Is it any wonder?

[MadAdey]

Now, if someone's got a tip for making more birdies I'd be keen to hear it as that would soon make up for the bad holes!

Might be stating the bleeding obvious here, but hit more greens and learn to putt. I do not concentrate too much on the flag, more on the centre of the green, on normal size greens that is. You will never normally be more than around 20 foot from the hole, sometimes getting inside 10. If you are then good with a putter, law of averages says you will hole some of them for birdies.

So if I hit 12 greens, I expect to make 3 putts. Then if I can get up and down on 3 of the other 6 holes, then I shoot level par......simples. So at no point am I pressuring myself to go flag hunting, I am saying that I will need to scramble on some holes, so now I expect to hit some bad shots. SO now those bad shots really do not bother me as I expected them to happen.

That is a look into my mindset of how to make a good score, might not work for all. But what it has done is stopped me getting frustrated by having a bad hole.

 

[Sweep]

Might be stating the bleeding obvious here, but hit more greens and learn to putt. I do not concentrate too much on the flag, more on the centre of the green, on normal size greens that is. You will never normally be more than around 20 foot from the hole, sometimes getting inside 10. If you are then good with a putter, law of averages says you will hole some of them for birdies.

So if I hit 12 greens, I expect to make 3 putts. Then if I can get up and down on 3 of the other 6 holes, then I shoot level par......simples. So at no point am I pressuring myself to go flag hunting, I am saying that I will need to scramble on some holes, so now I expect to hit some bad shots. SO now those bad shots really do not bother me as I expected them to happen.

That is a look into my mindset of how to make a good score, might not work for all. But what it has done is stopped me getting frustrated by having a bad hole.

This is a lesson I definitely need to learn. The first bad shot I hit and my head goes down. I think I care too much and this leads to me getting down on myself the first bad shot I make.
One of the best scoring rounds this year was when I read something in the news just before I left for the course. It was about people facing adversity with a really positive attitude. Really amazing. I just thought “what am I fussing over? I am only trying to get a ball in a hole and I am so lucky to be here.” Their attitude made me look at mine. Even one of my playing partners commented that I seemed to be playing with a calmer attitude.