Golf Noob!

3 of us from work popped to a local 3 par – £6.50 a round. The quality of the course was much much higher than the Letchworth one for just the £1.50 more it was well worth it!

http://www.chesfielddownsgolf.co.uk/

Scores on the doors after 9 holes were:
Jai 47 (+20)
Me 49 (+22)
Ed 50+ (+23+)

Pretty happy with that, the course was much harder than Letchworth too, long and short holes (I managed a par on the shortest hole!), proper rough, proper fairway areas and proper greens with slopes and curves an everything!

I think we all enjoyed it but I don’t know how me and Jai always end up two shots apart (or why he keeps winning lol)

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Popped up to the range for an hour today. What a fucking waste of time that was! Hmm didn’t realise it would come out like that when I typed it lol!

Anyway… I sucked big time. I managed to hit most shots with my driver into the woodwork surrounding me which was awesomely shite.

I did hit my irons well enough though and was kind of happy with the woods. I was like a fucking proper noob with the driver though. Why can’t I hit the damn thing well?

I did manage to get a few good ones off though, and have no idea what I did differently. Whatever! I need to find somewhere that I can practise drives where it won’t cost me money because at the moment thats pretty much all it does when I use it

If you don’t know me please take the words above with a pinch of salt. I’m hard on myself sometimes and didn’t really know it affected me that much before I typed it out here. I’ve not been stressing over it and rocking in the corner of a darkened room no, I fell asleep infront of the footy and had some chinese food instead.

I’m only bothered with the fact that I spent £1.50 on a lousy half hour with my driver (half the time and half the balls) and I don’t know why few of the shots went well and the others were beyond poor. The dude next to me had to leave early and gave me the remainder of his balls, he offered advice to slow down a bit but nothing more. I thought I was pretty slow anyway lol. I guess I may just practise swinging the driver to get more feel for it, I admit its been neglected as I can’t really smack balls with it on the college field and have only played a par3 course which don’t really require a driver. That said I guess the way I hit the thing its as good as a 9iron!

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Hi there everybody!

This week has been pretty cool for me and my golf. Popped to the range on Saturday and ended up tested a couple of second hand 3 woods. There was a Cleaveland one and a Yonex one. The Cleaveland I found hard to swing and make good contact with the ball, so switched to the Yonex and loved it! The guys let me smack some balls with them and I ended up getting another 50 balls and hitting some more. I ended up buying the Yonex Nanospeed i 3 wood club for £79 I later found that this is a £179 club!!!! 2nd hand is definately the way to go for someone starting like myself and wanting quality kit. If the brand is good enough for Colin Montgomery I guess its good enough for me!

I practised more on the field at work too. I had picked up some airflight balls from Nevada Bobs when I bought the 3 wood and these made practise much safer You can hit it as hard as you like and it will only go about 10 foot or so. Means you don’t have to walk as far chasing it, no risk to dog walkers or house windows, and I get a lot more hits in.

On Thursday Jai and I played the Letchworth 9 hole Par 3 course round the corner from work. It was only a fiver to play and we got round in about 1.5 hours. The guy said we could go round again if we wanted but we had to get to work The game finished:
Jai +17
Tone +19
Ah well, no victory yet! However, like true men we played from the hardest tee’s, we counted every shot and there were absolutely no gimmies or mulligans (whatever that is) but I did manage 2 holes in par

I popped into Nevada Bobs on the way home again tonight and asked the guy in there about second hand 5 wood clubs. He picked out three and let me try them on the range with some balls. The three were a brand new “G3″ which was only £35; a £10 something or other and a £45 Wilson Staff Fybrid. I gave them all a crack. The G3 was pretty nice and hit the ball just as well as the Wilson to be honest (at my ability at least!) The £10 one really showed it’s “Quality” unfortunately. It hit the ball with a dull sound, the ball flew low and weak too. What won the race for the Wilson (I bought it) was the sound when it hit the ball! I loved the sound each time and I even managed a 200 yard shot off the rubber tee with it even if it was slightly sliced to the right (as is common with me at the mo!) However I managed to hit more on target shots with the Wilson and really enjoyed hitting it I could have opted for the brand new G3 club but I kept imagining it was a £35 club and it didn’t sound as nice, etc… Whereas the Wilson Fybrid 5W is a near £90 club and even second hand it was still in excellent condition. So my wallet is £45 lighter… Actually it’s £52.99 lighter as I finally treated myself to a towel to hang from my bag. A Wilson one of course!

