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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Age is starting to show.

As my time of being a golf enthusiast goes on, I am beginning to realise more and more that I am not as young as I  used to be and my life experiences have taken a toll on my abilities.

My wrists for example are wrecked due to years of skating and after one event in particular where I dislocated and fractured my left wrist. It has left me with a strange pressure in my wrist if it makes an awkward movement that it perhaps used to be able to do with ease. This has been noticeable in my golfing and can flare up after playing for a continued period of time. There's not really much I can do about it to be honest, apart from grin and bear it.

I have also been experiencing a bit of discomfort under my left shoulder blade, but put it down to incorrect swings in my first few weeks and have inflamed the muscles around that area. The problem has all but gone now, but can show that if you're doing things incorrectly that you presume to be right then it can have an adverse effect on not only your golfing ability but your health in general.

This is why I booked my first lesson with the local PGA pro to assess my swing and hopefully rid me of some of my bad habits.

The lesson went extremely well with the coach pointing out that I have some very good points in my swing that could be built on. My main problem appeared to be my balance which was centred very much towards my toes, resulting in balance problems on follow through and one heck of a slice. This was corrected by positioning my body weight more evenly spread over by entire foot.

I also had the problem of having no flex in my right knee during my backswing. This resulted in my head moving all over the place and just generally wasn't something I wanted to have. The coach corrected this by ensuring that I had my right knee flexed during the swing. The drill used to sort this out was to keep my right heel from touching the ground throughout the whole movement, meaning that my leg was constantly flexed.

I have been practicing these movements religiously and have seen a massive improvement in my ball flight, from a fade/slice to a much straighter flight.

My problem now is my directionality. I seem to think I'm aiming directly at the target but the ball always ends up slightly left or slightly right of the target. Whether this is attributed to my swing path or just my general sense of direction I'm not sure.

I'll be saving those problems for the next time I see the coach, but for now, I can't recommend getting a golf lesson with your local pro if you are a relatively new golfer, or even if you're an experienced player looking to improve your game. It really is worth it.

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