Hi everyone,
It's another weekly round up of all things B&C and PMGA!
This week we heard that our junior open has been awarded Jeff Hall qualifier status. This is a prestigious county order of merit competition and always means a full field for the day. I would like to thank the most wonderful GGU junior organiser Mark Powell and the fabulous GGU junior county coaching chairman Dave Hares for bestowing this honour upon us. These boys are incredibly supportive and we are proud to be part of such a great county set up.
Paul is now taking my place on the Junior Committee, and with his huge wealth of experience and links to the GGU and England Golf, I am sure the junior section will continue to grow. There is a lovely poster advertising the Junior Open on the junior board, as well as the Easter egg hunt and the junior coaching schedule, so it is well worth stopping by for some info. As part of my previous junior work, I was able to kickstart the idea of a Bristol Rugby Day here at B&C to raise funds for our junior section. I'm very grateful to lovely Craig Short for his help - watch this space!
The January stableford was unfortunately called off due to the appalling weather last week. As I write I am sitting in Friday's sunshine, but I feel we are in for a bit more of the wet stuff. The next competition is our Pro Shop Stableford on the 16th. There's no need to book for these and they cost £3 entry with optional twos of £3. We are also running another on 30th.
The Ladies have their coffee morning on 19th - if you have things to donate, Paula has a box in the ladies' changing room into which you can deposit your goodies. Paula has chosen a fabulous charity to support, Brace, which funds research into Alzheimer's disease. For more information on this wonderful charity, do have a look at their website www.alzheimers-brace.org and do all to support Paula because she's lovely!
I would also like to thank Brian Jones for bringing in these super cute little bird houses for the course. I love the fact that we embrace nature here, with the bees and the beautiful flowers!
On Monday my two fearless explorers (Andy and Luke) were dispatched to Locking Castle to take part in SportArray's Learning Disability Showcase.
They set up the targets, Golf Parc and the putting strip ready to teach disabled people from all over the South West. It was a great success and the boys were able to hand out lots of information about what sessions we run.
Congrats boys, a very good job well done.
This week we started our mini refit to make us look a proper Bobby dazzler! Thanks so much to Jim and Josh for their hard work. The slat wall inserts are in, the old carpet is out, the walls are turning "calvados", the old pictures are gone and we were intrigued to hear Jim had found a trap door. Unfortunately under said trapdoor there were no Egyptian remains or Roman coins, just a water stop tap and a couple of giant hairy legged arachnids!! Eek! I look forward to the grand reopening, with luck on the 21st, where there'll be glasses of wine and nibbles for all our customers.
What next for me?
I am meeting our wonderful county development officer Debbie later this month to discuss funding for a range of activities. This year we would like to concentrate on adult beginners, especially as our 5 for £25 beginner sessions were so popular. We will also be targeting another Get into Golf Day, feeding into new beginner groups starting this March.
For more information look out for the special flyers, check our 
Twitter feed @Paulmitchgolf or pop in to see us.
You know that pro shop staff are like buses....you wait ages and TWO come along! Well that's the theme for today's instructional - you get two this week so sit back and enjoy!
Back To Basics
Now we are in the middle of winter, I always tell everybody I teach that this time of the year is a fantastic opportunity to improve their basics to give themselves the best chance of starting the new season well. The three fundamentals that I am going to focus on today are grip, posture and alignment.
Grip
When working on a players grip, the most important characteristic that I look for is that the club is placed in the fingers just like in picture 1, after you have done this then wrap your hands around the club.
You should be able to see two knuckles on your leading hand and one knuckle on your trail hand.
This may feel uncomfortable to start with, but this will help you strike the ball more consistently and hit straighter shots.
Posture
The posture that I look for when I am teaching is a straight back and a very slight knee flex (picture 2). One way of doing this is to stand up straight and place a club on your back, but make sure all of your spine is touching the club (picture 3). Once you have done this, bend from the hips and do a 'half bow' so your spine is approximately at a forty five degree angle, but again make sure the club is still on your back and then bend your knees. This will help you turn back and through the ball a lot easier as well as help you strike the ball more consistently.
