Grip it and rip it...

Tiger de Souza, you stand here accused of the heinous crime of over complicating the beautiful game of golf. As a new comer to the sport you have been found on more than one occasion to be spending too much time fretting about lob wedges, loft, lie angles, shaft flex, wedge distances and swing mechanics. This has resulted in causing significant frustration to other golfer's reading your exploits and wondering what on earth you were playing at. Rather than just getting out there and playing you have been procrastinating, over complicating and hindering your progress. How do you plead.

"Guilty!"

I apologise profusely but am pleased to say that after today talk of a lob wedge has been confined to the annals of history. Instead it's all about playing, preferablyas much as possible.

It didn't start well today, again due to overcomplicating. After an awful tee shot I trusted the iPhone rather than my instinct and smashed an 8 iron over the green. Blobbed the second due to improper alignment causing me to smash two balls into the gorse. 5 on the relatively simple par 3 third followed by a triple bogey 7. Then I relaxed and proceeded to play my best ever golf.

I was really happy with most of my stats for the 16 holes today. I strung together four consecutive pars from the 7th to 10th finishing with a total of 6 pars, 3 bogeys and 3 double bogeys. Having got to the bottom of my iron striking issues I hit 64% FIR and 25% GIR. Hitting more GIR put pressure on my putting and I didn't putt as well as I can today with 36 putts. I struggled with pace judgement on the wet greens but was unlucky on two occasions when my birdie efforts refused to drop.

Highlight of the round came on the 10th. My tee shot drifted under a tree on the right hand side and I needed to hit a low shot to avoid the branches. To make it more challenging the pin was on the back on the upper tier of the green that is protected by bunkers on either side. It was 130 yards and I hit a low punch with a six iron, between the sandtraps, that rolled up onto the top tier 10 feet from the hole. Probably my best ever shot.

I'm scheduled to play on Sunday for the medal I hope I can replicate today's form. As for the great lob wedge debate, used my SW to great effect today so the debate is over for now. Having chipped in with the SW last time out, I almost repeated the feat for a first ever birdie on the 17th.

82 from 16 holes, I'm happy.

6(3), -(5), 5(3), 7(4), 6(5), 4(3), 5(5), 4(4), 4(4), 4(4), 5(3), -(5), 7(4), 6(4), 5(4), 4(4), 4(4), 6(3)