I was chatting to one of my students earlier this week and during the conversation he asked to be booked in for a golf lesson next Thursday. It wasn't until I looked at the diary that I realised next Thursday is the 29th January… how did that happen? It only feels like last week that we came back following the festive break!

This happens to me every single year, I think I've got loads of time until the new season is going to get under way and then all of a sudden it's upon us. This year thankfully, I've been doing lots of work behind the scenes and we are in a great position and almost fully prepared for the season ahead. Since taking on the north Inch last September, my time management has had to become much better and my 'to do' lists are getting whittled through.

I've started to organise the first of our fitting and trial days and I've got the first 2 confirmed. We're hosting a PING fitting day on Tuesday, 3rd March between 3 and 7pm. You'll be able to get fitted for the very latest PING G30 clubs, which have proven a great hit since their launch in September.

I've also just secured a Titleist 'Trial' day on Tuesday, 14th April. This event won't require any booking; you can simply roll up and give the clubs a try. The new range of Titleist clubs are their most forgiving ever and the guys at Titleist are really keen to get the clubs into that hands of players who may not have normally tried them. I'll give you more details on the event nearer the time.



Night Classes

Our popular Pre-season night classes are going to start on Wednesday, 25th February. We're offering classes for both the beginner golfer and for the existing player, who'd like to improve their game. The classes last for 1 hour and will run for a 6 week period, taking you up to the start of the new golf season. 

The classes offer great value for money at just £65 per person and this includes all your range balls and the use of any golf clubs if required. We keep our classes to a maximum of 8 golfers to 1 Coach, and this means that you will get plenty of coach time in order to work on your game. 

Places are limited, so if you'd like to book yourself in, then please just give us a call on 01738 440678 or click here.

Lower Your Scores

As we move into the second full year of our golf statistics system LowerYourScores.com we are now moving onto stage 2 where we plan to develop the www.LowerYourScores.com website into a hub packed full of information to help you with your game. This will include instructional videos and written articles covering all things golf.

If you want to play your best golf in 2015, you need to start tracking your stats and system is completely free to use and will identify exactly where you should be focusing your efforts. To sign up for your free account on LowerYourScores, just head on over to our website and sign up. It only takes a minute and is completely free. Click here to sign up. 

To watch Niall's video on creating more width on your backswing, just click on the image.

Play Better Golf - Pre-Season play

"Driving" range

This week's practice plan is designed to help improve your driving accuracy and help you hit more fairways.

Firstly take a few minutes to warm up, stretching and making practice swings, and then select a wedge and your Driver. This plan is based upon a basket of 50 balls.

- 5 balls - Using your wedge hit these balls to complete your warm up.

- 40 balls - Broken down into 4 groups of 10 balls. You should create an imaginary fairway on the range/practice ground, by using distance markers or reference points on the range to define the outside edges of your "fairway". Now with each group of 10 balls, count how many you can keep within your fairway. Take a written or mental note of your score and try to better it with each group. You are looking to achieve at least 7 out of 10.

- 5 balls - Using your wedge hit these last few balls warm down.

Too many players practice their driving without focusing on a target and this can cause you to lose focus on your driving objective, which is to hit fairways. Give every ball 100% concentration and good luck!

New Demo's for you to try

As Perthshire's busiest custom club fitting centre, we're always looking to add to the demo clubs that we make available for you to try. Recently we've received quite a few new trial clubs with many more due over the next few weeks, a few of which are below.

  

  

This has been a really big week for North Inch Golf Course and I'm now really pleased to be able to announce that all my plans were approved by the Environment committee on Wednesday this week, so we can now really start the ball rolling. I'm going to outline some of our initiatives below, along with the 2015 season ticket and green fee prices.

Season Tickets

Adult £279
Senior 65+ £189
Young Adult 18-29yrs £189 
Concession £189

Get Into Golf* £99 

Junior £20
Family (2 adults & up to 2 kids) £500 (saves £108)

*Get Into Golf

Beginner-level golfers aged over 18 can enjoy "Get into Golf," a new initiative from the Scottish Golf Union, Scottish Ladies' Golfing Association and Professional Golfers' Association. Membership for a year will cost only £99 and players will be offered a free, four-week beginners golf class and will have access to free hire clubs.

You will have access to play the golf course at restricted times between 11-3pm & after 6pm midweek and after 2pm at weekends.

Young Adults

A young adult season ticket will be introduced for players aged 18 to 29 who are making the leap from junior membership to adult. The average age of a golf club member in Scotland is 55, and the new young adult season ticket will help encourage younger players to the course at a cost of only £189.

Juniors

New junior members will join the North Inch Golf Course for just £20. A free, four-week coaching class worth £20 will be included in membership and these young players will also be eligible to apply for a ClubGolf voucher for a £20 discount on golf membership, meaning that their North Inch membership is effectively free. Existing junior members will also be able to access the four-week coaching class without charge, but won't be eligible for the voucher.

Green Fees 2015

Adult Midweek £14
Adult Weekend £20
Senior/Concession Midweek £10
Senior/Concession Weekend £14 
Twilight (after 5pm) £10
Junior £5 

Promotions

2-Ball Deal Midweek £25 
2-Ball Deal Weekend £35
4-Ball Deal Midweek £40
4-Ball Deal Weekend £60
Family Ticket - 2 adults & 2 kids £20 (After 2pm any day)

6-Hole Short Course

As part of my proposal, a six-hole short course will be created around the existing three opening holes. This is designed to offer beginners, juniors and the elderly an accessible and enjoyable golfing experience. A round will cost just £3.50 for an adult, £2.50 for a junior and £10 for a family (two adults and two children). Golf clubs will be available to hire for free.

6-Hole Short Course Green Fees

Adult £3.50
Junior £2.50
Family Ticket £10 (2 adults & 2 kids)
Club Hire Free

Course Maintenance

The ditch clearing work has started this week and Glenn and the team are making great progress. It's making an incredible difference and I think you'll all be very pleased when you see the end result.

   

The new artificial tee's on the 4th and 16th holes are also well under way and should be ready for getting the turf laid next week.

  

Our mission is to make North Inch Golf Course the friendliest, most affordable and accessible golf course in Perth & Kinross, for the people of Perth & Kinross. If you'd like more information on North Inch Golf Course, please drop me an email at nmcgill@pkc.gov.uk  

Winter Golf

I thought with all this frosty weather that I would show you how to cope with pitching onto a frozen hard green. The key to pitching in the winter is to keep the ball low, and forget about using your lofted wedges. This is not just for short pitches, in today's pictures I am playing a 70 yard pitch but using an 8 iron.

I am effectively playing a long pitch and run shot, keeping the ball much lower than my sand wedge would have and reducing the chances of a wild bounce that a high trajectory pitch would get. To play this shot simply narrow your stance, position the ball centre to slightly back in your stance and grip a wee bit down the shaft as you are using quite a long shafted club for this distance.

You should now swing very simply by rocking your shoulders and chest back and through keeping your hands out of the shot. Remember that the ball will really bounce and run a long way so you will only have to flight the ball around half of your total distance. Also make sure that you take note of the contour of the fairways as your ball will run with the natural slope of the land. Give this a go and you will hopefully start saving a few shots around the greens.

Click here to book a lesson with me.