What a week we've had of torrential downpours! There hasn't been any lightning but we've certainly had biblical amounts of the wet stuff resulting in the course being closed Tuesday and Wednesday and also Monday this week.
As one of the best draining courses in the Midlands, we can be thankful that we are open more than most and that the day after these storms, we are able to play a course in good condition with little after effect. The green staff have done a superb job each day to rectify water damage and I don't think they want to see another bunker rake in the near future - whose idea was it to design golf courses with lots of water collecting bowls around the greens!!
I was fortunate on Monday as I travelled to Fairhaven for the Open Championship qualifying round. I drove there through torrential rain which was coming across the entire country but by the time I arrived the sun was coming out and I ended up getting sunburnt. Compare that to the other 11 qualifiers around the country and most of them played through torrential rain all day and half of them had to come back again on Tuesday to finish off as they'd been called off the course for hours. Little Aston, Frilford Heath, Luffenham Heath and Sandy Lodge were all suspended for up to 6 hours - now that's a long day!
Unfortunately I hit the ball far too many times with 83 of my finest connections, Mike Dewsbury also missed out with a 74 as level par 72 was in a playoff to get one of the 6 spots into Final Qualifying. Mike had been asking my opinion prior to playing about what strategy to use off the tee, particularly off the 1st - a par 5 with lots of deep fairway bunkers.
The instinct is to play safe and lay up short of the danger but I mentioned in the newsletter last week how the biggest factor for shooting lower scores on Tour is the long game, not putting.
As I mentioned to Mike, if a golfer needs to hit lots of irons off the tee to avoid danger, then they don't really possess the game to get through the Final Qualifying stage against all the tour pro's anyway. Mike did hit plenty of drivers and he can be proud that he gave it a go in that sense - I played with a very successful player who decided to hit a 3 iron or 2 iron off every tee, even on the longest par 5's, only made 1 birdie and missed qualifying by 1 shot. Never really gave it a chance in my opinion, although to be fair he did presume there were going to be twice as many spots available as there were.
Dustin Johnson once again proved the importance of driving as he smashed his way around Oakmont to win the US Open. I thought this was Lee Westwoods best chance of winning a major as putting performance was so unimportant, compared to hitting greens in regulation. After the first round Lee had gained 2.3 shots on the field off the tee and 3.2 shots on average with his approach shots. Alas, he came unravelled pretty quickly on the final round.
Here's the result of our US Open sweep.
Congratulations to Wayne Cooper who won the spot to play with me in the Lombard Trophy regional final after his nett 63 on Sunday in the medal. 141 people played in the competition and there was some great scoring, particularly Ian Ashton shooting 1 under par 68 off 4 handicap.
We've got some brilliant new FootJoy waterproof trousers in. They're lightweight material and feel so less cumbersome than other waterproof trousers and the cut is superb. They're priced at £74.99 and well worth a look.
Other Popular products last week in the Pro Shop:
- Waterproof golf bags
- Waterproof golf shoes (all of them are)
- Waterproof suits
- Waterproof umbrellas!
- Waterproof gloves
- Waterproof coffee!
In the workshop this week:
- Miura Limited Edition Black boron 501 irons - KBS C-Taper Lite shafts
- Tom Wishon 730 driver Tom Wishon 949 fairway wood
- Tom Wishon High fairway and hybrid
- TaylorMade R15 driver reshaft
- Super Stroke putter re-grips
- Mizuno MP25 irons
- Titleist 915D2 driver - ACCRA Tour Z extreme shaft upgrade
- PING G driver - ACCRA i-series shaft upgrade
