Another season round-up. Pretty-well as expected?

It has been a bit of a weird year though. I’ve broken 80 for the first time ever, scratching off another of the “golfing milestones”. I’ve birdied three holes in a round. I’ve parred seven holes on the trot. I’ve played more golf than I thought I had by the end of October, but not as much as I’d hoped I would. I’ve had long periods during the season where I just didn’t want to play – and I’ve not felt like that since properly picking up my clubs again in 2015.

In March of this year I wrote that with the new arrival in the house, I’d do pretty-well to play half as much golf as I did in 2018, despite being injured for a lot of that year.

Well… I did manage half the golf that I played in 2018, in fact much more than half (see below) but I didn’t play on as many courses nor have as many full 18 hole rounds, nor play on holiday (we didn’t have a “holiday” as such) nor even play in the works summer championship (there was none this year).

That said, even though that this year felt like I played FAR less than in 2018, I actually only went out to play golf on two less occasions (17 times rather than 19 times)… but yes, for weeks at a time this year, it has to be said, I just didn’t feel like playing – my mojo was definitely missing. I just wasn’t hitting the ball anything like as well as I have done in recent years, especially my irons.

Sure, I scored similar scores to 2018, but I was reliant on luck and in many cases, a great recovery or greenside short game as my approaches were quite often awful.

Right – that’s already an executive summary – what of the detail?

I played a few 9 hole rounds before my season started properly in April, with an old school Cleveland set up (CG1 Tour blades, old Cleveland wedges and a Cleveland Classic driver as well as my beryllium copper Napa Cleveland putter).

On April 8th 2019, at approximately half past four in the afternoon… I started my season proper in REAL style… birdying the notoriously-difficult 1st hole at my local course, Billingbear… by chipping it in (with a niblick) from 20 yards or so off the green. WHAT a start to my season! Little did I know I’d also be birdying my final hole of the 2019 season too… but more on that later.

A few days later, I then took my now annual trip to Hazlemere Golf Club (where it all started for me in the mid nineteen-eighties) and my season got even better! Not only did I break 80 for the first time EVER (I think I’ve scored eighty exactly four times, but after this round of golf at my old stomping-ground, I now have finally broken that very, very old (twenty year old at least) record!), but I also played what was undoubtedly the shot of the 2019 season, but perhaps also the shot of the decade or shot of my life (see below). I also scored THREE birdies in this round – something I don’t ever remember doing before.

Unlike my season report from 2017 and 2018, I’ll not be umming and arring and discussing what will be my shot of the 2019 season – it’s the one above, obviously – and I think I probably knew it would be when the ball came to rest two feet from the hole after I played it. You can read all about it (again) here!

I then hit a very average round back at Billingbear, in an April heatwave, still using my old Cleveland clubs, but really more interested in photographing the bluebells during this round! And that was my first month of seven, completed!

It would be over a month before I played again (the story of this season really) as I really lost my golfing mojo (not for the last time this year) and seemed to forget how to hit the ball on the range.

When I did set foot on the course again, it was back at Billingbear, on a glorious May evening, when even though my driving (AGAIN!) let me down, my recovery shots from around the green, kept me in the game with an eventual sub 40 nine holes. Thank gawd!

Two days later, buoyed somewhat by my return to the game, I played a sublime 9 holes (at Billingbear again – I played the vast majority of my golf at this course this season) and scored 37. A stunning score. Not my best ever (I have scored 36 before) but about as well as I can hit the ball to be honest. By now I’d pretty-well replaced any driver and 4W combo in my bag with the new “Black Rabbit” – a Cleveland 588 3W which I’d hit so well last year – and a club that would remain in my bag, at the expense of driver and 4W for most (almost all in fact) of the rest of the season. I still need to find a driver I’m happy to KEEP in the bag!

I played four 9-hole rounds in June, all at Billingbear. All were pretty unremarkable really, scoring 40, 42, 39 and 40. That said, I got a lovely view of a cuckoo on the 1st tee on June 2nd – AND I had my tiny wee pocket camera with me (see below).

