Sam Snead

As well as being a master golfer Snead is famously recorded as saying "if most people gripped a knife and for the same as they gripped a golf club, they would starve to death". I've always felt this didn't apply to me and that I had relatively light grip pressure. I was wrong. Tested my 8iron with the new grip yesterday and it swiftly became apparent that my light grip pressure was, metaphorically, asphyxiating my club. It's going to take time to ease my stranglehold. The key learning is that my Tour Velvets didn't retain their grippiness as long as I expected. They will have their last outing on Sunday.

Turning to Sundays game it will be a strange experience as I've not played with company for a month now. I'm hoping there will be plenty of banter, a dash of good humour and a soupçon of quality golf. Let's hope that there are no bad Halloween omens awaiting.