We had some sessions on the ranges in Turkey and a common theme was that golfers continue to make the game too complicated. A great example is putting, assuming you’ve read the putt correctly (which is hard to do out there):

• If you’ve missed the hole to the left then you’ve hit the far side of the ball instead of the back.
• If you’ve missed the hole to the right then you’ve hit the near side of the ball.
• If you’ve knocked it way past then you’ve hit it too hard.
• If you’ve left it short then you’ve hit it too soft.

And it’s as simple as that!

There are dozens of ways to fix each scenario but you don’t have to make what you may believe to be a technically correct action to achieve a fix. The greens at the Faldo course featured bent grass greens and if you put the slightest side spin on a putt, the ball would waver wildly offline. The answer wasn’t to grind away and try to fix your stroke - the answer was to deliberately try and ‘slice’ your left to right putts into the hole and ‘draw’ your right to left putts in. Not conventional thinking, as far as you’re aware I know, but the great Jack Nicklaus was quoted as saying that he used a different stroke for both of these direction putts.

Back at Brocton, the 2019 local rules will soon be appearing on the scorecard (interestingly none of the courses in Turkey had updated any of their local rules) and one which may be worth noting is the Temporary Immovable Obstruction, or TIO.

This applies to the cars which are parked on the grass as you enter the main car park. We used to use this overflow area on 4 or 5 days of the year but it’s not uncommon now for it to be in use twice a week, not because we’ve got more members, everyone is just playing more.

Parked cars are now classed as a TIO, which means that you get free relief to the side if they are in your ‘line of sight’ to the hole. Previously you would only have gained relief if the car was in the way of your swing. The rule is quite a few paragraphs long but it basically means that you get free relief, including a reasonable distance either side of a car UNLESS by doing so you would get relief from something else in the way of your swing. For example if your ball was up against a tree and a car was 100 yards away in line with the flag, you wouldn’t get relief. Any queries you have about the local rules, just give us a shout in the pro shop and we’ll help you out.