Breaking 100!

Today I broke 100. For the first ever time in my short playing time.

To be honest I'm quite surprised it has come so soon. The course I was playing was Kings Links in Aberdeen. For a council run course it is in pretty good condition and still offers one hell of a challenge to both the beginner and the seasoned player.

I had played this course twice before, the first time being my first time playing a full 18 hole course. The initial score I had for this course was a pretty high 121. Which is almost double what the par of the course is, but I didn't let it get me down, as I was just happy to be out playing golf on an 18 hole course, but something inside me knew I could do better.

I returned some three weeks later with a target in my head, a number that I wanted to hit better than. That was to beat my last score and I knew I could do it. In the end I managed to shave a good 17 shots off my previous score totalling 105 for the round. It was so close to breaking that digits that many golfers aim to achieve and it just spurred me on I guess.

Two days later and I was back at Kings Links again. Ready to take on my 100 shot goal. I knew that the only reason I never managed to hit 100 the time before was due to a few silly holes where I shot up into the high single digits for a couple of holes and I didn't want to go the same way this time.

My first tee shot wasn't great, but I didn't let it get me down. I carried on and managed to hit a bogey on the first hole which was the hole that got me a relatively high score the last round.

I continued the round with some pretty shocking tee shots especially into the wind on the back 9, but that was pretty much always salvaged by my short game, making some fantastic putts and even netting myself a birdie on a par 5.

I finished the round on a cool 99. Talk about cutting it close, but I was on a high and I still am whilst writing this.

The lesson to be learnt from this is just focus on something that you want to beat and do it. Remain calm and don't let those bad shots get to you and you can achieve it. Know you can.

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My best round yet.

Tonight I decided to give the local 9 hole course a go again after spending the past three weeks or so practicing as much as my time would permit. I have definitely been seeing an improvement in my general striking and direction of my shots over at the practice area, so thought I'd put them to the test.

Usually when I've played the course I end up panicking and mishitting every shot that I take, so I didn't go in with too high an expectation, although I ended up pleasantly surprised.

I've not been doing any practice with my three wood, so decided to play the entire round with just my irons and putter and hitting straight from the ground, not using a tee.

The round started great with my tee shot from the first going right down the centre of the fairway, probably about 210 yards with my three iron, so to start off on that was perfect and hopefully set me up for a good round, but I didn't want to get ahead of myself.

I chipped onto the green and ended up with two putts to make par, which is unfortunate considering I probably should have birdied it, but I'm not complaining as I'm still very new to the game.

Onto the second hole and again teeing off with my three iron I ended up in the rough to the right of the green with a bunker to get over. I ended up trying a flop shot which I had been practicing after watching some tutorial videos on youtube. It came off pretty well and I ended up again on the green with two putts to score +1 on the hole.

The third hole was where I ended up going downhill. The green is on the other side of a gully, so in order to ensure I missed I was probably aiming too much to the right. Hitting an 8 iron off the tee, I ended up in some extremely long gorse bushes about 50 yards to the right of the green. This was an absolute nightmare to get out of and cost me three shots to get out of it and into a decent position to chip up to the green and putt in one. Ended up +3 on that hole.

The fourth is a downhill shot, so stepping up with my 8 iron I tee'd off this time ending up in the rough again about 50 yards to the left of the green. I managed to chip out, but overshot the green and had to chip from behind the green to get on. I holed the ball with one putt giving me another +1 on that hole.

The fifth is a long straight uphill fairway with a sloping green that if you end up too much at the front will roll back down about 50 yards so overshooting was my aim. I ended up again about 50 yards to the right of the green in some thick rough which chipping out of caused me a small problem of hitting the ball too hard, straight over the green and into rough at the other side. I chipped from the rough into a bunker and then from the bunker onto the green. It took me one short putt of about 3ft to finish the fifth with a +2.

The sixth hole, I tee'd off again with my three iron and ended up right down the middle of the fairway about 45 yards short of the green. A small chip up onto the green left me with a relatively easy putt for birdie, but I rushed the shot and ended up taking two putts making par on the hole.

The seventh I ended up slicing over onto the fairway of the adjacent eighth hole after ending up in the rough to the right of the fairway on my tee shot. My third shot chipped up to behind the green, I chipped from there onto the green for an easy putt to make +1.

