TG Blog: The challenge begins
Published: Last updated:
Monday 10th October 2011
I should probably give you a bit of background info about me first. I played golf casually as a junior after being taught by my stepfather. My ability was always one of being able to pull off ‘show’ shots which gained me nice feedback from fellow playing partners, however my scoring never matched up. While I briefly held the ambition of most teenage golfers to be a pro, my attempt was shortlived and my clubs ended up in the loft.
Eight years later and my golfing hero Seve Ballesteros dies of cancer. I was obsessed with Seve as a kid, and studied his game religiously. Just two months after that my 54-year-old stepfather is diagnosed with stage four cancer of the liver. These two events fuelled my ambitions for a golf-related fundraising event.
While my relationship with my stepfather was often patchy as a young teenager, the one place we came together was on the golf course. Something clicked in my mind and all of a sudden my challenge came to me. I am going to pull the sticks back down from the loft, and play in The Open. Something that will make my stepfather very proud as he can no longer play golf because of his condition.
I know it’s a huge challenge and much harder than any pounding of the streets or cycling up mountains that I’ve done before. This will require dedication of extreme levels over a long period of time – and a lot of skill!
After contacting Keith Williams, PGA Master Pro and coach to Scott Drummond, we agreed to work out an intense plan. The plan needs to be strong enough to reduce my handicap of seven to scratch so I can at least attempt to qualify for The Open, and then beyond scratch to give me a realistic chance of scoring the sub par rounds needed.
My lessons will be documented, training programmes will be released and blogs of my journey will be available for golfers to learn from my new found skills and drills that will have proven, documented success.
All the money that I raise will be donated to Cancer Research and The Seve Ballesteros Foundation.
I hope you stay with me for my journey…
