Matthew Lang

Jennifer and I spent the day watching Drew play at Stirling Golf Club today in a Stephen Gallagher Foundation event. Stirling is a fantastic golf course with great views of the castle from just about every hole on the course.

Despite a rocky start on the first three holes, Drew found his groove on the back nine and finished second in the net scores. These events are a great opportunity for him to learn more about his golf game and play many courses across the west of Scotland and the central belt. Back at it tomorrow for another SGF event at Whitecraigs Golf Course, which is thankfully, just down the road.

Our oldest, Ethan, returns home for the summer after his first year at McKendree University in Illinois. Just getting his breakfast order ready now for him walking through the door.

He was home at Christmas for a few weeks, but with the whole summer ahead of us, it will be good to get a proper catch-up with him and get a few rounds of golf together.

Later today, our youngest, Drew, is playing in a Stephen Gallagher Foundation event up at Paisley Golf Club. The first individual competition of the season for him, and with a new set of irons in the bag, I’m sure he’s going to have quite a few good rounds of golf ahead of him over the summer.

Once that’s done, it will be back home for a family dinner for four. Our first time together sitting down to a meal since Christmas.

Looking forward to a summer of family, bbqs, golf and good times.

Lots of family adjustments are being made this week.

Ethan’s been going through his inductions, student orientation, meeting team mates, and getting to know his way around campus this week. I’m glad to see he’s settling in nicely at McKendree. He’s got a spot of volunteering today. Classes begin on Monday, the gym opens on Tuesday, and the golf team start preparations and work on Thursday.

The hardest part for Ethan has been the lack of golf this week. He’s only played one round this week, but there’ll be plenty of golf ahead when the fall competition schedule begins.

At home, we’re slowly getting used to Ethan not being around, and I’m glad his brother is still optimistic about the whole situation. Drew has been kept busy with his golf and going back to school.

He’s also looking into a potential new hobby in the form of Warhammer. That may spill over to me as well. I am curious about it. I played D&D during high school, but I haven’t played it since. This might be a nice way back into some elements of D&D, but without having to endure a long-running campaign.

Said our goodbyes to Ethan this morning as he heads to McKendree University in Illinois to play as part of their golf team.

It’s been a weekend of ups and downs but mostly tears as our close family of four deals with the prospect of Ethan living abroad for most of the year.

The good thing is he’s back for Christmas for a few weeks and then he’s back in April / May for the start of the golf season.

It’s going to be a great opportunity for him and I’m sure he’ll be a better person and golfer for it once he finishes his four years.

Go Bearcats! 😄

A final trip to Rockchapel today for nine holes before our flight back to the UK tomorrow. Papa making up the fourball for today.

Me and Ethan played Hidden Lake again today. We stuck with what we liked and played the new course. We also got paired with a couple of locals who kept us right and gave us a few pointers to deals on local courses. Nice to see that the food is still great at Hidden Lake as well. Highly recommend the smash burgers!

First visit to our favourite nine hole course in the Oakville area, and that’s the Rockchapel course just past Waterdown. Nice being able to play in the sunshine with a good short course for Drew.

A great afternoon range session for the boys before the rain started rolling in.

Today we headed up to St Andrews to see some golf at the final practice day of the week before the 1st rounds begin tomorrow. After an early start, and a couple of hours of driving, we finally arrived. Blue skies and a strong wind featured for most of the day.

After spending some cash on a few goodies at the store, we headed over to the practice area and watched some of the players putting and pitching. Drew managed to get a few signatures from some of the professionals, but he was chuffed to bits with his signed golf ball from the world’s top ranked amateur, Keita Nakajima.

Finally, we spent some time in the stands watching players coming through the 16th and 17th holes.

It was a great day and I’m glad to say we’re heading back up on Sunday to do it all again!

Walking round the peripheral of the Trump Turnberry course while Ethan plays his county match. Such a beautiful part of the world.

There I was waiting on the final match tonight when I noticed a nice bit of light through the trees from the 11th tee. It wasn’t until I got home and I realised I captured a deer almost in the middle of the shot.

Cracking night for 9 holes with Ethan.

Had a great nine holes with Drew today. He played fantastic today. So proud.