It was in June that I “discovered” Lynx golf clubs (and re-filled my bag accordingly). I bought a full set to be honest, in pieces. Prowler VT irons, CoNi wedges, a Black Cat driver and an LP9 putter. And as I write this in late December, the only Lynx club that remains in my bag (at present) is the unexpectedly-wonderful LP9 putter. Unexpected as it has a polymer insert in the face, which, with the low compression balls I play with, often doesn’t do me any favours. I may, next year, put the Lynx Prowler VT irons back in the bag, alongside the Lynx CoNi wedges as well as my Lynx LP9 putter… but certainly not the Black Cat driver which I hate (nor the Parallax hybrid either which was way too floppy for me).

By the fourth week of June I was feeling pretty-ropey, health-wise and even though I played on 24th and 30th, I was feeling a lull coming on even though I temporarily averted that loss of mojo with an enjoyable 38 on 30th June.

In early July I played my first holes of the season at Bird Hills’ back 9 (normally I play there MUCH earlier in the season) and unfortunately this is when I definitely lost my golfing mojo again, despite scoring 39. Video “highlights of that round played on one of the hottest days of the year can be found here).

It was in early July this year that I started questioning why I was playing golf, how I should play, what I should play with (Snake Eyes or Lynx) etc. I wasn’t feeling particularly good, physically or mentally and I assume that was at least in part down to not a lot of sleep due to our new baby boy.

In mid July I played my annual one full round at The Downshire and teamed up with Gavin – a member there who hit the ball MILES! It was a nice round, I played OK (scored 82) and had answered some questions about my game, on the course with a playing partner I guess. I was also lucky enough to par ALL the par 3s AND ALL the par 5s on the course during this round – another something I’d never done before!

Buoyed again by my day at The Downshire, I played 9 holes at Billingbear again two days later, with a new (to me) Snake Eyes Viper Tour driver and for once, got my drives away lovely – and scored 37 again. A much needed fillip!

On July 28th I hit 38 at Billingbear in the sun again (with a body that was aching less) and ALMOST got my first eagle in what… decades? That said I did tap in for birdie, my fourth (of five birdies in the season) birdie of the season, but my first since April at Hazlemere.

By early August I had finalised my WITB (video) with a right mish-mash of Snake Eyes blades, Mizuno hybrid irons, Cleveland and Snake Eyes woods and a Snake Eyes putter (see photo above). I wasn’t dead set on this set-up though. To be honest I changed my bag set-up more often than I changed my socks this year!

That said, there was no doubt about it, during large parts of July and almost ALL of August – my golfing mojo had gone AWOL. I just didn’t feel like playing (for lots of reasons, both physical and mental).

It wasn’t until the last day of August that I played again... and standing on the penultimate tee… I was seriously looking at a record score at level par after seven holes (parring all seven of them on the trot – another record broken then!). I was once again in my “golf-honeymoon period”. (I’ve always played my best golf (away from the green anyway) as soon as I return from a considerable break from the game).

I only played once in September, mind. Again not really “feeling it” and struggling to hit my beautiful Snake Eyes blades, so swapping them for Cleveland hibore and Lynx irons. Oh sure, I scored under 40 (38) again… but didn’t really enjoy it – I’d been struggling with my irons all year and the game is so much more enjoyable when you don’t worry about hitting irons.

It was in September too, that my original golfing hero, Brian Barnes, sadly died.

At the start of October, I was mindful enough to write a “state of my game SITREP” as the season for lots of reasons, hadn’t worked out quite as I’d planned. Admittedly a big reason for this was that I was coaching the local 7 year olds at our local rugby club, which sort of made playing rugby in the morning on Sundays and then golf in the evening (at least for April, May, September and October – so for four months of my seven month golf season, pretty difficult for my knackered old spine and hips). Not to mention the fact that our new baby boy was (obviously) taking up some of my time AS was the fact that I was teaching our older boy how to swing a golf club most weekends.

I was to only play twice more this season, a nine hole (distinctly-average) round at Billingbear again and then… a ray of light to finish the season.

Between the years 2005 and say 2015 I probably took ten years off golf as I was more interested in err…. courting my girlfriend (now wife!) and for some of that time I was living in London.

But when my girlfriend (now wife!) moved to Reading in 2007 (I think) I thought I’d start to play very (VERY) occasionally – and I played these occasional rounds at Greys Green Golf Course (north of Reading). In that decade (2005-2015) I probably played five times – four of those times at Greys green (and once, for the record, at Theale).

