Training in Turkey!

The stunning Lykia Links golf club in Turkey is where I am at the moment, a fantastic course coupled with top class practice facilities and hotel make this a great venue for pre season training.

With my first event looking like being the Bernard Darwin Salver at Rye this course really is perfect preparation! We have had a fair bit of wind when we have played so far (8 iron from 90 yards!!!) but generally the weather has been very good.

At the moment my focus is on getting more into the playing mode with less technical work and lots of practice games and on course work, I continue to work on my fitness and feel in great shape for the coming season.

Pictures attached although they don’t do justice to the stunning surroundings.

EGU Arcos Training

Last week saw me and the England A squad do some training at Arcos Gardens in Spain, this covered all areas including some off course cooking! We managed to get a round in at La Reserva where the Spanish Amateur is played next month, a great course but with lots of rain recently the greenkeepers have a job to do on the soft and muddy fairways before then.

My back cleared up and allowed me to do 99% of the work but I had another mishap to cope with on the return journey. After one of the squad couldn’t fly due to a bad case of food poisoning, I felt ill on the flight, by the the time we got off at Stansted another 2 of us were feeling worse for wear (and no it wasn’t our cooking in arcos!)

By the time i got to the hotel I was in a bad state and a visit to the hospital was deemed neccesary, after being wheelchaired around the hospital, put on a drip and being stabbed numerous times with injections I started to pick up and was able to leave at 4 30 AM. The 4 hours drive back home was not the greatest I must admit and the sight of a warm bed was more than welcoming!

Writing now I have picked up a lot and am working on building up my strength again ready for 2 weeks training in Turkey at the end of the week!

Snowy Training!

Well not ideal weather lately with heavy snow and ice for the last few weeks. I have to say I did enjoy some snow ball fights and sledging but in the last week normal service was resumed training wise.

Clearly I had to improvise with the golf course closed and roads making it difficult to get to a driving range/gym but the show must go on! I do a lot of work indoors on a large putting mat (linksputt) so there has been even more of this lately! I work with training aids to provide instant feedback and keep scores for these so I can monitor and challenge myself for improvement. These include a laser for aim, mirror and track for setup and stroke path, a rail for face angle and a clip that goes on my putter for striking it out the middle. I have also done a lot of work with a metronome for rhythm and holing out work during the bad weather.
Despite not being able to hit balls I have some indoor drills for keeping tabs on my game, these basically include rehearsals in a mirror and practicing getting into a good setup with all clubs.
Fitness work has been hit hard with cardio/strength and mobility work daily.
Mental work was increased this week to fill time with visualisation work amongs other exercises.

The weather has cleared up and today I played 18 holes for the first time in a while! Some concern though as a sharp pain in my back caused some discomfort for the round, hopefully it will not be serious and I will speak with my physio Lynn Booth and hopefully it should be alright for some training in Arcos Gardens, Spain later in the week.

2010!!!

Well the holiday season is now over and a happy new year to everyone!!!

The season is only a couple of months away and the final surge of my winter training now begins! My first events are hopefully Portuguese and Spanish Amateur although there is a chance I may miss out on these. If so I will start the season at Rye in the Bernard Darwin Salver where I had a top 10 last year.

My work over the new few months now becomes very much score focused, the technical work is decreased and areas like shot making/distance control and lots of practice games to simulate on course are the core of my work. Its the final push for all the hard fitness work I do and I now will be playing a lot more on the course. Hopefully I find somewhere warmer to do this as our current weather is less than helpful!!!

My targets for this year were set a while ago, they are high and there is no doubt that I need to make a serious step up to achieve these. That said with continued hard work and good preparation I feel I can achieve these and have a very successful season. With the Brabazon at my home club Royal Liverpool this is clearly an event I am looking towards and would be a great moment if I can turn in a performance that week.

I meet with my coaches this week to finalise the diary and plans for the season I will post these when finalised! Meanwhile I can’t wait to get back into training and look forward to a great 2010 hope it’s a great year year for you too!!!

