Golf, bloody kids, gloves and match play

This Saturday was the greenkeepers' stableford, a 'draw for partners' betterball. I had the good fortune to be paired with Lee Jakubik, an extremely pleasant bloke, a graphic designer who works at Center Parcs, we played with Martin Shaw, an IT project manager who has just finished work on a big NHS project and Bill (didn't catch his surname), a retired plumber. I only mention their occupations because of a conversation I had this week with a friend who, despite being a professional business owner himself, still sees golf as being a stuffy, elitist pastime. I'm not suggesting that any of the people I played with are anything other than fine, upstanding men, but golf club membership is far from limited to professional types or old school tie. I'm not sure there are enough people who would fit that bill anyway in Nottingham! It does point up a problem that golf still has, that people equate it with a tweedy old fashioned attitude to life. There's probably an element of truth to it, but that also comes from the fact that it is one of the only places where people from 8 to 80 get together for a sport. It isn't a 'young' atmosphere, neither though is it especially old fashioned. I wonder whether it's time for Peter Alliss to retire - maybe a younger set of presenters on television would change the perception of the game. What a horrible thought...

I don't think either Lee or I were on our game, but we consoled ourselves with the greenkeepers' bbq on the 15th tee, we finished 12 shots off the pace.

Sunday, I played with Julie and Peter as usual. I won't say much about the round except that Peter, only just 14, is now outdriving me most of the time. I play a v.expensive Taylor Made driver, he has a block of wood on the end of a stick (OK, a Golden Bear driver, but not a great one) and is 20 yards past me. Lessons required, methinks.

I'm writing this on Monday afternoon, having skived off work today to play the quarter final of the club knockout singles. Which I WON! Through to the semis now. Pointed up again though that when I'm receiving shots, it makes life difficult for the lower handicapper. Jan Kononowicz, a 12, was the opponent today, giving me six shots. Level after 1o, then I birdied 11, parred 12 for two up, Jan got the both back after the next two holes, but then I played a good second on 15 where I wasn't receiving a shot, which left me 1 up, three to play. At Mapperly, 16 is SI 1, 17 is SI 5, so I got a shot on the next two holes which I duly won despite us being all square on both holes gross. Which spoiled the end of the match, unfortunately. With the new EGU rule that says match play is off full difference, it makes life very difficult for the low handicapper. I can quite easily have a decent round and shoot four or five under, that's much harder for a 4 or 5 handicap player to do. I'll let you know soon - next opponent is a 5 handicap...

One last thing - do you know what a golf glove does? Apparently, according to our club pro Jon, its main purpose is to make both of your hands the same size. Who knew that? Put your tanned hand up if you did.

Playing with the bigger boys - Voucher drought looming

Wasn't the Open brilliant? Despite the myriad tasks waiting for my attention, I spent most of the last four days when I wasn't actually on the course glued to it. It would have been brilliant if Lee Westwood could have pulled it off - is he the unluckiest golfer ever? That bunker shot he played on the 18th on Sunday was just astonishing. Once he missed the last putt and couldn't win it would have been a good story for Tom Watson to have come through, and all I can say is that Stewart Cink has no idea of a proper sporting narrative.

Thrilled as I was to reach the dizzy heights of an 18 handicap, there was an important point that I had failed to grasp, that an 18 brings me out of the calm and benign seas of Division 3, and into the clutches of the tigers of Division 2...For anyone who doesn't know, club men players are divided into (in the UK) three divisions based on handicap - Div 3 is 28 - 19, Div 2 18 - 13 and Div 1 12 and below. The Division you play in determines how quickly your handicap drops when you play well, and of course the Saturday competition prizes are divisional.

I've had a good run, I've won over £200 this year in pro shop vouchers as my handicap has been dropping, but I can see a voucher drought coming now. The wind was howling on the course on Saturday, so much so that on our 202 yard par-3 17th I was 10 yards shy with a driver, when on a still day I would take a rescue club or even a 5-iron (still chipped up and made the putt for par though!). I ended up with 90 gross for 72 nett (one over). Now, in Division 3, the windy conditions meant that 90 for 71 off a 19 handicap was good enough for 2nd place (I couldn't help noticing) and a £40 voucher, while my brave 90 off 18 was only good enough for 16th.

Off 20, I would have won the division. Off 18, I'm buying my own balls and socks again...

New Record! New Handicap!

OK, this won't impress everyone, but I shot a new record low score of 83 at Mapperley on Saturday. Striking the ball really well for a gross twelve over. I even left a couple of short putts out there, so I KNOW there's a sub-80 round in there somewhere! It was one of the club majors, the Davis cup, so we're off a maximum 18 handicap. That limited my points score to 42, and limited me to 4th place in Div3, 7th overall. If those two little ones had dropped though, I would have had my name in little gold letters on the honours board.

HOWEVER, it was enough for the powers that be to drop me to 18! 17.7, if you're really interested. The chart shows how my handicap has moved since I started playing the club competitions last year. 24 to 18 since April, that's not bad for a fat middle aged bloke, I reckon.

To be fair, if you couldn't score on Saturday, you couldn't score at all. Not a breath of wind, you could go for your shots with confidence. The greens were a bit slow, after hollow tining and top dressing on Thursday, but for all that they were running well. The key to my new ball striking is to extend through. I think I have been shortening my swing a bit and I'm consciously making sure that I am striking all the way through now. Just need to learn to get the ball to the hole now with the putter. I'm leaving too many putts five feet short. I generally make the return putt, but not every time and four or five 3-putts on a round is killing my scoring at the moment.

