Golf Geeks Introduction Blog.

Hello fellow golfers, its Matt here at Golf Geeks HQ, I hope all is well.

Firstly, thanks for reading & I really hope you bear with me for a few minutes in this first instance whilst I introduce myself and the Golf Geeks amateur golf channel in whatever format you are watching, reading or listening to us on.

I am your host, Matthew Allison I’m 36 years old, an 18-handicap golfer at time of writing (March 20) and I am most definitely a Golf Geek.

I am a little late to golf, having only really played seriously in the last 3 years though I played casually (4-5 times a year) for around the last 8 years at corporate golf events & charity days.

Just a tiny bit of background about me so you get a little context. My main sport for many years was motorsport, I raced go karts from the age of 10 and went into single seater car racing at the age of 16 winning a few national championships along the way in Formula Ford and Renault Clio Cup.

In terms of motorsport I’m best known for winning the 2006 British Gt Championship driving a 996 Porsche 911 GT3 and I then competed in the country’s premier race series, the British Touring car Championship in 2007 & 2008 in a semi-professional capacity (basically not getting paid but not paying to compete either).

I was forced to retire in 2011 at the age of 27 as the world had sunk into an economic crisis and sponsorship to go racing was few and far between and it wasn’t paying the bills anyway. I still enjoy motorsport today as a spectator and I am a current and proud member of the British Racing Drivers Club based at Silverstone.

I also have an entrepreneurial background my last position was as Managing Director & majority shareholder of a Scania Franchise Truck Dealership in my home town of Norwich. I was part of the ownership team within this business that sold out to a larger group in 2016.

This kind of brings us upto date really as since selling my company in 2016 my interest and involvement in golf has become pretty intense shall we say. I have come down from a 26 handicap to my current handicap of 17.6 in the last 2 years and I have been working hard over this winter and playing well, albeit on lots of temporary tees and greens & I am hopeful this year that my handicap will come down to somewhere in the mid-teens. I am by no means a ‘natural’ golfer, it’s come quite hard to me, which I’ve found difficult to cope with at times as I am used to being good at something I have an interest in and dedicate time to but golf has alluded me and whilst I am by no means a finished article, none of us are, my improvement over the last 12 months (6 shots) has been down to a few really major break throughs, after literally trying so many things & having lot of failures along the way.

I’ve done this by employing some strategies that I share in this first series of Golf Geeks Amateur golf podcasts & blogs. This content is not supposed to be preachy and I really hope it doesn’t come off in this way, I’m not a golf pro and don’t pretend to know some secret to making others better at golf but I have dedicated a lot of time and effort into improving & if there is something here that can help my fellow amateur golfers then that’s a win as far as I’m concerned.

The dirty truth is… I’m a Golf Geek. I simply love Golf.

Not just playing, but practising, at home and at the range. I also like reading about Golf via trade magazines & books (mainly golf psychology which I feel is massively underrated in the amateur game) & I also listen to Golf Podcasts and a lot of the great content that is available on the beast that is YouTube.

My wife cannot compute how I find it remotely interesting watching 4 blokes play a round of golf on YouTube, but I can and I do. The club tests, tech talk, swing coaching, and general golf lifestyle videos mean there are literally hundreds of hours of content, all free & at your fingertips.

One thing I noticed is that nearly all of the channels are run by PGA pros. One other thing I noted is that a lot of them feature a player like me regularly in their content to come and hit new equipment or play a course vlog with them. Now what do I mean by a player like me? I’m talking about a mid-handicap golfer.

When you ask Google what a mid-handicap golfer is it will tell you the USGA defines it as a player with a handicap between 9 & 21. That’s quite a big range of golfers and there is obviously also a big number of high handicappers aswell in the 22 to 54 categories.

If only 1% of all golfers get to scratch and something like 15% are single figure then that leaves a massive amount of us filling the rest of the space between 10 & 54 handicap.

So here it is, I’m a mid-handicap Golf Geek and I’ll be writing, posting & uploading content in all sorts of format on social media (including YouTube) under the Golf Geeks banner from the mid & high-handicapper perspective.

At times it will be with help from PGA professionals, but on the whole, the Golf you will see or hear about on the Golf Geeks channel will be that of mid & high handicappers. The opinions, practising techniques, equipment, routines & course management etc. will be from our perspective & I hope to create a community where listeners can contribute to helping each other get better to work towards whatever your personal golf aspirations are.

We’ll do all this at the same time as making sure we have fun and enjoy ourselves. This is a sport, our recreation at the end of the day and we mustn’t lose sight of that.

Our first set of content is a blog/podcast series completely aimed at amateur golfers on a whole host of subjects that apply to us on a regular basis.

How to pick a golf coach, how should amateur golfers’ practice, do swing thoughts help or hinder, do you need to hit driver off the tee, holing more putts, simplify golf to get better quickly & finding your inner swing are but a few subjects tackled in this series.

There is a beginner guide to golf and what you need to get started. This may not apply to you if you’re already playing so maybe starting at a later episode may be a good place to start but I’ll let you decide.

Content is free & is available at our website www.golfgeeks.co.uk and you can download content from here or find links to the content if that suits you better.

Now on the website you will see that we are also very interested in equipment, namely preowned equipment, and on the site you can, should you choose to, scroll through a large selection of ex-display, ex-demo & quality preowned golf clubs, GPS & Rangefinder products. If you’re in the market for something give it a look. We also have buying guides and some reviews on there to help you select the product that’s right for you.

All these products have come from our network of PGA pro-shops and retail outlets, come with a 14-day money back trial period and a warranty from Golf Geeks so you can be safe in the knowledge you are buying the best preowned market has to offer. You don’t have to spend top money to get into top equipment and that’s a reality with Golf Geeks.

Ok I think that’s enough from me for our intro article. I hope your intrigued enough to give the podcast series a listen and we welcome your feedback & hope it gives you some new thoughts and perspectives you may not have considered before or some validation that you’re working in a similar direction to lots of other amateur golfers.

That’s all we’ve got time for today Golf Geeks, I hope that’s been useful. There’s plenty more on the website – www.golfgeeks.co.uk for you to enjoy but for now, its Matt @ Golf Geeks HQ saying play well and we’ll see you soon.

https://www.youtube.com/c/GolfGeeks