So it is now Saturday night and I have just the one round to go before I head to NZ. Thirteenth Beach has been a great venue for a tournament and I have thoroughly loved playing this golf course. It requires so much concentration, especially in the afternoon when the wind hammers this links course. I have played at 1pm the last two days and it has been exhausting pushing through til the end in the heat and the wind.
I have been slowly improving in most areas and that has been showing on the scoreboard with round of +1, -2 and -3 placing me in a tie for 16th going into the final round. I have made some errors on most days and if only I could stop that I would be in a better place. It isn't through lack of trying however!!
I am going to have a red hot crack at it tomorrow and the key will be to get it going early to create some opportunities to post a score. I am playing the course from the 10th tomorrow as this week sees the unique opportunity of both the men and women playing at the same venue with the weekend rounds being set up in alternating groups. I must admit that it has added a little something to the tournament having the girls here and I think the concept is a good one. The unfortunate part of it is the unfairness of the draw on the final two days. With so many players participating over the weekend, there has to be a morning and afternoon draw and so it works out that they split the men down the middle score wise. That means that today the even par players or worse played the morning field and the afternoon guys were -1 or better. That is a massive advantage to the even par guys in comparison to the guys at -1, a morning draw on a links venue by the ocean can mean a 2-3 shot advantage!! The same is happening tomorrow too. It can't really be avoided so I guess it is just get on with playing, and shoot as low a score as possible.
Last night was a bit of fun. After the 2nd round I had to go from Geelong back into Melbourne for the launch of the latest Callaway Driver, the XHot. Callaway had it seriously happening last night with the function taking place at Albert Park Golf Course in the centre of Melbourne. They had set up on the 11th hole with the view of the city skyline in the background. With the lights taking effect on that hole only and the set up looking absolutely amazing, it was surely going to be a great event. Callaway had sent a car the hour and a bit long trip to the golf club at 13th beach to take us to the event. By us I mean Stacey Keating and I, Stacey is another Callaway staff player. The car was a stretch Limo so with just the two of us in the back we felt like royalty!!
After arriving and bypassing the queues of guests lining up to get in, we were photographed and then interviewed before walking the "red carpet" into the event. It was a spectacular marquee and once we had a drink we headed outside to where the hitting of the new driver was going to be. There were hundreds of people there with a whole host of celebrities too. I was lucky enough to be able to go onto the tee and mingle with the guys here for the long drive contest. There were two competitions running, a celebrity long drive and a pro long drive, it was going to be fun. Amongst the celebs were Brendan Goddard from Essendon Bombers, Jimmy Bartel from the Geelong Cats, and Harry Kewell just to name a few. I have met Brendan before and met Jimmy this week when I was at the Cats training so it was nice to catch up with them. The big highlight was meeting Harry Kewell and having a chat to him about football and his plans and also what he thought of the A League. Seemed a really nice guy, I certainly hope we haven't seen the last of him playing soccer!! I also met Tamsyn Lewis, who was also really nice but complaining to me that her golf is terrible, I think she was looking for a free lesson.......cmon Tamsyn I don't just coach Australian Olympic athletes willy nilly!! It was an awesome night and the hitting from the big boys was incredible with the longest hit I saw before heading for the limo and my trip back home was 376yds......now that is long!!!!
Check out some of the photos of the event, it was cool and I look forward to hopefully bringing you some good news tomorrow night!!