Welcome to

9 handicap.com

If you expected holiday pics etc CLICK HERE

(Single Figure Golf)
My quest to achieve a
9 handicap or better

Single Figure Golf

Using this website Single Figure Golf, I will try to improve my golf swing by having a simple golf swing to perfect my golf, play less strokes to achieve lower golf scores to play better smarter golf and lower my handicap to single figures without golf lessons, training, instruction, new golf equipment or cheating. My scoring needs to keep improving, lowering my tally, ever seeking to break 80. A simpler golf swing will help my golf game with a marked improvement to my score

I represent the millions of golfers out there who struggle to break 90 on a consistent basis, who have a magnificent practice swing and a completely different ie lousy swing when confronted with a ball, except when that ball is one of 50 at the driving range when the good swing resumes only to disappear again on the first tee. Does this sound familiar? Read about the Stobbs family with whom I play on a regular basis, read about Ian's progress which I suspect will be rapid and read my 2008 diary which I intend to keep up to date this time

My name is Jon Bratton, a 15 handicap golfer and I desperately want to play single figure golf, to be a 9 handicap golfer for a brief moment in time before I die. It's only 6 shots so it should be a doddle!!! NOT

I have won 2 cup competitions and 1 medal competition since joining Heworth Golf club 5 years ago

Fenwick Green Winners Board

and, in doing so, have played to, or close to, a 9 handicap three times. However I have made no progress downwards and tend to finish each season on the same handicap I had at the beginning of the season.

Me with Fenwick Green Trophy, won twice. If I win it again they'll have to give it to me

I'm 60..fast approaching.. and have played the beautiful game for
35-ish years...with breaks

Most of that time I've played to about a 15 handicap. Many things about my game were flawed and I knew it, but I spent all my time playing about with my swing, looking for a magic move. I paid little or no attention to chipping or putting, both of which I've always been lousy at.
Also, I've always swung like a jet propelled gorilla, while
watching the pros on the TV swing with tempo, rhythm, poise. Age & girth have stopped me being jet propelled so that's good.
Concentration, while taking a shot, has not existed most of the time

When I won a competition at the beginning of the 2004 season I remember thinking, at the start of the round, that I would have no chance because my mind was full of something awful that had happened in my life. On every shot I took I had to make a conscious effort to clear my mind and I played really well as a result.
Writing this has just now brought home to me that most of the time I do not clear my mind of extraneous thoughts when taking my shots.
I've just had an epiphany!

The purpose of this website is to force me into thinking clearer about how to improve.
I've kept notes before but because no one, but me , saw them they contained mushy thinking...I never followed anything through.

This way I have to. If I do this in a disciplined way and don't achieve a single figure handicap then I'm a very poor sportsperson. (...tho I'm convinced that the least athletic person on the planet should be able to achieve it...) If I fail to be disciplined in this very public way then I am nowt but a wally.
I drive like a single figure golfer and in every other aspect of the game I'm like a beginner.
I thinks that's because of tempo. My tempo, is, fast and uncontrolled and is OK for driving but hopeless for all the finesse shots. That's where I'm going to start. Shorten my swing..slow it down ..control it and swing thro the ball rather than hit at it

On the mental side, there's three things I need to work on:-
Draw on experience. If I'm in the trees I'll hit out sideways. Never again will I try to bludgeon thro them trying to create a shot that Ernie Els couldn't pull off. Better yet recognise that trees mean a dropped shot and take that into account before hitting the drive.
Next time my ball has 5 yards of fringe grass between it and the putting surface I will try to recognise that using the putter is not the percentage shot. It is virtually guaranteed to be the first of three putts

I shall try to raise my expectations. With my current handicap I expect bogeys. If I had less shots to play with I would have to get more pars. Many times I have played a hole better than the lower handicapper yet I have walked away with a 5 while he got the 4. The difference was chipping and putting which is more mental than physical

*Concentrate for a few seconds while taking each shot

Have read every golf instruction book in the world..
studying the swing was a higher priority than playing good golf..thats no longer true. I want to play to a single figure handicap before I die
There's more of this to come, like how I try to cope with the accursed socket shot, why I have a 13 wood and what I think has separated my few winning rounds from my many losing ones

Read on. This website is full of very sound advice words, though as Eric Morcambe once said, they are not necessarily in the right order

*********
This is all about my quest to lower my handicap, to get it down to 9 or less or, to put it another way, to join the top 10% of all golfers in the world. Follow me on my journey to lower scores.....to single figure golf.

I took up golf at 28 years old in 1976, that's nearly 30 years ago. In the first year I broke 100 and shortly after that, broke 90. Have played to 14 - 20 my entire golfing career.
There's a bit of background on me and on my regular playing partners, at Heworth Golf Club, Harry and June Stobbs and their son Jonathan

But mostly, it's my golf diary. Here's a few snippets from past entries

"Managed a game today with Harry and Alan McGuire. Alan increased the stakes to £1, £1 and £1 (first 9, second 9 and the match).
Harry won the first nine and I won the second and the match. Methinks, Alan was a little rash in raising the ante.... for a Financial Adviser, "

"I've hardly played any golf on account of :-
rain and wind. For those unfamiliar with Heworth Golf Club, it has its own climate system. When there's not a breath of wind elsewhere Heworth can muster up a Saturday afternoon gale. I must get a scientific explanation for this from Paul Moony at the BBC Weather desk.
missing 3 competitions in a row because of holiday. I was only away for a week in Malta but the Saturday I was away Harry had booked me down to play and so I was barred from the next two for failing to nip across by private jet to make the tee off time. Rules are rules !"

"Had a lucky break today because Jonathan was at work and I didn't have to carry him round the course. As a result, and because of my new short and sweet swing, I took the money.."