John Sharkey

Fix that Slice!

Here is a simple tip to sort out your slice and improve your shot patterns.

Click here to watch this right foot drill.

This week's Tip

Let Richard and Hogo help you improve your putting.

Click here to see the video.

John's Archive photo’s

This week I have been looking through my photo archives, as you do, and had an idea. Here is an early picture of me with my school football team (front row 1st left) circa 1970. I would like to invite members to share some pictures of themselves and maybe in next weeks newsletter includes some in a 'Guess who it is' quiz. So please be brave and forward some early snaps, it could prove very entertaining and great fun.

Paul Bunting down in Under.

Just received these pictures from member Paul Bunting who is in Australia visiting family. Obviously course closures haven’t reached their yet. Check archive photo’s above and my football team picture you will find Paul on the back row second from the left. Got you mate!!

Pro's news

Golf's greatest rivalries

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to discuss some of the game’s greatest rivalries but would love you to get involved too! So, let us know which rivalry stands out for you the most and why by getting in touch here.

Nicklaus vs Palmer

A lot of you will remember this one and it’s for far more than the fact they were the two best players on tour for most of the 60s.

It was trophies galore for both gentlemen, with nine Major titles between them from 1960 to 1964 and one of them winning the PGA Tour’s money list each year between 1962 and 1965.

However, whilst Jack is recognised by many as the greatest of all time (let’s save the Tiger vs Jack debate for another time!), he didn’t have the love of the fans that Arnie had.

If you read up on the pair’s rivalry, you’ll quickly find out that they were close friends too. From travelling together during their playing days to Nicklaus being by Palmer’s side when his wife sadly passed away, their friendship was a strong as their fierce rivalry on the course.

It's quiz time

What a response to last week's quiz! Hopefully, you all enjoyed it and learnt a thing or two on the way.

For this week, you'll need to match the golfer with their nickname.

It starts relatively easy with a few that we think the majority of you will get, but there are certainly a few curveballs in there that you may have never heard of before!

Click the link below to take part and, remember, have fun!

take our quiz >

Weekly challenge

If you’re a fan of archery or darts then you’re going to love this week’s challenge. It’s one for you and the family to try, or even have a go with your golfing buddies (at your own homes, of course) and see who’s at the bottom of the leaderboard!

The set-up

Once again, you’re going to need to get creative for this one. We’ve used bamboo sticks from the garden to create our target area, but it can easily be done using golf clubs or ties too.

Set your hitting zone (the mat in our images) as far away as you feel comfortable with – we’d recommend starting at 5 to 7 yards – before grabbing yourself a wedge and some golf balls.

How to play

There are so many ways you can play this challenge. In our example above, we’ve given each zone on the archery board a score with the larger score for the smallest zone in the middle.

From here, set yourself a target – say 100 points. You then take it in turns to hit three balls and tally up your score based on where your ball ends. The first person to reach the target score wins!

message the team >

Golf at home

Do you find that you putt better when in a practice game compared to competitions? It’s a common problem for many golfers and often stems from the fear factor associated with missing a putt during a competitive round that simply isn’t there when knocking it around for fun.

The idea

It all comes down to confidence and our gauge as to how quick the greens are. If we can be certain that any missed putt will leave us no more than a foot or two from the hole, we needn’t have any fear about missing and three-putting will (hopefully) become a thing of the past!

The set-up

In the image above, you’ll see we’ve placed two tealight candles on the floor about a hole’s width apart followed by four coasters one-foot past the hole. This drill requires you to hole the putt (putting through the tealights) and get your ball to finish within the inside square of the coasters.

message the team >

Video of the Week

How similar are we as golfers? Give this video a watch and count how many of these you say on a regular basis. We bet you say a lot more than you might think!

Have a good week on the Links

The Links Golf Club
Cambridge Road
Newmarket
CB8 0TG

Phone: 01638 662395

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