Before you ask, no, I haven't won any prizes yet. No, I haven't broken standard scratch off 20 in any round, in or out of competition. And no, I am not a complete plonker. I'm playing really well. "I see," says you, reaching for the telephone directory and the number of a certain institution in Dundrum. "And how long have these voices been bothering you, Mr Culley?"

You see, it's a mental thing. In the last dispatch, I told of the nasty funk I was wallowing in, that I needed a breakthrough not in my game but in my attitude. Well, I do feel it arrived. Perhaps the black patch will, in retrospect, be seen as the most significant aspect of the learning process, the turning point in my game.

Some weeks ago now I stood on the first tee in my first pro-am, organised by Leonard Owens and held down at Rathsallagh. That morning I was so nervous I was nearly sick to my stomach. As the high handicapper in our fourball (Paddy McGuirk of Co Louth, Michael McCommisky of the Irish PGA and one of Leonard's assistants, Conor made up the group), I had the dubious honour of playing the first stroke: I split the fairway with a sweet three-wood.

I promptly made a hames of my second shot, but it didn't matter: something had changed. I parred the third with a good up and down, parred the short fourth with a lovely eight-iron off the tee, and generally didn't disgrace myself in semi-exalted company.

Over dinner I asked Paddy what was the one piece of advice he would offer on my game. Ironically, his little tip seemed, on the face of it, to contradict one of the received tenets of every high handicapper's game, which is to slow down. Paddy told me, instead, that my swing was perfectly fine, all I had to do was swing faster, to learn to hit the damn ball. No, no, don't be jumping at the ball, just develop a quicker tempo coming through it.

Three weeks ago I found myself in another charity competition, this time at Forrest Little, and stuck in a fourball with the Sports Editor, who has been unfailingly, um, supportive of my efforts (one of his favourite words, as it happens, is plonker). Again, as we searched in vain under the trees for his ball, mine was resting serenely in the heart of the fairway, contemplating sudden transportation to the green.

That round, in a strange way, also marked a stage in my progress: it was 100 per cent mediocre. Recently I've been averaging about six pars a round, with the (very) odd birdie thrown in. But I've also been producing sevens and eights in abundance, usually due to trouble off the tee.

At Forrest Little I didn't par a single hole, yet, equally, coughed up only one eight, and that largely out of disgust. I was consistently mediocre; that's progress.

The improvements of the past month have not, however, been entirely mental. A couple of extremely productive lessons, and a great deal of time out on the Royal Dublin practice range, have also played a part.

As you are well aware, Leonard has always been concerned that I don't hit the ball far enough (which brings us back to Paddy's advice about tempo), so a few weeks ago he put me in the hands of his assistant, Anthony, with instructions to work on length (as we call it in the trade).

What did Anthony do? First, he widened my stance. All right, that worked a bit, but I still had this persistent fade. So he watched me hit a few more shots. Then he stood behind me, asked me to take a slow practice swing, and, as I began the downswing, grabbed me by the right rear trousers pocket and nearly pulled me to the ground. The lesson? Get Out Of Your Way.

It's a phrase you hear the likes of Alex Hay going on about all the time, but it was only with that dramatic gesture that I understood the importance of that part of the swing. I had been concentrating on shifting my weight forward, but straight forward, my hips hadn't really been turning. If your hips don't turn, you're almost certainly condemned to bringing the club from outside in, thus the fade.

So I went away and over the next few days worked on turning out of the way and picking up the tempo. I went back to Anthony recently and even he was marginally impressed. I was hitting anything from a seven to a wedge quite nicely. But why couldn't I get it with a five or four?

Next lesson: stand further away from the ball and concentrate on keeping your weight back on your heels. So, another two hours on Royaler's practice ground and I'm firing four-irons like arrows into the wind. Isn't it great fun to hit a sweet golf shot?

Now, I'd better make room on that shelf for the crystal . . .