Nah, I’m playing off an unofficial 13 at the moment.

Was nice to be able to put a good back together after the front was a bit ragged. Hopefully I’ll be consistently putting pairs of 3#’s scores moving forward!

Range lessons to remember – keep that bloody eye on that bloody ball! You’d think concentrating for 2 whole seconds would be doable but …

Swinging towards the target is not the same as pulling madly left!

Keep that left hand thumb in the 1-2 o’clock position and then swing hard. Not at 12 o’clock and try and time the release.

Merry Christmas to everyone. I hope that 2012 was a year where you achieved some goals, including golfing goals, but more importantly where you showered some love into the world.

I pray that 2013 is full of good things; family and friends, love and laughs, dreams made real, and some great golf stories to bore the rest of your family (but excite us all here who actually care!).

God bless

Brendan

Played Lakelands Golf Club on the Gold Coast today with sandy. Beautiful day if a little humid. But riding the cart meant it wasn’t a problem.

It’s a lovely course, very nice place to get around. It’s also very well set up: easy to find your way around, well mapped and signed, etc. Condition was excellent. Fairways were perfect and the greens were even better – soft enough to stop a ball on, but fast and true. Really liked the course and will definitely go back.

Played pretty well although putted poorly. Mostly it was a speed issue, but I hit a few off line as well which is frustrating. Finished with 13 over 85, so played to my handicap.

Hit 10/14 fairways. Drove pretty well most of the day. Lost a shot on the 8th when I pulled my driver into the sand and hit my 5 iron fat getting out – sand was very fluffy and deep so it was hard to get good footing. Also lost a shot from topping my drive on the 15th 107m and wasn’t able to reach the green in regulation.

Hit 5 of my drives 215-230m, and many of the short ones were into the wind which got up fairly stiff, so happier with my driving distance.

Hit all my par 3 tee shots pretty well, 2 on and 2 in chip range.

So overall the tee game was very good. Room for improvement, but solid.

Approach game was also solid. 6 GIR and all the rest in chipping range. On the par 5 16th I got to about 25m from the pin in 2. So very happy with this part of my game. Still 12 more GIR to target but it’s good to be hitting it fairly solid.

I got a birdie on the first hole with a 5 iron close – thought that it could be a very good day! So made a shot there with the approach game.

So made 2 shots up from good approach shots.

Overall my long game was at par – lost 2 from drives but made them up with good approach on 1 and the good drive and approach on the par 5 16th.

So in the end all my lost shots were effectively from the short game. There were 2 things, the usual for me …

... only got 2/10 up and down. This was partly due to chipping – I had 2 chips on the 18th after trying to be too clever with a high shot off a down slope and leaving it short, and I hit my chip thin on the 9th and my 25m pitch short on the 16th. But there were a few that I could have got down but didn’t putt well.

... 3×3 putts plus a 3 from off and only 3×1 putts plus a 2 from off.

My putting was way too tentative, just didn’t get sorted with the speed. Also hit a couple of pulls and pushes.

So I lost 8 shots on up & downs I didn’t get, lost 3 with 3 putts, and had a double chip and a pitch that came up short. So not great, but not terrible. More work to do on the short game – no surprises there!

And had a great day at the course.

Had a birdie 5 pars 10 bogies and 2 doubles for 85 off the stick.

Recalculated my unofficial handicap and it is now 12.2! So off 12!

I’ve reached my 2012 target by the skin of my teeth!

Woo Hoo!

Well done Weety :)

Thanks AB. Now just gotta get into singles in 2013!

Good work Weety.

Now….get your arse down to Byron on the 19th :-)

Thanks Goldy.

Would have loved to. Such is life!

Mate great effort for the year. All the hard work is paying you back. Good luck for next year..

Hopefully both of us have great 2013’s! What’s your target?

Hopefully both of us have great 2013’s! What’s your target?

Started 2012 on unofficial 17, achieved 12 – 2013 target single figures
Inaugural Official Handicapper and Treasurer of the SEQ Golf Guys

The fairway lol..

I want to be under 18 by June. This year had been a real eye opener for me started the year off 20 now out to 23. Going to day shift really stuffed my body clock up. I hope i am now use to it…

Hopefully both of us have great 2013’s! What’s your target?

Started 2012 on unofficial 17, achieved 12 – 2013 target single figures
Inaugural Official Handicapper and Treasurer of the SEQ Golf Guys

The fairway lol..

El Presidente

www.gailesgolf.com.au/

Ha!

I want to be under 18 by June. This year had been a real eye opener for me started the year off 20 now out to 23. Going to day shift really stuffed my body clock up. I hope i am now use to it…

El Presidente

www.gailesgolf.com.au/

Hope so. 18 definitely. That’s a huge milestone I reckon. It was for me.

