Curls
Journeyman Pro
When I rediscovered golf and joined the forum in 2010, it seemed like every other week some lucky so-and-so posted to say that they had made single figures. It wasn't every other week, but I so desperately wanted to achieve that goal that I felt awe and jealously in the same moment. A few weeks ago I made single figures with more of a whimper than a bang. The morning I found out I was due to fly to America with work, my wife was home in Ireland, there was no parade. I really thought there’d be a parade? The final cut came thanks to Clause 19, I N/Rd in a Medal so as not to hold up play but bagged a load of points, there was no big win to herald my arrival. The realisation of a goal came with the realisation that my new goal was Cat 1 status and probably further away than I can appreciate.
On dusting 15 years of dust off my ancient clubs following Celtic Manor in 2010 I was firmly a 28+ handicap, lowest I got as a teenager was 14 after 3 or 4 years. I played a lot at a local short course before joining and receiving my first number in 2011, 17. The following season I made 13, and for the next two years I would hover between that and 11. That was my natural playing level, I don’t know if I would have ever really progressed lower were it not for the intervention of a fantastic teaching pro. Cat 1 now seems inevitability rather than a goal which may sound big-headed but if you don’t believe in yourself then your journey will be an arduous one. But I reckon it’s a long, long way to Cat 1.
So what is the purpose of this incredibly self-congratulatory epic post you ask? Most of us on here are on a journey. Lots of folk play golf, but you need to be a special kind of sicko to join a forum. My name is Curls and I’m a golfaholic. I’m obsessed. It’s incurable. Move on. I’m sharing thoughts on my journey in the hope that it might help someone else on theirs. I’ve had some great advice and gained knowledge I never would have amassed from the good people on here, hopefully there’s a little bit in these 3000 words for someone else. Oh and there’s a little bit of ego-stroking going on, we all do it from time to time, but hey, if you don’t stroke your own…
Non-club member – 28.
I'm writing this part in the form of a letter to my younger self, so often when I say "you", I mean me a few years, then months ago. But it might speak to you.
Thought I’d throw this category in, if you don’t have a handicap it’s very difficult to judge what that might be. You’ll only figure this out when you put your 3 cards in and start playing comps with a card in your hand. But right now golf is fun, you don’t have a number that you will allow define you, so enjoy it for what it is, a game. If/when you do join a club you’ll see what I mean, the number means far more to you than it should, and really not much to anyone else. Golfers are incredibly self-absorbed. We love talking about our own game, and don’t listen as much about others, but we let them talk anyway. Look at the length of this post for Gods’ sake.
Anyway, enjoy this Cat. Competition for me is the best form of golf, but there’s something to be missed in not worrying about a number.
28 – 18. The mental barrier.
As many of you will know and feel, a 28 h/c is just a more inconsistent 18 handicap. You’re capable of great things, interspersed with absolute mayhem. This mayhem usually arrives unannounced and leaves a devastating mark on many more holes on the card than the one it occurred on. There’s no reason it should. Getting down to 18 is a matter of getting just a little better at everything, and managing yourself a whole lot better. Course management is huge at every level but no more so that this one. If you’ve ever made a par then your game is good enough, you’re good enough, you just haven’t figured out how to keep the 8s, 9s and 34s off your card. The best advice here is to hit more fairways i.e tee off with irons, hybrids or anything reasonably straight - and when you do miss one take your medicine and don’t turn a 5 into a 10 but trying to get the house back with a miracle shot. No shame in chipping out sideways and getting on with it. If your heart sinks when you go in a bunker, get a lesson. If you struggle to get out and on the green in 1 then you really need a lesson to remove that fear. Once you stop taking approach shots you probably shoudn’t be taking because you’re mindfully, fearfully avoiding bunkers, you’ll improve. And not taking a few to get out will see your 8s and 9s get fewer and fewer.
When you do make the transition it’ll probably be with a huge cut. You’ll go from 23 to 18 in a matter of weeks and rather than fear playing off a lower number your brain will switch and you’ll actually feel like you were an 18 all along and just play ball like it ain’t no thing. Play more, play with good players and play more comps. Read a book like Zen Golf or something by Cohn or Rotella and practice what they preach. Oh and get decent gear, I’m not saying break the bank but if your driver is older than whoever is number 1 in the charts right now then you will see a massive difference in gear from this decade.
18 to 12.
