The planned Course Maintenance was postponed from this week as the forecast is for dry days ahead, meaning the work can be completed next week with minimal machinery damage. Andy has been mini-tining the greens this week to aerate them and this is due to be followed by a hollow-tine and top dressing. Sometimes this process is done just once a year, but the ideal would be twice as we have in the last 12 months. The same process in September had completely recovered in less than 2 weeks and that has allowed us to play on good greens all winter. 

   

This same process now will keep the greens healthy, reduce the compaction from the winters play and promote good growth for the spring. I don't know about you, but I try to treat my lawns whenever the green staff treat the greens - seems like a good rule of thumb!




Did you watch Bubba Watson win at the Northern Trust Open from the famed Riviera Club at the weekend? The 10th hole is only 315 yards long but plays a huge part in the constantly changing leaderboard. It reminds me of some of our shorter par 4 holes at Brocton - in particular the 7th with the 'risk and reward' nature of it.

In the 2015 tournament at Riviera, half the field attempted to drive the green and finished a collective 14 under par. The other half of the field laid up with shorter clubs and they ended up collectively 52 OVER par. That explained why this year almost everyone was hitting driver - however only one drive out of 244 managed to hit the green, but the scoring was far better overall. 




The key here for your own game is to be flexible with your course management, what may appear to be the most sensible strategy from the tee could actually turn out to be costing you dropped shots. Our 7th hole at Brocton is a good example, at 291 yards long off the back tees it can be in range for some golfers and others might fear the cavernous front bunkers. It reminds me of the 10th at Riviera in that if you miss the green anywhere, getting up and down in two, or even three shots can be a tall order. If you decide to lay up shorter off the tee, the fairway bunkers come into play and then you still have to traverse the front bunkers afterwards. 

The key to a hole like this, much like the 10 at Riviera, is to get better at the most difficult shot on the hole - the bunker shots. This was why the pros were going for the green even though there was little chance of hitting it, the green is so small at the back that they were highly likely to go in the greenside bunkers in two shots if they laid up, so they may as well go for it and get in the bunker in one shot.

Bunker shots are often the nemesis of anyone but lower handicap golfers and there's no need to fear the sand. Just this week I gave a lesson to someone who had come down from 18 to 12 handicap last year yet they still they played by avoiding the sand at all costs as they couldn't get out. After half an hour in the practice bunker with me he was playing two shots easily - a standard bunker shot and a super high spinning bunker shot. Not only was he getting the ball out consistently, he had a choice of 2 different shots as well. What did we work on? You only need 3 things for good bunker shots:

1. Increasing bounce & loft through impact
2. Clubhead speed
3. A wide bottom to the swing

I took a new Mizuno MPS 62 degree wedge out to Arizona and had a few sand saves from very close to the hole which would have been much harder to do with a less lofted wedge. If you're highest lofted wedge is a normal 'sand' wedge at roughly 55 degrees, you're missing out on some shot making ability that could help you out. You don't need to go to 62 degrees (or 62.8 degree that Bubba uses), but I'd certainly recommend 60 degrees.

Here's a neat picture from a club builder in America which goes to show how much a quality club can be bent as long as it forged from carbon steel, as most of the clubs we sell are. He took a Mizuno sand wedge and bent the head completely flat and then bent all the loft off, put a really short shaft in, and uses it as a BBQ fork!!

     

How cool is that!




STAFFORD HALF MARATHON

The Stafford Half Marathon takes place on March 20th and there are plenty of Brocton members taking part in it this year. I'll be running and raising money for the Birmingham Children's Hospital and had entered along with Lewis as he offered to do it to keep me company through the winter in the training and I wanted him to experience the great feeling of accomplishment from completing a mass participation event, but he's suffered with the training lately and we've decided that it's not safe for him to carry on which he's disappointed in, although at 16 he's a bit on the young side - he'll have plenty of opportunity in the future. 

Our junior Captain, Holly Hunt is running the event for the first time and she has a fund raising site at https://www.justgiving.com/hollyhunt4, raising money for the Katherine House Hospice. One of the green staff, Richard Quinne is running and others include annual entrant Frank Dellicompagni along with Ben Gamble, Andy Jones, Mike and Pete Mason and a few others who I can't think of off the top of my head. I'll include a full rundown next week and hope to take a picture of everyone lined up before the race.




We spent much of last week re-strategising our golf ball and glove propositions available to you all. We sell more dozen packs of balls than three ball packs these days so we have made it even easier for you to stock up with your favourite ammunition - from now on golf ball sleeves are all 4 packs for the price of 3. So an AD333 pack at £6 is effectively free if you buy another three packs at the same time making it £18 for the dozen.

This applies right across the board with all the Titleist, Srixon and Mizuno balls.

Similarly, all gloves will now be 3 for the price of 2 across all men's, ladies, leather and all weather gloves and across all the brands - FootJoy, Srixon and Mizuno. Of course, we'll still allow you to buy just 1 glove, but that glove is free when you buy 2 more at the same time - it's a no-brainer! 

Don't miss your opportunity for a free 7 iron grip from Golf Pride with the re-gripping promotion currently in store. You have a huge choice of grips and obviously the idea is that you'll see how good a new grip feels and realise that yours have been needing replacing for a while - you never quite appreciate how worn grips have gone until you replace them.




IN THE BUILD SHOP THIS WEEK:

- PING irons reshaft - ACCRA graphite
- Srixon driving irons - Steelfiber shaft
- Mizuno MP25 irons - KBS tour shafts
- Mizuno MPS wedges - KBS Hi-Rev shafts
- Callaway 3 wood resift - Mitsubishi Diamana
- TaylorMade hybrid reshaft - Mitsubishi Diamana
- TaylorMade R15 driver reshaft - ACCRA i-series
- Mizuno JPX850 forged irons - C-Taper Lite shafts
- Miura CB501 irons - KBS Tour 90 shafts
- Golf Pride re-grips