2015 In 6 Achievements

It is that time of year when it seems every magazine and television program does a review of the year so I have decided to join in. This has been my best year yet and here are what I consider my most important golfing achievements from 2015.

• My handicap has dropped from 5 to 3 and while I always want more this represents solid progress. My main goal this year was not to lower my handicap but to play more competitions and to gain experience. Due to this I have played a lot of rounds at courses I have little experience of and in some cases I had never played before. If I had stayed at my home club as I have in the past I may have got to a lower handicap but I know I would not be as complete of a player.

• Towards the end of the summer I set the goal of getting to scratch. Prior to this I doubted I would be able to get anywhere near scratch. Sports have never been an area where I have excelled in the past and I had let this affect how good I thought I could become at golf. For me just setting the goal and committing myself to it required a level of belief in myself that I had never had before.

• This summer I was able to win the club championship at my home club. I have never been a particularly competitive person so for me winning represents what I can do if I put my mind to something rather than showing I was better than other people. While getting a trophy and having people recognize the effort I put in is great, the real victory was proving to myself what I can do.

• I am also proud of the way I have started entering open competitions this year. This has not really been a golfing achievement but an achievement in pushing my comfort zones. I have always been a quiet and anxious person so I am pleased that I was able to enter a completely new environment and become comfortable in that situation. I can say that I am a more confident person having done this and I can use that away from the golf course as well.

• This year marked the first time I have played rounds under par. I had shooting an under par round as a goal coming into the year and looking back that was probably not the best idea because it put a lot of pressure on me whenever I got into a good position. This goal is one of the few things that has frustrated me this year, particularly after I lipped out twice in the same round to shoot my first under par round. Ultimately though the pressure and frustration made my first under par round more rewarding when it finally came.

• Helping my club reach the final of our county scratch knockout competition was another proud moment this year. As a team in division 3 this was definitely not expected of us and along the way we were to play against some very good golfers at some of the best courses in the area which is always a bonus.

There are many other moments I could have put on this list but I feel the more I pick out the less special each one will become. Following over the next few days will be a post about my plans and goals for 2016 when hopefully I will be able to reach a scratch handicap!

Transition into Competition

Over the last two years I have begun to play in more serious competitions for the first time and I would like to share my thoughts on how this is different to casual play. I would also like to reflect on if this has changed my approach or enjoyment of the game in general.

I started playing golf just before I turned 7 and I first joined a club when I was 10. For a few years after joining I did not play in club competitions and it was not until I was 14 or 15 I began to play competitions at my club regularly. From being 12 I started to play on my club's junior team which was always a great experience. The junior team organizer never put any pressure on me to play well and the focus was always on having fun over the result. As I have grown up my joy for the game has strengthened and I decided I want to try playing competitively. In 2014 I played some matches for my club's scratch team and I played in a few opens at local clubs.

When I played my first open events I was playing off around 6 and I was nervous. I was playing with people I did not know for the first time and at courses I did not know. This was also the first time I had to drive myself to somewhere I was unfamiliar with which was something else I was not used to. With all of these changes it is not surprising I did not play my best golf in these first events. Despite how uncomfortable I felt at times I knew I wanted to play competitively again this year.

At the start of this year I decided to push myself by entering a few county level events. I took it slowly at first, entering a couple of events at a time and seeing how they went. I mainly entered these events for experience knowing I had little chance of winning. For example one event I played had a handicap limit of 5, exactly what I was playing off. On the start sheet I saw the county champion was playing. It was his home club and he was off plus 3 but I was keen to play just to gain experience. I measured my success in events not by score or finishing position, but by how much I had learned.

After a few events I discovered I was not as out of place as I thought and my nerves began to drop. I had always felt lost on the practice range at these competition before because I somehow felt my swing and routine did not fit in. As I got used to the environment I realized that what I was doing was just as effective as what most people were doing and my nerves began to drop. I started to play to my full potential and I had a degree of success. To some people finishing 8th in the county Under 25s Championship would not be a big achievement but I was incredibly pleased with this because it showed me I had been able to adapt to competitive golf.

My approach this year has been to slowly get used to competitive golf. I did want to rush and lose confidence but at the same time I wanted to keep pushing myself. It was a fine line to walk but I think this was the right way to go about it. It was important for me to have friends and family who understood why I was playing competitions. I needed the people around me to understand that I was not interested in the results but in what I had learned. They understood that regardless of score if I thought the competition had been a success then it was.

