Every tournament forms part of the learning curve

TEE TO GREEN:In my first season as a pro, every experience is part of a stepping stone on a longer journey, writes CIAN CURLEY

SOMEWHERE, SOMETIME, I recall a quote about learning more from failure than from success. And, if you think about it, it makes sense.

In golf, especially, the natural law dictates there can only be one winner in any given week; and the flipside of that assumption means everyone else must come to terms with losing.

So, if you take it that, say, 156 players tee it up in a tournament, the maths tells its own story: one winner, 155 losers. Of course, it is not quite as simple as that. Those who don’t win, or those who miss the cut, aren’t automatically considered losers. I prefer to reflect, to learn and to somehow store the experience so that you continue to develop as a player.

This is my first season as a professional and I am aware that every tournament, and every experience, is part of a stepping stone on a longer journey.

Naturally, I was disappointed to miss the cut in my first EuroPro Tour event of the season in Norfolk in England earlier this month.

Things didn’t go to plan, I didn’t have the right attitude and, to be brutally honest, six holes – the first three of the opening round and the last three of the second round – destroyed my week.

The start was ugly, and so too was the end: double bogey-double bogey-bogey to start, and the same again to finish. Ten over for those six holes!!! But those black-and-white scores make things look much worse than I actually was.

The irony is that I played quite well for the other 30 holes, and rather than concentrate on the negatives of the bad start and the bad finish over the two days, I’ve concentrated since then on the positives.

I know my attitude has to be better and my course management has to be better and, over the past three weeks when there has been no tournament on the EuroPro circuit, I’ve worked hard in the gym and spent a lot of time practising on the short game area down in Carton House.

I’d been given a couple of invites to play in Slovenia and Austria on the Alps Development Tour in the weeks after the EuroPro event but took the decision to stay at home and work on my fitness and my swing with my coach Neil Manchip.

The reasoning for passing up the chance to play in those tournaments on the continent was that I’ve an extremely busy stretch coming up on the road with five tournaments over the next six weeks, starting with the London Tournament next week.

I’ve had three weeks to work on my game and, even if there were times when I’d love to have jumped on a plane and hit sunnier climes like Dubai or Spain, I’m pleased with how things have gone.

The work with Neil has been very beneficial and, now that the back injury which plagued me all over the winter has cleared up, I’ve undertaken a gym programme aimed at complementing the swing changes I’ve been working on. I actually got in more work that I thought I would be able to manage, despite the weather.

This is a bit like the calm before the storm in many ways. Hopefully I’ve used the three weeks off well. I’m fresher and fitter and my mind is clear. All positives.

I was with Neil Manchip yesterday morning and that’s the last time that I will work with him before heading over to next week’s tournament in London. After that, there is a week off before a stint that takes in two events in Britain and two in Ireland (at Galgorm Castle in Ballymena and Fota Island in Cork).

Neil’s quite happy with how I’m hitting the ball and now it is a question of getting out there on tour and shooting as low as I can.

Whether you’re on a developmental tour like I am on the EuroPro Tour or playing in Majors, that’s the same philosophy that every golfer takes with him out onto the course.

* Cian Curley is in his debut season as a professional, playing on the PGA EuroPro Tour. A former Irish amateur international and winner of the 2010 East of Ireland amateur championship, he is a part of the “Team Ireland” trust which supports fledgling professionals.