First hit of the year for me and Drew at Paisley Golf Club today!

A glorious afternoon of weather and a welcome change to the snow and rain we’ve had the last few weeks. I was a bit rusty but Drew has managed to find some extra yardage to his drives over the winter. I’ve got some catching up to do!

Drew’s played his first six holes on the course today from the shortened blue tees we have for our younger players. Despite the pouring rain, he played well and picked up some tips from Ethan.

It’s great to see the boys share an interest. Even with the age gap, they can always do it together.

Lee Westwood has been talking about the image of golf. It’s not something I haven’t heard before, but it’s good to bring these issues to the forefront every now and again.

“I think golf takes too long, the speed of play when people watch the professionals play is very slow and I don’t think that helps the perception of golf.

I don’t think golf takes too long to play, but people do need to know that there’s a difference between a professional playing and everyone else. A typical round of golf should take about three and a half hours. Sure, you may get held up when the course is busy, but it is better to have an active golf club rather than one where hardly anyone plays.

Also, in a world where everything is a rush, and we have this problem of instant gratification, it’s good to have a sport that is all about playing at a steady pace. I love playing out on the course, especially when I’m playing with my sons. It’s one of the few moments where you can get their complete and undivided attention, of course, the same goes with me.

The instant gratification of the modern world shouldn’t change the game of golf. Sure, we should make the sport more accessible for kids and also make it easier for them to get started. Shorter tees and six or nine hole rounds are a good start, but given time, they too will be able to conquer typical junior tees and play a full round of 18 holes.

“I think it’s very expensive still to play golf, more could be done to make it a bit cheaper to play.

Expensive, yes, but not the most expensive sport to play. You can be up and running playing golf on a budget. As always with any new hobby, don’t invest too much in equipment at the beginning. Start with the basics and build it up over time.

I mountain biked for 15 years before I decided to give it up. While I did struggle with back pain when cycling, the main issue I had was the expense of the sport. I couldn’t justify the cost when it came to upgrading components regularly.

I started golfing with a cheap set of clubs and a cheap bag. Over time the last few years, I’ve gradually replaced some of my clubs and the bag, but everything I have bought has been perfectly affordable and within my budget, as I learn to play the game.

“I think more girls and women could be encouraged to play, I don’t think they’re encouraged as much as they could be.

I agree on this one, so much so I am still badgering my wife to have a go at playing. It’s encouraging to see that girls are coming through the ranks in some of our local clubs and there is an active county team, but there could be more down to encourage more girls and women to play.

As for Lee’s comments on golf being too hard. I’m not so sure that making the sport easier to play is the answer. I’ve been chipping away (pardon the pun) at the game for a few years now. I’m far from winning any club competitions, but I’ve got to a level where I can score pretty reasonably on the course.

I would love to see Woods win at Augusta today. It’s taken a while but he’s finally back to winning form. As a fellow Brit, I would also like Poulter to win as well. He’s a Ryder Cup legend but he’s due a major win.

Throw Schauffele into the mix as well as I drew him out the hat for the pro shop raffle and I have a dilemna for the final day of the masters.

Whoever wins though, it’s going to be a great day for watching the golf.

It was a great weekend of golf on the television with The Players Chamionship. Even with a few groups remaining on the course, it was still looking like it could be up for grabs but Rory held out for his 15th PGA Tour win.

The highlight of the weekend for me though was Kevin Na and Tiger Woods and their speed birdies on the 17th. A great moment.

It wasn’t Ethan’s day at the Stanley Morrison Trust event down at Dumfries & County GC yesterday. A lack of concentration and fast greens seen him finish well outside his usual scoring zone.

Still, he had a good time and great to see that one of the Renfrewshire Golf Union groups walked away with a prize.

Looking forward to seeing Ethan playing this event again over the next few couple of years. Still time yet for Ethan to bag a prize there.

It’s back to basics over the next few weeks with some work to be done with his short game and putting.

It’s often the case with me that I look for a big solution to what I perceive to be big problems rather than the small solution.

The client upgrade

Take for example an upgrade I’m doing for a client. There’s a number of steps that I always take when it comes to upgrading web applications for clients, but in this case the steps didn’t go as planned.

