Cobra Smarter Ways To Lower Scores: 17-handicap Lawrence Stocker's August 2017 Update

Golf Monthly reader Lawrence Stocker reports back on his Cobra Smarter Ways to Lower Scores progress from the Europro Tour Pro-Am at Luton Hoo

This year, Golf Monthly has teamed up with COBRA Golf for the innovative ‘Smarter Ways to Lower Scores’ project, in which two readers have benefited from a full COBRA Golf club fitting and expert swing advice in the quest to knock shots off their scores and handicaps.

Back in March, Lawrence Stocker, a 17-handicapper from Oxfordshire, enjoyed a full driver-to-wedge COBRA Golf custom fitting and received technical tips from PGA Professional Tom Wild.

Towards the end of July, it was time to put things to the test under the gun, as he enjoyed COBRA Golf’s hospitality at Luton Hoo in Bedfordshire, teeing it up in the Pro-Am for The Matchroom Sport Championship on the Europro Tour with professional, Luke Cornford.

Here’s how he got on…

On the Pro-Am… I’d never played in a Pro-Am before but enjoyed it out there. It was good to play with Luke and interesting to see how he played the holes from tees a little further back than ours.

The toughest hole at Luton Hoo was the stroke-index-one, par-3 13^th, which was playing about 250 yards into the wind! My favourite moment came on the 18^th where I hit a 9-iron to three feet from 149 yards to finish with a birdie.

On his COBRA clubs… The clubs have been going well. I’ve been doing okay in competitions at my home club and have tried to play other courses as well just to make sure my game isn’t just sorted for The Oxfordshire! I’ve managed to shoot some good scores too, but it’s still a work in progress.

My COBRA King F7 One-Length irons have made quite a big difference to my game and my shot dispersion. I’m now much more comfortable, certainly with anything from 7-iron down to wedge.

My King Ltd MO driver is a little bit leaky right now, but I’ve had periods where that’s been good and the wedges haven’t been so good. I’ve come down 0.9 so far, so hopefully one more tournament and I’ll come down a full shot, which would be good. I’m still hopeful of being down to around 13-14 by the end of the year.

On his technique…

A big part of what Tom talked to me about was how the start of my swing was causing me to come over the top, so I’m trying to get it more from the inside. He gave me some good pointers, which I’m still working on.