To be the Top 10% of Golfers

Since attending the Australian Golf School in 2015, my golf game has plateaued.  Although I play often and my game I feel has progressed (I feel that I hit it longer, have greater shot variety, hit out of the bunkers and generally play better), score wise I have clearly stagnated. My handicap remains 9.6 at year end, where it has been for the last couple of years. If there are any more ambitious goals I desire to achieve in golf, this will have to be done in the next few years.  I am not getting younger.

My first golf instructor in 1994 told me to aim to be a single handicapper - the top 5% of all golfers.  I became one around 2010.  But he clearly exaggerated. I am not even close to being in the top 5% of golfers.  USGA stats show that 30% of all golfers have a single handicap.  To be the top 5% of all golfers, I need to attain an index of 2 or below.  To be top 10%, I need to be index 5 or below - which is perhaps more achievable. But the handicap is the outcome of a better game.  The real improvement occurs when I improve on each component of my golf game and generally make less mistakes. 

These are therefore my component golf targets for 2021

Driver Distance:  In the tropics, the carry matters. A handicap 5 has an average drive of 240yds/220m.  A 220m drive requires me to gain around 10m in distance.  
Fairways Hits:  I want to hit 50% of all fairways.  Or 7 fairways out of 14 in a standard course.  This will mean I need to get the irons and fairway woods right.  
Greens In Regulation:   I will settle for hitting 40% of all greens. 
Scrambling:  I want to be a short game master.  50% of all scrambling shots (my definition as being from 40m in) landing within a flagstick of the pin. The bunker shots will be more demanding, but so be it.      
Putting:  Will want to make 50% of the putts from within six feet and two putt the rest.   This I am told is the average of good golfers.  
Mental:  This is the biggest challenge.  To have a consistent routine for all shots, to stay in the moment, and have clarity in having only one shot thought when addressing the ball.  

This will be demanding, as I am pushing against my limits again. Progress would be more and more games under 80 each month.  And I will present the stats as we go forward!  

Wish me luck!

Best Books Read in 2020!

These are my Top Reads for 2020

Fiction

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles is one of the most delightful books I have ever read.  This is a period story, set in early 20th century Moscow, about a aristocrat caught on the wrong side of the Bolshevik revolution.  Count Rostov, the hero, is placed under "house" arrest at Moscow's finest hotel, where he lives life for the best part of 30 years. Count Rostov makes the best of this, showing that joy can emerge from strange circumstances.  The story has history, humour, and a series of heartwarming relationships.  Amor Towles actually wrote this book living in the same hotel.  This is a true classic and will bring a smile to your face!

Pachinko is a multigenerational classic written by Min Jin Lee.  It traces the life of a illiterate girl born to poverty in Korea, tricked into a relationship, and escapes to Japan in the midst of WWII to seek a better life for her child.  It details the turmoil that the people of Korea were exposed to, and the discrimination and hardship that ethnic Koreans endured in post-war Japan.  This is a moving story about the determination and the will to survive.  It also unveils a little of racism in modern Japan.  

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides is one of those books that leaves you catching your breath at the very end.  The last ten pages are the most important. There is artistry involved in writing a high paced thriller in a short story format.  There is no wasted moment, and every bit of the book falls together at the very end, keeping you guessing who the villain in this "who done it" novel is.  Alex Michaelides is actually a Hollywood screenwriter and this is his debut book.  It is not surprising that he has a Hollywood flair for drama.  

Non-Fiction

Alexander Hamilton is a biography of the man written by Pulitzer Prize winning historian Ron Chernow.  This is also the book from which the script of the hit Broadway play "Hamilton" was composed from.  This is a long book of over 700 pages long, but reads like a novel.  It transports you to Nevis in the Carribean in the 1700s, and then tells the tale of the amazing life of Alexander Hamilton who was born out of wedlock.  Hamilton was an autodidact, a lawyer, a soldier, the first Secretary of the Treasury, a General of the Continental Army, and a leading proponent from the Federalist camp. I learnt so much from the book and felt inspired by Hamilton.  Chernow's writing is exceptionally readable.  

