Oops, Rory Mcilroy had a bit of a personal 'dropped shot' as he wanged his 3-iron into the lake at Doral in the World Golf Championships. I wasn't watching at the time but Twitter lit up instantly as soon as he did it. There's been so much analysis of his golf club launching action since and the general consensus is that he throws a club like a World #1 as well, a full 80 yards carry with a great launch angle and an efficient release!
He immediately apologised in his post-round interview but of course he needn't have, club golfers shouldn't be using a 3-iron in the first place! In fact the only concern we should have is that you'd be using a 3-iron instead of a hybrid. Maybe we should have a challenge day and everyone who hits a hybrid better than a 3 -iron gets entered into a 'long throw' contest to decide a winner? (I think that would be everyone).
The Club vs Scratch team annual match was played on Saturday with the club prevailing 7-4, although the match was a lot closer than the result indicates, as 4 matches went to the last hole. I had the pleasure of playing and halving the game with Mike Dewsbury (and John Bell and Colman Whitelaw) who is continuing along the path of becoming a great golfer, very impressive.
All the scratch team were present and they look to have a good chance of moving up a league for the 4th year running as we now have some great strength in depth. I'd definitely challenge all the juniors to now set their goal to represent the club in the scratch team at some point in the future!
Congratulations to my team of Winston Lee, Steve Kanes and Shaun Davison as we won the Staffs PGA Alliance at Little Aston on Wednesday. 83 points (-11) was good enough to win by one and I also came in the individual pro prizes. The course was in amazing condition and I'm happy that my putt for eagle ending up in the lake on the 17th, didn't cost us the win!
There will be a Pro's Fiddle this Saturday which will be a better-ball Stableford pairs competition. Played off the white or red tees with 3/4 handicap allowance with every pair being allowed to choose a 'Joker hole' where they'll receive double their points score for that hole. The Joker hole must be recorded on the scorecard in the pro shop before teeing off. Give us a call in the shop on 01785 661485 to book your place or click here to get in touch.
I was on home turf on Tuesday as Foremost Golf held one of their Spring Workshops at Brocton Hall and I was invited to speak to a room of my peers. We conducted a tour of the Pro Shop, Workshop and Fitting Studio and then I presented seminars on three topics:
Thanks to Foremost for a great day and to my fellow presenter, Anders Mankert from Cosby Golf Club. He's a pro-active pro and can be found on Twitter as @Anders_Mankert. I've always said there's a lot of nice people involved with golf and certainly the vast majority of golf professionals are all too happy to share their ideas/best practices which have benefitted their members, golf clubs and businesses. That's the great thing with our profession, everything's a win - win for everyone involved in the game.
Time and time again it's proved that the golfers who take lessons, get involved in golf days, club events and keep in touch are the ones who get the most out of their club, their spare time, their membership and the health benefits of the game. A large part of our job of course is improving golfer's games and therefore their enjoyment and frequency of playing - we're lucky at Brocton that the club is so playable all year round which is always an attraction for new members.
The weather dried up enough for Andy and his team to apply some top dressing to the greens. This process was delayed because the ground was saturated but the hollow-tining needed doing to relieve some of the compaction. I'd consider this a dry winter compared to previous years, but it just goes to show how constant overnight rain can be just as detrimental, as heavy daytime course shutting rain. We played the first winter Staffs PGA Alliance at South Staffs on Thursday last week and they had suffered from excess wear due to being open consistently over the winter, just as we have.
Still, as the days get warmer we'll start to see some growth and I love the upcoming weeks as everything gets better from here on in. If you've not played much over the winter and you've got out of the habit of playing golf, now is the time to get your clubs dusted off and get active.
Lots going on in the workshop this week:
Miura driver - ACCRA shaft
Miura 5 wood - ACCRA shaft
2 x Wishon re-shafts
Vega VC01 irons 4-pw - Dynamic Gold Pro shafts
Cleveland RTX 2.0 wedges 50,54, 58
Adams hybrid re-shaft
Ladies demo driver build
Multitude of re-grips