Player OTY. Well done mate.
As for the thread title, that is the likely number for how many times I will get lucky with my Missus next year.

Single figures is a shoe in :-)

Player OTY. Well done mate.
As for the thread title, that is the likely number for how many times I will get lucky with my Missus next year.

Single figures is a shoe in :-)

Wantima Country Club Foursomes Champion 2011

VC of SEQ Eagles

Getting a new putter for Christmas

Skimming Handicap : +2

Pissed myself laughing!

No seriously! Off to have a shower! :-)

Oh, and thanks mate. It’s been a great year. Had a few crappy rounds, but couldn’t be more pleased with my last few months. Rounds starting with an 8 at Emerald Lakes, Robina Woods, Gainsborough Greens, Hope Island, Sanctuary Cove, and Lakelands.

And an 80 at Windaroo.

And best of all a 79 at Hills.

Just gotta get this putting going and single figures is a good chance.

Hit 2 ranges today – Logan City Golf Club for some short game work, and then my local at Tee Time for a bit of extra full swing.

Continuing to work on my balance and I was finding good swings today with a swing that feels like all of the force is straight back and straight through. Could feel the weight slide back into the mid back foot and then forward into the mid forward foot. My feeling in my feet before has been a bit more around and twisting. Quite distinctly different.

The swing itself is still the same approach – swinging the club with the upper arms. But the whole thing was just a little less rotational and more linear (or it felt that way).

I did check to make sure I wasn’t swaying, and I stayed centred and everything still moved in circles around me. But the force in my feet felt pretty much right and then left, not very much like it was moving back and forward between the toes and heel.

No idea if this is technically a good feeling or not but I was really striking the ball solidly and straight; well as straight as I can tell because it was blowing a gale up here!

Was a good practice session.

Short game session was OK too. It’s very much about building feel and confidence to just swing the club. So it’s a repetition thing. Lots of room for improvement here. Lots! If I can get myself up to 50:50 on up and downs with chipping I would have saved 4 shots yesterday, and putting another 4 or more. So these are the two keys for getting my handicap down.

Did some putting work too and worked on the same action as I am using with every other swing – upper arms back and through. And more importantly on my mental approach with putting – getting myself focussed on rolling the ball past the hole and not thinking about the putter itself.

Good fun.

Watched UFC, packed half of Christmas away, and then thought ‘Mmmm, might go to the range for a quick bucket to work on that swing.’ So that’s what I did. One hour, one bucket and done.

Along with the usual – keeping my eye on the ball and swinging with the upper arms – I am working specifically on 2 things.

The first is to swing more along the target line (feeling that anyway, the path is obviously still a circle inside the target line). It’s continuing the Manuel de la Torre concept of swinging the club back and then towards the target, and I think the path is a lot more like MDLT teaches. The back swing hands finish more off my right shoulder instead of more behind it – my old swing was very around and flat.

The second is about monitoring and directing the swing through my left foot. Feeling the weight move right on the back swing as the arms and club go back. And then pressing back into the middle of the left foot in the through swing. I am finding this is a good place for me to focus throughout the swing. It keeps me in balance. It helps me to allow transition to happen (usually I tend to force it and go too hard too early).

I was hitting it really solid today. It was very windy so I will need a more still day to assess what impact the changes require in my setup. I weakened the grip a touch because I seemed to be hitting it left but given the gusty conditions it’s still a bit in the air about how much to change it. From today it looks like just winding it back to 1 o’clock with the left hand thumb and ensuring the right hand is basically square to the face and not a bit under the club.

Hopefully the weather will be better tomorrow and I’ll get a chance to have a hit. And hopefully some more sand and chipping practiceas well.

Been working on putting on the mat at home too. Same swing approach – upper arms back and through. We’ll see how it translates to the course next year! If I can get my putting at least solid I will make some very different scores!

Captain Obvious!

Another quick range session – chance to get out of the house before visitors arrived for New Years.

Really hitting it well. Best results when I just focus on the mid left foot and swinging the upper arms back and towards the target without getting too caught up in the swing path. Definitely a linear feel. Definitely an up and down feel more than an around feel. Very good contact. And trajectory. And flight. Worked mainly with 6 iron and driver.

Was still very left to right windy, so still need to test my grip. But it is looking like it won’t change much if at all – maybe a tiny bit weaker, but I don’t mind playing a little draw. Especially as my bad swing if generally in to out and having a grip that tends to close the face a bit more rather than open it a bit more works better with that path and achieving a playable result.

C’mon single figures!