I loved Educated by Tara Westover.  This is an autobiography of Tara growing up as the youngest child in a strict Mormon family in Idaho, where the father's word - justified by religious beliefs - was the law.  The children were brought up to be suspicious of everyone.  They were forbidden to use modern medicine and the family had to make preparations to "defend" itself from the Federal Government.  Tara was supposedly homeschooled and had no formal education.  With the help of her other siblings and mother, she left home for the first time at the age of 17 to go to college.  She graduated from Brigham Young, and then studied at Harvard and Cambridge where she attained her Phd.   You come to admire Tara for the courage to question her understanding of the world, and the conviction to forge her own path.  Such rural families no doubt continue to exist in modern day America.  

Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker is a really fun but also life changing book to read.  It is quite obvious that lengthy periods of sleep is an evolutionary disadvantage since one can get eaten during sleep.  But yet ALL animals sleep. There must therefore be a very important function of sleep that trumps the possibility of getting eaten during those periods.  Walker puts forward some hypotheses and tests them in a series of sleep deprivation experiments.  The findings will make you do one thing very clearly - appreciate the importance and power of sleep in your daily routine.  I now sleep very well!

Do Enjoy!

Resolution 2020 : To Read Three Books a Month.

My 2020 New Year resolution was to read more.  I was inspired to do this after I watched the Netflix Docu-series "Inside Bill's Brain".  Bill Gates does not read books, he gobbles them up.  He packs a suitcase of up to forty books when he goes on holiday.  He also reads widely, delving into topics that he is unfamiliar with.  As I was not reading regularly, I resolved to do something about it.

 I set a target of reading three books a month.  As an average book is about 300+ pages, I reasoned if I made time to read 15 pages in the morning and 15 before bed - 30 pages a day - it would take me about 10 days to complete a book, or about three books a month.  Easy peasy.

There is the tricky part of choosing titles.  There is nothing worse than reaching half way and not knowing whether to invest more time to finish a bad book.  To avoid this, I resolved to seek recommendations, either from friends or booklists, AND only read those that had a rating of over four on Goodreads.  This generally worked although it did not completely sieve out the duds.   

I finished three books in Jan.  Then Covid hit and I found even more time to read.  I also noticed I was getting faster,  doubling my reading speed.  Reading was no longer a chore.  It became something I looked forward during my down time.  I have learnt to gobble as well.

I surpassed my 3 book a month target by a mile.  Reading has brought joy and clearly broadened my mind on on multiple issue, making me at least more informed, if not wiser.  

The entire list of books read is shown below.  Fiction titles are in red, non-fiction in black.  I bolded 23 titles which I felt had an impact on me.  And yes, the focus on the Christmas theme in December was deliberate!

I will follow this with my Top fiction and non-fiction books for this year, in the hope that some will benefit from reading them.   Happy reading!

List of Books Read in 2020 most recent first.