EGU Christmas Camp

Last weekend all the England squads/managers/coaches and guests met up at Loughborough University for the yearly Christmas camp. This consists of various speakers on a range of topics (based around helping development) and some gym/sporting activities, this year also saw a Dragon’s den type session with us having to present ideas to the EGU on how they could possibly improve the setup.

The speakers were very good, the sporting activities fun (if golf goes awol could always play in goal for TRFC!!) and the dragon’s den entertaining!!

This week see’s me having a little down time with a couple of friendly rounds on the links, a meeting with the coaching team and then Christmas!!!

Wishing all readers a very Merry Christmas!!!

EGU A squad training at Arcos Gardens

I have been selected in a ‘trimmed down’ A squad for coaching in Spain at the fantastic Arcos Gardens GC in January! (another chance to escape the English weather for some quality practice!)

USA Training week!

With the weather in the UK a bit miserable too say the least it was great to get away for a last minute trip to Miami, USA!

Me and fellow England player Adam Carson were based at the brilliant Doral resort (host to the WGC event). We managed to get a very good deal for the week and with good practice facilities and 5 courses it was perfect!

It looked like a bad start when a long immigration queue was followed by us finding the hotel had overbooked! Glad they did though as we ended up in the ‘posh’ Blue Hotel’s presidential suite for the night! (complete with jacuzzi, 5 tv’s and very big!!)
The rest of the week was made up of a typical day being;
Gym (cardio and stretch)
Breakfast
Warm Up/Practice for an hour or two
Playing 18 holes on one of the courses
More practice for couple of hours!
More Gym! (strength work)

This resulted in an intense but fun week! It gave me a good chance to go and play and see where my technical changes where. The courses (off the tiger tees we played) were a tough test and a great challenge, the highlight for me came on the ‘Blue Monster’ course where the 260yard par 3 4th into the wind required a Driver off the tee!! (on a par 3!!!!) the 15 footer left was rolled in for an easy 2!!

Olympic athletes training vs Golfers

I have thought for a while that golfers are seriously behind the athletes in terms of training, monitoring/managing themselves and general quality of their work.

If you take the olympic athlete they train and have measures on everything they do, this allows them to set targets/train towards these and monitor/learn from their training. They also tend to train harder/smarter and be a lot more exact with everything e.g they know exactly what they eat/drink and when they do it, they know exactly what they do!!

Not many golfers approach the game like this in all the areas. I made the decision this winter to take this approach as much as I can. It will require time to incorporate and reach the top level but I am convinced it is the way the game will end up, and also that it is the way to achieve my goals.

A good week despite our wonderful English weather!!

Well the winter is definitely here, this week ice cold winds and rain made outdoor practice very testing, that said I did brave the storm on 2 of the days and got some great practice done! (even if my balls did dissapear in a pond on the chipping green!!)

Luckily though all was not lost as I have recently joined Clays golf centre in Wrexham. This is a fantastice facility especially for this time of year. The facilities on offer include a great driving range with ‘good’ golf balls, a superb wedge play area with 3 target greens, a chipping/short game area and best of all and indoor putting green where you can practice putts up to 40ft without the wind and rain!

Also this week saw me catch up with my coach Mark Pearson and De Vere Oulton Hall, it was good to see progress is being made in the areas we targeted and we’re looking to push on and keep up the good work!

Overall I have continued to put in the hours this week and can see improvements coming in my game already, I look forward to another good week of work!

EGU Training Woodhall Spa

This week saw the England ‘A’ Squad meet up again at Woodhall Spa for 4 days training. This is the final session before the squad gets trimmed to 12 players who then go on for further training at Arcos Gardens in Spain in the new year + performance camps at various tournaments next season French Amateur etc…

The 4 days saw us meet up with all the coaches/physio/psychologist/physiologist/manager to discuss how things were going and continue work. Despite having my own ‘team’ the additional info and help are of great benefit.

There were all sorts of comps set up and as usual it was a good week!

I have performed well at all the training camps so hopefully I should be in the final 12  and maybe the 6 man team who compete at Costa Ballena in the New Year.