Luke has been in the winning circle again, playing in the Assistant Pro’s Pro-Am at Ruddington Grange, his team including Brocton member Shaun Davison just missed out but as this picture of the scoreboard shows, Luke was ‘holding folding’!
Mike Dewsbury has also been playing the part of ‘bridesmaid’ recently, finishing runner-up in the top amateur scratch events at Kings Norton and ?.
Consistency at top-flight amateur golf is difficult as there are usually just top three prizes and it becomes easy to try to force a score and falter in the process, whereas in pro events at least 30% of the field get paid. There’s a phenomenon in sport, and golf in particular, called ‘The Learning Curve’ which is evident at many levels of the game.
Imagine a scratch golfer, they probably score under par 20-30% of the time they play, but imagine if that golfer turns professional. They suddenly know they need to score under par in order to win and probably more under par than they often manage. They would be used to going all out for a top three finish whereas in the professional ranks, a solid performance can leave you well in the money, or qualifying for future events, without actually winning. This was evident in the US Open with runner up Erik Compton racing up the world rankings and gaining tournament exemptions even though he finished 8 shots off the lead. Of course, the more often you finish in the winning circle, the more your chance of being the champion. The Learning Curve comes into effect as the golfer can try harder and harder to force themselves to play well, whereas they used to accept good and bad days before as part of the game. Now, they struggle to accept the bad days and put more and more effort into trying, happily, the lesson is learnt and as the golfer resigns themselves to the truth that there will be inconsistencies, their natural abilities shine through again and the improvement continues.
You’ve probably experienced it yourself on a bad game of golf when you stand on the 18th tee having blown a score, then just aimlessly swing at the ball and hit your best drive of the day.
You can see The Learning Curve when a golfer gets their first handicap, or reduces their handicap. You can see it when a new golfer starts to keep score. You can see it when a successful regional professional moves up to Tour level events and you can see it when a world class professional moves onto the world stage.
You could even see it when Martin Kaymer became world number one. Apparently he wanted to better his shot shape to suit Augusta, replacing his consistent fade with what turned out, an inconsistent draw. Eventually he was like the club golfer stood on the 18th tee, reverted to what he knew he could do well and just made sure his did it more often, or less often in the case of the number of times he hits the ball!
In case you think I’ve gone mad and am not recommending coaching or working on your game - the learning curve can be negated by not trying at all, which is an option - but not many golfers carry on playing the game with that philosophy, especially when they incur a prolonged poor performance spell. For some golfers, their 18th tee moment is when they decide to indulge in some outside help - PGA Professional coaching.
I’m upping the training for my charity cycle challenge which is only 10 weeks away. Thanks to Svein Balkoy for lending me a bike as mine wasn’t up to the task.
I ran the London Marathon in 2012 as part of a mid-life crisis, raising £8000 for children's charities, now I'm going to cycle round London in the Prudential Ride 100 which is the exact route raced in the Olympic Games, 100 miles around the City of London and the Surrey countryside on August 10th. I'm raising money this time for the Katharine House Hospice in my home town of Stafford, which does incredible work and offers a lifeline to many families.
Swimming around London next could be an issue! Maybe I'll go for taking a taxi around London for charity instead!
Please spare whatever you can to support the Hospice with me. I have a collection tin in the shop and you can also go to this link to donate - https://www.justgiving.com/NevilBland
Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity. So it’s the most efficient way to donate – saving time and cutting costs for the charity.
The results of the US Open sweep are in the Pro Shop, we filled the sheet three times so there were 30 winners.
The Open Championship sweep will be opening soon - enter in the shop to get involved.
We have a special promotion which started this week supported by Titleist. We have 18 dozen ProV1’s and 6 dozen ProV1X’s all stamped with "The Open Championship 2014”. Purchase a dozen of these special balls and you’ll be entered into a draw to win a smart Titleist trolley bag. That’s a 1 in 24 chance of winning, a unique ball, and all at the dozen discount price of £39.99.
Titleist are also supporting those of you who have used the Srixon AD333 ball or Soft Feel ball in the past. Buy a dozen Titleist DT Solo or a dozen Titleist Velocity balls at the discount dozen price and receive two extra balls FREE of charge. The Solo is the softer version, the Velocity is the longer one.
There were a few newbie’s on this weeks Tuesday Social, its’ there to give you something to play in, mix up with other golfers you may not normally meet and enjoy some lovely summer evenings. The results this week, back nine played:
- Josh Smith 20 points (1 under par gross)
- Rich Le Page 18
- Mark Wheatley 17
- Stewart Staples 16
- Ian Lawson 16
Ladies Stableford
- Caroline Wilkins (15) 34
Men's Monthly Medal and Mick Blagg Trophy
Division 1
Neil Flowers (9) 66
Steve Hirst (11) 66
Division 2
- Ian Price (14) 67
- Ian Shiach (17) 68
Division 3
- Peter Collier (23) 66
- Steve Lucas (20) 66
The road to The Open Championship begins for Luke and myself this coming Monday as we compete in the Regional Qualifying rounds. Luke's at Little Aston and I'm at Luffenham Heath in Rutland. There's usually about a dozen places at each venue which leads through the the Final Qualifying at Southport & Ainsdale, Woburn and The Berkshire where there are 3 spots at each one.
