It was a bit cooler as I came in to work this morning (Tuesday). We have been spoilt recently but I guess winter is upon us now we are into November.

I have an offer on some Cleveland wedges that are in stock at the moment and it's worth a read of this to see if you should maybe be thinking of replacing yours??

How many of you out there are still holding on to wedges that are over 5 years old? I would be willing to bet that about half of you are. I also bet that if I asked why you haven't changed them recently your answer would be, "because they still work well." A lot of golfers stick with their wedges for a long time because they are comfortable with them and the shots they make feel good. But the big question is do they still perform well after all those years?

I hate to break it to you but your trusty old wedges probably aren't as trusty as you expect them to be. Unless you are one incredible iron player, you probably use a wedge on the majority of holes either for chip shots, sand shots or short touch shots. Since the wedge is used so regularly, it takes a lot of abuse which causes wear and tear on the clubface. Over time the grooves on your wedges deform and flatten out which reduces the spin they are supposed to generate. Lack of spin will prevent even properly struck balls from landing in an ideal position for a putt, thus affecting your game that much more.

So how often should you replace your wedges? The answer to that question will be different depending on the player. How often you play, how often you practice, what kind of turf conditions you play on and how well you take care of your wedges can all be contributing factors in the formula for a new wedge. If you play once a week or more, you should be changing your wedges after every year or a little longer if you clean them regularly. A dirty wedge is a golfer's worst enemy. Dirt, sand and grass stuck in your grooves will do nothing but hurt your performance and wear down the grooves on your wedges (I would suggest buying a groove cleaner to prevent this from happening).

No matter how well you take care of your wedges, you will reduce spin almost every time you hit the ball, it is unavoidable. Playing once or twice a week and hitting the practice ground in between that time can cause significant wear that can put limitations on your clubs ability to perform.

If you think replacing your wedges after a year is too frequent, take a look at how often tour players change their wedges. A PGA News release reported that most PGA tour pro's change wedges several times during the golf season .Obviously most of you don't play quite as much as they do, but they probably play in two months what the average golfer plays in a year. If tour pros replace their wedges several times during the season, a year is a pretty fair assessment for the life-span of the average golfers wedge.

The wedge, while being a very important club in your bag is most likely one of the most overlooked clubs in your bag. Golfers usually won't hesitate to buy a new driver or putter in order to get better technology which usually comes with a change in appearance. Wedges today look the same as they did five years ago which causes a lot of golfers to believe that their performance hasn't changed much either. Don't let appearance fool you, wedges today have much better technology than they used to and it will help improve your shots. As much as you don't like hearing it, your old wedges are broken down and in need of replacement. You will agree with me when you get that new set of wedges, you see the ball spinning more, and your score's start improving.

Can I also apologise to Shaun Prout. Last week in the newsletter I called him Steve.

Steve fully enjoyed this and tried to claim Shaun's credit that he had won. It was a mistake by me and one that won't happen again. Just look at this week's results!

Upcoming Competitions

Saturday 8th November 2014 - Pro's Stableford
Sunday 9th November 2014 - Individual Stableford inc Mark Hurn Trophy Qualifier
Monday 10th November 2014 - Mixed Christmas Shotgun Open Am Am
Thursday 13th November 2014 - Mid Week Stableford
Please note that the entry sheets for the Christmas Am Am and the New Year's Eve Am Am will go up at 8am on Friday 14th November. The sheets will be outside the Pro Shop.

Competition Results

Thursday 30th October 2014 - Mid Week Stableford
1st Darren Reeve 36pts £25, 2nd Paul Duckworth 36pts £15, 3rd Dave Topham 35pts £10. 2's Club - Adam Fell, Brian Hawksworth, Mick Cadmore, Alan Scarlet £3 each!! (Not many entries today)

Saturday 1st November 2014 - November Stableford Division 1
1st Andy Fox 37pts £25, 2nd Jon Naylor 35pts £15 3rd Leigh Gawley 35pts £10
Division 2
1st Maurice Fawcett 38pts £25, 2nd Roy Smith 37pts £15, 3rd Paul Brummitt 36pts £10
Division 3
1st Shaun Prout 36pts £25, 2nd Ray Clarkson 36pts £15, 3rd David Hickson 36pts £10

2's Club - Andy Fox, Ian Newton, Peter Acklam, Paul Brummitt £9.37 each, and both Lee Guest and Garry Murdoch got 2 £18.74 each.

Sunday 2nd November 2014 - Individual Stableford inc. Mark Hurn
1st Philip Riches 37pts £25, 2nd Darren Stead 34pts £15, 3rd Mathew Boyes 33pts £10
2's Club - No 2's

Knockout Competitions

Here are all the winners of the Gents knockouts this year. Please make a note in your diaries. The presentation event will be taking place on Sunday 14th December starting at 4pm. Not the 28th November as shown in the club fixture book.

Anne & Sam Sharpe Salver - Pam and Peter Mounfield
Brown Higson Cups - Lindsay Ward and Peter Mounfield
Terry Hall Cups - Barry Peasgood and Len Ellenton
Bailey Foursomes - Rees Brown and Leigh Gawley
Veterans Trophy - Pete Wills
Lotherington Cup - Jim Jeffries
Cutting Cup - Garry Murdoch
Pat Shackles Trophy - Paul Harland
Holmes Ramsden Salver - Mick France
Maw Scratch Cup - Nathan Wright

Captains Challenge

This week's challenge was rained off. It should have been against Peter Bridges and Ray McKie. We have re arranged it for later this month. Only problem with not playing was that Yvonne soon found lots of job's for me to do!!

