It has been so nice to play 3 events in a row this past month. It is all well and good standing on a range and repeating the same golf swing from the same lie a few hundred times to engrain a new move, but try repeating said new move on the 18th hole when you need a birdie to get paid that week. Or holing 100 straight 3 foot putts on a perfect putting green on a sunny Tuesday morning, compared to the 16th green come Friday afternoon. Nothing apart from being in these pressure situations can replicate that feeling.
I heard Mike Clayton say recently learn to par the final 4 holes when playing a practice round and this has really stuck with me the past few weeks.
When playing the French Open at the beautiful resort of Golf Du Medoc in Bordeaux recently I went through both of these situations when trying to get a tee time for Saturday. Having played pretty solidly in the Wednesday pro am, I felt I knew what swing thoughts I was going into the event with and ready to get a scorecard in my hand again. That’s when you hope those hundreds of balls repeating a different angle on the downswing have paid of. But it is really easy to repeat a golf swing with alignment sticks on the ground and you get another go if the shot isn’t quite how you wanted, the 15th hole needing 4 pars to make the cut not so much.
Having fought a raking hook for 32 holes but putted really well (strange I know!!) to keep me in the mix for the weekend, I thought to myself just par the last 4 holes. I’ve made a lot of pars in my career 4 more sounds simple enough.
Having hit the green in regulation on 15, I proceeded to miss a pretty simple 2 foot putt for par, thus needing a birdie one of the tough closing stretch at Golf Du Medoc. Having hit the long 16th in regulation, I was a long way from the hole in 2 and went on to miss a 4 foot putt for par this time. Now my mind isn’t in a great spot. The thoughts of “well all that putting practice was worthwhile wasn’t it” and “what’s the point playing alright for 32 holes to then mess it up” start to appear in my mind.
I still just need to play the last 4 holes in level par, although this time it has to be the hard way. 17 was a strong par 3 of somewhere around 175 yards. I stand up still a little annoyed with myself, a little resigned to the fact I may have the weekend to beat yet more balls on a range, no getting paid this week and I hit the purest 5 iron to 5 feet. No swing thoughts apart from this needs to go close to the hole!! I manage to convert and walk to 18 needing a grandstand finish. I find the fairway, tick, leaving 110 yards to the flag. A right to left wind, with a left pin should be perfect for me. But not knowing if I’m going to put a good swing on it with no side spin so I can take dead aim, or is it going to be another swing not quite as I’d like and move the ball from one side of the green to the other? Who knows, I certainly didn’t!!!! I stood up aimed 2 yards right of the pin and executed the swing I’d made hundreds of times before on the range. I knew it was close, thankfully it was one of those occasions where the closer I got to the green, the closer the ball got to the hole. A tap in of 6 inches ensured my first pay cheque since early June.
A finish like that makes the first glass of Bordeaux’s finest red taste even better than usual. Level par for the last 4 holes, it doesn’t matter how, just how many. The range is a great place to work on technique, but unfortunately they don’t give out cheques for being a great range player.
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