Thanks gang, Tasha and George both doing well. Think they will be allowed home tomorrow afternoon. One more night of sleep. :-)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-54353697

This article struck a chord with me today. We are due to have our first child in 6 weeks time. This is very "first world problems" but we didn't get the opportunity to go to the scans together or attend any midwife appointment stuff. I am the only person allowed to be at the birth which is the most upsetting - my partner is obviously very nervous and would have felt more comforted to have her mum and family in the room or waiting close by.

No complaints of course but a very strange time to be going through this. Will be a positive end to a crap year. Generation COVID!

Little boy arrived yesterday after partner started contractions last Friday - FIVE days! They may need to stay in for a couple of nights and I can only visit between 3pm-4pm. Hoping I might be able to get them home today. Terrifying but amazing.

Absolutely typical the team finally start winning at home and fans can't go to games :-(

TOP OF THE LEAGUE!

2 defeats in last 14 prem games. One of the best tactical managers in the division and an exciting young squad. Win on Friday night and we go top of the league!

I have played it a tonne with lots of different groups. Brilliant game.

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/among-us-imposter-crewmate-tips-guide-emergency-meeting/

This is pretty good but best bet is to find a big streamer playing it and watch for a few games. It's simple enough but the nuance is in the human interaction. Every group you will play with will be different. Discord and friends is a must though, it's nothing without voice chat.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-54353697

This article struck a chord with me today. We are due to have our first child in 6 weeks time. This is very "first world problems" but we didn't get the opportunity to go to the scans together or attend any midwife appointment stuff. I am the only person allowed to be at the birth which is the most upsetting - my partner is obviously very nervous and would have felt more comforted to have her mum and family in the room or waiting close by.

No complaints of course but a very strange time to be going through this. Will be a positive end to a crap year. Generation COVID!

Yea thanks Dino, you do a great job at running these and I can imagine the work involved. Really appreciate it.

One for the scrapbook

Who would have thought after this night, Saints would have been the team that scored more points for the rest of the season.

What do Leicester need this Summer? I was at the 0-9 and they looked great so where did it go wrong after that?

I am so happy.

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I had a couple of good range sessions earlier this week and then to see it come together and break 90 is so satisfying.

I was so hot on the front 9. Great ball striking, felt super confident and my chipping and putting was so good. Had to really grit my teeth on the back 9, was feeling really tired as probably didn't eat enough before the round. So satisfied to play the last 3 holes in +3 given we were in a similar situation in a previous round and ended those in +7.

I bought a hybrid earlier in the week and used that a bit. Some good early signs and the extra distance definitely helped on a few holes off the tee. Flushed one around 230 yards ish, gives me a good +30 over my 4 iron.

Have another 1 hour lesson on Sunday. I am still coming over the top a lot and the swing is very inconsistent and seems to get more so the longer the round goes on. I am also not good enough from 100-150 yards and struggle with ball striking with my pitching wedge through 8 iron. Lots to work on but just buzzing. Made a ridiculous up and down on the 17th over a bunker then holed a 15 footer for the par.

The really encouraging thing is that I can see how shooting sub 85 is possible for me somewhere down the line. No pressure for the rest of the Summer now, just going to enjoy playing and experience some different courses.

Hojbjerg says he wants to leave the saints to pursue the ECL, has now reportedly agreed personal terms with the European heavyweights Everton

well £25 million for a player with a year left on contract is good business in my books

Yes, a good deal for all parties although my suspicion is that Tottenham will have a say in the deal. They were interested in January and, given his ambition, I suspect that is the club he would prefer to join.

Think this one still has some legs - good for Saints that there are multiple interested parties.

What an amazing season. Guess the priorities for the summer will be getting a Walker-Peters deal done, getting another centre back and a replacement for Hojberg. This team looks well capable of being a solid top half team for the next few years. Lots of great young talent - Obafemi, Adams, Djenepo, Bednarek and some peak age players - Ings, Redmond, JWP, Armstrong etc. Fairly confident in saying Hasenhuttl is the best manager I have seen at Saints in my lifetime. An amazing coach.

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Really good round today. Struck the ball really well, especially off the tee.

So frustrated to play the last 3 holes +7. Definitely left a 90 breaker out there and can feel it coming. Was an almost flawless front 9 other than a poor 9th that ended in missing a 3ft putt.

Didn't lose my ball once too. Go again next Sunday. In the mean time got some stuff to work on for sure - still need to try and find that consistent flat swing with my low irons off the tee. As I got my tired, my swing got worse and starting leaking off with slices again. Need to work on my pitching wedge, 9 iron stuff too as didn't hit those very well. Body is definitely adjusting to 3 hours walking but I did feel tired on the last few holes and it showed in the scores.

Stuck my first 4 rounds into a handicap calculator and it told me I am off 20. Might be time to buy something longer than a 4 iron. :-)

Just stumbled around this thread, fantastic stuff.