Sunday was the first mixed comp that Julie and I played in. Aggregate stableford, which just means that you add the two Stableford scores together. 56 points - 73 won it, so we were quite a long way off the pace. Played in a group with Anne Poxon, who I hadn't seen since 1976, when I played tennis and her two sons James and Steven were winning everything in sight. Apparently James went off to America on a tennis scholarship. Came up against Tim Henman and was beaten in three sets, put a Stanley knife through his strings and never played again. I don't know whether that's an insight into top level sport or an insight into top-drawer petulance!

Captain's Weekend - denied the clap that was rightfully mine.

This weekend was Captain's weekend, where we play a couple of sociable rounds of golf and raise money for whichever charity has been chosen by the Captain. Our 2009 Captain, Peter Adams, has selected the Air Ambulance, a fine and worthy cause and I hope we manage to raise plenty of money for them during the year. On Saturday alone we raised over £600.

A beautiful day, just a slight breeze to ruffle the trees and make a half-club decision a bit more tricky. I played with Dave, Mick and another Martin (we've got three or four, I'm used to being unique!). Dave's birthday, he was 53. He had a broken ankle a few months ago and has has a series of operations on it. My suspicion is that they have fitted some sort of spring in there - getting on for 300 yards off the tee, not bad for a short middle aged fat bloke. That said, everyone in the group hit the ball a country mile - I'm not used to being the shortest driver in the game but I was regularly 30 yards back. Must sort a lesson or two out on that.

I started off badly, entirely the fault of my wife, who gave me extra strong coffee to start the day - caffeine overload and I was pressing on every shot. Three double bogeys in the first five holes and I was starting to worry. Started to pull it round with a four on the long sixth for four points (SI 2), bogeyed 7 then parred the 8th. On our course the half-way house is after the 8th, and with it being Captain's day it was free food and drink for a contribution to the charity. I took a tactical decision and went for the glass of whisky...

...and turned into a golf god. Parred 9, 10, bogey 11, birdie 12, par 13, bogey 14, par 15, 16, double bogey the bloody hard par 3 17th, par 18th. 42 points! Net 65! The Captain and Vice Captain were waiting on the last green with beer for all.

Went home, came back (in a nice shirt) to the presentation. Five prizes in Division 3 - Fifth Prize was for 41 points, 4th prize, also 41 points....3rd prize, ALSO 41 points (this is it) 2nd prize, 43 points ...eh?

Spoke to the Competitions Sec afterwards - no, I hadn't been disqualified for anything. Turns out the computer had fallen over half way through the comp, and they had made a mistake with the cards, or lost mine or something. I'll get a voucher, probably, but I feel guilty now because they'll probably take it out of the competition fund, so potentially reducing the air ambulance fund. I could refuse it I suppose but I really fancy a new 7-wood.....

The really bad news was that the comp was a non-qualifier, so no reduction. Shame, I thought I might come down to 18 for that.

The Ladies (yes, I know, but they genuinely never refer to themselves as 'women') had a nine-hole comp that went out after the men. Julie had 19 points for second place. She's really moving up the rankings now!

Sunday was a pairs comp. I partnered my son Peter. Another beautiful day. We played against Andy Norton, another junior, nice lad, very fluid swing as all the juniors seem to have, and Paul, a little, wiry feller who had been a PT instructor in the Army and is now a personal trainer. Probably older than me and I thought aggressively and unneccessarily fit looking. Suggested quite early on in the round that I would benefit from joining his over-40's fitness club ('get some of that off'), and that I should carry my bag rather than taking a trolley. It wasn't long before I started guiltily sneaking my wine gums out of my bag instead of eating them openly. All I can say (afterwards, quietly) is that I'm taking no lessons in health and fitness from a bloke who smoked six cigars during the round...And we beat them 2&1. Had to get the calculator out at one point to make sure Peter had won a hole (3/4 of handicap difference taken from the lowest handicap), not that I'm being petty...

I've had my balls assessed

Didn't even know you could do this - I've been playing Bridgestone B330-RX balls for a little while. They are a bit like Pro-V's, but softer for an 'amateur' swing speed. Tim, one of the pro's at Mapperley, recommended them and they are great - I hit them ten yards further than the Titleist NXT I'd used before, they are soft and consistent. Nice balls.

Anyway, Matt from Bridgestone came up to the club for a few hours yesterday with a superfast camera and measured spin speed, launch angle, side spin, etc, etc with a view to suggesting the optimum ball for each player (from the Bridgestone/Precept range, natch). I was a bit worried because I have been so happy with the balls I'm using I didn't really want to hear that I was on the wrong ones, but it was OK, folks - the balls I have are the best for me! I apparently swing my driver at 96 - 98 miles an hour and get a launch angle of 15º ish at 2500 rpm. I lose about 20 yards off my perfect distance because I launch the ball a bit high, with a bit too much backspin, which is interesting because I had always thought of myself as a relatively low hitter with a driver, but not bad. On the simulator I was hitting 225 yards, which Matt said was a probable underestimate of 20%, which sounds about right to me.

In other news, I won my match earlier in the afternoon (which may explain why I took a big divot in the ball challenge...), so now through the LAST 8 in the club knockout. Come ON!