Hello everyone,
Hope you're all well. Let's start with Club news!
This week has been another hive of activity and there have been great results.
The Ladies played in the Ladies Medal last week, the winner being Alison Leatt. Well done Alison!
The weekend was taken up with the traditionally full and sunny Bristol Tankards. This is one of the club's most popular Open competitions and as usual there was a waiting list.
The winners were Mike George and Matt Hornley from Knowle, with B&C's Luke Spalding and Steve Penn in second place. Well done to you all. There were prizes for 1st - 6th place, with the winners getting a Callaway XR driver each and the runners up winning an Odyssey putter each.
Paul and I love the Tankards as we get to see lots of familiar faces - many keep coming back every year, and we always have a big Brean contingent in their minibus! These guys are brilliant and come for a great day out with us. Paul indulged in a putting competition with many of them which they loved!
We look forward to next weekend and the August Medal which has filled up really quickly. As I write there are only two slots left so don't delay, book today!
Our Junior League team travelled to their penultimate fixture at Bath last Sunday.....AND THEY WON 4-1!!! Oh what an achievement boys - congratulations Harry, Fergus, Finnian and Willem! Over to Mark Kennedy for a report of the match!
Junior Report
Another great display by the B&C Junior team yesterday at a very windy Bath Golf Club. Set in rolling terrain high above the City our boys played some amazing Golf. The course is very tight and with the high winds made it a really tough challenge.
We won the match 4 points to 1 with Willem Cole heading out and securing a half on the 18th - his brother Fergus played the round of his life, only 5 over par through 9 securing a thumping 5 & 4 against a very talented opponent. Harry Kennedy was rock solid at number 2 and won 4 & 2 with a fine display of chipping. His putter was hot and he remains unbeaten in all junior league matches. Finnian Smith came through at the end with a valuable half, having come back from 3 down.
Finally we have a match against Henbury on the 21st - we have 3 players only so far - Please Please can we get at least one more player out!
Thanks all
Mark
I am so proud of you boys and so grateful to Mark Kennedy for everything he does for the junior team.
What's happening at the Academy?
Paul had a great week last week, when he and Captain Peter travelled to Broadstone Golf Club to compete in a national Captain/Pro challenge, competing to go through to the next stage in Spain. Here's Paul's report on this:
The Captain and I had a fantastic day at Broadstone Golf Club competing in the Golfplan Pro Captain South West Regional Final. The winner of this event would gain a spot in the two day Grand Final at the end of November in Spain so plenty to play for.
Playing a better ball format, we got off to a great start with birdies at the first, second and third holes. Another birdie at the short par four fifth hole gave us the feeling we could win the competition but were conscious of having to post at least eight under par for a real chance.
On the par five ninth hole and receiving a shot, Peter hit two super shots to leave himself 90 yards from the green and proceeded to hit a wonderful pitch against the wind, to just eight feet of the hole.
The nett eagle putt needed to go down to stay on track for victory and Peter calmly knocked it in and we were out in 30 (-6).
I hadn't played Broadstone before, what a wonderful golf course and definitely worth the trip to Bournemouth.
The back nine was back into the breeze and would play totally differently to the front but we carried on our fine form with further birdies at the twelfth and fourteenth holes. We now had a great chance and even under pressure, we knew we had to push for as many more birdies as we could.
With missed chances at seventeen and eighteen we were quietly surprised to be comfortably leading in the clubhouse with a score of 62 (-8).
We had to wait a few hours for the final group to come in and were happily sat at the top of the leaderboard. Thoughts of a Spanish break and a chance to win the whole competition filled out minds. We were even asked to meet with the photographer at the leaderboard on the putting green for the winners photo and then.............the final group came in and the Golf Professional and Captain from South Winchester Golf Club had exactly the same score as us, 62! Now for the count back. We had the same back nine, same back six, same back three and low and behold, same back 1.
After twenty minutes of deliberation from the PGA, it was confirmed that the next step was to carry out sudden death Matchplay using both team's scorecards starting from the first hole. Both pairings had birdied the first three holes but South Winchester made a birdie at the fourth against our par. What a way to miss out! It was very disappointing but thank you Peter for a lovely day out. We nearly did it!
Paul Mitchell
What a great achievement boys - so close!
This week I bring you an instructional from Andy so I will hand over to him!
Pro-Am Report
Last week I competed in the 125th anniversary Pro-Am here at Bristol and Clifton with my team of three members Alison Vyas, Julie Romaines and Karen Smith. I was keen to do well in this event, both individually and in the team event, so we all agreed to get together in the weeks leading up to the event for some coaching on the three areas of the game where I feel the biggest improvements can be made without any need for major swing changes.
