Open Qualifying and Frilford Heath
Hi everyone,
Another blog post quickly so that I have you all up to date.
I played open qualifying on Monday the 23rd of June at Northumberland golf club in Newcastle. The course is in the middle of the racecourse and is always in fantastic condition, the semi rough is brutally thick so there is an extra emphasis on hitting the fairways. I had a bit of a ropey start and bogeyed 4 of the first 7 holes which was a disappointing start, and although I tried my hardest to get those shots back it was always going to be an uphill battle, I hit a lot of good shots on the back 9 and had 5 lip outs for birdies along with one bogey on the par 4 13th. I ended up signing for a 77 which was too many to qualifying for final open qualifying. I will however be even more determined to qualify next year for the Open at St Andrews.
I drove straight from Newcastle to Frilford Heath down near Oxford where we had played the final q school. It was on the blue course the which was playing very firm and fast, and the weather was lovely. My golf was solid on the front 9 in round one but unfortunately the back 9 I had 4 bogeys and a double bogey due to a few bad shots and a couple of missed putts. I signed for a 77 which was not my best but I went and did some practice after and managed to straighten a few things out, I was just getting stuck on my back foot and not releasing the club.
The second round I played much better, I had 3 birdies and 3 bogeys and hit a lot of quality golf shots, I didn’t quite make as many putts from 15 feet for birdie as I would have liked but It was good to play well and gave me a lot of confidence to go into the next few events. I missed the cut unfortunately but have a lot of practice and a lesson planned for this week before my next events as well as a meeting with Ed Mccosh who is a sports psychologist and I hope will take my mental state to a new level and allow me to play more relaxed in tournaments like I do in practice. I know I have the game and I have played very well some rounds this year and I am going to continue working harder and harder to make sure I get to the final goal.
I have a pro am at Newmachar this Friday and then the Europro tour at the Carrick at Loch Lomond next week Wednesday – Friday and I am looking forward to both these events and putting what I get told in my lessons and achieve in practice into the tournament play to have some good results.
