Well, that was a quick turnaround … Home for 7pm Thursday and leaving again at 4am Saturday morning for Liverpool airport!
Just enough time to change my luggage, repack some more balls, check the post and collect some parcels from Taylormade, Titleist and Footjoy (it’s like Christmas!).
This week it’s a four day pro-am at the awesome PGA Catalunya Resort and Emporda Golf, which is up towards Girona in the north east of Spain.
I played this pro-am about 4 years back now and it’s a good one; it’s run by Mike Whilby from The Oaks GC who rounds up a great team of pro’s each year, and of course each professional brings a team of three amateurs.
Mike puts his heart and soul into running this pro-am, and does it all for the love of the game! He’s a real trooper, and has been a great supporter of mine for a long time now!
For me though it’s another chance to have a week’s practice at a first class set up and also get some more competitive golf under my belt before Madeira later in March.
As I said in my last blog, my month in Marbella was great and it also highlighted some areas of my game that need fine tuning, so this week it’s a great chance to iron those out.
Another big thanks must go to Mike (aka Arnie) for arranging my team this week, without them I was not playing! Ian, Peter and Rob were tremendous company throughout the week and they gave it everything out on the course in what ended up being unplayable conditions.
They kept me going when on the bogey train, cheered in every birdie and sure made my week a whole lot more enjoyable! Thanks, guys!
– and I have to mention Ian’s impressive back to back birdies… Sorry Pete, hope he didn’t mention it for the whole 8 hours driving back to Murcia!
On the first two days of the pro-am we played one round on the ‘Tour’ course at Catalunya and the second round at Emporda. The weather was ideal and we all really enjoyed ourselves, all playing some good golf but just never gelling as a team in the right places and we unfortunately dropped a few too many shots to be challenging the leaders.
My first front nine of the week I played very poorly, but found something that resembled a golf swing for the next 27 holes and played those in -4 to be in 4th position in the pro-am section.
(Rd 1: Score -2 Rd 2: Level par)
The next two days were then like ‘hell on a golf course’! We played the ‘Tour’ course in strong winds, torrential rain, hail storms, thunder and eventually lightening! It was freezing and the worst conditions I have played in out of the UK.
(Rd 3: Score +3)
Everyone was shattered, then to top it off we had to endure the brutal ‘Stadium’ course the following day off the back tees, with the hardest possible pin positions in 50mph gusts … It was crazy golf!
Balls were blowing off the greens into water hazards from standing starts and holes were soon unplayable. A real shame for Mike that the weather put a slightly sour ending to the golf, but I know everyone still overall had a great trip!! There was no way you couldn’t, really!
Again my team were incredible, it’s as close as I’ve been at times to saying, can we just go in … but the guys gave it 100% throughout and battled away as if their lives depended on it!
(Rd 4: Score +9)
That evening we had the presentation dinner back at the hotel, and I managed to hang onto 5th place in the Pro event, not quite the result I hoped for but the main reason for playing was to keep a card in my hand before Madeira and iron out those weak shots.
So overall – job complete and roll on Madeira!!
I’ve now got around eight days at home, to re-charge, have some quality family time, hopefully take the girls swimming and get set for the first event of the year.
Once again thanks for reading my blog, and I look forward to keeping you posted on my next venture.
Happy golfing!
Chris