So on Monday we started back playing in threeballs as part of the lockdown easing. The beautiful weather seems to have (hopefully briefly) come to an end as a write this but we have been so lucky up to this point haven’t we? It’s been great to see the course well used over the last few weeks.
I’ve been busy coaching and the retail side of things is picking up too so thank you as always for your support. My online lesson booking system has proved really popular of late so if you’d like to book a session online, please click here.
Online Tee Times & Bringing Guests
Most people are getting the hang of the system and many have told me in the shop that they are enjoying this new booking process.
Just one important bit of admin – when you book a guest to play with you, your HGC Members Swipe Card Account is NOT automatically debited. Hence you need to let me or Phil in the Pro Shop know and we will do the honours.
If the shop is closed, please email me using richardsboothuk@gmail.com telling me the date and time that you played or are going to play and authorising me to take the guest fee from your account. If you are able to do this, it would be really helpful. Thank you.
Range Ball Amnesty
If you find any yellow range balls around our excellent practice facilities, I would appreciate you returning them to me. If you’d be kind enough to leave them by one of the mats at the back of the practice tee on the range or by the side door of the hut half way down the drive that would be great. Thanks in advance.
Putting
A little while ago I read the book “The Lost Art of Putting” by Gary Nicol and Karl Morris. I enjoyed the read . It’s a less technical look at the game within a game that is putting. At one point in the book it covers Putt Conversion Percentages from the PGA Tour from various distances. Here is some of the data:
2 feet – 99%
4 feet – 86%
8 feet – 49%
15 feet – 22%
30 feet – 7%
60 feet – 2%
90 feet – 0.5%
So the above means that 99% of all putts on the PGA Tour from 2 feet are holed – no real surprises there. However as the distances increase, the data gets more interesting. So from 8 feet the best players in the world miss more putts than they hole. How about that? From 15 feet, just over one in five putts are holed. Once the distance gets beyond 30 feet, the likelihood of them holing it becomes pretty slim.
So why am I sharing this with you? It’s not so that you stand over an eight footer and think “well the best players in the world don’t even make half of these so what chance have I got?” Rather it’s too make you more realistic. If you miss a ten foot putt for birdie or to halve the match, don’t be too hard on yourself. Based on these stats, putts of that length are plainly not easy.
The takeaway message from this is to approach every putt with the mindset that you are going to make it and give yourself the best chance of doing so…… but make sure that if the ball doesn’t drop (or wedge against the pin in these CV-19 times!) that you don’t beat yourself up. Instead move on and when you get another putt, approach it with the same open minded attitude and ask yourself “is it possible I could hole this putt?” To which the answer every single time is a resounding YES.