Greetings golfers,

Welcome back to this week’s Stevenage Golf and Conference Centre Newsletter. Another busy week on and off site for us here at SG&CC.

What’s been going and where to start?

It's all about layers

Unfortunately it’s that time of year where the nights start to draw in and it is getting a bit cooler, but don’t worry, we have you covered.

This week we have had our Autumn/Winter products arrive which includes some great and reasonably priced products/clothing from Callaway Apparel and FootJoy. The Key to keeping warm is layering, gone are the days of big bulky jumpers and clothing that restricts your swing. It’s all about the layering, starting off with a thermal compression top, then either a shirt or chill out followed by an outer jacket.

Come and see what we have in store and maybe invest in some warmer less restricting golf apparel and accessories.

Jack Mudd Memorial Day - Saturday 9th September

On Saturday the centre hosted The Jack Mudd Memorial Day. It was a great day and Jack's Dad David has kindly written a short report from Saturday:

The Jack Mudd Memorial Open was held at Stevenage Golf Club on Saturday 9th September. There were 99 golfers competing in 2 sections. The main event is a club competition open to anyone with an official handicap and a guest competition.

The winner of the main trophy and with his name now on the club members board is Richard Moore, 14 handicap member of Stevenage Golf Club. The runner up from Letchworth Golf Club was Rob Shaw (1 handicap.)

The winner of the guest trophy was Alfie Burkett scoring 44 points and runner up Andy Bonney scoring 39 points.

A meal and presentation to the winners followed the golf, with an auction and disco to complete the evening. We have raised in the region of £4,000 for the Jack Mudd Academy. Thank you to all who have contributed, through playing or donating, we couldn’t do it without all your support.

Many thanks to SLL for providing the venue, the course was in very good condition despite some torrential showers. Thanks also to all the SLL team from Pro Shop, kitchen and bar staff who made the day go without hitch and made it so memorable for myself, Ann and everyone who attended the day.

We look forward to holding the event again next year.

Our PGA Trainee gives you a tour of his bag

A couple of weeks ago I invited you into my golf bag (not literally) for you to see what products I play.
This time it is the turn of our PGA Trainee Ryan Deery.

Ryan has just completed his playing ability test, which you have to pass to be able to start on the PGA Training programme. Ryan’s 36 hole score of +8 saw him safely through.Having been through the same test some years back, I can honestly say it is a very stressful event; playing 36 holes knowing that it can literally define your future and whether you can or can’t progress down the career of becoming a PGA Professional. So congratulations to Ryan on passing and we wish him all the best over the next 3 years going through the PGA programme. Over to Ryan:

Making a start with my wedges I have 3 SM6 Vokey wedges by Titleist, I use the lofts 50, 54, & 58, having made the switch from the standard 52, 56, 60 that most people had in their bags last year. The reason for this is to fit in to the gaps and I want them to go with the trend of lofts of irons getting stronger. I felt that there was a larger gap between my pitching wedge and my previous 52 degree wedge. The 50 has the F grind with 8 degrees of bounce and the 54 and 58 are the M grind also with 8 degrees of bounce and they are all 2 degrees flat.

Moving on to my irons, they are the 716 AP2’s and I have them in 4-PW, they are the same as my wedges as they are also 2 degrees flat. This year I changed the shafts that I use in them to the Dynamic Gold S300 superlights, as I wanted a low spinning yet light weight shaft. For me they are the perfect mix between the look of a players iron and forgiveness at the same time.

Moving on to my hybrid, it is the oldest club in the bag, I am still using the Nike Covert Tour hybrid set at 17 degrees, with the Kuro Kage stiff shaft. My relationship with this club has been a love hate one, being one that prefers more classic looking clubs, the red head of the Nike is one of the reasons for the hate; however, I cannot argue with the performance of the club, hence it is the oldest club in my bag.

Personally I have not got along well with 3 woods and haven’t carried one for the last few years. Yet this year I have found one that has lasted more than a month. The COBRA KING F7, I use it in 13.5 degrees and in the low spin setting, with just the standard stiff shaft.

My driver has been another new addition to my bag this year. It is the Titleist 917 D2 in 9.5 with the Aldila Rogue Max stiff shaft, again an effort to decrease the backspin and gain a few yards which, along with a lot of work on my technique, it has helped achieve.

Finally moving on to the most important club in my bag, the putter. This is the club that more often than not bails me out of trouble. It is the Scotty Cameron Newport 2. This club will never leave my bag.

Other things that are in my golf bag include the 2017 Titleist Pro V1, my Bushnell Laser rangefinder, tees, drinks and snacks. I will also always have a course planner for whatever course I am playing.

Podcast of the week

I’m always listening to podcasts and this weeks is another ‘On The Mark Radio’ podcast with Andrew Rice. Andrew has quite a high profile on social media and goes through some interesting topics around myths and misconceptions in golf and also style vs substance and form vs function. An interesting listen for a car journey. 

Click here to listen to this week's Podcast of the week.


PGA East Region Championship

Last week I was in competitive action on my own. I've played a couple of Pro Ams with Stevenage Golf Club members Gordon and Tom this year, but this was my first competitive outing individually this year.

36 holes around Bishops Stortford and a separate Pro-Am Friday saw me play more golf in 3 days than what felt like I’d played all year.Over 120 of the east region professionals were playing and I was very much looking forward to the test and getting the competitive juices flowing again. A slow start saw me 3 putt the 1st for bogey and not get up and down for par on the par 3 8th and I was +2 for the front 9. A couple of birdies and couple of bogeys to match left me at +2 for the round and sitting in a tie for 30th after round one.
-4 was the leading score.

A totally different start in round 2 saw me birdie the 1st and 3rd holes and then, although I continued to threaten the hole, I couldn’t hole another birdie putt. I was still 2 under for the day standing on 17th hole and, unbeknownst to me at the time, I was on a run of 21 holes without a bogey. Off the top of my head probably one of my longest runs without a bogey in my career. The reason I wanted to mention that is that I was unaware of this fact and just kept playing one hole one shot at a time. if I had realised or thought about this fact a bogey would probably have appeared much further before it came to an end on the 17th hole, where I made a bogey.

The amount of times I play with people and they count up there score on the front 9 and they realise they are on for a good score. Then start doing things they weren’t doing on the front nine when they were playing well, like take extra practice swings or take  longer to read putts, they soon come unstuck and end up playing poorly. It’s a good idea to develop a routine and do it for every shot. The routine should be the same on the first tee as it is approaching the 18th green.

Anyway I finished bogey, bogey to score level par for round two and shoot 2 over par for the 36 hole event and finish in a T25, which considering I haven’t played much competitive golf this year I was quite pleased with.

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