I've just got back from hitting nearly 100 shanks in a row at the range

I can't describe how scrambled my head is right now.

Shankarooni.

Maybe too much weight on the toes ?

First basket of balls this morning: shanktastic.

Rush down to reception and say I'm going to drop out of the Yellow Peril* as my teammates will do better without me. The Pro gives me a couple of tokens and says stand further away from the ball and feel like you're hitting it off the toe. It stops the shank but creates pull-hooks.

I speak to my team mates and tell them the problem. They insist I still play.

We go on to score 160 points and win the competition by 3. I only had one shank (on 12).

I still didn't feel I was striking the ball well but scored the equivalent of 34 points. I'm going to remain scarred for a while longer. Anyone who gets the shanks will have my greatest sympathy. Simply horrible.

*Yellow Peril is a team Stableford competition where three of the four scores of the team on each hole count, with one of the scorers having to be the holder of the yellow ball. The yellow ball is passed to a different player for each hole and the score with the yellow ball is doubled. The yellow ball is lost if it is lost or goes OOB.

Just worked out you must all be bandits as that's nearly 3 pts for each player per hole for 18 holes. Guess the others in the clubhouse were really sympathetic when you said you had the shanks also!!

Infact it is 2.96 pts per player per a hole. Did you play off the juniors tees by any chance!

matelot - double the yellow ball, ergo average better ball of 40+40+(2x40)=160... i.e average score of 40 pts each from 3 best scores of 4 players on each hole... i.e 2.2 per player per hole. actually sounds like a pretty lousy winning total
good turn around merc - just goes to how it pays not to be such a wuss :skedaddle:

Matelot - did you miss the bit where I said the yellow ball score was doubled?

We had 88 points going out and 72 points coming back. 3 birdies with the yellow ball (8 points each) really helped.

So 144 would be "par" score - but that relies on the yellow ball player always making his par or the par score drops dramatically. I'd certainly say 160 is bandit country!

Play "yellow peril" on a course with lots of water hazards and many people won't even return a par score!

The winning scores for the last 3 years were:

152 (2nd was also 152), 153 (2nd was 139) and 156 (2nd was 152).

Today's 1st and 2nd scores would have won all other years.

Davie - if the yellow ball holder has shots (and we had shots on 14 of 18 holes) then it is 6 points for a par. We had 80 points with the yellow ball.

incidentally, driving ranges (off mats) are pretty much the only places I've found that i get an occasional run of shanks. hitting off a mat is a poor simulation of striking off turf if you're a digger so don't worry too much about that!

As a digger, that's interesting to note, scarpa.

Ahh, missed the double score bit, only slight bandit territory then! Apologies

I wonder at the merits of hitting range balls off artificial mats. About all I achieved a week or so back was a gammy back and blood pouring out of a cut on my finger. I always feel like being in a garage with the door open. Better off going over a field with a bucket of balls imho