For the last few months I have been setting up as a service centre for Motocaddy electric trolleys. I am very pleased to now be able to offer you the full range of facilities as just that. We now have in place equipment and parts to be able to carry out repairs, including warranty repairs on nearly new trolleys, and also periodic servicing of your trolleys. 

Many of you have probably never had a service done on your trolley and, if you think about it, this is a strange thing as we would all get our cars serviced regularly as a matter of course.

So why get your trolley serviced?

The main reason is to stop major problems occurring long term by keeping moving parts clean and well lubricated. In addition, parts that may lead to failure or problems elsewhere can be noticed early and replaced at comparatively low cost.

In order to launch this facility I am offering you, my members, and an introductory offer:

Full service for just £20 until the end of March

At that point a service will cost £35. This has to be the perfect time to get your trolley serviced as they are currently off at Chestfield and probably coated in mud!

A full service will include the following:

• Removal and check of motor
• Re-grease where needed
• Removal and check of gearbox
• Re-grease where needed
• Full check of wire loom for kinks and damag
• Check all connectors
• Full check of main board for corrosion and loose connectors
• Removal, clean and re-grease of all wheels
• Full clean of main body and under carriage

Of course if you have any issues with your trolley you can now come into the shop and have it looked at, evaluated and repaired where required. All this at your own club! Please feel free to come in at any time and talk to me or Stevie and we will book your trolley in.

Alternatively, get in touch here.


 

Thankfully we opened again on Sunday and the course certainly seemed to have stood up to the wet weather well. It's still a bit sticky and wet in places so we all still need to be a little careful (it means it's slippy everyone so be very careful on slopes) and try to keep the ball on the short stuff!

Scoring was excellent in the betterball match with three teams scoring 42 points - Matt and Derek Broadbent just edging out Andy Sait and Pete Barnes and also Del Clark and Graham Smith. Clearly the course is playing fine so let's hope it stays open now and we can all enjoy some early year golf.


  

Well apart from setting up my workshop for Motocaddy servicing, it's also been a busy week moving the shop around and teaching. Both Simon and I are continuing our offer of 5 lessons for £99 and this has certainly kept me busy over the winter.

One thing in particular has always occurred to me regarding teaching the game of golf and something reminded me again this week. The profession as a whole seems totally pre-occupied with backswing. It is generally thought that you cannot be reliable if your backswing isn't on plane etc and this has bothered me for some time. Simply, we do not hit the ball with our backswing - it is just the action of moving the club back so we can then swing it down and hit the ball. If you get everything back to a good position at impact then it does not matter how you swing the club back!

Of course, the obvious argument is that if your backswing is online then it will be simpler and easier to return to the ball in the right way and I don't disagree with that, but this is where we have to be careful. If your backswing is way off line and the club is in a very bad position then you are making it very hard for yourself to get it back to the ball well. In general, we want to make as few mistakes before we swing the club and then in our backswing because then we make it easier for ourselves, but not easy!

If you become totally occupied with thoughts about your backswing you will lose rhythm, timing and ultimately you will commit - the vital sin of not being in position as you hit the ball. I, as many of you will have read, have been working on my backswing for a long time. It is definitely better but any thoughts that I might have had of making it perfect and natural so that I don't have to think about it were, in my opinion, somewhat misguided but these are the thoughts of many pros.


12 handicap at the age of 12

This week I gave young Kieran Stubbs his regular lesson. He is a 12 handicap at the ripe old age of 12 and this year I have set him a target of reducing to 6 or better. Because Kieran had good advice early on his backswing has developed, completely naturally almost perfectly. I occasionally mention his plane which he changes almost instantly! Now all my work with him is on impact position and rhythm in his swing and then other aspects of his game such as short pitches. It is because of this I am confident he can go a long way - there are less obstacles to get over but of course they aren't all removed! This week his rhythm was superb and he hit the ball beautifully all through his lesson. But just like some top players, if he loses that rhythm then he can hit it everywhere so his backswing is clearly not stopping this from happening! Take someone like Louis Oosthuizen, whose swing is all but perfect. Does he hit every shot perfectly? Nope, and he certainly doesn't win all the time. There is no question his swing helps but if he can hit the ball off-line then I think we need to learn something.

So I come back to us, those who have developed a different way. When we are playing golf it is much better to not worry about your backswing. Generally if you do, and my experience totally backs this up, then you will lose timing and any gains you might make in your backswing will be lost anyway. So I would rather help you to think about what is happening on the way down and when you hit the ball. Swing the club back naturally and then think about allowing the club (note I want you to think about the club here) to swing through in good rhythm as you hit a good position through impact (clearly here I am talking about where your weight is, where your head is etc. If you are sitting on your back foot then that is something you need to address - your backswing won't help!). This then will create consistency, no matter how you swing the club back. If you must work on something in your backswing, as I still am, then it needs to be almost separate to how you think when you're playing.

So, to get the most from your game I would like you to start concentrating on your downswing and impact position. You can achieve a good impact from almost any backswing as long as you understand and know where things should be at impact and that is where a good professional can help you. There is still time to book with us so come in and see us soon.

Get in touch here regarding a lesson.