You know it is going to be a tough day at the office when you are woken by howling wind outside your room for your morning tee time. When you get a morning tee time on a Thursday it is the week you hope to make a great start to your tournament with a nice calm morning.
Today certainly wasn't going to serve up that opportunity and along with the wind was a very cool morning! I continued some solid ball striking today and did a great job from tee to green in incredibly difficult conditions. It was so difficult with the strength of the wind to get the ball anywhere near the hole on some of the holes.
With the greens being pretty firm and made a little faster by the wind putting too proved to be an incredible challenge. I struggled to stand still whilst putting for most if the day and subsequently struggled with my putting. I had a couple of three putts on the front nine to turn in one over par despite hitting 8 greens in regulation. Very frustrating given how I had plotted my way around on such a tough day.
The back nine was just as difficult but on this nine my putter saved the day as the wind increased and iron play was made even more difficult particularly as there was a lot of cross wind approach shots. I can't remember playing in such conditions for some time. I managed to make a great birdie 4 down my last hole to recover my day slightly and sign for what felt like a very respectable 1 over par. As the day went on it proved to be a decent score putting me in a tie for 24th position only 4 shots back from the lead. That's heaps better than the 8 shots I was behind last week!! Hoping for a cracking day tomorrow to get in the mix!!