‘THE POWER AND THE GLORY – MY GOAL FOR 2022’
Fair weather golfers, look away now. I’ve just got back from a mid-week roll-up. It took 20 minutes to clean my trolley, my golf bag looks like it’s been kept on a building site and I haven’t played to my handicap in over two months. Winter conditions (that’s my excuse) have decimated my game. What better way, then, to avoid thinking about mud balls, standing water and bunkers like Blackpool beach than to look ahead!
This time last year we were more concerned with whether courses would be open than whether we could finally stop coming over the top, break 80, or learn to hit a flop shot. But despite the troubling news about new Covid variants, it does feel like we’re a long way from courses closing down again... touch wood(s).
So what’s your goal for 2022? As I said in last month’s column, winter is a time when the range can be more welcoming than the course, and an ideal time to assess your game, ride out the initial inconsistency brought about by a swing change, or a new grip, or even new clubs. Are you making changes for next year? I certainly am.
When Alex Horne and I started our Youtube channel Bad Golf in 2019, we were truly bad. Not just bad at golf but also very bad at playing on golf courses. I remember our first round together, when the opportunity to use the air gun to clean our shoes was a genuine thrill, and not the post-round pain in the behind it is now!
One thing we were not quite prepared for, though, is how intimidating it was playing in front of (and it was always in front of!) ‘proper’ golfers. The sort of guy who can make you top your drive just by standing politely to one side as you tee off. The type of player who, after you offer to let them play though just launches their ball into space, or to the heart of the green, and then disappears into the distance. That’s right... bigger boys.
We called them ‘bigger boys’ because it so encapsulated the mixture of awe and dread in which we held them. To us beginners they weren’t just a different league, they were a whole different sport. Confident, strong, and always with a perfectly timed quip as they steamrollered past (“There’s only six more hours of daylight, lads, good luck!” or “Hope you’ve brought your waders!”)
Last year’s goal, for me, was to play off an 18 handicap and by May I had achieved this, peaking at 12.3. I’ve struggled to play to it since but am levelling off at about 14.5, which I think is achievable to maintain. However, I still look at the swings of people around my level and feel there’s a big gulf between them and me. My drives average a pretty paltry 217 yards, I take about one divot per annum and I’ve been known to leave an 8-iron short on a 120-yard par 3. So, my golfing aim for 2022, is to become a bigger boy.
I don’t mean I want to intimidate other golfers, or make people nervous when I watch. Far from it. I always want to make people feel golf is welcoming to them, regardless of their ability. In fact, true bigger boys don’t actively do anything to intimidate, it’s just something about them that makes your knees turn to jelly when they’re eight minutes early to the first and watch you struggle to get the ball to sit on the tee. What I mean is, I want to find a way to get a bit of power into my shots. I want to take divots like beaver pelts, I want to say, “160 yards to the front... probably a seven”.
Now, I know that’s what we all want. And for so long I’ve focused on accuracy over distance, slowing my swing down so that I hit more fairways than I miss, but I’m 39 now, still relatively young, and I am regularly outdriven by golfers 20 years older than me. In fact in one exceptional example at my club, I was outdriven by a golfer well over twice my age.
So I think it’s time to add a bit of power in there somewhere. Get that torso up to scratch and turn my swing into something resembling a bouncer trying to break down a door rather than a clown struggling to keep juggling balls in the air.
So, I’ve signed up for a ‘golf fitness’ course, it’s a big step for someone whose idea of fitness is walking to Tesco. And I’m hoping that seeing exercise in terms of my swing will give me the motivation to do something I’ve never done before... go to a gym.
But, hopefully, by next summer, my golfing aim for 2022 will have come true, and I will finally be able out drive an 85-year-old.