Nailing my colours to the mast

As 2011 emits its dying breaths and shudders to a wintry close, I thought I would offer up some predictions for the golfing year in 2012. Clearly there is huge scope for these to be wildly inaccurate (and rest assured I won't follow up any of these with a monetary commitment) but hopefully they are of interest and spark some debate.

Didn't he do well? Alvaro, that is...

Amid all the hyperbole, chatter and general noise surrounding Luke Donald's remarkable achievement, it is very easy to forget there were two players who actually scored better than the World #1 and pond-straddling money list winner.

What Luke really meant...

Apparently, we are meant to swallow the headlines that world #1 Luke Donald believes Rory McIlroy to have more talent that Tiger Woods. Did he actually say that? His later clarifications would imply that his remarks were taken out of context (shock - when doesn't this happen?!) but the undertones of his gamesmanship are designed to unsettle the pretender to his European Tour crown.

Old guard aren't finished yet...

As weekends of golf go, that one was ok. Not bad. Quite interesting.

Three tournaments reached their conclusion at various times yesterday and whilst there was a win for a member of the next generation of golfing superstars, two of the elder statesmen showed they're not quite ready to hand the baton over.

My Dream 18

I thought I would put together a 'dream 18' of holes I have played which, given artistic licence on the laws of physics and geography, would make the perfect course. These are not in any particular order either.

100 up with a smile

Sunday's round at Worplesdon Golf Club, the scene of a heart-wrenching final-hole defeat by Moggers and Nick, took me to a personal milestone of 100 UK golf courses played.

Fred Couples - the can teetered, wobbled but didn't fall over

Prior to the start of last week's Presidents Cup, the Ryder-Cup-but-without-the-media-coverage-or-the-competitive-intensity, I wrote about how Fred Couples had risked dropping a massive clanger by taking Tiger Woods and Bill Haas as his captain's picks, leaving the in-form and luckless Keegan Bradley to watch the event unfold on TV at home.

Golfing goals for 2012

2011 seems to have flown by and there are now about seven weeks of the year left, so my mind started to wander towards the golfing goals I want to set myself for 2012.

Fred Couples and the can of worms

I can't really remember (not that it really matters) how long its been since US Presidents Cup skipper Fred Couples made his announcement that Tiger Woods would be one of his wildcard selections for the forthcoming match against Greg Norman's Australian, sorry International, team at Royal Melbourne.

The Right Frame of Mind

With the Race to Dubai entering its final furlong, there were a couple of occurrences which made me think about the mental side of golf and the impact that it has.

I wrote previously about misplaced confidence in my own golf game and the times that it has come back to bite me in the arse so it was extremely interesting to see two professional golfers at opposite ends of the 'Good Place Mentally' spectrum on the same course over the weekend.

A Comedy of (Golfing) Errors

With appropriate apologies to the Bard, my round of golf at Millbrook GC on Monday afternoon, with my brother-in-law Greg, didn't exactly light the high-quality fires or threaten the upper reaches of the OWGR.

5 things I love about golf

It is now under a week until Gribber and I will be playing golf which, coming a mere three weeks since I last played, puts me firmly into 'regular golfer' territory. With my anticipation building ahead of Monday afternoon, I thought I would pen a few things I love about the game of golf.

5 things learnt in golf this week

1. If at first you don't succeed... 

A pyrrhic victory

I had waited 38 days for the opportunity to play a round of golf, so I was loathe to let a dose of man-flu (or was it ebola?) rain on the parade.

Missing Out Syndrome

That horrible, gut-wrenching, sense that something exciting and interesting is happening and, for whatever reason, you’re not part of it.

Lovely week for it...

What, if anything, have we learned from last week’s golf?

Firstly the Solheim Cup, the biennial, Ryder-Cup-but-without-the-press-coverage battle between the US and Europe. In short, Europe ended a sequence of successive defeats dating back to 2003 and took the cup in dramatic style, eventually winning 15-13 having threatened to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory earlier in the day. 

One week to go

Much like a cartoon prisoner scrawls a tally on the wall, I am eagerly anticipating my first round of golf for 38 days next Saturday.

I haven't yet chosen the venue for this round with Noel, but it will be somewhere within a deft lob wedge of my home.

My last round, as part of a golf society at Manor of Groves near Sawbridgeworth, saw me tee it up for the first time for nearly three weeks, so I was typically reticent about my chances of being in the mix at the end.

Why do this blog?

I've been asking myself that question for a couple of days now.

Along with 'Will anyone read it?', although that secondary question has slipped somewhat off the radar, given I have understood that this is merely a vehicle for me to express my thoughts, ramblings, opinions, etc about golf - if anyone reads it (enjoying it would be an added bonus) then so much the better.