Battling BRCA

* Disclaimer - Not a poker or golf related post. *

It's been so long since my last post I nearly don't know where to start. Whilst this blog is called 'The Life of Me!', it always focused on my poker exploits then became somewhere to log my golfing progress & aspirations. That was until my life took a change in direction during the Spring of 2012.

Ironically enough, I was on the golf course when it happened. Striding down the 10th fairway with 2 of my lovely golfing friends, I hadn't a care in the world. It was a glorious May afternoon, sunny & warm with a slight breeze, perfect golfing conditions & my score wasn't too bad either. As I momentarily stood stationary I could just about hear my phone vibrating in my golf bag. When I realised it was my doctors surgery phoning, I excused myself & answered the call. Never in a million years was I expecting this phone call, I mean, I knew it was coming eventually, but I was 10-15 years off that point, right?

October . . . Where Do I start?

So much has happened in October already & it's only half way through!

I played the medal back on the 4th, got married on the 8th, somehow managed to play in the ILGU Silver Medal Final on the 10th & had my clubs stolen a few days later!

As I was walking down the isle, the last of the ladies up at the golf club were teeing off. I can honestly say I wasn't even thinking of this at the time, I had more than enough to be concentrating on.

The wedding was awesome, I never expected to enjoy it half as much as I did & I had a few days off work afterwards so I didn't plan on coming back to planet earth any time soon.

The Wedding

So the 'big' day finally arrived, it seemed like something which was initially planned 2 years prior steamed towards us at a ferocious velocity.

The Cake - Tasted just as good as it looks!

The day started early, yes there were girlie things to be done like hair & make-up, it was my wedding day after all. But let's get our priorities straight, Ireland were playing Wales in the rugby! And what's more we had a chance of something huge, huge at international level, only the quarter final of the World Cup. Unfortunately, even though there was so much promise, it was not to be &Wales proved worthy winners in the end. I guess I didn't have too much time to stew over the result as from the point where the match ended, my time was no longer my own to control.

ILGU SIlver Medal

So it's the day before the wedding, my mum's house is manic. I'm trying to escape the lot of them burying my head in the laptop, so far it's working & they're leaving me alone :)

I just got a phone call there a short while ago from the Lady Vice Captain Sheelagh to tell me I'd won the ILGU Silver Medal. My first reaction to this is "What's the ILGU Silver Medal?". She explained to me how there are two medals awarded to each club every year, a silver & a bronze, silver being for handicaps under 20 & the bronze for handicaps over 20. As my medal results between April & September (the specified qualifying period) were the best in the club for handicaps under 20, I'd won the Silver Medal for 2011.

The Last Medal

I guess you could say October was to be a busy month. However just before the wedding there was one final thing to wrap up, 'Golfer of the Year'.

The last medal of the year, the October Medal was scheduled for the actual day of our wedding, 8th October. This meant Rob had to miss it even though he was in contention for the men's GOY. Luckily enough though, the ladies club are also able to play their medal on the Tuesday before the medal weekend. With the wedding on the Saturday, I headed out early that Tuesday after working all night to try & revisit some form I'd been showing signs off a couple of days beforehand when I managed 35 points in the weekend competition.

In Search of my Swing

Taking time off golf, even for 3 weeks proved to be a disaster. I was playing better than I could ever have hoped for but golf is time consuming & with regular trips to Belfast required to finalize the arrangements, something had to give. I'd also been on a severe diet which didn't help matters as my body had changed shape which inevitably meant so did my swing.

$hitty September

I'm now starting to see the consequences to not playing regular golf, my swing sucks. It's been fairly frustrating not being able to make it happen too. South County is relatively exposed to the wind when it gets going & I guess this month has been one of the worst for gale force winds but I can't even use that as an excuse, I'm playing really bad golf & I don't even have the time to fix it. My abysmal results above speak for themselves.

Annoyingly Little Golf in August

August was busy month for non-golf things. With the wedding creeping up on us we had no choice but to make a few trips to Belfast & arrange men suits, rings, invitations etc.

Hen Weekend

 
With the wedding a mere 8 weeks away I headed north for the obligatory hen party.

Personally I could have easily given this hen party a miss, the truth is I had no desire for any gimmicks or embarrassing dressing up whilst crawling through all/any pubs we could find. Thankfully my sisters know me better than that & arranged for a somewhat unconventional day & night out.

Joyful July

June was disappointing, especially as when my swing worked the shot was better than ever, I just felt like I needed to run out the variance of this new swing. I made the effort & I went to the range a lot after the Lady Captain disaster. I'd also taken the time to look over some online videos, just to try memorize some drills before shots. Anything that made my practice swing go right first time was going to help right? I think I actually got more out of the online videos this time than last time. I have a lot of golf theory in my head now & these instructional videos are more relevant than ever from that aspect.