Thrilling event

The four-man team of Ali Musbah, Abdulla Mubarak, Hamed Fares and Essa Al Qutami emerged victorious in the annual cross country social competition at Awali Golf Club with a fine score of 81 points.

The cross country is a unique competition as the holes are not played in the normal order (for example, the first hole played was from the 7th tee box to the 5th brown).

Musbah was in particularly stunning form, carding five birdies in 12 holes. The team of Steve Newall, Yvonne Newall, Bill Beddall and David Frosdick also finished on 81 points but were unfortunate to lose on countback.

The final podium place went to the team of Alan Goulden, Kathy Goulden, Grant Goulden and Gary Forshaw who finished one point behind on 80.

The cross country competition is interesting in the sense that you can use your mat anywhere on the course regardless of if you are on the fairway or not. In addition, as soon as the ball is in play, you are allowed to move it two club lengths from wherever it lies (even if it is sitting in the middle of a bush!). This means that as long as your ball is in bounds, you are likely to be able to use the rules to your advantage and have a good chance of advancing your ball towards the target.

I spent time after the competition talking to some of the other competitors and asking them about how they had played. It was amazing how many of the players commented that they had driven the ball better than usual.
 
On reflection, I believe it was because there was no ‘fear’ of hitting the ball into the rough as you were always likely to have a good lie

Often in ‘normal’ golf, it can be very easy to get into the habit of worrying about where you DON’T want to hit the ball, as opposed to where you DO want to hit it. As a result, it is very easy to find yourself trying to not hit bad shots as opposed to trying to hit good ones! This, clearly, cannot be conducive to good golf!

I find I play my best golf when I convince myself that I actually don’t care about the outcome of the shot. The outcome of a golf shot is one thing that you ultimately cannot control (especially at Awali golf course where good drives often end up behind trees due to unfair bounce!).

Try to convince yourself that you actually do not care about the outcome of a shot, swing with freedom and see if it helps!