Mark’s Monday

Another frustrating performance at the Johnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles last week. For the second week in a row my long game was certainly in good enough shape to be competitive but a combination of a few poor shots, double bogies and extremely poor putting let me down.

The Gleneagles course was extremely wet after 2 weeks of solid rain, this meant we had a club length placing on fairways because of mud, and also made the greens very soft and after a days traffic, very bumpy. A lot of players complained last year about the state of the greens, some didn’t return this year because of them, but I just felt for the green staff and everyone involved with the event because after that much rain the greens were always going to be a bit bumpy, especially at the end of the day. You really had to take the attitude of trying as hard as you could on a putt, try and hit a good one and not worry about the result, good or bad. Easier said than done…

It’s funny, on the European Tour, no matter how hard the course, how bad the weather or how bobbly the greens are, the standard of golf is always high. I putted miserably for 2 days but had an 8 foot putt on the 18th hole to get to 2 over par and I thought make the cut. As it turned out the wind died in the afternoon, the standard of golf was good, and the cut was even par, 65 guys exactly. That meant a weekend off, normally we go home on a Sunday night and out tuesday morning but this time we booked to go direct from scotland to Geneva on Monday morning. This meant I managed to get some practice in on the saturday and then catch a few shows at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival on Sunday night. We had a great night, sometimes I need to be pushed a bit to get out and do things but events like this make it all worthwhile. Saw a guy named Stephen K Amos who was just brilliant, check him out on youtube if you get the chance.

So it was a 2 hour flight to Geneva, then a 2 hour train to Crans Si Sierre and a 30 minute car ride to the small mountain village where this weeks Omega European Open is held. Good to see a few of my Asian Tour mates here this week (event is co sanctioned with Asian Tour) and looking forward to a practice round tomorrow. Interesting playing this week at very high altitude so key this week will be judging how far the ball is flying, good short game with the domed greens, and of course holing some bloody putts!
See you next week.