So here we are in April and the blooming weather thinks its December still , but never mind, we are British after all and we will carry on as best we can but moan incessantly about it as we do :-)
I have been taking a bit of a back seat for the past few weeks, not going on twitter or Facebook and generally having my mobile off. Not because I'm a miserable git or anything, more the fact that, as the 2013 season thunders upon me, I didn't feel ready.
I was starting to feel a bit swamped to be honest. I was starting to have doubts about my ability to have the season I wanted to have. I started to put pressure on myself as I feel that I should be playing better. When I turned pro last October on the Jamega Pro Tour I was proud to be the first amputee pro golfer and of course enjoyed getting my name out there and playing different courses around Europe the us and the uk.
But I could feel the pressure building.
I am so desperate to get disabled people the chance to play golf and I was working on getting sponsors for the coming season and then when I got to the course the game just wasn't there !!!
I was embarrassed.
I felt that if I was the person that people were looking at as an amputee pro and I was playing like a hacker, that does the image of disabled golf no good at all and certainly does not reflect what is a growing number of excellent disabled golfers in the uk.
I didn't know what to do about it so I kind of withdrew and had a think.
Going back to my GB Shooting days, I remembered the words of my Russian Coach ( Vladimir ) when one day he sat me down after a poor competition and said " Get out of your own head , it's messy in there and it knows what it is doing on its own. Enjoy the feeling ! "
I didn't know it at the time but it was just what I needed to do.
Taking Vlads words with me to the course, I decided I was going to have some fun, regardless if how I was playing, I was going to enjoy my time out on the course. I was going to stop thinking about all the possible outcomes of the season.
I was going to just do what I have always done.
Swing the club,
find the ball,
swing it again and when it falls in the hole, write down the number of strokes, enjoy it if it was good and laugh at something funny I could think of if it was bad. And most of all, not worry about the result !
You know what
I kinda works ;-)
I have just been bumming around with a few good golfing friends of mine including wonder caddies Dunkles and woggle. The illustrious Thai gent Mr Kung and the very weird swinging Nigel. We played in some of the worst weather this country offers from gales to blizzards.
And we have been playing a game our Thai buddy Mr Kung calls " Pah Pah Pah " :-)
The English translation is pound pound pound :-). Basically we all play stableford and whoever gets the most points on front 9 wins a pound of every other player. Same for the back 9 score and also the overall point scorer.
Seriously guys, the game gets tense with every shot counting when there is a £ involved !
But I found that I was having fun on the course again. I was obviously not going to win any money as they are all bandits and scores of 21+ for 9 holes is commonplace so having to shoot -3 to even come second every 9 holes kind of takes the pressure off and slowly but surely I have started to find my game again. I have started to relax and just hit what I think is the best shot I can play at the time. Sometimes it doesn't work but so what ? No one dies if I miss a putt or make a bogey on that tough par 4. With this kind of realisation I found that my scores were getting better again and there was something approaching a bit of consistency to my game. The putting and driving is starting to work again and chuck some decent iron play in and there is the makings of a golf game again.
I needed to get out of my own way again. Sometimes by trying too hard to get better, I lost touch with the fun side of the game and the fact that every day I get to play golf is a gift that a few years ago were just an unrealised dream.
By withdrawing myself, and finding answers for myself I feel a lot more confident for the coming season and if the results don't go my way or if my game I'd not what it needs to be, like I said earlier, no-one dies. It is not the end of the world !
It just means I need to work a bit harder on that part of my game.
So now that I am a bit happier about my game and the coming season I start the countdown to my first international of the year which is France Vs England at the St Omer Golf club just south west of Calias. I will be travelling with the legend Tony Lloyd ( @shortarmgolfer on twitter ) over the channel and taking on the French and I honestly can't wait to go and kick some butt.
Also wonder caddy Dunkles goes in for knee surgery next week so won't be on the bag for a while but I will keep you boys informed how he is getting in and ill have him in a caddy bib with my bag on his back before he knows it ;-)
Many thanks to the boys for showing me how much fun the game is again and now I suppose I better tell my twitter followers what I have been doing a I've not been on in ages ! If I can remember my password anyways lol
So till next time blog readers.
