After a sour taste to the last round in Turkey, it was great to get back out there straight away in Denmark and try to make amends!
My preparation for Turkey had felt really good, I just ran out of steam come Sunday afternoon and the bad shots finally caught up with me!
But I have to be happy with the start to the season and feel I’ve set a good stall out to build on.
Last year I played the “Made in Denmark Challenge” on the European Tour and it was a fantastic event. So this year they added the same event to the Challenge Tour schedule and I had heard the course was great.
A tough, demanding course and it sounded like level par would not be a bad score, and that’s exactly how I like it!!
So after landing in Denmark and getting to the course for a practice round late Tuesday afternoon, my above statement was proved true …
It is brutal! A pretty good layout but the green designs are really bad, they are too small and far too slopey for the length of the course, especially when it gets pretty windy too.
On many greens there are only two legal places you could actually put a pin, and that’s not great when you have four tournament days to plan for.
They also have a very strong grain on the greens, so it made reading them even more challenging! So after playing 18 holes in practice and easily losing five balls, I made the prediction that level par would win the tournament, and it seemed a pretty good one!
Round 1 was tough; a tricky wind and some bad golf from me led to an opening 76 (+5). Walking off the course I was pretty annoyed but come the end of play, and after some decent practice, I was pretty up beat to find I was actually only 1 shot outside the cut mark and a lot of people had really struggled too!
Knowing what normally happens with the cut mark I expected it to be around +7, that’s unheard of on the Challenge Tour, so it just shows you how strong the test is.
An early morning start for round two and I was optimistic about pressing on, making the cut and getting back in the mix!
But disaster struck pretty soon … I tripled the first, a shocking 7 to open the round and my back was against the wall straight away!
I bounced back as I seem to do on the next with a birdie, and then played some great stuff, throwing 4 birdies on the spin at it from the 14th … I was back in the game and in the end shot 70 (-1) which moved me well up the field to T23rd!
So another cut successfully made and a weekend to try and keep climbing the leader board …
This game is daft though, and the moment you think you have cracked it and should play well the next day, you don’t! And that was exactly what happened, I made a great birdie down 1, but like my playing partners that day we all struggled home (75 +3) and it felt like we kept taking it in turns to hit bad shots!
I dropped down the board to T30th, not too bad I guess, but it left a lot of hard work to post a top ten which is always a realistic aim each week!
The forecast was awful, so in round 4 they moved a few tees forward, but they couldn’t do much about the crazy greens, so it was still going to be tough.
I started on ten, and missed from 8ft, and 6ft my first two holes, that would have been a lovely start. But after waiting 10 minutes for the HAIL to clear off the green on 11, I guess it was pretty steady and nice to bank a few early good shots.
I played a lovely little chip on the next which dropped for birdie and that got the bit between my teeth!! I was up for the battle! I played great and controlled my ball well; my short game has been great for a few weeks now and round four was no exception. It just gives you more confidence to attack knowing that most of the time you will save par anyway.
Or chip in … Which I did again on the 1st to save par!! A text book birdie down 2 got me to two under and I felt that would be a great score if I could hang on.
My first bit of misfortune struck … down three my tee shot caught the fairway trap and rolled up into an unplayable position on the lip; I had to take an unplayable penalty drop which of course plugged in the trap … I didn’t let it faze me, I laughed it off with my caddie and made a good bogey!
Some good golf down the stretch and then probably my only poor hole of the day, I made bogey on 8 to go back to level, slightly gutted as nine was playing tough and I would have loved to shoot under par, but anyway I knew I was still moving up the leader board!
Wow! How well did I play the ninth! Perfect drive, which set up the perfect yardage to get it somewhere near the flag, I then holed from 15ft for birdie and maybe the only birdie on that hole all day!
I was chuffed to bits!
My 70 (-1) moved me into a tie for 6th, and it was the round of the day (no other scores under par) and gave me a fantastic boost heading into Austria next week!
Bring it on!!
Massive thanks go to Peter Hansen (no relation) a Danish friend I met last year at the Tour event; he came up to Copenhagen for the week and did a fantastic job caddying for me.
When you hear real life stories from the military it really puts your golf into perspective… it was a bit like having Steve back on the bag with all his Marine stories, very enjoyable!
Also – another cool stat from the week: after 19 holes of the tournament I was +8, and then played the next 53 holes in -2 to finish a total +6 and in T6th position.
76, 70, 74, 70 total +6 (course par 71)
The winning score also fell at +1, so it’s nice to know my golf is getting me into contention early in the season!