Hull & District Golfing Association

2 win's in a row for Hornsea and two wins in a row for Malcolm Train. What a fantastic result again. This time though Malcolm said his partner Sam Middleton really did all the damage. A fantastic 9 under par score of 60 round Beverley saw the pair win by two clear shot's from another Hornsea pair, Adrian Bird and Stuart Hine. Also in the prizes with a score of 64 for 6th place were Mark Cooke and Stuart Branton. With Cave Castle only managing a 64 this now means that Hornsea are leading the Victor Hurdle Cup by 2 shot's. There is now the break for a couple of month's with the next event been Withernsea on the 22nd January. Really well done to all who have played this year and many thanks for all your support.

East Riding Golf Alliance

Wednesday 29th October saw the event at Springhead Park played on from what I've been told was a very wet course. I had to make a couple of last minute changes to our pair's due to work commitment's. Sam Middleton and Mark Cooke said they played well for a 1 under and Chris Wilson and super sub Neil Jordan where 1 over. Hornsea are still doing well in the league and with the next fixture at Fulford we have a strong team out. Steve Uzzell with Ady Rosindale, Rees Brown with Sam Middleton.

Have any of you noticed the strange sort of patterns on the 17th green? We have had a slight problem with one of the leaf blowers and the pattern's you might notice have been caused by a leak from the petrol tank. The green was heavily watered to try to dilute the problem after advice had been taken. It shouldn't hopefully cause a problem and with the grass still growing it should soon disappear.

I buzzed out on the buggy on Tuesday morning to see what all the greens staff where up to. I found Ray and Dave at the 10th ditch. They had been raking leaves and rubbish out of it. They are also on with all the other ditches. Andy was on the tractor mounted leaf blower clearing all areas that are in play and I found him on the 10th tee. Terry was collecting leaves between the 9th and 13th with the leaf collector and Gareth was blowing leaves out of all the bunkers and from the greens. Collecting leaves and blowing leaves as you can probably tell is still taking up most of the greens staff time at this time of year. It really is at the moment never ending.

A great result from some of our seniors last week. The East Yorkshire Eggs Alliance was held at Hainsworth Park on Monday 27th October. 30 teams took part in the event and Hornsea managed 83pts. Two other clubs also managed 83pts but Hornsea came second on a count back to Springhead Park. Well done to Tom Pollitt and Malcolm Hester 42pts and Peter Bridges and Ray McKie with 41pts who made up Hornsea's team.



Well it's all change in the clubhouse. After 4 year's Matt our bar and catering manager left on Sunday 2nd November. Many thanks for all you have done Matt and good luck in the future. I wonder if we will see him back out playing on the course at some time as I know he loves his golf.

Paul Eyre has taken over the running of the bar. I'm sure you all know Paul and I'm sure he will do a great job on the bar. Hanna Graham is now running the catering and she has some great ideas and a new menu. The kitchen will now be open from 10am to 4pm each day for the winter months.

Good look to both and I am looking forward to working with them.

I have not been given a report but I hear the quiz night went well and was well supported. I'm led to believe that it was won again by Pete Bridges and his team again! Becoming quite regular apparently! As mentioned earlier please note the Presentation event is now on Sunday 14th December starting at 4pm not the 28th November.

Paul Gibson - PGA Teaching Professional

After last weeks dreaded 'W' word (winter) this weeks dreaded word is PRACTICE. It is a bit of a Marmite word, in that people either love practice or hate practice. If you can do a bit of practice over winter and maintain your handicap ready for the new season, then you are ahead of the game. I must commend the members at Hornsea, as they are very keen to keep up their practice, every time I head to the big practice area I am impressed by the amount of people there, honing their skills. This got me thinking, are you practising the correct things, and what do you define as practice?

At the end of every lesson I give, I make sure that my pupil has something to work on before our next lesson. This gives us a chance to hit the ground running in our next lesson by only spending a few minutes ensuring that last lessons changes have been consolidated. One of the best ways of learning a skill is by repetition which, let's be honest, is another word for practice. The dictionary definition of practice is;

'Repeated performance or systematic exercise for the purpose of acquiring skill or proficiency'

So when we look at the definition we can see that practice is about repetition. When I give my pupils drills to do, they can often be done at home. For example, to change your swing path, you do not need to be on the practice range hitting ball after ball. If you can spare 15 minutes 2/3 times a week to repeat a drill in the back garden, then the chance of you repeating this out on the course increases considerably. Of course if you do have the time and motivation, it does help to be on the practice range, however if you expect to come out in a rash when you think about practice, today's blog is for you.

In Malcolm Gladwell's book he suggests that it take 10,000 hours to become an expert at a skill, but a more recent study has suggested that it takes 20 hours to go from starting a new skill to being competent- surely this is a good thing? When rehearsing a skill at home, achieving this 20 hours to become proficient, will come a lot quicker.

To those who practice often, have you asked yourself, are you practising the correct thing? It is great that you practice, but if you have a swing fault that is causing you problems on the course you may think that you can practice the problem out of your game. The reality of this is that the practice will only emphasise the swing fault.

Make sure that, when you are practising, you are practising the right things. With practice it is always a case of quality, not quantity. As a Professional I would rather see you hit 20 quality shots, rather than 100 substandard shots. Speak to me about effective practice to make sure you are getting the most out of your game.

Have a great golfing week

Paul

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