For a few hours I was banging my head against a wall because of an obscure error. Stepping back I decided to go through the application in more detail. After just a few minutes I finally found the problem and made the change to ensure the upgrade process was working. The error itself was a bit of a red herring, but the obscurity of it had me thinking that I had to do something more to get move forward with the upgrade.

The change to get the upgrade was to update an obsolete library to the latest version and then the client’s application was working again. I’ve updated my notes for further upgrades I do for clients so that the same thing doesn’t happen again.

The same thing happened with Ethan last week.

The golf swing

Last week, Ethan had an playing lesson with the club pro, Andy. For a couple of weeks now, Ethan’s game has been slipping. It was frustrating to watch as I don’t know what to look for in his swing when things go wrong other that what he has learned in the past from his coaching. Heading out to the first tee, Ethan got setup, did the usual pre-shot routine and then Andy chipped in with a little nugget of wisdom, “Stand back further”.

The change was instantaneous. The drive went right up the middle of the fairway. Through the lesson the recurring theme in Ethan’s swing was that he stood too close to the ball and needed to go back a few inches in order to get the ball going in the direction that he wanted. Whether it was a driver off the tee, a hybrid or iron from the fairway or even a wedge leading up to the green, Andy’s advice was always the same, stand back further from the ball.

The small (and effective) solutions

Ethan’s focus now is to start including a small check in his pre-shot routine that ensures he’s the right distance from the ball. Checking the distance between his belt buckle and the end of his club and making sure he can fit a hand span between them is enough to ensure that he’s the right distance from the ball.

In both cases the problem was significant, and yet the solution to each problem was the smallest change imaginable. I wouldn’t have thought for one second that an out of date library could have had such an effect on upgrading a web application. I also wouldn’t have thought that such a small change in Ethan’s swing would have such an effect on the resulting shot.

What this has taught me though is that the smaller solutions should be the ones that we look towards first. Using tried and tested approaches and notes on previous upgrades, I’ve managed to stream line the upgrade process for a clients web application so that in most cases it takes days rather than weeks. Eliminating the small problems ensures that I’m always working towards a functioning upgrade.

It doesn’t always work this way though. Every client upgrade is different and there are exceptions to the rule, although there shouldn’t be that many. Most of my clients have similar technology environments when it comes to their web applications so upgrades should fall into the timeline of taking a few days, a week at most. Any number of issues can stall an upgrade and due the technicalities of it, it’s not always the case that a simple solution can move it forward.

Keep notes on those solutions

It also doesn’t hurt to document your experiences. They’re all different but from the notes that I have built I have a process in place that eliminates most the of the problems I encounter when it comes to upgrading client’s web applications.

As for Ethan’s golf swing, he’s determined to use the time over the summer to practice more. Ethan has a full summer of lessons, competitions and medals to play for so that he can keep working towards lowering his handicap. To do that he’ll need to remember the small fixes that can have such a positive effect on his swing and resulting shot. He’s keeping a notebook of his yardage and his lessons so that he has something to go back to and review.

A lot colder tonight than last week, but glad to get out for a hit with Ethan.

Enjoyed a few holes with Ethan out on the course tonight.

Just when I think we’re out of the woods with winter, Drew gets a nasty cold. We skipped his Taekwondo this weekend as he was loaded. Thankfully he started to get better on Monday and he’s back to his usual cheeky self.

The weather is finally taking a turn for the better which means there’s normally plenty of work to do in the garden. This year its less work than usual to thanks to Victory Gardens & Landscaping who came out last week and did a big chunk of work to tidy the place up. Just got the new BBQ to assemble and we should be ready for plenty of outdoor grilling.

Sunday was another day on the road for me and Ethan as he was playing in the second round of his junior flag challenge at East Kilbride Golf Club. Conditions were great and he really looked a lot more settled than he did last week. Highlight of the day was his eagle on the 7th. He finished the nine hold round with a score of 44 which he was delighted with despite a couple of putts that just lipped out. Next round is in a couple of weeks, so Ethan gets to play in the medal next Sunday at his local club which means I can put my feet up for the day!

Is it April already? Where did March go? Yip, it’s been one of them months where it’s over before it’s even began.

