First time under handicap in a medal

[Birchy]

Played last night in a midweek medal and finally shot under my handicap after having so many stupid buffers. Looking back on the round last night and i realised that i seemed to play a bit more defensively the last 6 or 7 holes and it screwed me up a bit. I was also a bit nervous at the time seeing as i knew i was flying and had a chance of a good round. Is this normal? Im thinking i should be forcing myself to keep playing my way and attack unless its obviously too risky. Any thoughts/advice? Feel a bit miffed even though i shot under for first time!

 

[pbrown7582]

Well played on shooting under h/cap. Half the battle to seeing a good round through is to keep playin as you have been one shot at a time and try not to concern yourself with the score until after 18.
Much much easier said than done, I suspect we are all the same get to 9 have a tot up and then start if I do this this and this it leaves me -'x' .
Fastest and easiest way to ruin a card and leave you with what might have been!

Hope CSS doesn't alter too much for you and a little cut comes your way.

 

[Stub]

Well done.I was hopingfor the same in our Midweek medalthis week afer scoring 36pts on a neighouring course at the weekend.

First tee shot OB, Third shot clipped a tree. 10 on the par 5 first! Front 9 was miserable and took 60. Picked up on back 9 for 49 but too late by then, damage done.

Hope next time I can repeat your experience.

 

[Birchy]

Well played on shooting under h/cap. Half the battle to seeing a good round through is to keep playin as you have been one shot at a time and try not to concern yourself with the score until after 18.
Much much easier said than done, I suspect we are all the same get to 9 have a tot up and then start if I do this this and this it leaves me -'x' .
Fastest and easiest way to ruin a card and leave you with what might have been!

Hope CSS doesn't alter too much for you and a little cut comes your way.

Well i tried not to tott up at halfway and just keep on playing and keep my cool etc. It got to a point after a few holes of the back 9 though where i just knew i had a shedload of shots left and thats when it started to get a bit choppy. Im hoping i will be better for the experience though and be a bit more clued up next time it happens .

Im hoping for a slight cut as well

 

[Birchy]

Well done.I was hopingfor the same in our Midweek medalthis week afer scoring 36pts on a neighouring course at the weekend.

First tee shot OB, Third shot clipped a tree. 10 on the par 5 first! Front 9 was miserable and took 60. Picked up on back 9 for 49 but too late by then, damage done.

Hope next time I can repeat your experience.

Cheers

After a 10 on the first you did well to come back at all. Ive known people walk off after doing stuff like that! You get days where no matter what you try and do you end up having one of them holes but i think what makes you is how you recover. Sounds like your close to a good one though if its a couple of big scores wrecking your card.

 

[G1BB0]

Play eah hole/shot at a time and on its own merits, not based on what you have done already.

If your swinging well then carry on in the same way as its obviously a day when its all coming together.

When I have a good start through our 1st 4 holes I always balls up the 5th. I have now got a gameplan for that hole alone regardless what went on the 4 previous (good or bad). Its served me well as the h.c cut shows (12 holes in 5 over gross yesterday)

Being defensive is fine if your not swinging well, keep it in play etc but when your in the zone it has to be milked for all its worth :thup:

 

[Tiger]

Well played

 

[Curls]

i just knew i had a shedload of shots left

Hi Birchy, first off congrats it's always good to play Medal play well hope there's a cut coming your way. The bit I left quoted above is probably the crux of the issue, if its possible at all you should try not to think in terms of "shots you have left over", if you do it that way you will never go truly low. The handicap you have is not an allocation of shots you can get away with, its a number and when you stand in good shape on the 10th it is as irrelevant as the 9 holes you have just played. This is something I didn't grasp until reading Zen Golf, I used to always come in bang on handicap because this was the way I thought, when you play each shot on its merit as the folks have suggested above then the number of shots youve taken or are yet to take are irrelevant. All that matters is the hole/shot in front of you. Hope that helps get an even bigger cut next time

 

[garyinderry]

im not happy that i shot a 34 in my last comp and got a 0.1 back! its not my fault that a high handicaper shoots a big score and pushes the css down! grrrrrr! :angry:

 

[rosecott]

im not happy that i shot a 34 in my last comp and got a 0.1 back! its not my fault that a high handicaper shoots a big score and pushes the css down! grrrrrr! :angry:

What do you class as a high handicapper? CSS is only affected by the scores of 20 handicappers and lower.

 

[Birchy]

Hi Birchy, first off congrats it's always good to play Medal play well hope there's a cut coming your way. The bit I left quoted above is probably the crux of the issue, if its possible at all you should try not to think in terms of "shots you have left over", if you do it that way you will never go truly low. The handicap you have is not an allocation of shots you can get away with, its a number and when you stand in good shape on the 10th it is as irrelevant as the 9 holes you have just played. This is something I didn't grasp until reading Zen Golf, I used to always come in bang on handicap because this was the way I thought, when you play each shot on its merit as the folks have suggested above then the number of shots youve taken or are yet to take are irrelevant. All that matters is the hole/shot in front of you. Hope that helps get an even bigger cut next time

Thanks for the advice . To be honest i was a bit like a rabbit in the headlights. My mind was saying how the hell have you got some shots left at this stage! Hopefully next time i will know what to expect and react a bit better.

 

[Curls]

Thanks for the advice . To be honest i was a bit like a rabbit in the headlights. My mind was saying how the hell have you got some shots left at this stage! Hopefully next time i will know what to expect and react a bit better.

Know the feeling dude, we've all been there and it's tricky to keep the head. Another tip from that book was about staying in the present. I used to have (and still have to a degree) a habit of reliving a bad bit of luck or missed opportunity a few holes previously, I also used to drift off into dreamland about how great it would be to tell everyone about how great I played. Both of those were about as destructive as snapping your putter in two. Leaving your mind wander into the past or future makes it difficult to concentrate on the only thing that can you can affect, the present. The way to train yourself out of this is by marking on your card whenever you notice youve done it. First round you try this youll probably have 10 marks, the next 5. By a few rounds in youll stop marking at just catch yourself before you engage daydream mode. This really helped me, hope the next time youre drifting you remember this and snap back, gives you the best chance of assessing the shot in front of you and fully committing to it.

 

[rosecott]

Feel a bit miffed even though i shot under for first time!

Could be more than 1 under if CSS goes up!