Tom Gandy Summer Update
Tom reflects on the mental and physical aspects of golf as he continues to battle for a Challenge Tour card for next season.
Since we last spoke I’ve been in action most weeks! As always with this game I choose to love (and hate, at times!) it’s been very up and down. Some good, some bad, some ugly but continuing to show up and give my best every day and waiting to get in to my run of form.
The final Clutch event in June saw an upturn in form, finishing in a tie for 26th at The Caversham. It wasn’t always my best golf but all of the work I’ve been putting in on the mental side of the game shone through and helped me get more out of my performance, which I was pleased to finally see!
I then moved on to Regional Open Qualifying at Hesketh in Southport. I was off to a good start before two bad tee shots were severely punished and cost me back-to-back double bogies. But again I knuckled down and showed resilience to get back in to the qualifying places coming down the last hole, where unfortunately my tee shot again left me in an unplayable position and I ended up making a mess from there trying to force the par I would have needed to move through to Final Qualifying. Not to be for me this year in terms of qualifying for the Open but I’ll be back next year!
There's been signs of some of my best golf in amongst some of my worst, so I’m looking at my next run of events optimistically.
We’re straight back in action this week and looking forward to getting back to it. I think I may sound like a mad man at times, but I really don’t feel like I’m too far away from my best stuff, there’s so many positive signs - even though at the same time it can feel like you’re playing a different sport - so I’m optimistic I’ll be reporting some positive results next time around!
Coming up I have potential season-changing opportunities with qualifiers for the Asian Tour International Series event at Foxhills, Surrey and The Open Championship, being held at Troon, Scotland in July. Amongst this I will continue to play the Clutch Tour and battle for one of the 3 Challenge Tour cards for next season.