I'm just down the coast, you have a couple of good courses near you, you've mentioned Goodwood already and then you have Littlehampton and Worthing as well.

Sadly Sussex is pretty shit for golf and all the courses are in shit nick this year but right now that's not too important.

Keep on doing what you're doing, competing against yourself is great fun eh?

Thanks Flushy, having so much fun. Despite this poor showing:-

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So I ended up playing a full round on the Cathedral course at Chichester. This is a much tougher course than The Tower and I only played it as couldn't get a tee time on the Tower. It's just a really hard course with water on 13 holes, lots of bunkers and awkward lies. I absolutely loved playing the course, its a lot more visually interesting than the other course but is a bit beyond my skill level at the moment. I lost a fair few balls, did hit a mish mash of really nice shots but just can't hit consistently straight yet so just was getting punished left and right.

Went back to the range this week and had a really good session working on long game. Just practiced pinging 4 irons 200 yards as need to be able to go to that shot off the tee to break 90 round The Tower. Playing a round tomorrow so will see how that goes.

I would like to play at least another 3 different courses before the end of the year - hoping to get up to Goodwood next when it is back open to non-members as they have a course their that I believe is reasonably forgiving.

I have a little boy (my first) due in November so enjoying the freedom of walking around a golf course at 8pm on a Summers evening without a care in the world! Going to try and play a full round once a week for the forseeable and mix in at least one other range session and a session on the par 3 course. See if we can break 90 before the end of the Summer.

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Second round on the course and 4 shots worse than last time. A much more erratic round and when I got back in the car, genuinely thought I hadn't broken 110. I guess I remember the bad holes and not the good ones.

Compared to the last round where we didn't have worse than double bogey, today included a quadruple and three triples. Lost 4 balls in total. Ball striking was not great, probably due to the fact I hadn't played in a week and swing just felt very rusty, especially on the front 9. 

Really pleased with that back nine obviously especially given I thought my score was total garbage. The wind was really blowing today, lots of long holes into the wind that were a real struggle.

Enjoyed it a lot even though didn't play great. Lots to work on to break 90. Did shoot -1 on the par 3 last week which was pretty nice.

Thanks guys, genuinely no idea that the 17th was a par 5 until saw your post. I really want to get a few more rounds in before getting too crazy, I think that was definitely right at the top end of what could be expected at the moment. Am sure I ran very very good.

Some cool videos to share from lesson yesterday:-



Ignore where the hands are going but this is such a huge difference to when I first started. You can almost draw a straight line down my right hip and you don't see any of that rocking backwards motion. I have to think about this on every shot and chant pivot like a mantra or I slip back into it. My natural movement is to want to rock backward all the time. This looks good though.



So here is the swing at the start of the lesson and the one that got me round the course on Sunday. This is probably the worst version of it. The takeaway is fine but it is obviously at the top of the swing where it gets messy then we get out of line on the way down and see variations on the baby fade and the big old left to right swinger.



This is where we got to at the end of the lesson. Note the weird ball position, for some reason I have this habit of aligning really close to the heel which got me too close to the ball and just exaggerated that steep downswing and slice. The fix with the low hands doesn't look that big but it really feels like your slinging a baseball bat. The difference is huge though, was pinging them dead straight and even some little draws. Really going to have to work to get this natural with all the clubs.

The course is only 5900 yards. I was hitting a 4 iron off the mat 200 yards. Bogey golf would get me an 89 and seems perfectly doable with just the irons in the bag. Let's see how consistent we can get the swing.

Mainly posting to say Max looked adorable sorry for your loss.


From looking at the quick swing videos, my top tip would be to not take the club back too far. parallel with the shoulders is the common descriptor for where to stop, with the John Daly being wrapping it round your back and up your crack before unwinding it all.

The longer you swing the more chance of a cock up, taking a half swing reduces the options for error. you can slowly expand it as you get more comfortable and consistent. with a 50% swing you probably can hit 75% of your max distance. to get that last 25% you try really hard and your chance of inaccuracy goes up immensely.

Thank you. It hasn't taken long but my parents are now on the hunt for a Westie puppy. Unfortunately the Covid situation has meant that getting hold of a puppy is almost impossible, dog prices have nearly doubled as everyone is working from home and buying a dog. They are hoping to get one by October. I popped round for a cup of tea this afternoon and my mum was handfeeding and cooing over a couple of seagulls she has adopted. The best fed seagulls ever, they had steak in the week and left over lamb chop today! They need a dog.

I had a lesson today and we were working on exactly that. Getting the golf club travelling on the right plane and not overswinging and throwing the hands up high. That flatter baseball movement is what I am looking for and that stops the slice. I will put up some more videos as I get some cool slo mo videos as part of the coaching.

Going to take a break until Wednesday now then probably try and stick to at least one technical session on the range each week and the rest out on course. Going to invest in some woods in a few weeks after getting a few more rounds under my belt and get confident with the irons.