All photography provided by Gary Evans & Getty Images

You never stop learning!

As I write this review on the 2023 season, I’m reflecting on the positives, the negatives and what I learned from my short 2023 season on the Legends Tour. You’d think that after so many years, I’d have all the answers but clearly I still haven’t figured it all out yet! What I do know is that the mind is far more powerful than physical technique. The golf swing can be tweaked quite easily to get the results you’re looking for but the brain (or at least my brain) needs constant work. When off course stresses begin to affect your on course performance, you need to hit the pause button and go figure it out.

The year started in reasonable fashion in Austria at a course I’ve always enjoyed, Murhof GC in Graz. Sadly, the dumb mistakes I made during the course of that first week were definitely a sign of the things to come. Playing the wrong with my second shot of the tournament...I mean, not the start I was looking for! Anyway, I won’t bore you with all the details but I played a lot of nice golf that week, I made 16 birdies in 3 rounds but only finished -4 for the week. Too many mistakes!

A month later in Jersey at La Moye GC, I made 12 birdies in 3 rounds and finished +2 for the week. Once again I hit the ball really well but once again, made too many mistakes. I forgave myself by thinking that I was just getting rid of the 6 months of ‘no competition’ rust and I wasn’t really that worried about my game not the season ahead, I just a little frustrated, nothin more.

The following week was a new course on the 2023 Tour schedule, the Seaport GC just north of Dublin was the venue for the Irish Legends. The course was tough, the wind blew and I made only 10 birdies in the 3 rounds. For the third week in a row, the problem was too many mistakes....5 bogeys, 3 doubles and 2 triple bogeys! No matter how well you play, if you continue to make that many mistakes, you simply cannot compete with the leaders.

Switzerland (Bad Ragaz GC) was next and is a short, stunningly beautiful course but not one that I’ve ever scored well around. I find it fiddly and never feel like I can completely relax around it. The guys that are short, straight and putt well normally kill it around there. I was rubbish all week but I enjoyed the food, the people and the scenery ;-) who couldn’t?

The JCB Championship was cut short due to inclement weather but that really didn’t matter too much because I was in a terrible place mentally and quite frankly, I just couldn’t wait to get off the course. Frustration was building as Ireland, Switzerland and JCB were all really poor performances but the head fully fell off the shoulders the following at Hanbury Manor at the Legends Tour Trophy. 11 bogeys, 4 double bogeys and only 8 birdies and 1 eagle!...I was done mentally and I needed something to change and rapidly!

The 2023 season was always going to be quite short and I’d thrown away several chances to make top 10 finishes. I was under pressure, mentally drained, lost and I’d had enough. I came off the golf course and immediately withdrew from the PGA Championship the following week. I needed some time away to try and figure things out.

I took a full month off and away from the game and when I came back at the WinstonGolf Legends in Germany, can you believe it... I strained my lower back and had to withdraw. After just 24 holes I was particularly upset as my good friend Mike Jennings had driven all the way from Poland to come caddie for me. I was embarrassed and deeply upset. I then had another complete month away from Tournament golf and worked hard on getting my fitness levels back to somewhere near normal.

The turning point in my season came when I read a book called “Man’s Search for Meaning”, a book by Victor Frankl written in 1946 which was a chilling description of one man’s personal battle for survival in a WWII concentration camp. In the book he described how  how he managed to handle the day to day stresses of trying to remain alive and how other prisoners were positively and negatively affected by their own perceptions of their situations and how they coped with them... and something int he book connected with me. Our own minds can be our own prisons, so in order to be free, we alone have the power to achieve freedom.

My mindset changed and instead of thinking of a thousand different thoughts and worries, I focused on living my best day and not looking to the past or to the future. My focus was purely about what can I do positive today to feel good about myself.

I arrived in Italy feeling calmer and free from negativity. I loved the venue (San Domenico), I loved the food, the weather, the course and I played golf with a quieter mind. I actually enjoyed myself for the first time all summer and that showed with a T17 finish.

The following week, I roomed with a good friend of mine Van Philips. He’s a great guy and similar to me in many ways. He is a grafter, a straight shooter, a generous man and fun to be around. We stayed away from the golf course in a nice apartment with great views across the landscape and I felt at peace. Carrying on my the previous week, I hit the ball really well and aside from a few small mistakes, I had my best finish of the year T12th.

Given that I’d done so much damage to my season and order of merit position, I knew I was going to have to have a great finish in Vietnam if I was to make it to the season ending MCB Tour Championship in Mauritius. The venue was the VinPearl Resort in Nha Trang and what a place! Wow!

As you can imagine the cost of flying around the world playing professional golf isn’t cheap. Whilst I’ve a few brands helping me out with some product support is hugely appreciated, it’s been a long time since I’ve had any financial sponsorship support. The lack of earnings this year and the fact that I wasn’t yet qualified for the season ending €1m Tour Championship was an extra pressure on me that week.

My Pro-Am Team and I won the Pro-Am, which was a huge confidence boost for me going into the Tournament. I was hitting the ball well, my mind was clear and I was handling the self created pressure pretty well. The course was tough, it was windy as hell and it was playing long but I was having trouble reading the greens. Ultimately, I finished the week 21st and ended up 1 shot adrift from qualifying for Mauritius. 1 shot!!!

The year had been a disaster in so many ways, my results, my financial position, my mentality and giving up on myself mid-season... but the single most important aspect of the year was learning from that book that we are where we are and we have two choices to make, we can let all the shit that’s around us affect us in a manner that can mentally destroy us or we can choose a different path; a path where we are truly masters of our own minds and that we can control our perception of the world in which we live and that surrounds us.

I’m still learning how to be a better version of me and I’ll never give up on that goal. Today will be a good day and I’ll wait until tomorrow comes before I will deal with it, but for now, it’s all about today and I’m happy.

Thanks for your continued support and I’ll see you all again soon.

Much love xx

Gary

Riegler & Partner Legends - 29th

Jersey Legends - 25th

Irish Legends - 38th

Swiss Senior Open - 53rd

The JCB Championship - 28th

Legends Tour Trophy - 53rd

WinstonGolf Senior Open - Retired Injured

Sergio Melpignano Senior Italian Open - 17th

Farmfoods European Masters - 12th

VinPearl DIC Legends Vietnam - 21st

2023 Order of Merit - 49th