So, the week started well with the easiest travel day ever. I picked up my nephew George, who was caddying for Josh Berry at the same venue as me, then headed up to meet my mum for a lift over to Leeds Bradford Airport.
Straight through check in, a chill out in the airport, we then took off on time, landed early, our luggage was waiting as we arrived at the belt, a quick hire car collection and off we went on a two-hour drive inland to the city of Albacete to find our accommodation and get settled for the evening.
Tuesday, we headed up to the course for the first practice round, so that myself and my caddy James could get out on the course with no one around and take as much time as we wanted around the greens etc and get a good feel for the course.
I really liked the feel of the course and hit the ball well throughout the day. It certainly felt scoreable if you kept it on the fairways, as the rough was long and wet, but the greens were extremely soft so could take dead aim a lot of the time!
Wednesday was a more relaxed practice day, a couple of hours’ chipping and putting plus an hour on the range honing in some wedge numbers on my FullSwing launch monitor.
To finish the day, we walked out to hit some chips on the course to get more of a feel for the long grass around greens, then after multiple cafe con leches we headed back to the rental apartment.
The first two rounds I was drawn with an American guy and a young Italian player whose dad (caddy) was a former tour player himself (Massimo Florioli) – it was a nice relaxed group to play with.
So, this is how crazy golf is…in round 1 it was the best I hit it all week tee to green, flushed it off the tee and iron play was solid.
I got a little unlucky off one tee shot to make double and then had three 3 putts and missed a handful of good chances. It’s so easy to let your head get down and frustrated on those days, but if you truly believe your game is in good shape you just have to stay patient and see how things go!!
I always check in with Dan Konyk (coach/friend/boss at Woodlands) and talk all things golf, and he always puts an incredible spin on life and puts things into perspective!
So, day two, nothing really had to change, just the hope that a few putts may fall!
I started on 10, and we thought if you get through 10, 11, 12 level par it’s not a bad start, as they changed the 11th from a par 5 to a par 4 this week and it was playing approx 500 yards.
I holed a good 6ft putt on 10 for some early momentum, then holed from 30ft on the next for birdie – under par early is always nice and from there I pressed on.
Four under for my front nine and 6 under total playing my last hole of the day. I hit the green in two on the par 5 to then be klaxoned off for thunder! After an hour’s delay, I went back out and two putted for birdie to shoot -7 and the second-best score of the day.
Round 3 was a patient day, it didn’t feel as good, driver certainly wasn’t as good but the putter had stayed warm throughout the night and kept me going with some solid saves and some great birdie putts.
I signed for -4 which moved me up nicely inside the top 23 with one round to go.
So, by chance, Josh Berry finished on the same score as me and we ended up getting drawn together for round 4, along with Jack Davidson, a young player from Wales who also had his card last season on the DP World Tour.
It was a great group to be in, nice and relaxed, friendly and a good sense that we were pulling for each other. The only tough thing was we were all pretty much on the same score throughout the round and if one of us were to miss by bogeying the last few, for example, it would have been horrible.
But the day for one of us didn’t quite start the way you’d have hoped….
Josh and George came down that morning from their hotel ready to head to the course to find their hire car had been stolen!
I’ve never seen two 19-year-old guys so calm about something as they arrived at the golf club in a taxi ready for round four…stating they will just deal with it after the round.
So, the fun began after the round as we squeezed them into our Fiat Panda, thankfully another player took Josh’s golf clubs for us. We then headed back to their hotel to call the police, get a crime number and then work out from there what on earth they were going to do.
The police finally turned up to explain that ‘thankfully’ the car hadn’t been stolen, but these numpties had parked over the entrance to the hotel’s underground car park and it had been towed away to the compound!!
So, we couldn’t do much about it. We then ended up driving them to Alicante airport so they could drop the keys off for the ‘un stolen’ car and for us to switch into a new hire car, so we ended up driving together for 5 hours through the storms to Salou and through the shocking scenes in Valencia on route.
So how did the last round go? Quite stressful, it probably didn’t look like that if you’d just seen my score card…quite a few pars on the card but they were not quite in regulation.
One thing I can take from this week and the last round is that even after a poor putting display on day one, my putting over the last few months has massively improved since my days on tour between 2016/19, its quite exciting!
On the back nine from the 11th hole this is the footage I holed to keep me in the game and finish strong: 8ft, 7ft, 6ft, 1ft, 30ft, 2ft, 7ft, 6ft. They may not sound like particularly long putts but under pressure and with plenty of slope on many of those putts, I was delighted!
Our group all managed to get the job done, Josh hit it to 1″ on the par three 17th and then parred the last to get through, Jack holed on the last from 35ft for birdie to get through and my birdie, birdie finish was enough to also get through with a few shots to spare!!!!
I can honestly say at the start of the year I didn’t think I would be at final stage this year, but from applying myself from March with a goal in mind and a strong team around me, I’m excited for the opportunity this week!
Also, a huge thank you for the hundreds of messages I have received over the last few days – it’s overwhelming!!
Regards
Chris
PS – Who’d have thought you could fit two players, two caddies, two cases, one set of clubs and a travel bag in a Fiat Panda…. (can you spot George Hanson in the back?).
