After my A-levels, I had to make a decision about what I wanted to do with the next year of my life. I was unsure about what career path I wanted to take at the time and my options were unclear.
My dad sent me an email one day to ‘The Golf School’ website, which he thought I would be interested in. It showed a college golf academy in Cheshire with a ‘gap year’ option available. We booked a tour and took the trip down to see what it was about.
During the tour, they showed us around the facilities and gave a background on the 3 coaches based at the school.
After the tour I was set on the idea of doing this as a gap year. I knew it would be a great experience for me. I applied for 3 days per week, booked my accommodation and organised travel for each week.
September came around and I took a train down to Manchester. The first week was a 3 day tournament. I struggled to break 80 around a very simple course on all 3 of the days, which showed me that I had a lot of work to do.
After the first few weeks of practicing and learning new training techniques, two of the lads on the course invited me to go training with them. With my passion for fitness I accepted their offer and joined them.
By this point I was fully settled in. I was happy that both my skill level and fitness levels were improving rapidly. However, I was still using old golf clubs which were not fitted to me. My putter didn’t have an insert on the face, my irons were older than me, I didn’t have a 3 wood and my wedges had no grooves.
I was working in the shop at Wetherby Golf Club as an assistant. Mark (my current coach and boss) told me he believed that my clubs were costing me at least 3 shots per round. He also offered me a very good staff discount and custom fitting. I borrowed some money and bought myself a new driver, a set of irons, a putter and borrowed a 3-wood for the winter. This helped me to improve my golf even further in preparation for the 2019 season.
When the season was starting I felt that I was in the best position I had ever been in with my golf. I had some of the best coaches, facilities and clubs available and the opportunity to play at least one qualifying round per week at college.
This, along with weekly competitions at Wetherby, allowed me to quickly reduce my handicap from a high 4.4 to 3 and eventually to 2.3 by the end of the season. I didn’t win much in terms of competitions during this season, but I gained a lot of experience from playing with and against some very good scratch-level golfers for the year at college, in multiple Yorkshire Order of Merits and having played my first season for the Scratch Team at Wetherby Golf Club. We came 2nd in the LDUGC cup and got promoted to the 2nd division. This made the season feel successful, but it could have been much better.
After finishing college in June 2019, I decided to accept coaching from my boss, Mark Daubney. Mark is available whenever I need him and suits my way of playing very well. He also knows my game very well as he has seen me play since I started playing 10 years ago.
After a frustrating 2019 season, I spent a lot of time working on my golf. I knew it should have been a lot better and there was still a lot of room to improve. I had close coaching from Mark for the whole of the winter-season and we have made some big changes to my swing, allowing me to feel much more consistent, confident and knowledgeable about my game coming into the 2020 season.
Unfortunately, the coronavirus put everything on hold and left me with much disappointment with all of the hard work and dedication I have put in over winter. Leaving me, and many others, to wait for the season which seems like it never wants to come. I had big plans for this year and I was more excited to begin competing than I have ever been.
For now, however, I am trying to stay as active as possible during lockdown. Chipping in the garden and around my house and using my new ‘swing net’ as much as I can. I am still very excited to see what the future holds for me and I cannot wait to get back out there playing the game that I love so much!