Now that you’re down to a shot on every hole the game gets more fraught with danger. To make it to 12 you’ll have to make more pars. Keeping it in play is a given, now you need to get up and down better. Short game is king. Get a putting lesson, not a new putter. Good putters can hole out with a brush. Some good putters are born, most are made. I was a pretty poor one, lessons and practice changed that. Pitching from 40 in is as important as anything and can only be improved by practice, assuming the technique is good. If you have a good days putting you’ll see yourself cut closer to the edge. You start losing shots altogether on “easier†holes where now you’re expected to make par, and guess what, when you HAVE to make par on that hole, you will more often. The safety net has been removed and you’re expected to play that par 3 in 3, not 4 (or 5). This changes the game and makes you focus harder, want it more. Then you’ll notice that missing the green with a wayward iron doesn’t matter, getting up and down does.
12 to 9.
This is the part where I needed help, perhaps for you it’s in one of the other sections but I wasn’t making it down without lessons on my swing. If I posted a video of my swing from a year ago and now you wouldn’t think it was the same guy. I had 3 lessons over the space of 6 months end of last season and stuck at it religiously through the winter, even when things went awful (and they do while the changes bed in, they go horribly awful. It’s a painful but temporary and necessary metamorphosis). I’m now driving far straighter and longer than before and it makes a huge difference. Irons go a bit longer but that doesn’t matter, crucially they go higher. I’ve now started to pay attention to carry rather than ultimate distance. When I’m at the range I’m landing balls over targets, not hitting at them. And sometimes I don’t even watch where the ball goes cos I’m focussing on contact, or some aspect of the swing itself. Not that my head is full of swing thoughts, maybe 1 or 2. This is a step change in attitude and I wish someone had explained to a younger me what the difference is. Hence this post. My first set of lessons a few years back didn’t have anything like this sort of effect, maybe I was more committed this time but I do feel the teacher was much better. Shame the –insert expletive- is gone to Singapore.
9 to 5.
This is where you guys come in, there are plenty of you who have made this leap, some recently and some in the distant past. I feel like if I keep playing and practicing I’ll make it, straight away I can see my wedge play is the next thing that needs to come up a level. I’m getting myself down to that local course I started playing at, paying my green fee, and taking my wedges. Control and yardages aren’t as good as they should be, and with the improved driving I’m giving myself far more shots from 120-90 than I used to. What was the one thing that helped you across the divide?
In summary as long as your clubs are half way decent and you have an understanding of course management/the mental side of the game, then your path to moving Cat is dependent on lessons in the aspect that most affects that scoring range. Figure out what exactly is holding you back and get taught and then practise that aspect.
Jeez, that last paragraph was all I need to write really.
On dusting 15 years of dust off my ancient clubs following Celtic Manor in 2010 I was firmly a 28+ handicap, lowest I got as a teenager was 14 after 3 or 4 years. I played a lot at a local short course before joining and receiving my first number in 2011, 17. The following season I made 13, and for the next two years I would hover between that and 11. That was my natural playing level, I don’t know if I would have ever really progressed lower were it not for the intervention of a fantastic teaching pro. Cat 1 now seems inevitability rather than a goal which may sound big-headed but if you don’t believe in yourself then your journey will be an arduous one. But I reckon it’s a long, long way to Cat 1.
So what is the purpose of this incredibly self-congratulatory epic post you ask? Most of us on here are on a journey. Lots of folk play golf, but you need to be a special kind of sicko to join a forum. My name is Curls and I’m a golfaholic. I’m obsessed. It’s incurable. Move on. I’m sharing thoughts on my journey in the hope that it might help someone else on theirs. I’ve had some great advice and gained knowledge I never would have amassed from the good people on here, hopefully there’s a little bit in these 3000 words for someone else. Oh and there’s a little bit of ego-stroking going on, we all do it from time to time, but hey, if you don’t stroke your own…
Non-club member – 28.
I'm writing this part in the form of a letter to my younger self, so often when I say "you", I mean me a few years, then months ago. But it might speak to you.
Thought I’d throw this category in, if you don’t have a handicap it’s very difficult to judge what that might be. You’ll only figure this out when you put your 3 cards in and start playing comps with a card in your hand. But right now golf is fun, you don’t have a number that you will allow define you, so enjoy it for what it is, a game. If/when you do join a club you’ll see what I mean, the number means far more to you than it should, and really not much to anyone else. Golfers are incredibly self-absorbed. We love talking about our own game, and don’t listen as much about others, but we let them talk anyway. Look at the length of this post for Gods’ sake.