Alignment
Finally, I think that the perfect alignment is that your heels, knees, hips and shoulders are all parallel to your target as demonstrated in picture 4. To make sure that you are lining up correctly, start by placing a club on the ground that is between your feet and the ball that is parallel to your target. When you are checking your heel alignment, take your normal setup and when you are ready to hit, place the club on the ground, touching your heels, go behind the ball and check to see where they are pointing and adjust if you need too.
Afterwards to check your knees and hips are inline, place the club on your knees and look to see whether they are inline with the stick and repeat on your hips.
With the shoulder alignment, place a club across your shoulders and if you have a mirror then use that to check where they are pointing, if not, look down at the stick and adjust if you need to.
If you have any questions or wanted to book a lesson then please
contact me in the Pro Shop. I am running until the end of April an unlimited thirty minute lesson deal which costs just
£59 for one month,
£109 for two months and
£149 for three months, and if you would like to know more information then please
get in touch.
I look forward to hearing how you get on,
LukeAn update from Andy:Hi everyone,
I've been getting a lot of enquiries recently from members about fairway woods and hybrids. Questions range from:
1. What's the difference between a hybrid and fairway wood?
2. What loft is a 4 hybrid?
3. Should my 5 hybrid go further than my 5 wood?
4. Why does my hybrid go further than my fairway wood?
As this has a few of you scratching your heads I thought I'd do my best to try and answer these questions and help you understand a bit more about how these clubs can help improve your game.
1. What's the difference between a hybrid and fairway wood?
When first picking these clubs up the first difference you'll notice as you look down is the shape of the head. The hybrid will have a slightly smaller head, usually in the classic teardrop design shape whereas a fairway wood has a larger head. Both are designed to help make longer carrying shots easier, but the hybrid can be a bit more useful from bad lies in the rough due to the head design. This is also why you may hear it referred to as a 'rescue' club.
A hybrid will also be shorter in length as it is meant to more closely resemble playing a long iron, the clubs these were designed to replace.
2. What loft is a 4 hybrid?Every major golf club manufacturer now makes hybrid clubs, but the way they number them can differ slightly. For example one manufacturer may produce a '4 hybrid' with 22 degrees of loft whereas another will make their '4 hybrid' with 20 degrees of loft. Therefore it makes more sense to look closely at the degrees of loft on the clubs rather than the number 3, 4 or 5. Also, knowing what degrees of loft are on your fairway woods and long irons will help you to make the best choice if you're thinking of replacing them.
3. Should my 5 hybrid go further than my 5 wood? We now know the lofts on these two clubs is a major contributor to how far they will go, so comparing the lofts on the two is the first step. There can be as much as 8 degrees of difference with a 5 wood being 18 degrees and a 5 hybrid being 26 degrees. The shaft of the hybrid will also be shorter therefore meaning theoretically that the 5 wood should go further as a longer shaft generally means more clubhead speed.
However…..
4. Why does my hybrid go further than my fairway wood? This may surprise some people based on what I've just said, as fairway woods are designed to go further due to the lower loft and longer shafts, but sometimes hybrids with the same loft can go further. For example a lot of players with slower swing speeds or inconsistent ball striking have been coming in the shop recently saying how they're now hitting their 18 degree hybrid further than their 18 degree 5 wood. This is mainly due to the player being able control the clubhead because of the shorter shaft, meaning more strikes from the middle of the club face compared to a longer fairway wood, which can be more difficult to control and strike consistently.
However, don't panic and throw away your fairway woods! I recently helped one member who was struggling with this problem by fitting a shorter shaft into his fairway wood. He was then able to strike the ball out of the middle consistently and the yardage gap between his hybrid and fairway was restored. This goes against the modern trend of clubs getting longer to add more distance, but if you can't hit the ball out the middle of the face then it doesn't matter how much longer you make it!
I hope this answers a few of the questions we've been getting recently, but if you're still confused just pop in the shop and ask. We're more than happy to help and as we're trained in club fitting we're aware of many different ways club fitting can help your game. Not just shoving the latest club in your hand and expecting better shots.
Click here to get in touch if you have any questions.
Thanks boys, nice start to the new year!
So all that remains is for me to wish you all a happy and productive week!
Caren, Paul, Andy, Luke and honorary proshoppers Jim and Josh
