Back to work again after a week off, or back to playing out in the sunshine as many like to remind me! :-)I am really lucky to play golf for a living (or attempt to make a living) and I sure have to enjoy it and appreciate it more!
It’s really fun at times, and great to see parts of the world you never thought you would! Such as travelling to Kazakhstan again this week for the third time!
But last week it was the lovely beach-side town of Pléneuf-val-André; the setting for the golf course is amazing which you will see from some of the pictures!
And I’ve also got back into running these last few weeks too, and I had a good few runs down the beach which were great. I find it’s a fantastic way to see more of the surroundings!
I got there last Tuesday evening from East Midlands and after a short drive from Dinard to the course I managed to catch a few hours of evening practice.
Will Harrold had booked a fantastic house for the week, so we had the pleasure of some home cooking each night, which some might find surprising, but a lot of the time it’s better than having to go out to eat – and cheaper!!
Wednesday was a full fitness and practice day! And I really felt I had prepared well and was pretty excited to get playing Thursday!
I had a late tee off which was great too; a lazy morning, a good breakfast and up to the club for some practice before play…
But plans soon changed after receiving this text… 
Wow, this happened 4 years ago at this event, but this time they had attempted to sabotage 6 greens!!
So, after a 3 hour delay, it was made playable and we were given relief even from line of sight on putts…
So a slight change of plan; my new first round tee off was 5.10pm, knowing that we would not complete the round.
I got off to a solid start and was -1 after 5 holes, a couple of bogeys soon set me back but the scoring was pretty tough anyway, I was still upbeat…
The tenth is a funny hole; I think for the week there were the most birdies on it, but also the most doubles and worse!
I’m still not sure if many people really know the best way to play it… 320 yards, massively downhill, blind tee shot with trouble everywhere and a strong wind off the sea!
But if you lay up with a 7/8 iron it’s still tricky. I decided to go for it this year… I think more people actually did as some of the rough had been cut back…
But disaster struck! I made 8…Two lost balls right…and what a kick in the teeth…I knuckled down though, and after the re-start the following morning played the rest of the holes in level par to shoot +6!
Very disappointing, of course, but in round 2 the stats showed I was playing pretty good and I gave myself a chance to make the cut down the stretch, but in the end signed for 68 (-2) and it wasn’t enough to play the weekend!
So I had another weekend to reflect on the two days, practice hard, run hard and get set for the CT major event in Kazakhstan the following week!
I’m actually really upbeat about how my game is feeling, just a few mental errors and the odd weak swing in there, but I feel I’m turning a corner for a strong end to the season!So here goes, time to fly to Kazakhstan!