I should have known better.
A leopard doesn't change her spots, and a misbehaving putter doesn't start holing putts just because you give her a second chance.
After treating myself to three 3-putts on saturday, I thought "well, it can't be that bad again."
I was right. Worse. Four 3-putts on Sunday and no improvement on my decidedly mediocre score from Saturday.
Still, the stroke play is only qualifying for the match play right? Musn't peak to soon! With chances of a stroke play victory seemingly now beyond me, I can take some small comfort in planning for my assault on the match play (the proper club champs!). I am, happily, placed inside the top 16 at this point, so hopefully I will be able to hang in there next Saturday.
Still, big improvements will have to be made if I'm to make any headway in the match play. If anyone has any tips on how to improve without going to the actual effort of practising, I'm all ears.
I have to confess to being a little disappointed at some aspects of the presentation of the golf course over the weekend. I appreciate we had a lot of rain over the last couple of weeks, and all things considered I thought the greens were in acceptable condition. However, BECAUSE of all the rain, there were a number of muddy areas around the greens that weren't marked as GUR. In the view of the Naked Golfer, this is an essential part of tournament preparation, and areas of abnormal ground condition (not covered by casual water) should be clearly marked to allow relief.
Apart from that, just the general condition of the fairways was of some concern. The covering of grass on a lot of them (both old and new varieties) is "inconsistent", and that's being extremely generous. Many a time over the 36 holes did I find myself playing out of a less than satisfactory lie in the middle of the fairway. We must expect better than this in the height of our golfing season.
Also, some aspects of the course set up possibly left a little to be desired, so it will be interesting to see what sort of challenge we are presented with next week.
Some things there for committees and staff to ponder anyway as we move toward the big finale in October.
Finally, a welcome to Ozy Mandias who is now following the blog. Ozy is a noted blogger in his own right, so the pressure is now on the Naked Golfer to maintain a high standard. It's starting to look positively crowded up there in the "followers" column with the three of us up there.
Good luck to all of you still in the hunt as we head into the final round of stroke play on Saturday (alas, not I)
The Naked Golfer
Naked Golfer may I suggest you are going about things the wrong way. You can't become better by not practicing, that is a fact. The reality is that there is always someone working harder than you.
ReplyDeleteBut you can make your opposition worse by not practicing. Remember on the day you only have to be better then them not better than everyone. That is what I think you need to focus on. I will give a few tips to doing this.
1. Let on you have been practicing 6hrs a day. This will strike fear into your opposition. Phone up your mates pretending you are at the course and then drop gentle hints on the way round about how the course was playing throughout the week.
If that doesn't work I suggest some radical distractions are needed. Here are some of my favourites
- get your mates to follow your opposition around the course with binoculars, but only stand 5m away from him.
- give your opposition a drink before tee off. Add 85% rum to whatever you give him.
- challenge him to play blindfolded for one hole and let him tee off first. Then say "just tricking"
- swap his golf clubs when he isn't looking
- when he isn't looking make a hole in the bottom of his golf bag. As he goes around the course, clubs will slowly drop out. By the time he gets to the 16th hole he will only have his putter left.
Thanks Ozy
ReplyDeleteCan you drop off a couple of bottles of rum at my place tonight and I'll give it a bash tomorrow.
Actually, maybe if I drink the rum rather than giving it away.......