The last three weeks have definitely been like this. I’ve been busy working and we’ve been out and about a bit more now that the good weather is with us and getting the boys outdoors isn’t such a problem.

Saturday was errands day. Heading to a few places to get some ideas for the garden. We invested some time and money into the garden last year and this year we’re ready to finish most of the heavier work in the garden. I can’t wait for the day that I can just put me feet up in the garden, fire up the grill and start on a couple of cold beers.

Sunday was Ethan’s return to weekly medals at Paisley Golf Club. He’s spent a fair amount of time over winter putting in extra practice and it’s starting to pay off. Once the course dries out a bit more though and he’s had a few more practice rounds he should start to see his handicap fall.

Easter holidays have started for the school kids. I took Ethan up to Paisley for a round of golf. Weather was favourable (it wasn’t raining) and the course was in great condition. Ethan played very well as always. I was a little slower to get started and couldn’t hack the pace at the turn. By that point my back and arms were tired. We’re heading back out on Wednesday again, so hopefully I’ll be a better playing partner!

Again, this was sitting in my drafts. Doh!

The weekend was something of a blur. After a trip down to see a client and a few days back at my desk catching up, I was glad to have some downtime with the family.

Saturday started as it always does with Drew’s Little Tiger Cubs class. As always he’s slow to start with the warm ups but as soon as they get to the kicking and punching he’s front and centre! After that it time to head home as Jen was going for the day so it was just me and the boys. Drew was invited to a birthday party next door so I took him through for that will Ethan entertained himself on the Playstation.

Sunday was Ethan’s first group lesson with the rest of the Juniors at Paisley Golf Club. Even though he’s hardly had a chance to play on the course over the winter, Ethan’s been improving his swing over the winter and this will be a big year for him. His lesson went well and he learned a few things the hard way but it’s sometimes the only way you learn.

Sunday morning was also my first jaunt back out on the mountain bike. The first bike ride of the year is always rubbish. You find out it now that your bike needs a service or new parts and you’re also getting back on the bike after a number of months since the last time you were on it. This year was no exception.

With a slow puncture at the rear I decided to top up the wheel with air to see how slow it was. Unfortunately my pump split in two and couldn’t get any air into the wheel. I had enough air to get back to the card, but it did cut my ride significantly short. Added a new pump and a new rear tyre (it is blading) to the bike shopping list.

Sunday afternoon saw Drew heading out for a Little Tiger Cubs assessment. He’s been attending the classes for a few months now and he’s earned the stripes for his belt. At his assessment he earned his next belt up and walked away with a certificate.

It’s back to work for Ethan with the first RGU under 14s session of the year. Plenty to work on!

It’s that time of year where people are starting to tail off on their new year resolutions. Let’s face it, for most of us new year resolutions are nothing more than pipe dream. I don’t do new year resolutions but what I do believe in are habits.

Habits are easier to build than new year resolutions and once they’re part of your routine, you’ll find that don’t need to spend as much time building that habit again if you break it. This also makes your goals (or resolutions) much more achievable.

Ethan’s golf has been progressing nicely over the past year. He’s comfortable with his new clubs, he’s familiar with his local course and he’s getting to know more and more people through different levels of coaching and playing. His handicap didn’t fall much last year, but he’s adamant that this year it will come down and he’s set himself the target of being at a handicap of 20 or less by the end of this year.

Rather than getting him to focus on the long term goal of reducing his handicap though I started him on something more manageable.

Building the habit of practicing every day for 20 minutes.

It doesn’t matter what part of his game he practices on, it could be his swing, chipping, putting or playing out on the course.

He started off well. He needed reminders to practice in the first week, but he managed to get there. After a couple of weeks, his calendar now looks like this:

16 days of daily practice and all without a break in the chain.

I don’t need to remind him to practice anymore. He just does it. He takes a look at his calendar and puts in the practice so that he can keep put the next ‘X’ in and keep the chain going.

The habit is now part of his daily routine but Ethan is still a long way away from that goal. Once the golf season starts in earnest he should see better scores on his scored cards and start to see that handicap fall.

Apologies. Missed a couple of these in November and December!

After the feasting and festivities over Christmas, the New Year weekend was a chance to get some sense of normality back.

