Not the week I wanted…

This week I had the pleasure of getting an invite to play in the KLM Dutch Open due to finishing second on the Order of Merit on the MENA Tour last year. I arrived on Sunday to strong winds that stayed around throughout all of the practice days and yesterday was no exception. I was last off the tenth tee at 2.35 and only managed to hit one shot before play was cancelled due to high winds and a waterlogged course.

It meant that I had to go back early this morning for 36 holes in one day. The conditions this morning were pretty much perfect, little breeze and the sun trying its best to come out through the clouds. Unfortunately I was absolutely useless this morning, I couldn’t hit a shot to save my life and went out in 41 shots and was sat at +5 through 9 holes. I was absolutely gutted, it’s not been the best of years and to start the tournament off in that way after looking forward to this event all year was pretty hard to take.

Obviously the European Tour is a step up from what I’m used to playing and all I can put my miserable outward nine down to this morning was wanting it way to much and trying way too hard to make a golf swing and force a score, in the end neither happened. For the first time this year I had the favorable side of the draw and ballsed it up! I only really made a golf swing on my 15th hole after some good up and downs to limit the damage further. I did manage to birdie two of my last 4 holes to post +3 (74). It felt like I shot 90 out there , the course was there for the taking but I just didn’t bring anything to the table.

I had a quick lunch break before heading straight back out onto the golf course and couldn’t of started much worse with a lost ball pulled straight into a gorse bush which lead to another double bogey. It just absolutely deflated me and to be honest I started to feel embarrassed by my performance as I had never hit the ball so erratically. I did manage then to play something that reassembled golf, I found the middle of the bat a few times which was a nice change from what had come before. In the end I made a few birdies and unfortunately had a few bogeys and ended up carding a 73 (+2) for a +5 total.

It has been absolutely great to play this week and wanted to thank the MENA Tour for the fantastic opportunity and also the KLM Open organizers for letting me peg it up in such a great event. Not the result I wanted by any stretch of the imagination but it makes me want to work harder and get better so I don’t feel I need to do anything differently when I play these events. I have had great support this week and want to thank my Coach Matt Parker at Prevail for coming over to assist and my Mum and Dad and sponsors who made the trip over to cheer me on. There was not much to cheer today but it’s always nice to have the support and I can’t thank them enough.

I’m off to Austria for first stage of European Tour qualifying before heading back to Abu Dhabi to start a run of events on the MENA Tour. I need to learn from this week and put it behind me and push on over the next few weeks. Will keep you updated on proceedings and hopefully bring you some positive news over the coming weeks.

Hope you all have a great weekend and thanks for all your messages of support, very much appreciated

Until next week Luke