David Duval
The Golfing Blues
I interrupt my
usual blog to talk about getting down at golf. I think most people who
have played golf for a while have got to the point where they have just about
had enough with the game. It usually comes after a period of particular
struggles and a feeling that it’s not worth the time you put into it.
I had myself
experienced various minor periods of the blues but had my worst case of it
during the middle of my current swing change. I had been putting in plenty of
quality time into my practice and although results had been pretty poor had seen
enough in terms of position change and shot shape improvement to continue to
persevere with the work. However towards the end of last year in spite of some
real big progress with my swing positions I couldn’t find a way to get my
driver going. The rest of my game was going pretty good but my driving was
shocking. Probably as bad as it had been for a long time. It wasn’t just that
the direction was bad, it was the quality of strike. For about three weeks I
practiced and was hitting some absolutely horrendous feeling shots. But I am
not one to give up easily so I carried on with the practice.
However, the
final straw came playing a Winter mini tour event at a local venue I won’t
name. Arriving on a frosty winter morning I expected the usual decision to
either delay or cancel the event due to frozen greens. But to my surprise we
were going out. ‘The greens must have thawed out’ I thought to myself. But a
trip to the putting green confirmed the opposite. So in spite of the poor decision
I go out. The first couple of holes go okay, fairway wood off tee and run the
ball in to frosty greens and scrape pars. Then I start to miss fairways and hit
into rough, which is sodden. Every shot missing fairway is plugged. Balls
missing fairways by yards or greens by feet can be lost in their plug marks.
Balls hit on greens bounce through into soaking wet lies. This is not enjoyable
golf, made worse by the fact my driver shots feel like I’m hitting a rock with
a drainpipe. I left the tournament with one thing in my mind. I’ve had enough.
I didn’t pick up
a club for two months apart from during lessons. I made a choice that I was
only going to get back to it when I felt a real desire to practice again. Two
things brought me back to the game. Firstly, during a lesson I hit my driver
and the face cracked, turns out it had a flaw in the face and that was one of
the reasons it felt so bad!! But I still wasn’t fully converted back. The final
turning point was my coaching trip to PGA Cataluyna in Spain. Good golf course,
good condition and the sight of the sun that I hadn’t really seen for twelve
months did wonders. My new driver head was a revelation also and suddenly golf
became about enjoyment and making birdies and eagles again. My love affair with
the game had renewed.
Unfortunately
coming back to minus temperatures in England put a bit of a dampener on it, but
I finally feel a desire to hit balls and get back to it. The pieces of my swing
change feel better now I have confidence back off the tee and I am starting to
look ahead to some tournament golf again.
My experienced
is shared with another at my club. Neil Padbury, who is featured in some of my
earlier videos got the end of his golfing tether at around autumn last year. He
has a huge amount of golfing potential but apart from brief periods has never
quite has showed the work rate required to push on from a potentially good
golfer to actually reaching the scratch standard some would say he should have.
As a result his dreams always outweighed the results he achieved. He is
currently retired from the game in his early twenties, but I hope this season
some good weather will bring him out and maybe give him the motivation to give
his well of potential one last run at the big time.
My biggest
respect goes to David Duval, he has suffered possibly the biggest career slump
since Sandy Lyle, but still comes back to play week in week out. He must have
gone through the blues several times but still works hard. I hope that soon he
is rewarded for his perseverance.
