funky_nomad

Pretty much.

Lowry will probably get a pick, but I'd agree with that. He hasn't really looked interested for a while, either.

I take it all back. Solid performance today, and he's out in the final group with Fitzpatrick (M) tomorrow. A similar number tomorrow also helps Boab's chances for an automatic Ryder Cup slot.

Been home a couple of days recovering after my HIPEC/hot chemo op in Basingstoke earlier this month. Surgeons are happy with the op - they didn't find any more cancer while they were rummaging around, and they whipped out my appendix while they were in there. Thank f*ck for the epidural, though - I can't begin to imagine what the pain would have been like without it, and coming off it onto paracetamol/morphine was a nightmare couple of days... Signed off work until the end of September, can't wait to show my colleagues my lovely 10-inch abdominal scar...

I get that from time to time. Most doses of the shanks for club players come from dropping the hands at address which changes the swing plane so that the neck of the club gets to the ball a fraction ahead of the face. Try lifting your hands at address and chances are the swing plane will correct itself pretty much right away - you might want to over-exaggerate the lifting movement the first few times to train your brain, though! (My record is 5 consecutive shanks on the same hole - I started on the left of the fairway, wedge in hand, eyeing up birdie and slowly worked my way around the green anti-clockwise. A solid 8 in the end! Thankfully it was winter so I could blame playing off mats... ) Good luck!

New set of grips, new lease of life. No brainer when the current clubs are getting the job done. PS, always enjoy Balbirnie, seems to suit my eye (apart from the last, which gets me every feckin' time... )

Played my last medal of the season this morning. Full of good thoughts on the first tee, smacked a 3 wood straight down the middle - then promptly shanked a 7-iron into trees en route to a tap-in triple bogey. Four more doubles followed, easiest nett 79 I've had in a while. Finished the season with a nice birdie though, so it's all good...

Good news! I was playing on a team match tonight and my opponent had played Leven a couple of weeks ago and said it was in great condition - he had also played it last year when it was looking quite sorry, but reckoned it was now back to its best. Enjoy!

I seem to have lost the ability to recover from a bad shot to limit the damage to making bogey at worst of late - 2 counting rounds Saturday with a total of 4 doubles, 3 triples and a horrendous 9 on a par 4 (with no penalty shots and a meltdown on the green). From a position of relative strength a couple of weeks ago with several free hits and what seemed a realistic proposition of getting down to 4 for the first time in about 35 years, I've burned through 5 rounds and now have only 2 free hits left. I think my tenure playing off 5 may be pretty short-lived...

Some excellent holes (the 18th in particular is a cracking finishing hole, and a potential score-wrecker) but over the past couple of years it has started to look a bit rough around the edges - they had some significant issues with a load of bunker faces collapsing and there are loads of patches where the edge of the first cut goes from zero grass to hairy with nothing in between, leading to some very poor lies. I heard that the irrigation system hadn't worked properly for some time, and this was backed up with seeing a greenkeeper out with a bowser and a length of hose to water some greens at 9pm one evening last summer. The recent patch of damp weather will probably have helped reduce the impact of the patchy fairways, tbh. Top tip: most of the major trouble is right off the tee, and there's generally LOADS of space left (the odd patch of gorse aside), so get the draw working and you should be okay - I've even seen some members aiming 2 fairways left off the 1st tee to get a better look at the green.

Is Scott Rose still at Wellsgreen? He fitted me for the full bag there a couple of years ago and was really good. It's a nice set-up there.

Blew a golden opportunity to get down to 4 this evening - was on a free hit and sitting +4 after 14 holes, hitting it nicely and needing +2 at worst for the last 5 holes for a cut. Then my arse collapsed out of nowhere and I dropped 7 shots in 3 holes. Just about held on to shoot +13. What a fud...

Not one of those supposed infarctions is a breach of the current rules of golf, btw. Carry on!