Anyway, enjoy this Cat. Competition for me is the best form of golf, but there’s something to be missed in not worrying about a number.
28 – 18. The mental barrier.
As many of you will know and feel, a 28 h/c is just a more inconsistent 18 handicap. You’re capable of great things, interspersed with absolute mayhem. This mayhem usually arrives unannounced and leaves a devastating mark on many more holes on the card than the one it occurred on. There’s no reason it should. Getting down to 18 is a matter of getting just a little better at everything, and managing yourself a whole lot better. Course management is huge at every level but no more so that this one. If you’ve ever made a par then your game is good enough, you’re good enough, you just haven’t figured out how to keep the 8s, 9s and 34s off your card. The best advice here is to hit more fairways i.e tee off with irons, hybrids or anything reasonably straight - and when you do miss one take your medicine and don’t turn a 5 into a 10 but trying to get the house back with a miracle shot. No shame in chipping out sideways and getting on with it. If your heart sinks when you go in a bunker, get a lesson. If you struggle to get out and on the green in 1 then you really need a lesson to remove that fear. Once you stop taking approach shots you probably shoudn’t be taking because you’re mindfully, fearfully avoiding bunkers, you’ll improve. And not taking a few to get out will see your 8s and 9s get fewer and fewer.
When you do make the transition it’ll probably be with a huge cut. You’ll go from 23 to 18 in a matter of weeks and rather than fear playing off a lower number your brain will switch and you’ll actually feel like you were an 18 all along and just play ball like it ain’t no thing. Play more, play with good players and play more comps. Read a book like Zen Golf or something by Cohn or Rotella and practice what they preach. Oh and get decent gear, I’m not saying break the bank but if your driver is older than whoever is number 1 in the charts right now then you will see a massive difference in gear from this decade.
18 to 12.
Now that you’re down to a shot on every hole the game gets more fraught with danger. To make it to 12 you’ll have to make more pars. Keeping it in play is a given, now you need to get up and down better. Short game is king. Get a putting lesson, not a new putter. Good putters can hole out with a brush. Some good putters are born, most are made. I was a pretty poor one, lessons and practice changed that. Pitching from 40 in is as important as anything and can only be improved by practice, assuming the technique is good. If you have a good days putting you’ll see yourself cut closer to the edge. You start losing shots altogether on “easier†holes where now you’re expected to make par, and guess what, when you HAVE to make par on that hole, you will more often. The safety net has been removed and you’re expected to play that par 3 in 3, not 4 (or 5). This changes the game and makes you focus harder, want it more. Then you’ll notice that missing the green with a wayward iron doesn’t matter, getting up and down does.
12 to 9.
This is the part where I needed help, perhaps for you it’s in one of the other sections but I wasn’t making it down without lessons on my swing. If I posted a video of my swing from a year ago and now you wouldn’t think it was the same guy. I had 3 lessons over the space of 6 months end of last season and stuck at it religiously through the winter, even when things went awful (and they do while the changes bed in, they go horribly awful. It’s a painful but temporary and necessary metamorphosis). I’m now driving far straighter and longer than before and it makes a huge difference. Irons go a bit longer but that doesn’t matter, crucially they go higher. I’ve now started to pay attention to carry rather than ultimate distance. When I’m at the range I’m landing balls over targets, not hitting at them. And sometimes I don’t even watch where the ball goes cos I’m focussing on contact, or some aspect of the swing itself. Not that my head is full of swing thoughts, maybe 1 or 2. This is a step change in attitude and I wish someone had explained to a younger me what the difference is. Hence this post. My first set of lessons a few years back didn’t have anything like this sort of effect, maybe I was more committed this time but I do feel the teacher was much better. Shame the –insert expletive- is gone to Singapore.
9 to 5.
This is where you guys come in, there are plenty of you who have made this leap, some recently and some in the distant past. I feel like if I keep playing and practicing I’ll make it, straight away I can see my wedge play is the next thing that needs to come up a level. I’m getting myself down to that local course I started playing at, paying my green fee, and taking my wedges. Control and yardages aren’t as good as they should be, and with the improved driving I’m giving myself far more shots from 120-90 than I used to. What was the one thing that helped you across the divide?
In summary as long as your clubs are half way decent and you have an understanding of course management/the mental side of the game, then your path to moving Cat is dependent on lessons in the aspect that most affects that scoring range. Figure out what exactly is holding you back and get taught and then practise that aspect.
Jeez, that last paragraph was all I need to write really.
