the winner, after a round of drinks, taking the pot.

Sunday morning was a bright, dry day with lovely Winter sunshine breaking through sporadically. But it was very windy, really…..very windy!!

I have only played one round of golf since December 12th and remarkably I played exceptionally well. My driving was straight and I was striking my irons solidly. However, the first thing to suffer after a long lay off is your short game and my short game was awful! But my putting was great – and that’s the only element I have been consistently and regularly been practicing.

Although I had one 3 putt hole, I ended the day on 30 putts of which 8 holes were 1 putt holes.

As we stood on the 16th tee, I was 3 points clear of my mate Dave.

The 16th is a long par 5 and I played it well, recording a bogey 6 for 2 points. Dave played it brilliantly and scored a 5 for 3 points. Two holes to play and I was now only 2 points up.

The 17th is generally a difficult par 3, 191 yards to a 3 tier green with plenty of problems to the right and left of the green. In the winter the tees are moved well forward so that its a relatively short 139 yard hole. Dave hit a good tee shot but left it some 20 meters short of the hole.

I pushed my tee shot well left of the green and had to play a delicate lob wedge over a deep bunker onto the green which sloped away from the hole. My delicate lob cleared the bunker but hit the rough short of the green. I decided to putt the ball onto the green but left myself with a 6′ putt for a 4.

The putt was straightforward. Slightly uphill but straight.

My practice routine for putting is to look at the hole whilst playing the required stroke. I felt very confident that I could make the putt, possibly too confident. In making my practice stroke, I hit the ball – my 4th shot, and I hit the ball in such a way that it was now further away from the hole.

A very stupid and amateurish mistake. But then even the Professionals make silly mistakes.

Remember Ian Poulter in the Dubai World Championship title play off against Robert Karlsson when he dropped his ball on his marker, moving the marker fractionally for a one stroke penalty and effectively ensuring that Karlsson won the play off?

I missed the putt and ended up getting no points on the hole whilst Dave scored a bogey 4 for 2 points. We were now level with one hole to play. Practically, that was the situation, but in reality my mind stayed on the 17th hole and the match was over and from a winning and unassailable position, I had lost.

So it proved to be. Dave played the 18th well and recorded the win and I was left to rue my missed opportunity.

Sunday was not a good day!

I was listening to an interview with the Actor Colin Firth yesterday to publicise his new film, ‘The King’s Speech’. During the interview he mentioned that he was trying to engineer a mid life crisis, but he was continually being ‘ambushed by good fortune.’

What a marvellous position to be in.

I don’t generally start each New year with New Years’ Resolutions. Instead, I set out goals  for the New Year and put into place plans to achieve these goals. Expectations come into play and these either help or hinder the result of my actions and ultimately, the achievement of my goals.

Last year, (2010) was a great case in point.

Everybody talked about Recession and hard times, and I know now that my expectation for 2010 was that it was going to be a tough year and so it proved to be. Every time I seemed to be moving forward I would be ‘ambushed by bad luck!’

My golf was a prime example.

Each time I thought I was making progress, playing well, there was always the thought, ‘I have to reproduce this form in competitions and medals!’ And sure enough, my subconscious expectation was that I wouldn’t, that the golfing gods would ensure that the next shot would be a disaster and that my round would disintegrate from there. And it did!

Expectation has to be on your side. Whenever, in 2010, it was on my side, I was ambushed by good fortune.

So part of my goals and action plans for this year is to expect the best and allow good fortune to ambush me as frequently as it likes

After what seems like months, I managed a round of golf on Monday with my mate Dave.

Pre Christmas and the incredible snow storms that blanketed the whole country, I did play 2  rounds where the amount of putting practice I had put in seemed to pay off.

Despite the fact we were playing on temporary greens I managed to record 31 putts on one round and 30 putts on the other which included a total of 11 single putts and no 3 putts.

This culminated in winning a Greensomes tournament with a lovely lady called Marion Sullivan.

Once again the competition was played on temporary greens which seemed to present no problems for either Marion or myself. Marion had this unerring ability to lag all her putts to about 12″ from the hole allowing me a simple tap in putt.

On at least 3 holes I sank putts ranging from 6′ to 8′ and on two occasions where Marion was left with fairly lengthy putts she also managed to sink them.

