Italian Open

Una giornata calda a Torino

Apologies for the delay in writing this. I like to write soon after play on Sunday while flying or on Monday mornings, but unfortunately that wasn’t possible this week. We drove to Milan from Turin on Sunday evening and did the podcast recording yesterday morning, so any bandwidth I did have, soon evaporated after speaking to Andrew and The Badger! If ever a recovery day was needed it was after last week where the temperatures were pretty testing to say the least. The mercury wasn’t the only thing that was up, my iron play was too. Periods of great ball striking last week provided me with some real satisfaction. Before diving a little deeper into the week I’ll start with the stats;

SG Total; + 1.85 Per Round

SG Driving; - 0.28 Per Round

SG Approach; + 1.91 Per Round

SG Around The Green; + 0.35 Per Round

SG Putting; - 0.12 Per Round

I think the best place to start is with the quality of my iron play. It was the bedrock of my game last week and was the dominant force behind my consistent scoring and lack of bogeys. Indeed the run of fifty six holes without a bogey was by far the longest run I’ve ever had at a tournament. Bogey free rounds are one of the most satisfying things to achieve as a professional in my opinion. It shows that by and large all areas of your game are working and in good order, so to go fifty six holes without dropping a shot is clearly a huge sign that there is a lot of good stuff going on with my game at the moment. As mentioned on the podcast this week, that’s now five bogey free rounds I’ve played this season. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that’s the most I’ve ever had in one season and I’m just over half way through. Roba buona. As has been the case in pretty much every event this year though, my good iron play didn’t come to me from the off. It took me a good twelve holes of the opening round to find my feet with my feels. The most exciting part for me last week was how I finally managed to blend my feels with my irons to be in line with my feels off the tee. This is something I’ve been trying to work towards since my second round in Austria, and although I struggled at times during the KLM Open in the wind to achieve it, I did a good job of doing so last week. This means my mind is generally more settled while on the course and I feel I can relax into a rhythm more readily, and play in the flow state with less potential for disruptive swing thoughts to emerge.