It’s a Bank Holiday this weekend and I hope to get out there a fair bit playing golf. Looks like I will be going solo but hey ho, less pressure I suppose…

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My work mate and I got on the field today at lunchtime. We practised hitting balls up and down the field with irons and fairway woods A couple of near misses in the car park thankfully as there were a lot more cars there this time lol.

We were hitting pretty well to be honest, not massive distance yet but not bad for a pair of nubs. I’ve just watched some more tip videos on Youtube and found that I should really have the ball closer to my left foot instep rather than in the middle of my feet. This is because it helps you go through the ball and reduce topping it, etc. Also learnt that tilting weight slightly to the right with the torso will help get lift on the ball so I will be trying these out when I next hit a few

I might look into getting a fairway wood or two… At least a 3 wood, maybe a 7 too? I’ll ask the guys at the shop as I already have 2 rescue woods (hybrids) of 3 and 4 and I am not sure if I will get much more benefit out of woods instead.

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Ok so I decided against going to the range this evening, I have a fiver in my wallet and really should try to make it last till next Thursday! Instead I made use of the large green thing where I work. Its called “The sports field” and seeing as I had parked my car right next to it this morning I was more or less on it already and decided to find out what its all about.

I had forgotten to get my ball picker thingy out of the garage so just took 5 practice balls out to whack. After all I’d have to go collect them from wherever they ended up! I started off just testing the grips I’d seen earlier today on t’internet. I eventually found that the interlock grip is best for me (I have chunky small hands)

Anyway I began hitting balls and some were going up, some were going straight, and when I forgot to wrap all my  fingers around the handle the ball would just go anywhere

First tip for all you fellow nubs – get those fingers tucked away!

Anyway whenever I remembered to hold the club properly my shots at least went in the general direction I wanted. I guess you can put draw or fade on your shot by holding it differently then seeing as the shot either went wildly off to either side when I forgot, but I’m a noob and don’t know the technical details yet!

OK so then I started to notice that some shots were getting up and down but some where just pelting straight in mid air. These ones did seem to go further though! I dunno why? Anyway I like the ball to go up and down as it seemed this was a more accurate hit. So I started to remember about stance from t’internet. The guy was saying about keeping your back straight and this helps you open your swing, yadda yadda. I didn’t really know what he was on about but I gave it a go…

• Stand up straight and hold your club.
• Then bend your back a little but keep it straight you will probably find that you are no where near the ball. I sure did
• So I kept my back comfy and straight and thought how to get to the ball. Remember when lifting stuff you’re always told to bend your knees and keep your back straight? well i did and tried it. I bent my knees so I was more or less sitting on an imaginary chair. I bent them enough so that the club face was next to the ball where I wanted it.
• It was comfortable (but probably looked very weird) so I took a swing at the ball…Straight up and down and decent length too!!!! whoop whoop!
• Here endeth the lesson because thats all I learnt today

Note: I’m just watching some PGA Tour on the tv and although not as exaggerated the pros seem to be doing the imaginary sit down thing. I guess they have custom shafts and whatnot though, not like us noobs with the off the shelf clubs. I wonder if that’s why the driver has a longer shaft? so you don’t look like a pillock when teeing off in front of the crowds? I’m thinking the more technical reason is a longer shaft means you can get even more open on the swing and hit it further? please comment, i need to learn and so do the other nubs here.

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OK so I bought a nice putter, some John Letters irons (a bit like the ones on the right) and a RAM driver about a year ago… Apart from one session at the range when I bought them and some chipping practice at home I’ve not used them. Big ideas, lots of money and nothing to show for any of it.

I recently agreed to play some golf with a mate from work and thats spurred me on again.. I got the clubs out of the garage and into the car. I even bought a pair of lovely Footjoy golf shoes and a new Titleist cap

Yesterday I got £2 of balls (30) to whack at the local driving range A1 Golf Range for anyone interested. I didn’t do as bad as I thought! I went through all the irons I have as the bay I was in didn’t have a tee. I only mis-hit about 4 of them which is a result in my mind lol.

The weird thing was that no matter what club I used the ball went pretty much the same distance, 150 yards. I’m not sure how this happened but I have since been watching a few instructional videos and will try to see if the changes make a difference. For a start I was holding the club wrong

Anyway, please watch this blog for updates on my golfing…

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