Keep it swinging
Monk out
I have been taking a bit of a back seat for the past few weeks, not going on twitter or Facebook and generally having my mobile off. Not because I'm a miserable git or anything, more the fact that, as the 2013 season thunders upon me, I didn't feel ready.
I was starting to feel a bit swamped to be honest. I was starting to have doubts about my ability to have the season I wanted to have. I started to put pressure on myself as I feel that I should be playing better. When I turned pro last October on the Jamega Pro Tour I was proud to be the first amputee pro golfer and of course enjoyed getting my name out there and playing different courses around Europe the us and the uk.
But I could feel the pressure building.
I am so desperate to get disabled people the chance to play golf and I was working on getting sponsors for the coming season and then when I got to the course the game just wasn't there !!!
I was embarrassed.
I felt that if I was the person that people were looking at as an amputee pro and I was playing like a hacker, that does the image of disabled golf no good at all and certainly does not reflect what is a growing number of excellent disabled golfers in the uk.
I didn't know what to do about it so I kind of withdrew and had a think.
Going back to my GB Shooting days, I remembered the words of my Russian Coach ( Vladimir ) when one day he sat me down after a poor competition and said " Get out of your own head , it's messy in there and it knows what it is doing on its own. Enjoy the feeling ! "
I didn't know it at the time but it was just what I needed to do.
Taking Vlads words with me to the course, I decided I was going to have some fun, regardless if how I was playing, I was going to enjoy my time out on the course. I was going to stop thinking about all the possible outcomes of the season.
I was going to just do what I have always done.
Swing the club,
find the ball,
swing it again and when it falls in the hole, write down the number of strokes, enjoy it if it was good and laugh at something funny I could think of if it was bad. And most of all, not worry about the result !
You know what
I kinda works ;-)
I have just been bumming around with a few good golfing friends of mine including wonder caddies Dunkles and woggle. The illustrious Thai gent Mr Kung and the very weird swinging Nigel. We played in some of the worst weather this country offers from gales to blizzards.
And we have been playing a game our Thai buddy Mr Kung calls " Pah Pah Pah " :-)
The English translation is pound pound pound :-). Basically we all play stableford and whoever gets the most points on front 9 wins a pound of every other player. Same for the back 9 score and also the overall point scorer.
Seriously guys, the game gets tense with every shot counting when there is a £ involved !
But I found that I was having fun on the course again. I was obviously not going to win any money as they are all bandits and scores of 21+ for 9 holes is commonplace so having to shoot -3 to even come second every 9 holes kind of takes the pressure off and slowly but surely I have started to find my game again. I have started to relax and just hit what I think is the best shot I can play at the time. Sometimes it doesn't work but so what ? No one dies if I miss a putt or make a bogey on that tough par 4. With this kind of realisation I found that my scores were getting better again and there was something approaching a bit of consistency to my game. The putting and driving is starting to work again and chuck some decent iron play in and there is the makings of a golf game again.
I needed to get out of my own way again. Sometimes by trying too hard to get better, I lost touch with the fun side of the game and the fact that every day I get to play golf is a gift that a few years ago were just an unrealised dream.
By withdrawing myself, and finding answers for myself I feel a lot more confident for the coming season and if the results don't go my way or if my game I'd not what it needs to be, like I said earlier, no-one dies. It is not the end of the world !
It just means I need to work a bit harder on that part of my game.
So now that I am a bit happier about my game and the coming season I start the countdown to my first international of the year which is France Vs England at the St Omer Golf club just south west of Calias. I will be travelling with the legend Tony Lloyd ( @shortarmgolfer on twitter ) over the channel and taking on the French and I honestly can't wait to go and kick some butt.
Also wonder caddy Dunkles goes in for knee surgery next week so won't be on the bag for a while but I will keep you boys informed how he is getting in and ill have him in a caddy bib with my bag on his back before he knows it ;-)
Many thanks to the boys for showing me how much fun the game is again and now I suppose I better tell my twitter followers what I have been doing a I've not been on in ages ! If I can remember my password anyways lol
So till next time blog readers.
Keep it swinging
Monk out