First Card Marked

I have been playing about 18 months and decided that I want to get a handicap to play in the comps etc.  So on Saturday I paired up with a couple of members who marked my card but I played awful.  It was probably the worst round I have played at my golf course!  I did a few decent drives but other than that it was pretty poor.  All the work I had done on the range didnt pay off in the slightest.  It has kind of put me off doing another 2 rounds for fear of the same thing happening.  Has anyone else experienced this?

The only thing I would say in my defence is that it was really frosty and the majority of the course was like concrete! which made it even harder!

Matt, keep going, get your two other cards marked and then you will have a proper handicap.

Once youv'e got that then you can see if you game is getting better by seeing if it drops.

From the sounds of it you were playing with two people you didn't know, and it was frosty, not ideal conditions for putting a card in.

You probably were trying too hard on every shot, something that you'll learn not to do once you have been playing longer.

Russ

Matt - Saturday was not the day to put a card in for handicap purposes, conditions were awful and required a completely different approach.  Why not wait till a month before comp season (March/April) and get some more practice first.  Oh and if you thought the pressure was more than enough, wait till your first competitive medal - it made me think about the game in a totally different way.