Pre-season targets

With around a month to go before the 2013 season kicks off in earnest, I've started thinking about targets for this season. Feeling quite happy with my game at the moment. The normal weak areas have really come on recently (driving and short game). Consequently i am feeling fairly confident about the season ahead despite the fact that once again this year I won't have time for any practice.

Some targets:
- Enjoy myself.
- Qualify for the knockout stages of the club champs again.
- Maintain cat 1 status.
- Finish the year in the 4.somethings (currently 5.2, but never been lower than 5.0).


So, what targets do you lot have for 2013?

Enjoy it

Get putting analysed and fitted for putter that suits me (or get my putter confirmed as 'right' for me which would be nice)

Buy some shiny new woods

Oh yeah suppose I'd better have a playing target too! Try to get to 4 and hold it (currently 4.6 having cruelly been stranded there by an unexpected CSS drop in the penultimate qualifying comp of last season and a subsequent hack in the last one)

For me it's a simple one - learn to hit a driver accurately. Been driving (ha, ha!) me mad over the last couple of years, especially as everything else has generally been good.

Have fun by playing more bounce games.

Have fun (great advice -- thanks for reminding me)

Play more with my son and daughter

Swing within thyself - not against taking drugs to help accomplish this

Practice smarter (more short game)

SR, fun is so important and it is so easy to forget that it's why we started to play the game. I used to take it so seriously, practice every day (even putting at 6am before work) to the point where I hated the game and I started to go backwards handicap wise.

These days, I barely practice, when I do it's practice I enjoy (short game)
Now I just go out, try not to think about anything other than where I want the ball to go and as a result I score better and am so much more consistent. I still have my bad days when it isn't fun, and I don't enjoy playing but 99% it's all about the banter and having fun with my mates on the course.

Super - Agree! What a game of opposites. Aim left, it goes right. Swing softer, it seems to go further. Care less, score better. Bitter cold here today ... I would need a torch to get the tee in the ground. But, it won't be long.

Find a course in our area that I haven't played before which has more good design features than length and forced carries. Hope to fit in a road trip to play the Taconic course at Williams College and Crumpin Fox which is nearby.

As for practice, I suspect that roll will continue to be the strongest attribute of my long game, so will pray for a dryish summer and only practice short game.

Completely agree with enjoyment / fun objective. It is a frickin' game after all...

Easier said than done though, when one or more parts of the game are seriously but inexplicably misbehaving.

Aye completely agree about the fun/enjoyment goal. I made it one last year and last year was better than the year before, I need to further develop that this year. I was getting to the point where I was trying too hard getting sooo frustrated it was making things worse and I wasn't enjoying it (sounds like you've been there too Super)

I'd like to be able to look back at the end of the season and see that I'd improved in every aspect of the game. I feel I did that last year but there wasn't much evidence in scoring to back that feeling up.


Specific things I'd like to happen but would not be crushed if they don't...
1. A win (don't care if its a midweek medal or the Club champs, matchplay title. or an open) I'd just like that winning feeling again.
2. Break gross par in a medal.

learn to TW@T it.

Renew my membership of the TW@T it golf institute.
Get back to 12
Name on the honours boards -somehow may have to scratch it on myself with a blunt knife.

at our club you either need to be really really good (plus figure handicapper) or good for a 12/13 handicapper (b-section champ) or a cat 1 oldie (senior champ) to get your name on a board. no prizes for the middle men (about 90% of the club). i'm only eligible for the former but since i joined 4 years ago, the worst player to take the top prize was off +1. still it's nice to be part of it.