Leading up to the coaching I asked each player to fill in some simple statistics for me on a sheet, which you cna access yourself by clicking here. This would allow me to see where any strengths or weaknesses lay and from there set the appropriate coaching session based on the statistics.
After recording a few rounds the ladies handed back there sheets and some trends were beginning to appear. Firstly, none of the three were particularly happy with their short game. Getting down in 2 shots from the edge of the green was proving to be tricky so in our first session we set about improving how to approach these shots. Technically I didn't want to go about making big changes so I just got the ladies to think about ball position and how it affects the trajectory of their shots. We then linked this to how it affects where we land the ball on the green and how much it will roll by setting a circular target on the green where we believed we would like the ball to pitch in order to finish close to the hole. I then asked the ladies to hit a few shots just making sure they pitched in the target. Some went long, some were on target and some finished short of the hole. However, we were beginning to see how having a clear picture in your mind of what you want the ball to do and knowing how you can affect it through something as simple as changing your ball position could greatly improve our confidence when chipping and pitching. By getting the ladies to focus on a landing spot on the green and their ball position they were able to execute some better shots as their focus was now on the process of the shot and not the outcome, which also seemed to lessen their anxiety about the shot they were facing.
Next up was approach play. Each lady said they would like to hit the ball closer when hitting approach shots into the green from 110 yards and in. So we set up some flags at various distances (50, 70, 90 110 yards) and I asked them to hit to each flag so the ball pitched at the exact distance. Some of the shots were easy and some were difficult as all three weren't too sure how far each of the clubs went with a full swing or half swing. Therefore the bulk of the session was spent on working out which club and swing combination worked for various distances. Here's an example of how I recorded my distances when doing a similar exercise.
52 degree wedge distances
Pitch swing 58 yards
1/2 swing 90 yards
3/4 swing 104 yards
58 degree wedge distances
Pitch swing 40 yards
1/2 swing 69 yards
3/4 swing 80 yards
This information can now be used when we're playing so we can lay up to certain yardages and just generally feel a lot more comfortable when choosing a club and swing type for approaches to the green.
Our final session was focused on putting and again I was keen not to get too technical. However, I did want each player to be more aware of the path of their putter and how much the face rotated when making a stroke.
A great drill to become aware of these two vital components of putting is to putt without a target on a station set up using two alignment sticks as shown in the picture below. By making a putting stroke between the two sticks you can become aware of whether or not your putter is making the correct arcing stroke where the putter head should come away from the outside alignment stick just fractionally on the backswing and follow thru (pictured).
After becoming more aware of the face and path of their putter we set about doing a really simple but effective drill. It's called Par 27 and consists of hitting 6 putts from 3 feet, 6 putts from 8 feet and 6 putts from 35 feet. You must hole out with each putt and record your total score. You then give yourself a putting handicap based on the par of 27. So for example if I do 10 rounds and my average score was 30, my putting handicap would be 3. The target is to reduce your handicap and there's no reason why someone off of a 15 real handicap couldn't attain a scratch or even plus putting handicap!
After all this practice we were ready for the Pro-Am. I managed to salvage a tied 17th place from a day of army golf which also included a two shot penalty due to my ball rolling on the green and my lack of knowledge on the rules of golf! My playing partners were backing me up and trying their best on every hole. Unfortunately the quick greens were catching them out. After hitting some great approach and chip shots they found themselves regularly unable to convert due to the excellent speedy surfaces! However we managed to finish 26th in the team event but were left wondering what might've been had our putting been a little sharper.
After a quick de-brief in the marquee over lunch the team vowed to continue recording their stats and practicing with a purpose as we had done in the weeks prior. In fact, the next day one of the three reported back to me on her putting and claimed that just becoming aware of how many shots she was frittering away was improving her putting almost instantly! Sometimes just being aware is all it takes to start making an improvement. I honestly believe that you can all make improvements to your score without a swing overhaul and by just making note and analysing some quick post round stats. I see Paul do this kind of thing with some of his top players and it becomes a really important tool when you're trying to get the best out of your game every time you tee it up.
Till next time.
Andy
Great job Andy, many thanks for your hard work.
This week also saw four attendees come to our putting inclusion session. Pupils' needs ranged from cerebral palsy to blindness but they all enjoyed it so much!
I will sign off with the news that we are having our Santa special for tiny tots this December! More details when it's a bit more wintery! Next year the Ladies' Fashion Show is also reinstated - yay! Invitations will come out after the New Year, so look out for those!
On that seasonal note, have a great week
Caren, Paul, Andy and Nick
