Sorry. We’re in eye patch and cutlass mode having visited the rather wonderful Hoebridge Golf Centre in Woking, Surrey. As well as three golf courses it also has ‘Pirate Island’ an adventure golf area for kids (and slightly older kids, ahem) WHICH IS ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT. Just try getting round in level twos and you’ll soon be booking a putting lesson. That crocodile has a lot to answer for. Take a look here.

G’Day Mate
There is nothing more pleasing in sport, or life, as a tale of redemption – the hero who trampolines back from desperate disappointment or failure to eventually triumph (you can add the phrase ‘against all odds’ if you wish because most newspapers and magazines probably will). And so, despite huge sympathy for Angel Cabrera, who epitomised how to lose with grace, let us roll out the bunting and raise a glass or three to Adam Scott. Ever since he emerged as a pro golfer there have been predictions of a glowing future, replete with major championships. The most notable of these came from his coach, Butch Harmon, who famously said that Adam’s basic swing fundamentals were better even than those of Tiger, and he was right. Scott has always had a classically orthodox swing of perfect tempo. And the predictions appeared prescient as the young Australian made good progress, with a steady, if not spectacular accumulation of titles – nine wins in America, eight in Europe – with the most notable of these being the Player’s Championship. But that was in 2004 and the huge hole in his CV was his comparatively dreadful form in the majors. For a full decade he simply disappeared when any of the four big ones were played and to say that his major record was a disappointment is akin saying that Paris Hilton is a bit of a goer.

But then he switched to the long putter and suddenly he was a contender. In 2012 alone he finished tied eighth in the Masters, tied 15th in the US Open, tied 11th in the US PGA and of course, runner-up to Ernie Els in The Open, having a cataclysmic meltdown over the last four holes. But like Rory McIlroy before him he was able, somehow, to use that enormous disappointment as a spur rather than sheet anchor. It has taken him a while but I’m sure that if we could ask him this morning he would say that it has all been worthwhile.

Not a loser
Angel Cabrera may not have a second green jacket but he has, I’m sure, made even more friends as a result of coming so close. It has always been easy to like him for the unpretentious, unruffled and uncomplicated way in which he has gone about his business, swinging the club with a languid, easy grace and getting on with it. He has always been a welcome antidote to the affected, if not downright pompous self-importance that seems to afflict so many. Jason Day please take note – it is possible to hit a golf ball both well and in less time than it takes glaciers to form. Cabrera’s apparently genuine admiration for Adam Scott’s play was, for me, the highlight of the week. Having hit his approach shot to what turned out to be the final hole, when Scott matched it he immediately turned and gave a thumbs up (which, inevitably, Peter Alliss missed in the BBC commentary booth). Angel is a true gentleman.

Rules is rules
Of all the majors it is this first one that often throws up more stories and drama that the other three combined and this year it was two highly controversial rules decisions that dominated the news. The first concerned the Chinese teenage prodigy Tianlang Guan – and am I alone in being a little spooked by his apparent absence of emotion? His unchanging facial expression, not smiling even when he holed a crucial putt made me think of a cyborg rather than a young, inexperienced golfer on the journey of a lifetime. Perhaps he was just in shock. Those who suggest, however, that the penalty applied for slow play, the first in Masters history, was unfair, are wide of the mark for two reasons. First, in a sport and event not noted for the speed at which participants move, he stood out as even more excruciatingly slow than the rest. He was spoken to on the 10th, put on the clock at the 12th, warned again on the 13th, and yet again on the 17th tee, before finally getting the stroke penalty while he dithered over his approach to the green on the same hole. Second, the rules official involved was the European Tour’s John Paramor, and to question his integrity, as part of some conspiracy, is to grossly misunderstand the man and his character. Perhaps no-one has, rather famously, ever been docked a stroke before in America because they don’t have officials of the same calibre and guts as John.

Which brings us to Tiger. I have been an advocate, for many years now, of common sense and logic being applied when it comes to rules infringements. Yes, he dropped incorrectly and should have added two penalty strokes to his score and for that, disqualification is the punishment. But the game’s lawmakers recently decided to remind us all that, in exceptional cases, disqualification can be waived by the committee. They reviewed the incident before Tiger signed his card and decided no infringement had taken place. When he then described to the press what he had done, and it became clear that he had violated the rules, the committee looked again and took the very sensible decision that, as they had previously told the player he was okay to sign his card, it would then have been grossly unfair to penalise him retrospectively for following their advice. It raises the question of why, during its review, the committee did not see what was obvious to a blind man (that Tiger was dropping in the wrong place) but that is a different debate for another day.

Quote of the Week
Hitting a golf ball is an act so precise that there is unlimited room for error. That error begins in the mind and finds expression in the swing
Lorne Rubenstein

“A new golfing year has started and with this in mind I am writing my first blog of the 2013 season. Last year didn’t end quite as planned, falling short at the second week of European Tour School leaving me to play Alps Tour golf for a further year. Having finished 11th on the Alps tour last year I managed to keep my playing rights without having to go back to the Alps Qualifying School.

So far this year I have played three events on the Alps, the first two as part of a winter series in Egypt, finishing T17th and T14th respectively. The third event was played at Golf de Layos near the beautiful town of Toledo near Madrid. I played solidly all week apart from a couple of mistakes leading to two double bogeys. Despite this and the tough conditions I managed to finish on a total of 217 (+1) for three rounds, finishing in a tie for 12th. With three top 20’s in my first three events I feel happy with a solid start, however I know there is much more to give and the prospect of the 2013 season excites me; it’s just a case of getting in the grove and finding the swing again.