Me and Jen took the boys to the ten pin bowling on the Friday morning just to do something different. Poor performances by all except from Drew who won both games!

New Years Eve was a quiet day and a chance for the boys to mess about with their presents.

New Years Day involved dinner at my parents house. While most people might have ordered their steak pie from their local butchers (not a bad option by the way), my mum opted to make hers from scratch. It went down a storm, especially with the boys who love their steak pie.

To round off the long weekend I took Ethan up to the golf club for a few holes. The weather wasn’t great but it didn’t stop him putting in a solid nine holes. I’m starting to find some consistency as well which is good.

Working on Friday right down the to wire again and then a quick turn around to get ready to go out for dinner and celebrate my Dad’s birthday. Caffe Royale was tonight’s choice and it didn’t disappoint. Italian theme restaurant with a great selection of food. Highly recommended.

We’ve been looking at purchasing a “nearly new” second car for quite some time, but nothing has shown up that matches our price point. A car showed up on the web through the week, but no pictures meant we had to go down to the showroom to get a closer look. Glad we did. Found ourselves a great little runaround car within our price point. Later on, went to church with Ethan and then headed home for dinner and few hours in front of the television catching up with the golf.

The weather on Sundays has been terrible over the last few weeks. Ethan did have a medal scheduled for Sunday but he’s been loaded with the cold. He wasn’t up for a full round so I took him out for nine holes just to get out the house for a while. He’s playing well with his new Ping clubs and I’m sure by the start of the season next year he’ll be ready to slash his handicap down.

Rounded up the weekend by finishing my sketchnotes for the Ryder Cup and then watching the final matches come in. Europe didn’t play their best and the USA did. You can’t argue with a simple point like that, but hats off to each of the European players for a good effort. It’s not always going to work out on the day and it didn’t for some of the European players but that’s just the way golf is.

I haven’t done any sketchnotes for a while but seeing Mike Rohde’s great Packers game sketchnotes got me curious about doing the same for the Ryder Cup. For a first attempt it wasn’t bad.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Ethan had a fun night at Paisley Golf Club with the rest of the kids that get coaching there on the Friday night. Hats off to Andy Carlton and Claire-Maire Macauley for putting on a great event and bringing all the kids together. No prizes for Ethan but he did score quite well in the putting.

Twinged my back early on Saturday morning which ruled out any work I was going to do in the garden that day. That was nothing though compared to Sunday morning when I completely put my back out and put out any plans we had for the day. A visit to the out-of-hours GP got me some pain killers. My back is on the mend today after a treatment of physio this morning and I’m going back on Wednesday for more treatment.

I had a great time with Ethan yesterday playing at Paisley Golf Club.

Another Sunday, another medal under the belt. Ethan’s settling in well at Paisley Golf Club and the boys in the junior section have been great in welcoming him.

Ethan played in his first competition of the year at Paisley Golf Club. He’s still struggling with the longer tees in these competitions but he enjoyed the challenge. Looking forward to seeing him out on the course a lot over the rest of the year and getting his handicap down.

This post highlights the benefits that youngsters get from playing golf. Ethan’s first year on the junior team has been a huge learning experience for him. Learning etiquette, being responsible and managing your emotions have been at the forefront.

I’m glad to see Ethan developing with his golf. It’s definitely a great sport for youngsters.

Ethan played in the Junior Open at Elderslie Golf Club yesterday. He had a good time but it was a long slog for him. Playing off the longer yellow tees made some of the holes extremely difficult for him. Good experience for him though.

After a rocky start to the year, it seems that Ethan is finding his form again. It was a big ask for Ethan to beat James in his match but despite losing, his scorecard was made up of fives, sixes and sevens. Well done kid!

Elderslie Golf Club continues to be a great place for Ethan and the rest of the juniors to develop their game. Hat tip to Scott and Craig and everybody else involved in helping develop the junior team there.

It was a good weekend for the members of Elderslie’s Junior Newton Shield squad. Coaching on the Saturday with the club pro followed by an opportunity to play on the course for all levels of members in the junior section on the Sunday. All those involved with this in the club should be commended. It’s great to see kids of all ages being encouraged to play and compete.

