On the 16th December I broke 100 which I managed 2 ½ months in to my Golf Challenge, on the 6th of January I broke 90 with an 88, scorecard here. I set a goal to have this achieved by end of January and have surpassed it by 3 weeks. I actually had no intentions of trying to achieve anything during this round except do my best and lay it down as a marker before going to golf school for a week. I believe by not actually aiming to do anything specific during the round was beneficial to my game. I have now set a target that needs to be at least equally next time I play a full round, which is defiantly going to be a challenge.

The previous night before going to the Tapton Park Golf Club I decided to practice with my 4 wood, which I haven’t used for some considerable time. During this practice session at the golf range I was pleasantly surprised with how well I was actually hitting the ball with the 4 wood and then decided that tomorrow I will use it on the course. This proved to be one of the reasons why I broke 90, I only duffed one tee shot with this club and that was on the par 4, 9th hole. Furthermore two tee shots over water on the 4th and 7th holes were two of my best shots of the day, but still ended up with bogies due to poor second shots.

Throughout the round I managed, 5 pars, 10 bogies and 3 double bogies, never three putted once, with a total putting score of 34. +9 on the front 9 (35) and an amazing +7 on the back 9 (37). To have broke 90 which such a good performance on the back 9 I am truly impressed with, as this course is very hill and thus very tiring. Consequently when I start the back 9 I’m usual quite tired, especially after first 4 holes, never mind the last two holes, which are horrendously hilly.

This shows I’m getting fitter, although having said that once the round had finished I had trouble just getting my shoes off as my back was murderous and I could hardly bend enough to reach them. This proved to be even worse the next day when upon getting up in the morning I found I could hardly walk or stand up straight. This was very worrying as I was scheduled to go to golf school in two days’ time and if my back didn’t improve then I would have had to cancel and lose £600.

Managing barley to get out to the chemists and get a heat pack for my back started to ease the pain a little. I spent the rest of the day going out for short walks and slowly things started to improve. The next day my back felt significantly better with heat pack two in place, by the end of Sunday I had no pain at all and was moving freely again, thank goodness for that.

From January 9th to 13th I’m at golf school and will update my golf blog after the week rather than on a daily basis during the week. I will be writing everything I’ve learned down during the week so I don’t forget anything crucial and so that I can retain the changes and put them in to practice on my return.