What an amazing four weeks I’ve just had! I’m sure all you dads out there know exactly what I mean but to be at home and spend so much quality time watching little Jessica grow so quickly, has already been incredible.
And what great motivation for the rest of the season to want to play well for her and Laura!!
The Challenge Tour is back up and running now, and it’s back to Europe starting in Brittany, Northern France. The long drive down to Stansted on a quiet bank holiday Monday made the journey easier and a quick 40 minute flight to the smallest airport ever – Saint Marlo/Dinard – was pretty simple.
I picked up my hire car for the week and hit the road for an hour’s drive through some really quaint French villages, with a quick supermarket stop for the week’s supply of fruit and water!!
TUESDAY, PRACTICE ROUND….
After a great sleep in the ‘5’ star Motel… (can you get above 1 star Motels??) I headed to the course to beat the rush of players for a practice round. Teeing off at 8.00am I got round in good time, just joining up with Will Roebuck and Jamie Howarth for the back nine.
The course is great and in fabulous condition, it’s really interesting and I felt it suited my game quite well; we shall see if that’s true come Sunday…
Guess who’s back again….
Known to some as Scuba Steve, he was flying into Dinard around three that afternoon so I headed back to collect him, once again he will be worth his weight in gold this week, especially looking at the hills and the forecast!! (Mountain goat and rain coat needed).
After an afternoon back at the course practising, we headed back to the motel then met a few lads for a well earned feed at a local steak house!
As much as this is a golf blog, I would like to try and show you more pics of places I visit and stories from the week – just talking golf and practice will surely get boring!! I will just throw in a few golf round ups if anyone is really interested in my scores….?!
(14th tee shot – scores of 3, 5, 5, 8 – “FORE LEFT”)
TOURNAMENT ROUND UP….
RD 1: A good strong West Yorkshire wind with heavy showers throughout the round! Two golfing highlights of the day being the birdie up 14, three perfect shots on the toughest hole out there, and again three perfect shots on the par 5 7th for eagle! I played pretty solidly all day with only three errors, which led to three bogies!
I’m in a good place physically and mentally on the course and really looking forward to the challenge in round 2!!
67 (-3) T1st
Non golfing highlight of the day …
Steve asking the two Australians in our group which part of South Africa they are from!! Priceless!!
RD 2: Quite an easy round to sum up I think … I’ve never hit as many good shots in 18 holes, but I’ve never hit as many bad shots in a round through lack of commitment! I definitely know where my improvement tomorrow has to come from. In the end I was quite happy to shoot 73 (+3) and stay in the mix at T15th.
RD 3: Again like Rd 2 the wind had flipped from day 1. That made it really hard work!! I really struggled out there with the wind off the left, lost some commitment to shots but battled for 13 holes. Two poor double bogies in the last 5 holes left a very sour taste, dropping down the field to T29th. Tomorrow is a fresh start!!! Maybe my mental game is not where I thought it was in round 1……?
RD 4: All I can say is I gave it 100% but found two tee shots very demanding with the strong left to right wind, they caused me some serious issues and a triple and quadruple bogey on the back nine led to an awful 80 and a tie for 50th! Ouch! Overall it was a great experience to travel more of Europe, compete at the top for part of the tournament, make the headlines and after finishing badly still be in good spirits – looking forward to my next opportunity on the Challenge Tour!!!
THE JOURNEY HOME …
I have to mention this … After a slight change of plan for the better, this sure was a mission home!! I was due to fly out Monday tea time and Steve Tuesday tea time! But wanting to get home pretty quickly if possible we hitched a lift back with another player!
We squeezed into his car with all our gear and it went like this …
Pleneuf to Dinard (1hr) – in our hire car to drop it off at the airport!
From there in Matt’s car to Calais! (5.5 hrs) Then cross on the ferry… (1 hr 40 mins)
Followed by Dover to Stansted (1 hr 40 mins) to collect my car….
Stansted to Leeds/Bradford airport (3 hrs) to collect Steve’s van!
… and then from there back to Huddersfield arriving at 4.00 am, it sounds a lot of hassle but well worth getting home about 18 hours earlier!!!! RESULT!!
(The cottage on the cliff tops a few players had rented for the week, we moved in for the last night)
That’s another blog complete, I hope you’ve enjoyed a taste of France …
Thanks once again for all your support and taking the time to read this!
Regards, and happy golfing Chris
PS – below is the link to the press release which has already been stuck into Jess’s first year scrap book!
http://www.europeantour.com/challengetour/season=2012/tournamentid=2012732/news/newsid=159849.html#hanson+daddy+blustery+brittany