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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Golf membership acquired

I am very happy to say that I have recently become bought myself an Aberdeen City golf pass. 

This pass will allow me to use all of the City's four 18 hole, one 9 hole and one 6 hole courses, two 9 hole pitch and putt courses and all putting greens and practice areas.  These include:

• Hazlehead Golf Course (No1, No2, 9 Hole and Pitch n' putt Golf courses)
• Kings Links Golf Course
• Balnagask Golf Course: 18 hole and 9 hole pitch n' putt

I am absolutely over the moon at this and it will be my first ever golf membership, so I'm going to be using it to it's full extent and as often as possible. 

I am planning on playing the Kings Links course this Sunday, so will be blogging about that once it happens. I just wish it would come sooner. 

The pass itself cost me only £150 due to me being a student, which is incredible value for money. The normal price without student discount is £334.20 which is still pretty good considering the number of different courses you can have access to. 

I would definitely recommend it to others at the moment, although having not seen any of the other courses than Kings Links, that opinion might change. 

I'll let you know how I get on. 

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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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