August statistics

Disaster. For some inexplicable reason my Scoresaver 2 programme corrupted and refuses to be reinstalled. Andy from SS2 has been an absolute star in trying to help me fix it but to no avail. My last backup was made in January and so I have had to painstakingly re-enter data from the blog. Unfortunately, this means that I have lost the detailed performance stats from each round so I won’t be able to look at the year in its entirety. But it’s not the end of the world.

Practice
So this month. Well practice has been understandably impacted by my job application and preparation but it was totally worth it. A massive plus point is that the limited practice time I have had this month has been enormously constructive. I’ve got to grips with my fat putter handle and the metronome has worked wonders with my tempo. I am probably striking the ball better now than I ever have.

Distance	Time (minutes)	% of practice time
Driver	25	4%
Other Woods	10	1%
200 - 250 yards	15	2%
150 – 200 yards	105	15%
100 – 150 yards	25	4%
Short Approach	315	46%
Bunker Play	20	3%
Putting	165	24%
Total	680	100%

Rounds
That said hitting it well in practice is not the sport and converting that onto the course, especially with a card in my hand, has been a big challenge. Dr Bob audio books are helping my mentality and I am starting to think better on the course. As we head into the autumn and winter and the end of the Honours Board comps I expect I will feel less pressured in medals and the Autumn series. Looking at my stats for the month things appear to be heading in the right direction. I’m starting to get in the habit of scrambling pars and converting birdie opportunities. But at my level those are bonuses: the real challenge is to keep those big numbers off the score side and getting down the number of penalties per round is a great way to achieve that.

Statistic	Performance	SS2 Handicap level
Fairways in Regulation	29% (32%)	22 (20)
Greens in Regulation	19% (14%)	14 (17)
Putts per Round	34.83 (33.91)	17 (15)
Birdie Conversion	13% (10%)	16  (22)
Par Scrambles	10% (7%)	25 (28+)
Sand Saves	0% (11%)	28+ (15)
Driving distance	257 (N/A)	4 (N/A)
Penalties per Round	1.87 (1.30)	19 (14)

The SS2 handicap level is a calculation made indicating your performance on different facets of your game.

Now I have a big dog I have decided to add in my driving distance. This will be the average of the recorded drives on holes where I take a driver (which is normally not many). My hope for next month? Increase FIR and GIR and as a result bring down the average penalties per round.