Mark’s Week

Necessity has forced a change of name of this blog from ‘Mark’s Monday’ to ‘Mark’s Week’. It was getting a bit ridiculous, and everyone knows that Monday is a day for washing and resting.

It is great to be back in Singapore this week, even though I had forgotten how hot it gets here! It was a long flight out from Europe on Sunday and for the first time ever I arrived with a sore back from the travel. I have had a bit of treatment the last two days and I am fine, just a bit painful throughout the day.

We have a great field here this week, the Barclays Singapore Open alawys has a strong lineup, normally through a fair bit of appearance money but this year it is co-sanctioned with the European Tour and is also in the run up to Dubai, so as a result even more great players are here trying to get into the top 15 in Europe where the big bonus money kicks in.

The Serapong course is very demanding, a good test. I finished 8th here two years ago and really enjoy the course so I am looking forward to it. The key around here is to avoid the long rough off the tee and also to hit quality iron shots into the large sloping greens. The game feels pretty good, the last six weeks have been pretty good tee to green so hopefully the putts will start to drop soon.

After this week I am off to Shanghai for the WGC HSBC Champions followed by the Hong Kong Open. If I have a great few weeks I will be playing in the Dubai World Championship for the Top 60 players in Europe but otherwise I will be heading back to New Zealand for the first time since February. I can’t wait!

Mark tees off today at 8:20am (1:20pm NZT) playing with Niclas Fasth of Sweden and David Gleeson of Australia.