I payed the Summer Cup in Blackheath today, shot a 71 but missed the win by one shot.

Whilst I played a little bit scratchy early, I recovered through the round to play reasonably solidly, if not spectacularly, apart from 2-3 mental errors.

The last 3 holes were completely fogged in with visibility down to about 50 metres. With the 16th being an uphill par 4, the 17th a 130metre water-carry par 3 and the 18th par 4 a difficult driving hole, my tee shots on all 3 holes were basically down to educated guesses.

I left myself with around 135 metre approach shots to the 16th & 18th greens, and whilst my distance control was good on all 3 holes, my approach shots finished within about5-6 metres either side of the holes. I am sure if I knew exactly where the holes were, I could have put all 3 shots much closer to the holes, thus giving myself the opportunity to post that extra birdie that I needed.

Anyway, this week, I'm off to Norfolk Island for a 3-round veterans tournament, and I am hoping to do quite well. If I can post 3 rounds close to par or better, I would hope that it would be sufficient to perhaps take out the major prize. Time will tell. I will let you know how I go on my return.

Sunday 17th January

I've been busy preparing for my first big tournament, the Lake Macquarie International Amateur Championship which starts on Thursday. I have been spending the past 4 weeks practicing about 8 hours per day and the skills are starting to show through, although my scores have not reflected the improvement yet - still only averaging around the mid 70's.

Heading off to Norfolk Island from 15th - 22nd February for my next golf tournament which is an age event - I'll be playing in the 40-54yo division and I expect to go quite well.

At last, I'm playing golf again!

Well, it's been nearly 2 years but I am playing golf again at last. I played my first round of golf on Saturday, which also happenned to be the first round of my club championships (Belmont Golf Club, Newcastle), shooting 82.

Take away the messy 6 on the Par 3 12th, where I simply lost the plot and forgot how to chip, and a couple of shot selection errors causing 3-4 other dropped shots and it was not too bad.

Next week will be better, I can only improve from here on in.

I'm looking forward to the bigger tournaments early in the new year, when I should be playing somewhere back to my old form of 2 years ago.