Cold and wet in the Austrian mountains!
The season feels like it’s only just started but we are already four events down… But I have to be happy with the way it’s gone…
A 100% cut record and two great finishes, with a 4th in Madrid and a T6th in Denmark. Also, another highlight to note is that I’ve shot the low round of the final day twice – so that has to fill me with some confidence for when it really matters!
Last week in Austria was a bit of a mission to get there; a 9am flight from Manchester to Munich followed by a four hour drive to the course in Austria, but doing it this way meant I could get home on Sunday night and get that special weekly Monday at home with the girls.
It’s tough not seeing them, and I hope they actually miss me when I’m away, but the last two Mondays have been lovely with them. We went out for a few family meals, took Jess bowling, and spent two quality days together!!
For those of you with kids and who travel, you will understand how much of a life saver Face Time and Skype feel like at times!
For Austria I had Adam Walker back on the bag, so it was going to be a fun week; I know that what he brings to the team gives my performance that extra boost!!
Even if he nearly did miss the flight after checking his passport in with his luggage! #oops
I managed to play a late nine holes Tuesday evening, and then played the back nine first thing Wednesday. The course was in great shape again but with a poor forecast expected the scoring was not likely to be as hot as last year (cut falling at -4).
Over the last three weeks my driving of the ball has slowly got worse. I seem to have struggled with the commitment to shots and over the first two rounds last week it got me in a bit of trouble.
In round one I got it to -2 through 11 holes but let it slip away, and ended up signing for level par on a day when the scoring went silly low!
61 (-10) was leading, and the day one cut mark had already gone to -3. Pretty good standard, but it’s such an easy course and that shows when the cut last week in Denmark was +8.
That left me some work to do and I knew I probably had to shoot -5 the following day to make the cut. Then from Thursday night and all the way through Friday it poured down! The course took some serious rain, but for me that’s what I needed to bring the scoring back to me.
That gave -4 a chance of the cut, and when I was out there in the cold and wet it kind of felt that -3 had a chance. But again, it just shows how forgiving the course really was and the cut again moved away from me and it ended the day -4.
So my battle of a finish ended up being worthless!! I was -4 at the turn and cruising along nicely, but a few bogeys, again off bad drives, put an end to that and my eagle finish on the 9th to get me to -3 for the day and tournament was for nothing other than a bit of pride!!
Horrible feeling when you kind of know the eagle putt you want to hole is pointless in the tournament, and you will be booking a flight home anyway a few hours later, banging your head on the wall that you missed the cut by 1 …
So that’s my 100% cut record out of the window that I so proudly mentioned earlier, but it’s something I’ve learnt to deal with over the years of playing on Tour. Next week is a fresh week in the Czech Republic and I can’t wait to bounce back!
*Fun fact – this just shows what a crazy game it is… Daniel Im shot 86 in the last round in Denmark and then shot 62 first round this week, not a bad improvement don’t you think?!
Anyway, another week over and luckily I managed to get home early… But it wasn’t easy. After a long cold/wet day in the rain Friday, we then had a four hour drive through the night in torrential rain back to Munich to wait for a 6.30am flight back home to Manchester.
The good thing was we got back home for 9.30am and I got to spend the full bank holiday with the family, which is something or a rarity!