Lots to write about next week with the news that Tiger is withdrawing from his scheduled debut on the PGA Tour this week. Short games issues apparently - the Yips?


 

Before then, we have lots of things to tell you this week also, starting with the Ryder Cup report that was missing from last week's newsletter. 

Matt Wilkes was our Brocton member working as a volunteer at Hazeltine and this is his very interesting report about the event from inside the ropes.


 

The final Tuesday social of the year takes place this week. Many thanks to everyone who has played this year, there has been 139 different golfers take part with an average turnout of 45 each week. We've run 4 Order of Merit series through the year with three divisions and had lots of different winners. Special thanks to Katie as well who has been organising the excel spreadsheet each week, in return for a glass or two of wine! 

Last week's winners were: 

1st David Robertson 21 points £12 
2nd Ian Gwinnell 20 points £10 
3rd Josh Smith 19 £9 
4th John Nicholls 18 £7 
5th Graham Cooper 18 £6




We finally managed to play the October Medal and Centenary Salver after it got rained off twice. Jon Brookes emerged victorious as the winner of the Centenary Salver with a 2 under par nett 67. The scoring was tough as the greens were so quick. This was the first competition with our new Stroke Index. After England Golf came and assessed our course a month ago, we have been given an extra shot off the men's and ladies competition tees. So off the whites we are now par 69 and standard scratch 70. This is understandable as in most competitions this year the scratch score has risen to 70 due to the course playing so tough compared to par. 




You may be glad to know that we are reducing the carry distances to some of the fairways now, the recent years have seen more lush summers and the rough has been more dense than usual so the need has arisen to keep golfers from getting snagged up short of the fairways. Holes like the 1st pose a problem as the ground is so uneven short of the fairway but you will start to see them mown with the semi rough cutter, not quite fairway height but much easier to play from. 




New autumn and winter clothing is in store from PING Clothing, and FootJoy for men. We've also got Green Lamb, Daily Sports, Calvin Klein and ProQuip for ladies. The main product for this winter is going to be the 'Chill-out' style tops and the quilted body warmers. 

  

If you watched the Open Championship or the golf from St Andrews last week, all the players wear these items with very few wearing lambswool sweaters these days. Of course there's still a large market for lambswool clothing and as they come in a huge range of colours, but the performance fabrics are becoming more and more popular. Don't forget we can embroider virtually any garment in-house with our own embroidery machine which can be seen chugging away in the corner of the shop. 


 

Following my two days spent product testing at ACCRA's UK fitting centre in Essex, I've now added the Project X HAZARDOUS handcrafted line of shafts to my driver demo bag. 

ACCRA are now the European distributors for True Temper and Project X shafts so I now get access to all the 'Tour Only' product. 

The HAZARDOUS shaft was launched last year and already is in use by 40% of the PGA Tour pro's. 

The yellow shaft is for a lower flight and the red shaft is for a mid-flight. 

They make a black shaft which really knocks the backspin off the ball but I haven't got that one in - it's a bit of a beast. 

Apparently they are going to be the standard shaft next year in TaylorMade drives but they will be a different version. The 'real' ones have a 'Handcrafted' logo on them was they are made by hand in San Diego, the OEM version will be mass produced in China.

We've also added a TaylorMade M2 driver, the new Srixon drivers, a Yonex driver and soon we'll have the new Titleist 917 to add to our driver stable, along with the choice of Callaway XR, PING G, Srixon 355, TaylorMade M1, Miura SIT and Wishon 919THI. 

We have interchangeable shafts for all of them with weights from 50grams to 80grams and flexes from ladies to X-Stiff. 

Click here if you'd like to book a Driver Fitting Session - the cost is just £30 and if you buy a new club, we'll take the full amount off the club.