83. Letters from Father Christmas (2004) - JRR Tolkein

82. How the Light Gets In (2013) - Louise Penny
81. Hercule Poirot Christmas (1939) - Agatha Christie
80. A Christmas Memory (1956) - Truman Capote
79. The 13th Gift (2014) - Joanne Huist Smith
78. One Day in December (2018) - Josie Silver
77. The Polar Express (1985) - Chris Van Allsburg
76. Last Christmas in Paris (2017) - Hazel Gaynor, Heather Webb
75. Deacon King Kong (2020) - James MacBride
74. Alexander Hamilton (2005) - Ron Chernow
73. Breathe (2020) - James Nestor
72. The Gold Mine Effect (2013) - Ramus Ankersen
71. A Line in the Sand (2011) - James Barr
70. Mythos (2017) - Stephen Fry
69. Know My Name (2019) - Chanel Miller
68. The Away Game (2019) - Sebastian Abbot
67. A Gentleman in Moscow (2019) - Amor Towles
66. The Beekeeper of Allepo (2019) - Christy Lefteri
65. Shoe Dog (2016) - Phil Knight
64. Talking to My Daughter About the Economy (2018) - Yanis Varoufakis
63. The Book of Joy (2016) - Douglas Carlton Abrams
62. The Vanishing Half (2020) - Brit Bennett
61. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry (2017) - Neil deGrasse Tyson
60. Spymaster (2016) - Martin Pearce
59. The Travelling Cat Chronicles (2018) - Hiro Arikawa
58. The Midnight Library (2020) - Matt Haig
57. When Breath Becomes Air (2016) - Paul Kalanithi
56. What Money Can't Buy (2012) - Michael J Sandel
55. Never Split the Difference (2016) - Chris Voss
54. Educated (2018) - Tara Westover
53. Know Your Way Pilgrim (2020) - Christophe Cambillard
52. Last Tang Standing (2020) - Lauren Ho
51. Blue Moon (2019) - Lee Child
50. Ministry of Moral Panic (2013) - Amanda Lee Koe
49. Singapore : A Very Short History (2020) - Alvin Tan
48. The Club (2018) - Jonathan Clegg, Joshua Robinson
47. Kochland (2019) - Christopher Leonard
46. The Ride of a Lifetime (2019) - Robert Iger
45. This is What Inequality Looks Like (2018) - You Yenn Teo
44. These Truths (2018) - Jill Lepore
43. Good Economics for Hard Times (2019) - A. Banerjee, E Duflo
42. Talking to Strangers (2019) - Malcolm Gladwell
41. This is Going to Hurt (2017) - Adam Kay
40. The Hidden Life of Trees (2015) - Peter Wohlleben
39. The Rosie Project (2013) - Graeme Simsion
38. Where the Crawdad Sings (2018) - Delia Owens
37. War is a Force that Gives us Meaning (2003) - Chris Hedges
36. Destined for War (2017) - Graham Allison
35. Has China Won (2020) - Kishore Mahbubani
34. The Courage to Be Disliked (2013) - I Kishimi, F Koga
33. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (2017) - Gail Honeyman
32. The Humans (2013) - Matt Haig
31. China : A Modern History (2010) - Michael Dillon
30. Becoming (2018) - Michelle Obama
29. Law : A Very Short Introduction (2008) - Raymond Wacks
28. Adaptive Markets (2017) - Andrew Lo
27. Zonal Marking (2019) - Michael Cox
26. The Little Book of Common Sense Investing (2007) - John Bogle
25. Prepared (2019) - Dianne Tavenner
24. Little Fires Everywhere (2020) - Celeste Ng
23. Sapiens (2011) - Yuval Noah Harari
22. Born a Crime (2016) - Trevor Noah
21. 17A Keong Siak Road (2017) - Charmaine Leung
20. China in Ten Words (2011) - Yu Hua
19. The Fire Line (2016) - Fernanda Santos
18. Normal People (2019) - Sally Rooney
17. The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything (2010) - James Martin
16. The Silent Patient (2019) - Alex Michaelides
15. The Numbers Game (2013) - C Anderson, D Sally
14. Green Island (2016) - Shawna Yang Ryan
13. The Body (2019) - Bill Bryson
12. Soccermatics (2016) - David Sumpter
11. The Black and White Club (2019) - Peter Bergeron
10. Cybersecurity - Time Magazine Publication
9. Football Hackers (2019) - Christophe Biermann
8. Exhalation (2019) - Ted Chiang
7. Bad Blood (2018) - John Carreyrou
6. Exponential (2016) - James Hewitt, Aki Hintsa
5. Pachinko (2017) - Min Jin Lee
4. Range (2019) - David Epstein
3. Why We Sleep (2017) - Matthew Walker
2. Billion Dollar Whale (2018) - T Wright, B Hope
1. The Infinite Game (2019) - Simon Sinek

Merry Christmas!