Some weeks in golf etch themselves into our minds as players for the obvious progress that is made, or the apparent failings that are visible. When you finish in the top five and earn points that move you up the rankings or money you can put towards your dream home, nobody needs to tell you how to process what’s just happened. This week in Denmark wasn’t one of those weeks for me. The progress that was made was quiet and borne out of a willingness to simply stay the course. Honestly, the easiest thing for me to have done this week was to not even show up on the Friday, as I was suffering from illness. It’s the first time I’ve been ill all year and just speaking to the tournament director would’ve gotten me off the hook, such was the tone of my croaky voice. But I decided to at least give it a go, with the hope that after a revelatory (not for the first time) range session late in the day Thursday, I could take something worthwhile to Aberdeen with me. And so it proved.
“Learning is remembering.”
This is one of my favourite philosophical quotes. During my time off after the BMW International in Munich, I veered off road somewhat back towards the dark days of years gone by where my focus was too varied and haphazard. As I’ve touched on in the podcast over the course of this year, the one thing I’ve been able to maintain for the most part this season is a consistent focus on one or two things in my swing to keep me on the straight and narrow, and although I haven’t been brilliant in 2026, much of the progress I have made is reflective of this. Last week in Scotland and to a greater degree early this week in Denmark, I found myself once again searching for feels just to find the correct strike and bottom of the swing arc. It was during a delirious attempt at a nap Thursday afternoon after a dismal opening round, that it struck me: “go spend some time with the long lob wedge with the grip reminder”. So up I got, downed a coffee and a few paracetamol and spent an hour or so on the range with the club in my hand, consciously feeling every centimetre of the grip, and performing practice swings with the sole goal of teaching myself how to clip the turf at the correct point in the swing: impact. A simpler drill you could not envisage, but its effect was immediate.
