As I write this I am watching the World Matchplay whilst waiting to head to the course for round 2. Yesterday in the wind I shot 1 over par which was a little disappointing if not disastrous as the course was brutal. I was disappointed as I hit a poor drive on the 14th, my only bad drive of the day, finding the base of some tea tree and unfortunately making a double bogie 6. I was 2 under at the time and following a 3 putt on the 16th where I hit the ball in the wrong part of the green, it left me with a 1 over par day. There were a lot of positives in my day though as I start the ball rolling on my year. I hit some fantastic iron shots to make 5 birdies and also controlled the ball off the tee for the most part. I am looking forward to getting back out there and building on what I have been doing over the past couple of weeks. I would dearly love to shoot under par today and play on the weekend, getting the extra couple of rounds under my belt before heading to New Zealand on Monday for the NZ PGA next week.
I have posted a few photos, some from the pro am where I played with Harry Taylor and Taylor Hunt from the Geelong Cats. They were a great couple of guys who loved their golf and were kind enough to get me into a closed door training session that afternoon with the Cats. It was awesome, their coach Chris Scott and Jimmy Bartel came over for a chat and then after training the boys showed me through their whole establishment which was incredible. The highlight for me was the computer room where they have every game on computer with individual video footage of each part of the game a player was involved in from multiple camera angles. On top of that they had footage of every inside 50 an opposition team made during a game so that they can watch how a team moves the ball and study their patterns. Wow, so much to it. They also had about another 50 categories to choose from to help better understand not only themselves but also the opposition they are playing. What I learnt from the day was that they are doing everything possible to be the best, how can I do more to best the best? I was inspired and driven as I left there and am looking forward to working smarter and harder moving forward!!