Having put last week's PGA behind me it was up early Monday morning, 2:40am, and off to the airport for the trip south. One thing Melbourne does really well is that it really helps you to miss Qld weather. What garbage we have had since we have been here, barely above 16 degrees, blowing a gale and raining off and on.
I arrived at RM full of expectation and anticipation as it is rated the number 1 course in Australia, and has been for some time. After unpacking our gear into the locker it was time for the first tee. It is a quality golf course, there is no doubt about that, and very difficult to boot.
The course boasts several tough par fours, some tricky par threes and a couple of gettable par 5's. It has a little too many blind tee shots or tee shots over crests for my liking though, I like to see where I am hitting the ball. The greens are very hard to hit into and very undulating making both finding the same area as the pin and putting very difficult. Add to that some tea tree and serious rough and you have a tough test of golf on a calm day! Calm, it certainly hasn't been that for either of my practice rounds, the wind has been out of control at times. On one green yesterday my playing partners ball was at rest about 20 feet from the hole when a huge gust blew and moved his ball about a foot, the really bad part was that that foot made his ball catch a slope on the green resulting in his ball rolling some 50 feet back down the green and off the front.
Needless to say that this week will be all about Real Estate. I have created a new game to play on course with myself this week and the name of it is Real Estate. As they say in the business Real Estate is all about "position position position" So for this week the challenge for Macca and I is to work backwards from the pin location on the green figuring out the best place to putt from to that location, then from that location working out where is the best place in the fairway to approach from and then from that location in the fairway, how am I going to get the ball to there....position, position, position
Tomorrow is my final day of practice before the tournament begins on Thursday so I am hoping for some fine weather to be able to fine tune things. If we are met with bad weather, which is predicted, I have a great back up plan. I am staying with a friend this week and yesterday he tells me that he has just started working in a new business. He tells me he is in golf simulators now, so tomorrow if the weather goes pear shaped, I will be heading indoors to play Royal Melbourne on the golf simulator!!
I look forward to sharing more from the Aussie Tour with you this week!!