We both won Marks & Spencer hampers which came in very handy for Christmas!

However, between December 13th and Monday January 3rd, I not only didn’t play any golf, I also didn’t put in any practice on any ascpect of my game.

So the round on Monday was going to be a tester.

I am pleased to say that I shot a 1 under par round of 72 and that whilst I did have two 3 putt holes, I also had three one putt holes.

The most significant aspect for me was the incredible confidence I had in playing my shots and more importantly in stroking my putts.

Previously, and especially when playing in a competition or medal, my confidence in my putting was very low, which resulted in either leaving putts well short of the hole, or hitting them too far past the whole. On short putts of 3′ or less I found that I was pulling the putts to the left irrespective of what ‘borrow’ I was playing to.

I know that the reason for this was the tension I felt through lack of confidence in the stroke which resulted in gripping the club too tightly.

Like a lot of golfers, in order to correct the problem I changed putters and even had an extra wide grip put onto one of my putters. But the problem wasn’t the putter, it was me!

Practicing my putting has resulted in having the confidence to play the stroke, and whilst occasionally I will have rounds where my putting is atrocious, (we all experience that, even Tiger Woods!) overall I know that I am now a good putter.

As my mate Dave said in his comment to my blog post ‘The More I Practice’

“if you hit a bad shot, it’s shouts at you to go away and practice that shot before you return for your next round.
Hopefully that bad shot will create 1 step forward – and now it’s in your bag. You still have to practice it but once it’s in your bag you know you can do it.”

You are only allowed to carry 14 clubs in your bag and I have a lot more work to do with some of the other clubs, but I now trust myself with the most used club in the bag, my putter.

Well Christmas has come and gone and we are into a new year. 2011!

Christmas has generally been spent with my immediate family, my sister and her family and my mother and as we have the largest house, so can put everybody up, its generally been spent at our house.

This year, (2010) we wanted to go away for Christmas. Somewhere where we could go out with the grandchildren and let them run around and enjoy the fresh air.

So we decided to rent some holiday chalets in Padstow, Cornwall. My sister decided that Cornwall was too far to travel and decided not to come with us. Not a problem, we would spend our first Christmas alone, my wife, my daughters, my son in law and my 3 grandchildren. Perfect! And in the main so it proved.

We decided that we would go down to London to see my sister and my mother, the weekend before Christmas to exchange presents and to allow my mother to see her grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Getting down there on the Friday was a doddle. We left on Saturday morning to return home in a snow blizzard! Yes, the weekend when we had more snow in one day than we have probably had for the last 10 years in total!

Normally, the journey home takes around 2 hours. 2 hours after we left Putney we arrived at Heathrow Airport. 6 hours later we arrived in Oxford where we found that the 2 main routes to the Midlands, the A34 and the M40 were both closed so we stayed the night in Oxford and completed our journey home the next day finally arriving home at 3.30 in the afternoon on Sunday.

A total journey time of 12 hours. But we were very lucky. We found somewhere to stay overnight and weren’t trapped in cars like some people were.

The journey down to Padstow on Christmas Eve was comparatively quick, totally stress free and uneventful.

We arrived at the Atlantic Bay Holiday Park to find that the chalets were unbelievably luxurious inside, (from the outside they look like very large garden sheds). An evening meal, followed by putting the grandchildren to bed, allowed us to relax, put up a Christmas tree  and fill the kids stockings with presents from Santa.

It was a real joy waking up on Christmas morning to see the excitement on the grandchildren’s faces as they opened the presents in their stockings. Nothing can beat the excitement and wonderment that children have that becomes diluted as we get older. (No philosophy now!)

Christmas Morning 2010 Padstow

After breakfast, and with the turkey in the oven, we spent the morning on one of the beaches around Padstow. The kids, suitably clothed in warm clothes and wellies had

Olivia - Christmas morning 2010

a fabulous time and we have the most marvellous photographic library to remember

Oliver - Christmas morning 2010

Ava - Christmas morning 2010

the day by.

Boxing Day was spent on Watergate Beach where the kids fished for seaweed and sand. Much better than sitting at home in a stuffy central heated room watching TV!

It was a very different Christmas but truly unforgettable.

Its quite alarming how in our family, once something is done, it immediately becomes a family tradition. Going away for Christmas is likely to be one tradition we all will be happy to establish.