Last weekend play at Hill Valley in Whitchurch on the Emerald and basically had a bloody nightmare.  Drives everywhere, lost umpteen balls, short game - terrible, putting - terrible.  Carded my worst score for a year!

Then last night I managed for the first time in ages to get home early enough to play 18 holes on a Friday night.  Not worked on anything during the week or though I was playing.

What a round!  I shot a 79, on a par 69.  Unbelievable!

It got me to thinking as I am playing in a few hours at Hawkstone park, will I continue the amazing form found last night or will it all go wrong - big time!!  

Has anybody else had this happen?  No practise, no thought to the game and then go out and shoot an amazing score?

It just goes to show how difficult it is to be consistent in this game, whatever your handicap.  I guess if we could all be that consistent, they game would fail to excite.

As I have been in the Fantasy Golf league this year it has made me pay more attention to the scores individual pro's card from event to event.  Tiger aside, you would expect to see far more consistency than they ctually acheive.  One event top ten finish, next event they don't make the cut.

Our expectations of consistency should be lowered, me thnks...

Lower our expectations - No, no, no, no, no!

There is no reason why today's players cannot be as consistent as they were 40-50 years ago and play to the  same consistent high standards as Palmer and Nicklaus both did month after month after month, year in, year out. 

Tiger Woods is both a physical and a mental athlete, in other words - the complete package.

Most of today's tour players have more than adequate physical golf ability. But, I do not know if they practice as hard as yesteryear, or if the enormous sums of money which they earn dampens determination to actually win.

What however is clear from their inconsistency (bar Woods) is that they do not know how to routinely get into the (mental) zone and remain there. Watch Wood's face and eyes when he plays - he is routinely in a light trance, deep concentration, call it what you will. He pays far more attention to mental performance than most other players and it pays dividends.

I would not be surprised if he stated that one third of his time was spent in the gym, one third in mental focus and rehearsal, and one third actually hitting balls. I am only guessing. That is the nature of today's, all sports,  modern athlete. Sadly, a large part of today's tour players have not yet grasped the plot  and purely rely on their exceptional raw golfing ability.  Most of them should start of by consulting a nutritionist. How can our sport be taken seriously when some of its leading exponents are 4 stone overweight cigar smokers?

Until such time as we hopefully present a better image then Olympic recognition is light years away.

I experienced the same thing this week. I'm a 28 handicapper and have been struggling to break 100 but have made a lot of progres recently and been carding low 100 scores....then on wednesday...a 111!!! My worst card in months!

 So come today and I am wanting to just keep it below 110 again....what do I shoot? a 97!!!! Finally!!!

I'll be putting up my scorecard on here as soon as the site has recovered from its current issues

Yep, it happened.

Played at Hawkstone on the Championship course and you guessed it - Driving everywhere, short game to pot - Shot a 94!  

A 79 to a 94, bloody hell!  What can change in a matter of a day??  Anyway the Inspectors are in at school this week so no practise mid-week. Just ready my society competition on Saturday

Will keep you posted!!

The difference is all in the mind. On the rounds that you have planned, you look forward to, play out in your mind for days in advance, then when the day comes it all goes to pot. On the round that you weren't expecting to play, but had the time so grabbed your clubs and dashed to the course, you had no time to think about your game, so had no expectations. It's as simple as that alot of the time, and as it's amateur golf we're talking about here we have no guage of how good/bad we are playing as we don't hit hundreds off balls day-in-day-out.

John Daly was 7th alternate at Winged Foot for the US Open, got a call the day before the event, a call he wasn't expecting, and drove for almost a whole day across the country to get there. Without a practice round, he gripped it and ripped it in proper Daly fashion, and won the tournament. Until then he was a long hitting, ball spraying nobody. I think he has too much going on upstairs too.

I can only agree that the mental side of the game is as important as the Physical and technical side.

I recently had a classic example of this. About 2 weeks back i took delivery of a new (second hand) set of TM 300 irons, now these are the same clubs as my current ones apart from the Shaft flex on the new ones are Reg as opposed to the Stiff flex on my older set. So on the day of delivery I decided that I would go down the local 9hole course and see how well they played. I’m my mind I wasn’t expecting anything amazing and wasn’t even going to bother to score (thankfully I did), as in my mind the new clubs were going to need a bit of getting used to. However when I finished and totted up my scores I found that my round was the best I had played on this course all year.

Now fast forward 2 weeks to last Sat, when i played my 1st 18 with the new set, (this is after being to the range twice) and I was buoyed with confidence....but as I’m sure you can all guess that I was truly woeful in fact I couldn’t even score my card properly as i picked up on 2 holes (once after losing 2 balls and then taking another 6 to the green!!!!). By the time I had finished I was down 5 balls (4 of which were lost with shots off my new irons) and was thinking that Lawn Bowls seemed a less stressful alternative.

Of course I know that by getting a new set of clubs or a driver etc isn’t going to make you a scratch golfer overnight and that usually your game suffers a bit while you get used to them. I of course know that we all have these days, but after some contemplation I’ve come to the decision that I think I put myself under to much pressure (especially if my playing partners are doing well). This thing throw's me off balance and my game goes out the window.

Anyway, I’m out again 2night and I think I’m going to try to remember Arsenals entire starting XI for the 2001 season.... anything to keep me stressing over my next shot!

Danny 

Golf has to be one of the most up and down games in the world. Man U play in x amount of games a year and win win a high percentage. Nadal will play x amount of sets in a year and will wer woods will play in a high percentage. Tiger will play in x amount of tournaments in a year but will win a low percentage, in golf we all tend to lose but the players who win more have solid foundations. watch this video to help you grove a better golf swing.