My ‘mini boot camp’ in Dubai!

My 2-day ‘Boot Camp’ has been fantastic and exactly what the doctor ordered!

The most important thing was that I kept it really constructive, and I can safely say I didn’t waste a minute.

On arriving in Dubai Friday night around 8pm, by the time I had got through customs, collected my luggage and hailed a taxi to get me to the hotel, it was 10.30pm and I was pretty much getting straight to bed!!

I just wanted to get some decent food in the system first.

Since Portugal I’ve made a huge effort to eat better, and I’m constantly questioning myself if what I’m eating is beneficial to my game!!

Laura will vouch for me when I say I’ve been pretty disciplined at home for three weeks with my food and it’s been tough…planning meals, packing lunches, watching my carb and protein intake, and staying off the sweet stuff!

Sugar is the devil!!!

Basically I’ve eaten lots of chicken, avocado, spinach, sweet potato, nuts, and salads and so on!

Sorry to go off on one about food, but that really is an area that’s tricky when travelling.

How many decent airport meals can you get when in transit…and how good is the plane food, etc etc etc!

I know some of you are still thinking, there’s nothing wrong with a good old Maccy D’s!!

So at the airport Costa coffee I tried my best…a granola natural yoghurt, a tub of fruit, a chicken wrap and a bottle of water…that was my best bet!!

And better than my normal choice of a panini, muffin and a large flavoured latte! Yummy, though!

So since my coach and fitness trainer gave me a little nudge on my diet a few months back I really have tried to plan ahead, and to combat the ‘crap’ food when travelling I pre-packed my own food for daily snacking and on course!!

But that kind of backfired when Emirates charged me £390 excess baggage for the amount of MaxProtein bars, nuts and on course energy gels I had tucked away in my case.

Ouch!!

All that airport stuff was soon forgotten when my 6.30am alarm went off and got me up to head to Jumeirah Golf Estates to start my 2-day ‘Boot Camp’.

And what a two days I had in store!

The range and the turf are fantastic, a great chipping green, two great pitching greens where you can hit up to 180 yards, and three putting greens to choose from.

And then there is the Earth Course where the Race to Dubai final was held.

And as I mentioned in my last blog, the use of this whole facility through the European Tour is free!!

I spent the morning on my own working through my practice check list and trying to set myself some competitive games to test where my game is at.

Then at 12pm myself and Lasse Jensen took on Bernd Ritthammer and Sebastian Heisele for 9 holes – and in the process lost €25 to them!!

But it was great to test the game under a little pressure, and from there we all went to the short game area to touch up on that area of our rusty games!!

It gets dark early in the UAE so on finishing my practice I headed to the on-site gym, which is Olympic standard, to go through my latest Dynamic Golf workout from Rachael Tibbs.

ETPI Gym

And that was day 1 complete, some healthy room service, sleep and back up to the course first thing Sunday to make the most of the facilities again and my last day!

Here’s my day 2 plan of action, skills tests, and check list of what needs to be completed.

Day 2 plan of action!

Range

It was again great to get to do some more media work off the back of keeping my card. Worldwide Golf magazine wanted to do a piece for their magazine and an instructional piece for the web, which was fun!

Hopefully I will have the link for it soon…

After lunch I set myself some ‘completion’ drills to try and add some pressure to my practice; for example, hole X number of putts in a row to move on, hole 6/8 three times from 10ft.

There are so many variations, but knowing you can’t leave until they’re complete adds pressure, especially when you know it comes dark at 5.30pm!

I’m not going to lie, I didn’t get to complete one of the games!!

So one last gym session, showered, changed, and packed up by 8pm.

I now had till 4.40am before my 8-hour flight onto Johannesburg.

I was starving after the gym so headed to the clubhouse to see what they had to offer, and to find somewhere comfy to get some laptop jobs done before heading off to the airport.

So to walk in and find they had an ‘all-you-can-eat’ Sunday carvery was music to my ears, a reformed golfing ‘athlete’s’ paradise!!!!

That was the end of my Jumeirah Golf Estates ‘boot camp’ and what a great idea it was to head out here first; I did more constructive practice in two days than I could in a week at home!!

After being kicked out of the clubhouse at closing time, I set off to the airport super early, which was not a bad thing in the end after spending half an hour on the middle of a 6-lane Dubai motorway!!

Quite a scary experience, but a great time to start writing this Blog as I’m no help changing a wheel!

But they do always say being a professional golfer is ‘life on the road’.

PS – I managed to blag my luggage through the flight desk which was a huge result!!