My next tournament takes me to Golf de Rebetz in northern France starting on May 1st. For score updates please check out alpstourgolf.com and keep your eyes on the order of merit, hopefully my name will work its way up from its current position of 16th to the top over the next few months…

Tip of the month
As with last year my blogs will come with a tip to help you improve your own game. This month’s tip is all about being more specific in your pre shot routine to reduce the margin of your errors.

When you are picking a line to hit any shot, pick something very specific to aim at. Too many times I hear amateurs saying that they are simply aiming ‘up the fairway’ or ‘at the green’. Try to pick a much smaller specific target. There are two main ways of doing this, some people like to pick a blade of grass or something literally two feet in front of them to help their alignment, this giving them a very specific point to aim at. Others (myself included) try and pick something in the distance, usually on the horizon or higher up than the area you are trying to hit into. Again this is simply a way of making the target as specific as possible to try and really focus in and reduce the chances of making an error.

If at first you find this too difficult it may be worth trying to aim for a specific strip in the fairway, as the mowers usually cut narrow stripes in the fairway. When approaching the green try to aim for a specific part of the green, either front left, front right and so on. This will help you focus in on specific areas and will reduce the margin of area, after all if you are simply aiming to hit the fairway and miss it, you will find the rough, whereas if you are aiming for a specific target within the fairway and miss that, you still have a chance to hit the rest of the fairway…

Happy golfing during 2013 – let’s hope for some warmer, drier weather so you can all get your GoKarts out and enjoy playing again.”

Sorry Kev.

Thankyou Pete. The Easter Bunny will be delivering on Saturday as you’re so damn keen!

Heading for Augusta
Hands up if you know what connects the following golfers: Russell Henley, Brian Gay, John Merrick, Michael Thompson, Scott Brown and Kevin Streelman. If you can identify them all as having won on the US PGA Tour so far this season, you’re a bit of an anorak. But then, it is that kind of season. They are joined as 2013 winners by Dustin Johnson, Tiger Woods (twice), Phil Mickelson, Brandt Snedeker and Matt Kuchar. More relevantly, all of them will be at the Masters in just under a month – with the exception of Scott Brown, who won the Puerto Rican Open, which doesn’t have a full-point allocation for the Tour Championship and therefore doesn’t meet Augusta’s invitation policy. Hard luck Scott.

All of which is designed to let me off the hook by demonstrating how hard it is to predict the winner of any major, especially the season’s first, when there is comparatively little form with which to measure the runners and riders. In the last 10 years, for example, how many punters put their money on Bubba Watson, Charl Schwartzel, Angel Cabrera, Trevor Immelman, Zach Johnson or Mike Weir to have a green jacket draped around their shoulders? However, if we ignore those surprise winners and look at the other triumphs over the past decade, only two names emerge – Phil Mickelson (three times) and Tiger Woods (once). And because both of them have won already this year, albeit with Phil’s victory coming in early February, which already seems a long time ago, they will feature high in the bookies estimation. In fact, it’s difficult to find a bookmaker that doesn’t have Woods, Mickelson and Rory McIlroy (more of him later) as the first three in the pecking order. And most of them favour Tiger, which is no surprise given Rory’s early season problems.

And there is no doubt that Tiger has that old gleam in his eye and, more pertinently, looks to have his putting, such a crucial factor at Augusta, under control. He also wants another major, badly, if he is to have any chance of matching or beating Jack Nicklaus’ record. The unknown is how his nerve will hold up now that he’s a fallible, beatable golfer rather than the dominant titan of the game we saw pre-divorce. But I’m not going to buck the trend because he looks near to his best and that should be good enough.

You’re not a messiah…
A great deal of nonsense has been written and spoken about Rory McIlroy’s early season woes. Yes, he was wrong to walk off the course at the Honda Classic but a bigger mistake was committed a few hours later when he chose to lie about the reason. The sore tooth story was never going to fly once we saw the picture of him happily munching a sandwich a few minutes before heading for the exit. The lame excuse of dental problems sounds like the sort of stupidity dreamed up by a desperate marketing manager trying to exercise some damage limitation which, as so often is the case in these instances, immediately blew up in everyone’s face.

But Rory redeemed himself with an immediate and, one sensed, sincere mea culpa after we all had the opportunity to remind ourselves that he is still only 23-years-old. Considering the microscopic examination to which he is constantly subjected, he has handled it remarkably well for someone of such tender years and we really should cut him a bit more slack for the occasional misjudgment.

As for his form, he’s a hot-streak player who is going through one of those cold periods. His first win in America, at the 2010 Quail Hollow Championship, came in an event where he made the cut right on the line and then shot 66, 62 at the weekend. And his major victories, in the 2011 US Open and 2012 US PGA, were by a crushing eight strokes and in both cases followed a modest series of events. As for his equipment change, anyone who expected him to adapt immediately to new clubs was simply deluding themselves.

He will come good again, the only question is whether it will be in time for the Masters.

Goddess of Victory?
Somebody at Nike’s marketing department must have led a pretty bad life in a previous existence, if you believe in reincarnation and the power of karma. The highest profile sports stars on the company’s roster of talent in recent years are Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong and Rory. Who still believes that all publicity is good publicity?

One final Masters thought
Like many, I would love to see Sergio Garcia win a major but having seen the numerous crushing disappointments experienced by the Spaniard, my dreams are based on hope rather than considered analysis. And yet… He has played four events in America so far, and finished in the top-20 in each with two of those being top-10s. And he always seems to find a way to motivate himself for Augusta. The Achilles heel of putting will always be a concern but recently he seems to have found a reliable method on the greens (although we have been here many times before). Nevertheless, with heart more than head, I fancy him for at least a top-10 finish, and who knows, perhaps Augusta has at least one more fairytale finish in its locker.

Quote of the Week
Comparatively few golfers ever show that they are aware that the golf architect tries to design a course that rewards an intelligent golfer and penalises a stupid one
Tommy Armour