The Andalusian Masters!

Tour Diary

After finishing T50th in the last Rolex Event of the ‘scheduled season’ in Italy, it was straight onto Spain for the last event before the top 100 cut off for retaining a European Tour Card and the magic 10 access lists spots would be confirmed.

The feeling going into the Andalusian Masters was rather different for me compared to the Portugal Masters last year, which was the final event in 2016 where I felt I needed to make the cut to be safe.

Also the fact I was only 40 minutes from where we are now living made the week more relaxing, but I reckoned my job for 2018 was 95% safe on the main list but 100% safe on the access list!

If you don’t know how the access list works it’s not something I’m going to explain on here, but basically because I earned most of my points/money in non-Rolex events, it meant I was safe as houses!!!

I felt pretty well prepared for the event too. I had a week off in mid-September, when I missed Portugal to many people’s disapproval, and I spent the week practising, resting and more importantly having a practice round at Valderrama.

And I just love the place!

The condition is world class, the definition, the greens, the fairways are pure…the welcome, the setup, the hospitality are just so special, it has to be one of my favourite golfing venues!!

That week I played on my own on a Thursday morning, there was no one around, the weather was perfect and I just strolled around playing two balls trying to keep a score.

Valderrama is such a great test and so tough, but when I played it on my own it was as easy as it gets…no wind, plus you get to kick your ball out of the trees and move it to the other side of the fairway when overhanging trees are in the way…ha ha!!!!

But when you’re out playing it in tournament mode it’s brutal, it tests every aspect of your game and more than anything your patience!!!

You have to get the ball in play off the tee, and that’s not just on the fairway, you have to be on the correct side of the fairway!! The Valderrama cork trees overhang so many holes, and I actually worked it out…

You could hit the fairway on the 1st, 2nd, 7th, 8th, 9th, 13th, 14th, 16th, and 18th and not have a shot to the green!!! Some people hate that! But that’s part of it, you have to be patient and accept you’re going to get ‘unlucky’ at times!

Having already played my practice round, I had the luxury of just playing nine holes Tuesday and spending the rest of the day and Wednesday going through my preparation to-do-list!!

By Thursday I felt ready to get playing, I love the process, the preparation but I think competing is what I really enjoy about the game, it’s the fun part, it’s not the work, the lead up to events is the work and the game day is the play!

Round one I started on ten, the wind was up and my first tee shot changed from the three iron in practice to a knockdown driver sliding it off the trap.

I started birdie, birdie and was off and running, another birdie on my 5th (14th) and I was three under and on the leaderboard! I dropped one on the next not doing much wrong but then fatted my 80 yard approach into 17 40 yards short! Splash!!

Was nice of them to catch that on TV too…doh!!!!

Level par out, and 1 over coming home to shoot an ‘ok’ 72 (+1) to finish the day around 40th, disappointing after the start but Valderrama did exactly what I said it could do…beat you up!!

Round two I let a few slip and made a shocking bogey on 18 to finish plus three for the day which made the cut on the mark at +4.

So, once again, exactly 65 players made the cut, and the great thing about this course is you know if you go out there and shoot two level pars you move up the leaderboard…there are not many courses you can do that on!!

Saturday we played in two balls and I played with the Spaniard Jorge Campillo, a decent player and again someone who goes under the radar making well over half a million euros each year!!

I played again tee to green world class, picking up strokes on the field with my approach play, but super-fast sloping greens made even an 8ft putt tough! In the end I shot three under, which was a happy moving day!

I then followed it up Sunday with a 70 (-1) playing in a pretty special marque group, Andrew ‘BEEF’ Johnston, and Pablo Larrazabal a Spanish fav!!

We had good fun out there, I played solid again, BEEF had a frustrating day but battled till the end birdieing 17 and 18, whilst Pablo was as flamboyant as ever, pleasing the crowd with some special short game and some nice birdies near the end!!

If you know Valderrama you will know how the water sits short on 17 with the amphitheatre back drop creating an amazing setting. I smashed my drive and found the green in two with a 5 iron for my second shot.

Beef…lay up short, wedge on, holed out from 12ft.

Pablo…’fore’ left, down the bank, lay up short, wedged it on to 14ft, holed the putt for birdie to the most electric reception I’ve ever been involved in!! #goosebumps

Me…three putted from 50ft for par!!!! And that sometimes sums up golf…

But another under par round at Valderrama and a solid weekend to move up to 18th along with another top 20 for 2017! And of course 100% wrapped up my playing rights for 2018, finishing 89th on the Race 2 Dubai.

The only thing then was to wait and see if I got into Turkey; it’s 78 players and last year the list went down to 103rd place, but there were the terror problems which this year they don’t have.

But people thought I may have a chance…in the end it was a non-runner and I finished up 8th reserve, so that was now the official end of my 2017 season. Of course I’m disappointed not to achieve my goal of playing the final series… I’m still very happy with how the year has panned out!!

End of season blog to follow…

Last modified: June 3, 2019