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I have been listening to a few podcasts over the last few months. Some from the American Pastor Billy Graham, some from Jordan Peterson making guest appearances on Joe Rogan and Professor John Lennox also with guest appearances on a number of shows. John Lennox is a Professor Emeritus in Mathematics at the University of Oxford but has also come to fame for his defence of his faith in Jesus and debates for God with Richard Dawkins. John recently did a debate in the Oxford Union (video attached) about the existence of God. John speaks for 15 minutes regarding the issue and looks at it from a number of angels, moral, scientific, evidential and also personal. The states that he believes in God not because of blind faith, but because of evidence. This was new too me because I had only ever felt accustomed that people believed in God but it was said that you had to believe in God. And for that reason, plus societal changes that more people weren’t believing in him… I didn’t! But John stated in his speech that there is hard evidence for the existence of God and it comes in the person of Jesus Christ. He, his actions and who he said he was, his death and his resurrection. For a person who very early doors on the faith journey in terms of knowledge. It has got me asking four questions: Was there a guy called Jesus alive precisely 2023 years ago? Did he do what he said he did? Did he die? Did he come back to life? Lets look at Number 1 Now its pretty unanimous that approximately just over 2000 years ago there was a guy called Jesus living in the middle east. There is more evidence about Jesus being born in a place called Bethlehem and being raised in a town called Nazareths alone than the life of the Roman Emperor Julius Cesar. This I can safely say FACT. There was a guy called Jesus. Lets break this down slightly more however because there is some more questions behind this to come out of these facts to answer… Was he born of a Virgin named Mary? I’m using the bible for the passage as I have just started reading it… Matthew 1:18-25 Now the cynic inside of me looks at this passage and thinks… honestly… they had sex before marriage. And due to her getting pregnant Joseph thought that it would be frowned upon by the locals, he couldn’t face the shame of it. However, he decided to stay with Mary as he was also equally responsible for this and the pair of them decided that they would say it is the Messiah coming back as they knew the Jewish law well having been brought up in it. They wouldn’t tell anybody “THE TRUTH” and would raise the child as THE MESSIAH. This would bring fame and fortune as they were disillusioned with Jewish tradition and secretly wanted change. This is the change that they knew would help others. I have no idea if this is blasphemous or not… I don’t know and don’t care. I know internally where I stand on this issue. The faith/non cynical side of me is much more simple and I believe it because it sounds much more complicated this reasoning above and would millions before me all believe potentially a lie? Potentially just a normal dude? If Mary & Joseph didn’t have sex before marriage and was born a virgin. Jesus is the real deal! If not, its all a hoax. What do you think happened?

I struggle with putting… in particular short putting… this has been an achilles heel of mine for a number of years. I have had the yips, miss all left, over compensated and now missing right… Its been debilitating on rounds with a good score and the most annoying thing has been psychologically I feel there has been this limiting thing that this should be easy (some would say the easiest of it all) and I feel even after practice I have felt no more confident of holing short putts. To rectify this issue I went and got fitted for a putter @Clubchampionuk in Glasgow. This was a big thing as I have never had a fitting before and in hindsight… should have done this years ago. I was fitted by Joe Hughes (Hi Joe) for irons and also a putter using the SAM Lab technology. This was my statistic: Quote from Joe: "This is the worst consistency stat I have seen of a player with a single figure handicap." I laughed hard to inevitably hide from the crippling insufficiency I have of myself. 😂 I was recommended an EVNROL EV5.2. The most expensive club I have ever had but I am committed to getting better at golf and if this is the way. THIS IS THE WAY! (Mandolorian fans will get this…) Yes, there is lots I am missing here about toe hang and face balance, degrees of loft, length etc but lets be honest I am not interested in this. I am no expert on this, I am interested in getting better at golf and the experts can tell me what fits me. I trusted Joe and well here we are with a new putter continuing that process. 3 foot circle drill. It’s important to understand that roughly 43% of your strokes are on the putting green, regardless of skill level. I will be using stats from the 2019 PGA TOUR Season, Y-T-D June, 2 2019. Let’s start with the “Approach Putt Performance” stats. The best lag putter at the moment is Ernie Els with 1’10” (when this video was shot). That is the average distance to the hole after his first putt.  The worst lag putter on tour finishes at 2’8″ from the hole on average. Now let’s take into account the “Putting From 3 Feet” stats. The top 23 guys are 100% from 3 feet and the rest of the field averages 99% from 3 feet. Thinking about putting I watched this video from Phil Mickelson talking about Putting and a specific putting drill he does when practicing. Video is below… He states that Professional Golfers convert a putt inside: 3 feet: 99-100% of the time 4 feet:  89% 5 feet: 75% 6 feet: 55% This is a big fall off which you would expect. But this only emphasises the obvious, “ITS NOT HOW WELL YOU PUTT, ITS WHERE YOU PUTT FROM!” The aim in every long distance putt is to get into the 3ft circle as a professional golfer. As Phil states, if he gets a ball into the 3ft circle around the hole he almost guarantees only having to hit one more shot. As an amateur golfer, the more I think about this the more straight forward putting could be if working on these two aspects. I don’t expect become a tour player but... My 3 ft putts are dire… however I am reasonable a lagging to the correct 3 ft circle. If I work on my 3ft putts and boost that stat up personally my putting woes would be almost over. and not have to putt more stress on my lag putting. I will have to record a video update of this…