The flag is staring right at you.  Right in the center of the big old green, with nothing around to protect it.  You're only 140 yards away from a sure chance at a birdie.  The wind is blowing strong into your face, but that doesn't bother you.  You're good with your fade, you say...you're going to aim a little left and let that puppy drop right on the pin.  You grab your 8 iron, swing hard to bash it through the wind, and...

The answer to the title is - we CAN DO BOTH...

You've heard it said before that golf is a game of misses.  Or alternatively, it's not about how good your good shots are, it's about how good your BAD shots are.  When we step up and hit a ball, only rarely does it do exactly what we want it to do.  Hogan himself said in a typical round he would only hit 2 or 3 shots that actually came off as planned.  Think about that one for a minute.

Ever wondered why golf is seemingly easy one day and you can do little wrong and then the next day you feel like you have never held a club in your hands before!!

FEEL........ It is the lifeblood of a consistent player.

So how do we create feel?.... Well we need to start off by thinking...What do we feel with?.... The HANDS.

Our hands provide us all the sensation of feel, so the more we can feel the club in our hands the more feel we are going to have...right....This is a huge reason I am all for heavier and not lighter equipment.

Now I am not advocating using the hands to swing the club. That amounts to having minimal control of the club and it's orientation and not enough body activity to move the club.  I am talking about working the pressures of our entire body ALL the way into our hands throughout the swing. Pressures in the right direction throughout the swing are the glue that allows motions to function and stick and repeat with more control.

When we utilize the ground to support ourselves the pressures build up into our body. When we use our hips and torso correctly the pressures build into the arms.. and when we allow our arms to stay cohesive to the body movement that feel then runs into our hands. Our hands hold the club so therefore we feel the club and gain control of it.

The more we do this and grow accustomed to it the easier the game becomes. Simply put we are not allowing one part of our system to overpower another. Doing so creates an imbalance that needs to be modified somewhere along the chain, and the daily feel is lost and our game is lost with it. We are working that feel into the area that matters most when the time is right to hit the ball and take full control of it!!

Because we are human and all suffer different emotions and feels and aches and pains our feels change daily. But we do have the option of better control of those feelings and more consistent play.......So long as we look in the right areas and don't go searching aimlessly for the magic potion of good golf. That "magic potion" chalice is empty.

The key to the best golf of our lives is inside of us all........We all have feel.....it's the better player who knows how to utilize it to their benefit....Go find it.....Feel is not hidden..... it's just hiding waiting to break free and send you to a better more consistent game.

After the excitement of a 14/14 fairway and 16/18 greens second round of 69, Saturday's 3rd round was a bit of a downer. I made a decent enough start being level par through 11 holes, but made my first bad swing for the week on hole 12 and set off a run of bogeys that I couldn't turn the tide on.

I felt the wind shift on my second shot on 12 and didn't step out and change clubs and proceeded to ease a 7 iron that became all hands as I was frightened to hit at the ball and stopped my body and pulled it left into a dead spot where I had to play away from the flag and accept a bogey. That was followed with a 3 putt on 13, 14 & 17 where I lost my speed of the greens and misjudged approach putts. So round 3 closed out in disappointment with a 5 over score.

The final round was played in difficult conditions with wind blustering the course. I got out of the gates slowly, probably because of a saturday round hangover, with 3 out of position drives on the first 3 holes and resulting bogeys. I played solidly from there however and a nice eagle on the 72nd hole to finish off was nice. A 73 on the final day was no disgrace but didn't gain much ground.

All in all I was quite pleased to jump out of the pro shop and fly across the other side of the world and put in a competitive performance without much practice or play time over the past year. I learned a lot about my game again and just playing has actually got the competitive juices flowing again where I would like to put in the effort and get back out and play some more events and give myself some options to play tournament golf again soon.

My ballstriking was very good for such a long layoff. I didn't hit many poor shots at all and really hit my spots well for the majority with my tee shots and iron approaches. I never recorded worse than a bogey on any hole, which is a feat in itself on such a demanding layout as Victoria GC. My bunker play was great and my chipping was decent. I holed out quite nicely from inside the 6-8 feet range. The only main difficulty I had was approach putting and I believe that was just from the fact I hadn't played much golf and especially not on fast greens.

Lots of positives to be taken from the week and I look forward to what the future may hold again soon. Was a lot of fun.

thanks for all the wishes.....now I gotta get back to diggin in the dirt myself...

The first two rounds of The 2011 Australian Masters are now history and the weekend is shaping up for a great event that will go down to the wire to decide the champion.

Day 1 saw the morning players get the better of the conditions. Only one afternoon player made it to the top 10 at the close of round 1.

I was second last group out on Day 1 at 1.12pm and certainly had the toughest conditions. That's tournament golf however and you have to play all 18 holes and do your best.

I hit the ball quite well in round 1 but the combination of a strong wind and greens that dried out made scoring very tough. Getting the ball close enough to the hole just to 2 putt was a challenge in the conditions.

I had some good stretches of play but started with 2 bogeys and finished with 2 bogeys for a 4 over par 75 in round one.

The second round today gave me an earlier 8.15 tee off time and the course was more accessible although still tough when you put your ball in the wrong position to approach from.

I played great today hitting every fairway and hitting 16 greens in regulation. I managed a 2 under 69 which dropped me to 2 over par for the Championship and inside the cut line. I also have some confidence in store for the remaining two rounds because of my solid ball striking and some good short range putting (inside 6 feet)

Seeing I haven't played an event for 12 months I am more than pleased to have performed to this standard so far and look forward to trying to claw my way farther up the scoreboard over the final two rounds. It has been a lot of fun to go out and play tournament golf again and hit the ball so well. If I can get a few putts to drop from outside the 10 foot range I can see a nice weekend on the horizon...

Hit them well wherever you may be....

Final preparations are over. The practice rounds are done.