Today I played my first tournament for a very long time, probably 1.5 years or so. During my time in England I managed to fit in one or two tournaments, but that was all. So as I’m now pretty much picking up pace with playing golf and my goal for this year is to get a handicap below 12, I thought it’s time to get in tournament mood again.

I played a 9-hole tournament in my new home club, on the 9-hole course. The weather was great and my playing partners, one 60-ish year old fella and two ladies, one early 30’s the other in her 60’s, have been a fun team. Two of them had high handicaps and were far from savvy in terms of basic golf rules but that was fine, nothing to worry about.

I had some beautiful shots, some very nice approaches, nice GIR figures but did some very stupid mistakes also. Result was a total of 34 stableford points with a buffer at 35-36. That meant that my handicap increased from 16.2 to 16.3 – definitely the wrong direction than hoped. But it was my first tournament, a quick 9-hole one and I’m confident to bring down my handicap this year quite extensively. It’s all a question of training and playing practice. End gross result was position 9 out of 51, so not bad at all.

Fingers crossed the next tournament will treat me better. The next on my list is a 18-holes tournament at the champions course, followed by a BBQ and football world cup viewing in the club house (or the terrace). Pretty excited about that one. #GoGermany