Hello golfers,

 

The Players Championship

I was lucky enough to walk around Sawgrass and watch the last round of the Players Championship on Sunday. It's such an iconic and exciting place. After Ian Poulter's rollercoaster finish, we saw him later that night in Graham McDowell's restaurant, Nona Blur, and we saw the winner Su Wi Kim at breakfast in the hotel. Oddly, they didn't recognise us though!

What struck us was how many really bad shots we witnessed from the top players. Only 2 of the world's top 15 players finished in the top 10 and we saw shanks, duffs, blocks and snap-hooks aplenty. Of course we saw some stunning shots as well but it makes you realise that on TV you think the players are nailing every putt or shot because they are showing the highlights of the leaders.

Take the newly designed 12th hole and the iconic 17th green for example. We saw 50% of players knocking the ball in the water on both holes and some of the shots weren't even close to being dry.

Their scrambling skills, however, were very impressive and this really is the key to scoring on a tough course. If you're good at scrambling you can afford to play aggressively with the knowledge you can still get it round if you're in trouble.

My advice around the green is to 'hit the ball as low as you can, whenever you can'. The lowest shot would be a putter, then a bump and run with a hybrid (like Kim did on the 18th), and then a chip and run with something like a 9 iron, followed by a higher shot with a wedge. Your worst shot with a putter will usually turn out to be better than your worst shot with a chip and so on.

We stood right next to Rory Mcllroy and Jason Day on the 11th tee as they waited 10 minutes for the fairway to clear. 

What do you think tour golfers talk about when they're waiting? Golf of course! 

They were trying out each other's putters, discussing the new course alterations, the weather and how they had approached playing different holes.

New Tech-Gadget Arriving Soon

When I'm back, I have an amazing new gadget arriving to further improve our service to you. I've ordered the new GCQuad launch monitor which is some seriously hi-tech club and ball tracking technology. More details to come next week. Stay tuned.


 

Annual Spain Trip

Here's a photo from Spain last week with some of the Tuesday night crowd on their annual trip away. 

You may not recognise any of them, but that's probably in their favour - brave lot!