Yesterday was such a glorious day in terms of weather. An ideal day to get Ethan back out on the golf course. Unfortunately the course is still a bit damp from the last couple of weeks of rain but hopefully it will dry out soon.

via Kottke.org

I’ve seen some whacky swings at the driving range, but most of the time the swing has the desired affect. The ball hits the intended target. Steven Pressfield is definitely onto something here.

The concept of the Authentic Swing is that each of us is endowed from birth with our own gift, our own style, our own unique talent and point of view. Our job is to find it and bring it forth.

— Furky swings Authentic Swing, shoots 59 by Steven Pressfield %}

Steven’s new book looks to be another addition to the list.

Meet my son Ethan.

He loves playing golf. He’s also quite good at it. He might not be the next big thing in golf, but he’s better than most kids his age. He attends golf lessons for one hour a week and this year we even got him in as a junior member at a golf club in the area where most of his family play. A chance for him to meet other kids his age and also to get out onto a proper golf course for a change.

Now as parents we all want the best for our kids. It’s natural. The best criteria though is interpreted different by different parents though. My interpretation is that I want my kids to be happy and do what they enjoy the most.

Me and Jen don’t do the pushy parent thing. He plays golf when he wants to play golf. We don’t make him practice for hours on end at home, nor do we make it his exclusive hobby. Just for variety he goes swimmming, plays tennis and wants to up upgrade his bike to a mountain bike for Christmas so that he can go mountain biking with me.

He also does all the usual things kids do, watches television, plays video games, plays outside with his friends and a whole heap of other things that kids are supposed to do (and sometimes not supposed to do!). Quite a good mix for any kid if you ask me.

I’m hoping that this no pressure approach to his golf gives him enough breathing space to be himself and not be put under pressure. He’s still a kid and needs to experience his childhood. Sure we still give him a gentle nudge now and again, but that’s all it is, a nudge.

I have a new hobby, sort of. Last weekend I bought myself a new set of golf clubs and last night I took my oldest son to the driving range for a boys night. He got to fine tune his swing and I got the chance to become familiar with the first set of golf clubs I’ve had in 20 years. It’s sure been a long time since I played a round of golf, so I wasn’t sure what to expect with a new set of golf clubs. The surprising thing was that I could actually hit the ball reasonably well.

This new hobby isn’t about me though, it’s more about my son. Being a great little golfer means I want to get him on the course as often as possible, but access to golf courses for kids isn’t easy, especially when you thrown in the unpredictable Scottish weather. Also he’s a bit young to be out playing a round on his own.

So I decided to arm myself with some clubs and get into this golf thing with my son. Hopefully over the summer and autumn I can get him onto some public courses near us, but more importantly he can teach Dad how to play golf!

Some of you might already know this from my tweets in the past but for those that don’t here’s the thing. My son has been playing golf since he was 1 year old. Yes you’re reading that right. 1 year old.

In the last 5 years we’ve slowly encouraged the sport with him by taking him to the driving range, local golf courses and he’s had some coaching from a couple of professionals in the past. He loves the game. He watches all the majors when they are on and cheers for his favourite golfers.

In order to develop this little talent further we decided to take our son to coaching a couple of years ago. The coaching was one to one with a professional. I would drop my son off and then observe from a distance while he hit some balls, played some games and then after half an hour I would collect him.

After a year it seemed like he wasn’t making any more progress, but I decided to let it go on the basis that he is only a kid after all. The most worrying part though was that he wasn’t really enjoying it anymore.Then one Saturday, during one of our frequent trips to the driving range, we just happened to see that the driving range were doing group lessons for kids. We asked our son if he wanted to go and he jumped at the chance.

He now gets coaching alongside other kids and since moving him to the group coaching, he has come on leaps and bounds. His progress in the last six months has been great. The best part of it is that he enjoys his golf again and wants to do better.

In hindsight the one to one coaching was the wrong choice for our son, but as a parent you want the best for your kids and to give them all the opportunities you can.

Rather than wanting the best for your kids, you should also remember to let them enjoy being a kid. I’m glad now that our son is enjoying his golf again but more importantly, he’s enjoying it with other kids his age.

Golf … more golf … and even more golf. Ryder Cup weekend begins today and me and my oldest son are going to be glued to the television cheering on Rory, Graeme and the rest of the European team.