The eighth, I tee'd off and again ended up on the adjacent fairway of the seventh, so pulled out my five iron and couldn't have hit a better second shot if I had wanted to, landing at the edge of the green. A quick two putts and I managed to save par.

Finishing off the round I hit the rough to the right of the green, narrowly missing the bunker from the tee. A chip to the left of the bunker left me an easy putt which I unfortunately missed, meaning I missed the chance to finish on a par, leaving me with +1 on the final hole.

My score for the round was 40 where the par was 31, so to finish on +9 is something I am extremely pleased about given my best score so far has been a questionable "48". This has definitely left me finishing tonight on a high and eager to get back out onto the course.

I'd like to thank all those who gave me advice about my mental game when stepping onto the course. Whether I took it on board and put it into practice subliminally or not, it seems to have helped me relax when playing a round.

You can view my SwingbySwing scorecard for the round here.

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The mental part of the game.

One of the main things I'm starting to find when playing golf is that whenever I seem to step onto a course I choke and my shots begin to head in every direction other than where I want them to go.

My shot accuracy has improved at the range a lot since I had my first lesson, but I just seem to overthink when it comes to playing on a course and my shots are constantly thinned, sliced or anything other than what I want it to be like.

I don't rush my shots on the course, but for some reason I just can't seem to connect with them as well as I can at the range, so I'm putting it down to some sort of mental inhibition rather than a physical one.

The only problem is, I don't know how to get past this problem. I know it will take a lot of practice to get myself better at golf, but god it isn't cheap to get onto a course and get the practice in, which is why I end up at the range. More than likely this is only going to promote my mental block by reinforcing that I can hit the ball fine at the range and then when I get onto the course it's all over the place again.

I don't want to resort to just spending all my time at the range because I enjoy it and don't get frustrated, so any tips of getting past this mental block is definitely appreciated.

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My first round

I had practiced at the range for about a week before I plucked up the courage to head over to the local golf course. I didn't think I had the confidence or the skill to tackle the full 18 hole course just yet, so opted to play the smaller nine hole. The course is moderately simple with most of it being comprised of straight up and down holes with some rough on either side and a few bunkers. Only a couple of the holes have real hazards in them, one being over a gully and the other is downhill with a water hazard and a river running behind the green.

I went over with an open mind and didn't expect too much of myself. I found this to be the best approach and it turned out right as I was pretty shocking, but knew that this is what would happen due to my relatively new introduction into the world of golf.

I did decide to keep scores though just to see my initial scores and have something to work from.

The round was tracked using the SwingBySwing golf app on my android phone and it worked perfectly for me.

You can see the result of the round here.


The par of the course is 31 and I scored a 48, which I didn't think was too bad for my first time. A lot of my screw ups were due to not taking my time and rushing shots, which resulted in a lot of topping and slicing.

I know that I can learn from this and have begun trying to improve my game by thinking about the shot before just walking up and hitting it as hard as I can in the direction I think it will go, because 9 times out of 10 it resulted in just having to take another shot from some other hazard or rough area.


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I'm Peter, I'm 26 and I'm a beginner golfer

It was coming to the end of my time of being a student at university and having got to know a few guys in the class, it turned out one of them was a keen golfer. I began wondering why I hadn't kept playing from when I was younger and started to question it even more as the days went on.

I had always quite enjoyed whacking the ball up and down the local park across from my house, but had never really been properly involved in the game.
I was given a junior half set of Regal clubs from my grandparents for my 11th or 12th birthday. The exact year I can't really recall, but I was quite young. A lot of my time was spent just hitting balls back and forth in the park and not really over at the course or getting any lessons.

My dad was a keen golf player in his youth, so taught me what he knew, but again he was never really taught how to play. He just picked up a set of clubs and taught himself to play through trial and error. So any bad habits that he picked up were never addressed and we're in time passed onto me.

I played the local 9 hole course at Peterhead Golf club every couple of months and quite enjoyed it, although never taking it too seriously and keeping scores.

After a while, my interest turned to other things and my clubs were left in the shed to rust away.

Fast forward to 2013 and I'm now a 26 year old man looking to get back into the sport. Luckily my sisters fiance is also a avid golfer, so I had someone to turn to for tips and advice about buying clubs, etc.

I hadn't invested in anything yet, but the seed was planted and I couldn't wait to get myself to the range/course/park again to see if I could still play.

This was just the beginning of my journey. I was on the road to becoming a beginner golf player once again.


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