Part of me was worried that as soon as I introduced competition I would lose the love for the game I had as a child. Golf had always felt the same to me from when I first started and I knew I risked changing that. When I went out to play I did not have care in the world; It was like I was transported back to being a 6 year-old first picking up a club. Fortunately playing competitions has not changed this. I believe this is because I do not make a big deal of where I finish in the field. I use competitions to challenge myself and see how good my game is as opposed to playing to win. By doing this I have been able to keep the same attitude I have always had to the game. The only real effect competitive play has had on is to motivate me because I want to go back to these events next year and beat how I did this year.

Competitions have also had a positive effect on both my physical and mental health. Most of the events I have played have been 36 holes in one day. During the first of these events this year I really struggled during the final 9 holes and my score reflected this. At first my posture went, then later I lost power and accuracy. The final competition I played this year was 72 holes over 2 days with a cut after the first day. I arrived at the course just after 8 am and due to weather delays did not finish the second round until after 8 pm. It was 9:30 pm when I got home and having missed the cut I was at a different course at 8:30 am the next day to play in a match for my club. While I was tired after this it was a long way from how I felt during my first 36 hole event of the year despite having done no training for stamina other than playing in competitions.

Over the summer my concentration also improved dramatically. I still occasionally lose focus on the golf course but this happens far less frequently than it used to which I believe is purely because I have been training my mind to concentrate for long periods of time in competitions. This has lead to far fewer mistakes during a round and I believe more consistent scores as a result of this.

Hopefully this has been helpful to people because taking the plunge into competitive play can be very daunting. There was definitely a temptation to not even try competitive golf for me but I am glad I have done because my enjoyment of the game has increased. I enjoy being able to test myself and it has provided me with an extra source of motivation. I would urge anyone who is thinking about trying competitive golf to give it a try. This could mean entering just one small event at first and seeing how it goes. The most important lesson I have learnt is that I do not need to be the best player in the competition to have fun.

Working On Strengths

I am sure we have all been told at some point that we need to work on our weaknesses. This is common advice not just in golf but in most disciplines. We are told we are not going to improve by practicing what we are already good at and instead we should focus our efforts elsewhere.

In my goal to get to scratch I decided I should take on board this advice for my golf game. As it is currently the off-season I decided now was the perfect moment to focus on my weakness. In recent weeks my driving has been my weakness so I decided this is where I should focus my efforts for maximum improvement. What I learnt surprised me and is not what I expected to happen.

After devoting a larger percentage of my practice time to my driving I was confident I had improved when stepping onto the course for my next round. I hit more fairways than I had in previous rounds but my score was higher. I was sure I had improved because I had worked on the most inconsistent part of my game so I figured this score was an anomaly. But it then happened for the next two rounds and I decided I needed to reconsider my strategy.

Not only had my scores increased but I had enjoyed my rounds much less. This was a sure sign for me that something was wrong in my approach because the only reason I have been able to get to the level I am at is by enjoying the game. I realized I had neglected practicing my strength which was my short game. I had been so intent on improving my weaknesses I had forgotten the part of the game I enjoyed the most.

One of my strongest memories of watching golf on television is watching Luke Donald become world number one in 2011. He was able to do this through his incredible short game which I have always wanted to emulate. In 2011 he actually finished down in 127th in Total Driving on the PGA Tour. Over the last few seasons Keegan Bradley and Henrik Stenson have consistently wanked high in the total driving category and I had started to try to emulate them. Logically this seems like good idea but it felt wrong because I had moved away from the area I enjoy the most.

Instead of trusting my short game to score I was focusing on hitting fairways. I had forgotten how I naturally play which is to get the ball near the green and rely on my short game. Instead I was trying to play the way I was told would be more consistent and it was not helping me. While it will help if I hit more fairways focusing exclusively on that was a mistake.

From now on I will spend more time practicing my driving but I will also maintain my focus on the short game. I want to maintain a playing style that is natural to me because I know that will give me the best results in the long run.  Instead of learning to drive the ball like Keegan Bradley, I will learn how Luke Donald played to reach world number one. That is, I will learn how to drive the ball like Keegan Bradley through learning to play like Luke Donald.