TG Blog: The challenge comes to an end

Thursday 29 September

It’s now been 369 days since I first played golf. I’ve played on 44 golf courses, playing 130 rounds of 18 holes and 80 rounds of 9 holes. I’ve taken 16,473 strokes at an average of 5.4 strokes per hole. This does not include all the time I have spent practising.

At the end of the year my best score has been a 76 and my handicap is 15. And I did not achieve scratch standard. In the three rounds I played in the last week of my challenge, I shot 89, 89 and 86 at my home course, the par-70 Mount Pleasant.

So I have not achieved my goal, but I have learned an awful lot about golf and myself. I have learned that it is possible to coach a scratch standard technique to a forty-something complete novice within one year and I have learned that the thing that stops a golfer making the most of their technique is what goes on in their head.

Although I didn’t get too close to my goal of scratch standard, it is a target I think is achievable – as long as the novice has a reasonable level of natural sporting talent and is the right side of 40. This is where I struggled!

I also found that the fact that I played my golf in the spotlight of my challenge affected me quite badly. I can only imagine the pressure professionals are under when playing for their livelihoods.

I finish the year fascinated by the possibilities of what can be achieved. If I were to go through this again, I would do things so very differently.

Before I started this challenge, my job was to help businesses to become more effective. As I reflect on my first year playing golf, I am setting myself new objectives; to use what I have learned to help other golfers improve, and to achieve a single figure handicap. But I won’t be putting so much pressure on myself in future.