I'm Club Champ 2005!!!!!!

Who'd a' thunk it!!!!

What a week. I qualified about middle of the 16 qualifiers with back to back 74's and in the round of 16 beat a decent 5 handicapper despite playing some icky golf only to meet the best player in the club (+1/+2 player) in the Quarter Finals !!!

I was two up after 9 and then he decided to turn up and birdied 10,11 and 12 to get back to square (I birdied 11 also). Standing on 13 (180 yard par 3 up a steep hill to a wicked sloping green, one of the hardest holes on our course) I said to my caddie 'just weather the storm, we're still square and its a tough finish, par golf home will be solid' Stiffed my tee shot and holed out for a 2 and 1 up again. Then he went for the green on the par 4 14th and ended up in the 3 foot high stuff that our greenkeeper is so fond of. Lost ball and 2 up. Pars home to win the match!! What a result !

Semi final wasnt much easier. Playing a multiple finalist and solid match player. All square after 9 and halved all the way to 16 where I made a silly error in clubbing which led to a bogey and 1 down with 2 to play. I was pretty pi$$ed at myself for the mistake but my caddie really earned his corn on the tee telling me to calm down and 2 pars would see me playing extra time. I hit a good drive but a poor second to be pin high about 25 feet away. Meanwhile my opponent had found some of the thicker semi and ended up short of the green and pitched to about 8 feet. I stuck my chip to 2 feet and he missed his putt. I managed to jam mines in and be all square up the last. Adrenaline must have been surging on teh 18th tee cos I pured one 320 right down the middle leaving a wedge to the green. The other guy drove into the semi again, could only knock one 40 yards short of the green into some thick grass and could only move it about 5 yards. He left the chip short and then lipped out for 5!!! I was 20 foot away with 3 putts for it and he rather sportingly conceded the match. My first final awaited!

The final was 36 hole affair. Playing another quality match player I managed to get to the 9th 2 up but he started back 3 3 3 3 to get back to square. Then I had a bit of a bad spell and had to make a couple of up and downs to keep the deficit to just the one hole after 18.. I started the afternoon round in the worst way by losing the first drive . So 2 down I then stuck the drive on the 20th hole into the deep grass again . I managed to find it this time and had a word with myself and managed to half the hole. I won the 4th 5th, 7th and 8th to go 2 up but lost the 9th to go back to 1 up. My opponent then suffered the same crisis I had late in the first 18 and lost 10 and 11 to be 3 down after 30 holes. I won the 13th and hit a good solid drive down 14. The other guy missed the fairway a good way right and hit a great approach shot that was just too fiery and bounced through the green. I pitched one to 20 feet and he chipped to 8 feet. I rolled my first putt to 2 feet and it was conceded. This left him a nasty 8 foot downhill left to right breaker to keep the match going. He took a bit of time over it, quite rightly, and hit a great putt. I was already walking backwards on my way to the next tee when the ball hit the back of the cup and then unbelievably rimmed the cup and stayed out. I stood there for a few moments not quite sure of what had just happened. Then the match referee called out 'Darryl wins the hole in 4, wins the match and the championship' .

I had to make a speech and everything!! But thats the name up on the big board!!

An absolutely incredible experience, it may never happen again, but at least for one week in June 2005 I was the best match play player in the club.

D.

__________________
Longniddry Golf Club Champ 2005.

In the Taylor Made Bag:

Callaway FT-3 Tour 9.5 Aldila NV 65S

Callaway Steelhead 3 Wood

Callaway Steelhead 5 Wood

Callaway X-16 3-PW

MacGregor Tourney 52 Degree

Cobra Phil Rodgers 59 Degree Rusty

Odyssey DFX 2-Ball

Callaway Tour iX

Congratulations!

During our golf week last week, we had our second junior 'major'. It was the Western Isles Open and it's what everyone wants to win after our Club Champ. The qualifying round went poorly, bad weather meant the course was playing tough but just managed to qualify as the 4th of 4 qualifiers. It was close because it only one shot in front of the dude in 5th place.

So it's 1st qualifier vs 4th qualifier, 2nd vs 3rd. The 1st qualifier was in form and he's considered the best junior in the club so I knew it would be a good game. As usual he was being his somewhat arrogant self but I ignored it. He calls it confidence but it's all cóckiness. So we're to tee off first playing off the medal tees which the juniors aren't really used too. The 1st is the hardest hole on the course so it's always a scary task, especially when you sleep in and have no time to warm up, yikesss.

He's up the green in three and me in two and it's me to go first. I had a difficult chip, played it well but a little hard, it hit the pin and stopped by the hole. I got the usual, 'your just lucky' hiss but I didn't care, 1 up after one hole. The second a par 5, was lost because of a terrible 3-putt, good mood gone now but soon re-discovered after nailing another chip on the par 3 3rd to a foot - refuses to concede any putt so far so our usual small petty talk becomes a silent hike to the next tees. My iron play was a bit off but thankfully, and FOR ONCE, my short game was good. Another chip stuck to a foot and even a pro would have been proud of it. Similar scenario on the 5th, short game wins another hole. The 7th and 8th were won in a similar style and I ended up 3UP after 9.

I was feeling confident up until 10. It's a long par 3 and I was just off the edge with my tee shot. He was short of a bunker and ended up duffing into it. I was thinking 4UP at this point, surely. He played out and it was still a good 15 foot away. I played my chip to about 5 foot and started thinking about the next hole. Typical that though, he makes that putt and I end up missing mine so it's halved. I go onto lose 2 balls on the next 2 balls which puts me back to 1UP after 12. It was after 12 that everything clicked. I parred my way in, 13, 14, 15 and 16 to win 4 & 2 and get to my first final.

