It gives me great please to introduce you all to Joanne Taylor, yes another Taylor Professional at Tyrrells Wood! Jo is originally from Colchester and was a member at Colchester Golf Club between 2003 and 2010. She played girls and ladies county 1st team golf for Suffolk before turning Professional at the end of 2010. She studied Applied Golf Management Studies at the University of Birmingham, graduating in 2011 with a 2:1. Currently completing an MSc in Sports Coaching again at the University of Birmingham. Whilst at university Jo worked at North Berwick Golf Club and The Carnegie Club at Skibo Castle during summer work placements. She then joined the Mike Yorke Golf Academy in January 2013. She was also part of the R&A Swingzone team during the 2013 Open Championship at Muirfield. It’s great to have Jo on the team and I’m sure you’ll join me in welcoming her to Tyrrells.

SAVE MONEY & IMPROVE

Jo is offering a two 45 minute lesson package for just £50 (Normal price £60!) to the first 10 Tyrrells members. To improve your game please contact the Pro Shop or click here. 

Club Fitting Results Are In

Firstly, I must say a big thank you to Alan Rowbottom, Geoff Hubbard & Navin Mehta who gave up their time last Thursday for our very first members iron testing. We selected three very different 7 irons (a TaylorMade SpeedBlade, a PING Karsten & a TaylorMade Tour Preferred MB) and tested each against their current 7 iron.

Alan was volunteered to go first and hit some very nice shots with his 7 iron with some good ball speed & distance. The first club he tested was the TaylorMade SpeedBlade & straight away his ball speed increased which gained Alan an extra 5 YARDS! The second iron was the TaylorMade Tour Preferred MB and again the results were quite staggering – this time there was a loss of 20 YARDS from his own 7 iron. The last club Alan tested was the PING Karsten with an increase in the ball speed of nearly 10mph! Alan hit this over 10 YARDS FURTHER than the other irons. Although this iron performed the best out of the three I think there is still someone tweaking we could do. This iron produced too much backspin & so whilst the distance gained was impressive, I think we could find another 5 – 10 yards by reducing this. Watch this space!! Alan said ‘It was quite amazing the difference between the 2nd & 3rd iron I tested, the 2nd club felt very heavy whilst the 3rd just felt balanced and easy to use’

Next up was Navin who again hit some good shots with his Wilson 7 iron. He first tried the TaylorMade Tour Preferred MB his first shot with this club was fantastic, it flew a full 15 yards further than his average with his club. Unfortunately the next few shots didn’t quite follow suit! We next tested the TaylorMade SpeedBlade and whilst the consistency improved greatly the distance was similar to his own iron. Lastly was the PING Karsten iron and again Navin immediately struck the ball better with an increase of nearly 10 YARDS. Afterwards Navin said ‘With the PING I had an instant improvement in my ball speed, spin & distance. Worth further consideration for the future!’

Last, but not least, Geoff Hubbard took centre stage. After hitting his Titleist 7 iron, Geoff tried the PING Karsten iron & unlike the others he didn’t get on very well with this iron. Geoff has a fairly quick swing tempo and because the PING iron is extremely light weight it didn’t fit his swing. We next tested the TaylorMade Tour Preferred MB and in keeping with everyone else, this club proved far too difficult to use consistently well. The SpeedBlade was the last iron tested and again an instant change, an increase in ball speed and a reduction in side spin all added up to an average of nearly 15 YARDS FURTHER than his iron. Geoff commented ‘this club suited my swing really well, the weight felt really good’

I’m not surprised to see 3 very different golfers using 3 very different irons and coming out with 3 completely different results ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL! The TaylorMade Tour Preferred MB iron was included in our test, not because I thought it would suit, but to show how the wrong equipment can effect performance. It definitely performed the worst, by far! With the unforgiving nature of the club head added with the heavy shaft means you have to be extremely accurate to strike it properly. I wonder how many golfers are struggling with a similar type club – after all golf is supposed to be fun…… Isn’t it??

If you would like more information on club fitting our interested in a free of charge individual iron test please pop into the pro shop or click here.

Sunday 30th March Congratulations to Frank Lee who won the Nurrish Cup with a nett 62. This is a modified medal competition whereby players are given extra shots onto their handicap based on how few clubs they take out with them. It will be interesting to see how many clubs you take with you in this weekend’s Medal Frank!! For the full results please click here.

The Captain Drives In

Congratulations to our new Club Captain Chris Luke, who successfully drove in last Sunday. I’m sure you will join me in wishing him all the very best for his year. Let’s hope we raise lots of money for his charity The Royal Marsden, speaking of which, well done Rupert Hoyle who correctly predicted where the Captains Drive In would finish. Courtesy of the Captain, I have a bottle of champagne in the shop for you Rupert!

The Lombard Trophy

This weekend’s Club Medal acts as our qualifier to the PGA National Pro-Am Championship. The member who enters the Medal and finishes with the lowest gross will join me in the regional final where we will play a better ball competition. The winners of this qualifies for an all-expenses paid trip to The Gleneagles Hotel in September! A £2 entry fee is payable on the day.

The Summer Knock Outs

The entry book for the summer knock out competitions has now closed and the draws have all been made. You can find all of these on the Tyrrells website – good luck to all this year!!