Episode 9

full
Published on:

12th Feb 2026

Why Hitting Fewer Balls Could Transform Your Golf Practice Sessions

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On today's episode:

  • Why Hitting Fewer Balls Could Transform Your Practice Sessions
  • The £15 Training Aid That's Actually Worth Using (SimStick Review)
  • How One Scottish Course Uses Dramatic Elevation to Create Unforgettable Holes
  • Winter Golf Tournament Formats That Keep You Motivated Through the Dark Months

Colin and Ross kick off the episode with Colin sharing his exciting move to Muir of Ord Golf Course on the Black Isle. He's particularly drawn to their winter tournament series—a weekly Sunday competition running through the coldest months where players accumulate Stableford points for a season trophy. The course itself sounds like a gem, with two distinct halves separated by a railway track: one side relatively flat with interesting tree-lined doglegs, the other featuring dramatic elevation changes including two par threes with 50-100 foot drops and one hole that climbs back up, leaving Colin baffled about club selection even though it's barely 100 yards.

The conversation shifts to Ross's recent revelation about practice quality. After struggling with consistency despite logging plenty of range hours, he's discovered that hitting 30-40 intentional shots beats mindlessly working through 100 balls. This sparks a discussion about the SimStick—a simple but effective training aid that's been helping both hosts work on swing path and strike quality. They compare it to alternatives like the Divot Board and Tour Striker Smart Ball, debating the merits of each for different aspects of practice. Colin admits he's still getting value from working through strike issues with his irons, while Ross emphasizes how the SimStick provides immediate feedback without the faff of more complex training tools.

The episode wraps with a chat about golf balls (Colin's experiment with Srixon Q-Star Divide's half-orange, half-yellow design mostly taught him that new balls just feel nice, even if they don't actually perform differently), before Ross shares two fantastic competition opportunities in Cornwall. Both are on Sunday, May 24th: an open at the stunning coastal Carlion Bay for just £27, and a 36-hole better ball at West Cornwall Golf Club in St Ives for £120 per pair. The lads make a compelling case for a spring golf trip to England's southwest corner.

00:00 Introduction and welcome

03:30 Colin's new club at Muir of Ord

08:45 Winter tournament format and course description

15:20 Muir of Ord's dramatic elevation changes

19:10 Ross's practice quality breakthrough

26:35 SimStick training aid discussion

34:50 Comparing training aids: SimStick vs Divot Board vs Smart Ball

41:15 Golf ball chat and Srixon Q-Star Divide experiment

45:00 Cornwall competitions: Carlion Bay and West Cornwall Golf Club

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About the Podcast

Both Sides of Par: The Golf Podcast
2 Golfers, 2 Wildly Different Handicaps, 1 Obsession
Colin and Ross share their golf journeys, from both ends of the spectrum. A high handicapper and a low handicapper, still sharing the same love of the game and all of the same frustrations!

About your host

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Colin Gray

Colin is a podcaster, international speaker, PhD and founder of The Podcast Host and Alitu: The Podcast Maker. Colin started out in Astrophysics, before realising, to his dismay, how much maths you had to do. Podcasting has less maths, but just as many puzzles, and fun ones at that.

He started ThePodcastHost.com in 2011, and it's now one of the biggest and oldest Podcasting blogs on the web, dedicated to helping you create a successful show.

He went on to found Alitu.com in 2018 to help podcasters create their shows more easily. It's a web app that takes care of the tech, by polishing, branding & publishing for you. It offers a custom set of tools for building and editing epic podcasts.