The changes to the handicapping system (both the move to automatic 0.1 increases outside buffer zone and the implementation of WHS) were in part designed to make handicaps more realistic and do away with the need for adjustments for singles matchplay competitions (the first for local competition, and the WHS to eradicate degrees of difficulty between courses). I'd also suggest that, while the odd game may be skewed to those with higher handicaps, over the piece lower handicaps still come out of it pretty well - I'd reckon that the majority of singles matchplay comps are mainly won by those in the 5-12 handicap bracket as there's a level of consistency there and scratch golfers prefer to play off bare feet and don't enter matchplay comps with stroke allowances as much as the rest of us (possibly due to things like scratch leagues, etc, taking up their non-Medal time). It's not a perfect system, but if I play (approximately) to my handicap and lose, then fair f*cks and good luck to my opponent in the next round.

It's hard to get a proper feel for how the 17th would look to yer average club golfer while watching it on the TV, but I think it looked great (I love an "infinity" green) and ripping it up right away may be short-sighted. For example, TPC Sawgrass is on many a golfer's "bucket list" due specifically to how much coverage the island green at their 17th hole has generated since it was built, and social media is awash with punters' videos "taking on the challenge", so it could be a marketing dream if handled correctly. Plus, links golf isn't really intended to be "fair" anyway...

That's me booked in for surgery in a specialist cancer unit in Basingstoke next month to tackle my Colorectal Peritoneal Metastases. They're going to whip out my appendix and "any other bits they don't like the look of" while my peritoneum is wide open, plus a nice dose of hot chemo for pudding. Apparently, the hot chemo aspect of this treatment has improved 5-year survival rates from 5% to around 45% within the last decade or so, which does sound fairly promising. I've been reassured that, with the right recovery regime, I should be able to make my stag do 8 weeks after surgery (albeit booze-free), and be in tip-top shape for my wedding at the end of October. And as an added bonus I'll be looking svelte for the photos!!!

I remember playing a knockout semi-final a few years back (maybe 15 or 20 years, now I think about it...). The format was a handicap allowance of half the difference taken as bisques (where the player receiving strokes could take their bisques at any point following a hole as long as it is declared prior to teeing off at the next hole). We tied the match and had to replay 18 holes as there's no way to play extra holes under the bisques format. We then tied the replay and had to go again (after applying for an extension from the Match Secretary). I lost the 2nd replay at the 18th, and don't think I've ever been so gutted coming off a golf course as I missed what felt like umpteen opportunities to kill the game off. It's good that I'm over it now though... Bisques is a great format for shit-housery, though - letting your opponent walk on the tee thinking they've halved a hole, just about to put the peg in the ground and you then declare that you're taking a bisque and you actually won that hole can really stick the knife in. Not quite as devilish as GrueSomes (my favourite matchplay format), but not far off.

I played with hickories at Royal Musselburgh a few years ago - no chance of hitting the ball off a peg teed that high. Tee it low and swing it smooth is the trick (although it took me about 7 or 8 holes to work that out...)

Harriet looks rattled and is finally missing putts inside 20 feet.

Warming up is tantamount to cheating and should be banned forthwith. The truest test of golf is teeing up on the morning of an outing with a stinking hangover, having 4 or 5 pints at lunch, and still scoring more than 60 stableford points for the day...

I'm a big fan of Scotsraig, and breaking 80 there is never a bad result.

Connor Syme hates Saturdays. Every time he's remotely in contention for a good weekend following the cut, he plummets down the leaderboard.

Scotland in July, eh?

Could pretty much repeat this post word for word for last night (apart from the 3rd place finish). Now down to a new low handicap index of 4.9. Chuffed.

When I was a student living at the top of Viewforth, I used to love a summer's evening hit around the Brunstfield Links wee course (all 36 holes, natch) followed by a couple of jars in Bennet's Bar. Then probably a couple more in Bentley's. Then for some reason things generally started to get a bit hazy...