Confucius

"Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes"

Well I've made more than a few mistakes during my golfing life. Let's start with the club fitting debacle. As was quite rightly posted on my Thursday post PING webfit suggests that my clubs should be 0.5/0.75" longer than standard. They are currently 1" longer, so what's the problem? Well the fitting pro in a different shop who saw me in the flesh thought that they should be an inch longer. And I only went in there because other people had been saying I looked too stooped at address.

But what about all those really nice shots I hit? What if the niggly back pain is being caused by swing flaws? I called the men at Titleist, their machine agrees with the one at PING (no surprises there then). I give up, I don't want to be technical I just want to play and enjoy playing, but so much conflicting and confusing information...Arrrrghhh!

"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand" 

Not had a lesson for ages, that's probably the root of all my issues. Decided to give the pro at my local club a go, he's reasonably priced and has been a bit more full of banter recently, which is a very important quality. Alongside that from now on I will only buy clubs direct from the manufacturer at a fitting centre or demo day, that's my lesson learnt.

"It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop"

I am far too impatient and always in a rush. I have hopefully at least another 40 years (if not more) to enjoy my golf so. So I need to be more patient on the course and off it. Progress will come and it won't come as rapidly as it has for others but it will come. My pitching and chipping is improving with every game and practice session. My putting has taken a little bit of a dip recently, but that is partly my fault for stepping out of my routine all too frequently. It's my long game that is suffering, here's hoping I can get my swing back on track soon.

"Study the past if you would define the future"

So my round. The highlights:

• a wonderful tee shot on our tiny par 3 11th that left me a 15 foot putt for birdie
• a cute chipped approach shot on 15th to leave a testy little 6 footer for par
• a 238 yard tee shot on the 12th with a lovely draw around gorse bushes ( I was particularly chuffed with that one)

Lowlights were too many missed putts where I didn't follow my routine and poor ball striking with my irons. It fell apart a little toward the end but when I set out on my golfing mission my plan was to learn the game backwards, the huge progress on chipping and pitching gives me a lot of hope.

FIR 31%, GIR 6% Putts 40 mmmm.

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in getting up every time we do"

109 (71)

4(3), 8(5), 4(3), 9(4), 6(5), 4(3), 7(5), 5(4), 5(4), 5(4), 4(3), 8(5), 7(4), 7(4), 5(4), 8(4), 9(4), 4(3)