Now, they’ve done a lot of work to Greys Green Golf Course, since I last played there about a decade ago and I ended this season (2019) with a return to the (red) course.

And I’m SO glad I did.

I teamed up with a member there and played the back nine and was suddenly reminded just how interesting golf and golf courses SHOULD BE.

You see… I’m used to playing pretty boring, pretty flat, pretty dull, pretty unchallenging courses with lots of saplings and man-made lakes etc, but I’d forgotten what a LANDSCAPE the Greys Green course* sits on. Its WONDERFUL. *The red course is the one I’m waxing lyrical about (the blue and white are very dull and short and meant for beginners).

I played the red course back 9 yesterday and despite the sub 10 degrees conditions and biting easterly wind – I LOVED the course and can already see what the millions have been spent on.

No… the greens aren’t great at present (although they’re not bad and were miles better in the summer, said the member I joined on the 12th tee), but it’s just the interestingness of the landscape that makes this hidden gem.

Every hole needs thought. Every fairway is firm and undulating and or cambered. Every hole is lined by the millions (well… hundreds of thousands) of trees they’ve planted. The views of the surrounding beech and oak forests is simply stunning and other than the planes overhead (going to Heathrow I presume but I’m not sure), its almost spookily silent.

Seriously I can’t say enough about this course after yesterday – the promise and potential it showed me ten years ago, may well be realised in a year or two – and I certainly remember why I played it a few times when living in Reading.

The only downsides to it as far as I can see are for me, it’s too far away and it has no bar or clubhouse at all – just a cabin to pick up your card.

But the positives are many – and topped by the fact that the course is just INTERESTING – it’s a PROPER course, in the same way (more in fact) as my local (but sadly now covered in a huge school and hundreds of houses) “Blue mountain” golf course.

How did I play? Bloody awfully to be honest. But at least I birdied the last hole ( a very reachable par 5) to ensure that only did I start my season with a birdie on the first hole I played, I ended it with a birdie on the very last hole played in 2019!

And that… laydeez and gennelmen… is the end of my 2019 season – a season which I’ve played far less golf than last year, although with the equivalent of 9.5 18-hole rounds (17 ACTUAL visits to golf courses, mind) an 18 hole round more than two years ago. Still… not quite what I expected in early April! There are reasons for that, which I’ve detailed above.

For now though, I’m SO glad I rediscovered this old friend, Greys Green, I think it may WELL become my “home course” again next season and I can’t wait to get back…

Well.

There you go then.

That’s my 2019 season round-up.

I’ve effectively already written an executive summary at the beginning of this season round-up post and I’ve already picked a (n obvious) shot of the year with no shortlist required!

I’ll leave my season spreadsheet HERE for you to download if you so require!

2019-and-2018-season-round-upDownload

It has been a bit of a weird year though. I’ve broken 80 for the first time ever, scratching off another of the “golfing milestones”. I’ve birdied three holes in a round. I’ve parred seven holes on the trot. I’ve played more golf than I thought I had by the end of October, but not as much as I’d hoped I would. I’ve had long periods during the season where I just didn’t want to play – and I’ve not felt like that since properly picking up my clubs again in 2015.

As for my scoring – well… pretty well the same as last year. 10 over for 18 holes. 4 over for 9 holes. Despite my unofficial CONGU handicap being 14.

What of next year then?

Well… I’ve not hit a ball at all since the end of October and I may not until February or even March, so I’m not about to write my “2020 plan” just yet.

I AM thinking of playing ALL hybrid irons though (with graphite shafts), AM thinking of buying new Cleveland Turbo Woods and irons (mayyybeeee) as even though I’ve not had my plantar fasciitis this year (although as I type that I have noticed that pain in my foot return over the past week) nor my back problems (ditto), I am approaching 50 and I just need a little more help these days… a lot more, some might say.

For now though, I am enjoying the off season and I hope you do too.

My 2019 golf season MAY only be remembered for my ONLY sub 80 round.

And to be honest… that would probably be good enough for me.

Merry Christmas, grapple fans, and here’s to a superb 2020. On or off the course!