Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Naeem Khan and playing partner Sam Jong Kim comfortably clinched first place in the second competition of the new VIVA Monday Madness Night Golf Series at the Royal Golf Club with a nett score of 29.10.
Second place went to the pairing of Nils Berge and Petter Nyberg who scored 31.50 nett while youngsters Taimur Malik and Yaseen Le Falher came third with 32.6 nett.
Nearest the pin side contests on holes 12 and 16 of the club’s Montgomerie championship course were won by Graeme Newport and Tony Bridgens respectively.
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A full field of 48 golfers took part in the 3x3 rumble format competition, which was rounded off with a prize presentation ceremony in the club’s Members’ Lounge. The winners all received gift vouchers courtesy of VIVA while the overall order of merit winners at the end of the six-week long series will each receive a Samsung Galaxy S5 as their prize. The series runners-up will be presented with iPhone 5s while the pairing coming third will both receive a Huaewei Ascend P7.
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The VIVA Monday Madness Night Golf Series takes place at the Royal Golf Club every Monday evening. The 9 hole competitions are open to non-members at a cost of just BD20 per night and tee off with a 6.30pm shotgun start. To register for the next competition, contact the Royal Golf Club’s Golf Events Department by emailing golfevents@theroyalgolfclub.com
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In October 2011, Gulf Weekly’s editor Stan Szecowka visited professional Matt Chalmers for a series of lessons at Awali Golf Club. Iron play, driving, chipping, bunkers and putting were tackled followed by an on course lesson to put the new skills into practice.
Throughout the series, Szecowka worked hard to correct some of his ‘stubborn’ tendencies and apply some changes designed to improve his golf and facilitate more enjoyment. Three years on, marred by bad playing habits picked up along the way, he went back on Chalmers lesson tee to repeat the process
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This series of articles written by Chalmers is designed to demonstrate how small changes can make a huge difference in your game.
Lesson 1 – Iron Play
In my experience, poor iron play is often caused by having an incorrect set up. If your body is not in the correct position to begin with, it becomes very difficult to achieve the correct positions throughout the swing.
In Stan’s case, the areas of his set up that needed work were his grip and his posture. If you look at the ‘before’ picture, you can see that Stan’s left hand is in a very weak position. A weak left hand grip for a right handed golfer can encourage the clubface to become open in the swing, resulting in sliced shots which lack power. The first change Stan had to make was to strengthen up his left hand grip so that the line made between his thumb and fore finger pointed to the right of his chin. This change allowed Stan to square up the clubface more easily going into impact, resulting in straighter shots.
Secondly, we made a change to Stan’s posture. If you look at the ‘before’ picture, you will see that he is standing too far away from the ball which means that he has to stretch out to reach it. Being too far away for the ball was encouraging Stan to have a very flat swing which went too far around his body, making it very difficult for him to contact the ball properly. You can see in the ‘after’ photograph, he is much closer to the ball which allowed his arms to hand down more vertically. Being in this more athletic position to begin with allowed Stan to swing a little more up and down, which helped him contact the bottom of the ball more frequently (the key to making it fly making it fly!).
In summary, by having his body in a better position to begin with, Stan found it much easier to get the club into better positions throughout the swing. Two small set up changes facilitated rapid improvement in his ability to hit the ball. We haven’t even started on the swing yet … more on that next week!
* For more information on golf instruction at Awali Golf Club, contact Matt Chalmers on 38890246 or email mwsc23@hotmail.com
