Hi Everyone, Hopefully the weather looks like it may finally be on the turn and that we will get some cold and, wait for it, dry conditions to play our golf in. To be fair, when you look around the country we have been very fortunate to be as open as much as we have! There must be some golf courses who won't see any action until March I would imagine. Still, no weather problems for the players in Hawaii for the PGA Tour's opening event of the season, the Hyundai Tournament of Champions. No problems for world number one Jordan Spieth either as he started the year just as he had left the last one, on top form. Normally, if a professional golfer had only 40 pars in 72 holes the alarm bells would start ringing. However if you then have 28 birdies and two eagles it begins to look like a reasonable tournament! Jordan's 30-under-par total comprehensively won the event (no surprise) and his radar putting looked better than ever. Here's an interesting statistic (sorry as you know I am stat man!): last year he was a staggering 182-under-par for the tournaments he played in, and now he is already 30 under for 2016! For a man who has played only 77 professional events and three years ago did not have any status on any Tour, it is a quite remarkable rise to the top. It goes to show how quickly things change in a relatively short period of time, as three years ago Luke Donald was world number one. However after a swing change and loss of confidence, he is now 78th and needing a swift turn to get back into the Majors and of course the Ryder Cup. Luke has gone back to his old coach, worked hard on his game and is confident of a comeback. As Chairman of his Fan Club, I'll be rooting for him! As mentioned last week, when you are out playing please try to carry or at least lighten your bag and use a push trolley, it really helps the course. I think it will be at least a month or so until the water table recedes and we are playing off firmer ground. Certainly a tip I give students when the ground is soft is to club up and make a more compact swing. This has the effect of reducing our hand action and lessening the chance of one of those shots that go 'splat'!
Hopefully your highs will outweigh your lows this week on the course.