The final was different. I played awful. My competitor wasn't near as good as my previous opponent. After a terrible start I began to get into it and started to win holes. I made some stupid mistakes and my caddie joked that if I could putt then the final should have been over after the 11th. Some caddie he was though, couldn't be bothered helping me read putts and hogged my umbrella when the scottish weather came down on us. I ended up winning 5 & 4 and celebrated my first junior 'major'.

The only things I wish is that it was the first of many. That can't possibly be, because I turn senior next year !

I've also been renamed the bandit again. Being off 19, you wouldn't think I'd be coming close to winning scratch competitions but it's surprizing the difference between my compeition golf and my bounce round/matchplay golf. Once I get over the mind barrier, that handicap will plummit.

__________________

Cracking result Darrel,


Congrats,

I was knocked out second round, and he didn't play well, he just never shut up all the way around and I didn't have the heart to tell him to button it.


It must be nice to make the history board as "Club Champion" and I hope you get a club swetter with 2005 Club Champion engraved.


Ian.

Well done Darryl. May it be the first of many.

Don

Congrats Darryl! Glad to see everything came together nicely for you.

Thanks, guys.

Well done Ricky and well done Cantputticant...Winning a junior championship is an important step forwards it marks you out as one to watch.

I hope it motivates you to work hard and have a crack at the Men next year.

Ricky, keep playing as an 11 handicapper, concentrate on playing to that and the scores will come and you will slowly knock points off, dont go out and try and play like a 5 handicapper, that will put too much pressure on you, let it come slowly, you have lots and lots of time, set yourself a target for age 16 then 18. You may find that the scores required for them arent as deep as you think.

Good Luck to all of you,

D.

__________________
Longniddry Golf Club Champ 2005.

In the Taylor Made Bag:

Callaway FT-3 Tour 9.5 Aldila NV 65S

Callaway Steelhead 3 Wood

Callaway Steelhead 5 Wood

Callaway X-16 3-PW

MacGregor Tourney 52 Degree

Cobra Phil Rodgers 59 Degree Rusty

Odyssey DFX 2-Ball

Callaway Tour iX

Great job, Darryl!

Rick and CantPutt - keep at 'er. You're already far and above better golfers than I.

woooooooooo go daryl. get yerself on tour big man

Never know if youre extracting the urine or not BigMan.....

ps Tiger's still sh**e......

D.

lol.

na i was congratulating mate. Well done. Im envious. I got knocked out 1st round

Tough luck, bud, you'll get em next year

D.

Just wanna add my congrats Darry. Well done! It must have been a fantastic feeling, know you know what Tiger feels everytime . Oh did everyone see his mum taking a nip from the mini-bar miniature as they cut to her while he was striding up 18? How fantastic is that?!

One last thing, care to share some of your tips for tournament success? I've not played many so far but always seem to blow it.

Cheers

Paul

Erm...tips.....erm....I dunno. I did approach things in a certain way every match. I dont know if a sense of routine made a difference or not. The main thing was I went to the range pre match and worked on the shots I didnt feel too confident with. I always made sure I hit a lot of drives at the end to get myself ready to hit the all important first drive. Then i went to the putting green and did some work there. I used Monty's putting drill of hitting lots of 2 footers trying to hole as many in a row as I could. Then I went to longer putts and worked on line reading and pace. Did a bit of chipping and found out what club I had my eye in best with on the day. Sometimes it was the SW sometimes it was the 9 iron.

I had a plan for the round, where to play safe and where to attack, that was pretty dependant on the pin placements. Me and my caddy had a little idiot card with reminders about safe places for sucker pins and best landing areas for others. Another thing was I didnt deliberately try and hole any putts over 15 feet, I just lagged those ones up, I did get lucky with a few that fell in but I dont think I three putted too many greens over the course of the 90 holes of matchplay, maybe 3 or 4 at most. If I was to give you any single pieces of advice it would be the following

1. Dont charge at long putts lag them up unless you must hole them. Any putt outside 6 feet is miss-able so dont charge at a 25 footer just cos the other guy has a 10 footer for it. If you get down in 2 then he has a much harder putt.
2. Par golf will win matches. Unless you are playing some maniac who can shoot 4 or 5 under, level par will usually win a match at our level. I played to par all week and won a lot of holes with level numbers. Forcing a guy to make birdies to win holes is money in the bank especially if you get a couple up early on.
3. Stay positive at all times, you are going to lose holes and you sometimes build a big lead and then get pegged back. These are the facts of match play. Concentrate on the holes to come.

Good Luck,

D.

__________________
Longniddry Golf Club Champ 2005.

In the Taylor Made Bag:

Callaway FT-3 Tour 9.5 Aldila NV 65S

Callaway Steelhead 3 Wood

Callaway Steelhead 5 Wood

Callaway X-16 3-PW

MacGregor Tourney 52 Degree

Cobra Phil Rodgers 59 Degree Rusty

Odyssey DFX 2-Ball

Callaway Tour iX

3 great tips but I'd also suggest taking out a caddy that knows what he's doing. He had a good matchplay brain and told me when to attack a green or play short. Usually I go for the green no matter what, not the best thing to do but he really helped me out.