Date: April 3rd 2011
Format: Medal
Venue: [Home course]
Score: 80
Handicap mark: 3.9
Themes in reply: Taking responsibility and acknowledgement. The crucial role of one’s imagination.
Hi Colin,
Writing this just after we have spoken.
Wasn’t totally geared up for the medal as I was going to play a fourball. However, I played with AB (who is off 2). There was a bit of wind from the South and it was dry and sunny. I played ok and hit a lot of good shots.
Two solid par 4s to start and I hit a good drive down the 3rd. Didn’t quite hit my approach correctly and it ended up just short of the green. I putted up to about 4 foot but missed.
The 4th is a long par 3 and I hit it to the back of the green leaving a difficult downhill putt. Knocked it 4 foot passed and missed again.
The 5th is a par 5. Hit a big drive and couldn’t decide if it was a 6 or 7 iron. Decided on a 6 and hit it to the back of the green and this time left the downhill putt 4 foot short – missed it again!
On the 6th, hit a 3 wood for safety but hit it left into a bunker up against the face – took a 6 so now I am +4.
I parred the 7th, birdied the 8th (par 5) and holed a good putt on the 9th to save par.
I 3 putted the 10th from the front of the green but hit a lovely 7 iron to about 6 foot on the 11th and holed for a birdie 2.
Should have birdied the 12th, and a bad drive on the 13th cost me a bogey. So, + 4 at the moment.
Then I hit 8 iron into the par 3 14th but just got it a bit heavy which resulted in it going into the front right bunker. Had a downhill lie in the bunker and if I had been level par I may well have come out sideways and taken my chances on getting a 4. However, it caught the face and rolled back in. The next one did the same and the next one did the same but also rolled back into the ‘divot’ I had taken playing the 2nd bunker shot. eventually I took 5 to get out and 2 putted for an 8 – B****CKS!
Parred the 15th and the 16th and birdied the 17th (par 5). Interesting on 17, I hit a good drive and needed to hit a draw with my 6 wood in order to get it onto the green. I saw the shot and hit a beauty! 2 putted for a birdie.
Parred the 18th to finish with a gross 80 – the best gross in was 75.
All in all it was quite pleasing. I hit lots of good shots. My putting should have been better early in the round (3rd, 4th, and 5th).
We need to get you down on the course. It’s a championship course and each hole can easily trip you up. Many people don’t realise how difficult it is because they see our scores and think we are all crap. When they come and play it the quickly change their minds!
Best of luck for Tuesday
Regards,
John
Dear John,
I love this hole by hole stuff.
I asked you to write to me because in your writing you give away details of your thinking. This gives me the opportunity to point out to you where you might be allowing “old think” to infiltrate. I am only going to be accurate some of the time so I am asking you to accept what I write in the spirit of “pursuing perfection”, and simply take the bits that “chime” with you and disregard the rest.
1. “Wasn’t totally geared up for the medal” sounds like you avoiding responsibility for a round that disappointed you because it was very close to being very good. The facts are these: you hit a lot of good shots, missed some makeable putts and had two disastrous holes. You still came in with a good score, you handled the disasters well and you had a nice time! Coolly look at the bad bits, acknowledge yourself for the good bits and revel in the excitement of being on the threshold of progress.
2. “hit a 3-wood for safety” is a definite example of “old-think”. The word “safety” has absolutely no place in a golfers’ lexicon. It goes like this: you look at the shot and get a “feel” for where it needs to end up given the many, many variables that appertain at that moment: including physical variables of lie, wind, hazards etc and the non-physical ones of the state of the match, the state of your card.
I use the word “feel” because it gets across the sense that deciding where the ball needs to end up is a non-calculable activity: the variables need to be considered and put “into the pot” and then your experience and temperament will decide just what needs to happen next. Once the desired destination of the ball is decided then you go through the routine of visualisation/forget/feel the shot/forget/find the rhythm.
Using the word “safety” suggests that instead of making a vivid, fully alive and aware decision of where the ball needed to go, you relied instead on a woolly compromise shot that you had played before in those conditions. Just the sense of being “safe” is enough to put your sub-conscious to sleep. At every shot there is one place you would love the ball to get to: see it, live it, nail it (to paraphrase and old Pepsi Cola advert).
The 6-wood on the 17th is a sign that you are starting to trust your ability: it’s the Fred Couples coming out in you. What will happen is that you will “see” a bigger proportion of shots per round. The pattern will take a while to establish and will be prone to ups and downs, but the beauty of golf is that it will be measured in your handicap mark.
In effect, your job is to give your mind the conditions it needs to “see” more and more shots. There is always plenty in the way of enabling the imagination in this way; the fun of playing games is to see just how far you can go in freeing up your imagination, what it takes from you to get to that state of being, and the best fun of all – what are the results when you manage it!
3. Last: early round putting. One would imagine that finding your putting rhythm before going onto the first tee is a good idea, although in this round the “missed” putts were after the first two holes. What is your experience of practising putting before going out?
Thanks again,
Colin
