“On a cold and frosty morning…”
The Business ladies held their Christmas Greensomes last weekend on the coldest morning of the winter so far. Temperatures outside were a little above freezing when they started and as you can see plenty of them braved it!
If you have a Christmas jumper you feel is worthy of the newsletter or worse, WE think is worthy, please forward a picture of yourself wearing it. The winning jumper will win a suitable prize!
Welcome back Tiger Woods
After a spell out of the game for a bad back and no real game to speak of, Tiger announced his return of ‘his event’, The World Challenge, with a new swing and the worst display of chipping I`ve witnessed since a Pro Am at Thorndon Park around 7 years ago! I might have touched on that story a little last week so it just goes to show how bad Tiger must have been at Isleworth. Has anyone ever seen the great man hit so many ‘Chilli dips’ in one event?
So why was this happening?
He had too much shaft lean toward the target on the shaft at impact (picture 1), poor footwork (picture 2) and when playing from a slope he didn`t keep his shoulders perpendicular to the slope (picture 3), causing the leading edge to dig into the turf (seen below, L-R).
All this adds up to no use of the clubs bounce and a massive increase in tension, which just multiplies the errors. For one of the all-time great wedge players these are in cardinal sins for playing these types of shot shots.
If any of them are infecting your game perhaps it`s time to review your pitching action, a neutral shaft, good footwork and correct shoulder angles will improve your pitching, undoubtedly Tiger will be sorting his issues out soon enough!
Lighter side of sport…
In South Africa last week at the Nedbank event, Luke Donald decided to shirk the Baboon who ran out towards his ball on the fairway and duck in behind his caddie and avoid the confrontation with the beast. Having played in Africa during my career I know that Luke made the right decision.
Playing in Kenya one season there was a particular tee that had a huge Acacia tree behind it. The monkeys enjoyed sitting up in the branches discarding the nut kernels down on the players below. It was almost as though they knew what to do and when to do it to irritate the players at the worst or best possible moment. Some of the players in the practice round thought they would have some fun and throw balls up to move the monkeys away. This served only to make it worse as the monkeys started screeching to intimidate the players, needless to say there were players getting even hotter under the collar when a nut kernel landed on them in the middle of a swing!
Rules answer…
Last week’s answer… Option A - 2 shots
Clubs can be laid in a hazard as it doesn’t constitute testing the surface. Personally I wouldn`t do it but no issue if you do.
So this time...
From the following situations, when is a player who drops a ball NOT required to re-drop it?
A If it rolls into and comes to rest in a bunker
B If it rolls onto and comes to rest on a putting green
C If it rolls into an unplayable lie.
Jungle goes all foggy…
Carl Fogarty, ex-World Superbike Champion fell to his knees in triumph after winning the I`m a Celebrity event over the last 3 weeks in the Australian Jungle. Foggy, cool and calculated just like his riding always looked to be among the favourites and was last to leave the jungle. He made great friends and no enemies while in there and obviously that endeared him to the voters. He beat Jake Quickenden and Melanie Sykes into 2nd and 3rd places. Mel was disappointed to come third but her dominating personality, especially at mealtimes, probably lost her the title chance. Quickenden probably had more votes for this than when he sang on X Factor!