Two weeks up North…

These past two weeks have been a fun couple of weeks on the road. It’s has been a big manic, but it seems my life at present is never dull. After picking up Lauren and Hugo from London on the Saturday I started my drive up to Newcastle Sunday afternoon to go and prepare for an event on the Clutch Pro Tour at Slaley Hall. Huge thanks to Kia Ferndown and the Hendy group for letting me use a car this month, was very kind of them and the new Sportage is very pleasant to drive.

It was a huge field at Slaley with 220 players playing over two different courses and after over a month off competing it was great to get back to playing with a card in my hand. To say that the courses were wet would be an understatement and this was the story for my whole trip up north, it just doesn’t seem to stop raining, must be a quagmire in the winter. Two very solid but very beige rounds of golf at Slaley led to a -1 total over two days with round of 73(+1) and 69(-2) and unfortunately missed the cut by 1 shot.

There were lots of positives from the week but with such a big field and only 50 making the cut it was a just one of those things. After a quick flight down to Southampton on the Friday night, it was football at Bournemouth and some family time over the weekend and was a perfectly chilled weekend ahead of another busy week in Newcastle playing in the International series event at Close House, which I qualified for earlier in the summer.

My flight back up to Newcastle was cancelled on the Monday morning which was not the best start to the week and after being diverted to Edinburgh and then a near 4 hour taxi ride down to Newcastle I finally arrived to Close House in monsoon weather, so the rest of the day was a compete write off as the course was under water after the deluge. Was great to get on the course Tuesday and play some holes to familiarize myself again with the course, the qualifier was played under an umbrella so after the rain dispersed it was nice to see the views the course had to offer finally. It’s safe to say that Close House is a bit of a climb, some of the holes play +35 uphill while others play -40/50 yards downhill, it’s not your average style course, but a fun layout.

This past week I will be honest was an awesome experience, with the shit show of Liv golf, European Tour and PGA Tour having a two/three year bitch fight and then a media driven, kiss and make up, the field that was assembled in Newcastle was class and very strong! 20+ LIV guys turned up to play and the top guys on the Asian Tour made up the field and then a few guys like me, trying to find a way onto the illustrious ladder of proper paid professional golfers. With all the rain the course played tough, some of the greens had dead elephants buried in them and with them being so soft it made it really tough to control your spin going Into the greens. It also made putting a challenge, with 156 guys basically on a four day welly walk the greens held up really well but a benign three foot putt was a thing of the past last week. Fair play to the green staff for producing a course the way they did, the amount of rain before, during and during was intense so it held up surprisingly well considering.

Round 1 was a ball striking display that I was really proud of, but really struggled on the lawns and that was the story all week which did prove hard to take as it’s normally such a reliable part of my game. Round 2 was a slow burner, great execution in tough, wet conditions at the start lead to some poor outcomes but a really good fight back from +4 to level over the closing 12 holes and a cut made with shots to spare. Will be honest, the relief in making the cut was huge, in such a strong event it was a big confidence boost on what has been a pretty sparse season in terms of events and momentum.

The weekend was not quite as smooth sailing and the conditions were tough, high winds, tucked pins and some tricky greens made for a tough and disappointing 36 holes. Not what I was hoping for at all but if I’m honest I just didn’t execute anywhere near as well as the first two days and got found out. Wasn’t big misses by any stretch but the margins are tiny at that level and both my long game and short game didn’t stand up over the weekend and it’s something I need to work on going forward.

Glad to be back from Newcastle, it’s a great city but I rented an Air BnB for the two weeks and to say that it was not the best would be an understatement. The first week the landlord didn’t pay the gas so we had no heating, cooking or hot water for two and half days and after getting through the two weeks I found out from some of the locals that I was staying in a very rough end of town and I was lucky to get out with all four wheels of the car. Glad that I didn’t find this out earlier as staying on my own in a creepy house and area the second week was not ideal, naivety is bliss.

Huge thanks to Dave my caddy over the two weeks and also my sponsors for all the support in allowing and assisting in making these events even a possibility! To play in this event alone was over £3500 in expenses and that’s doing it living in a crack den for two weeks so couldn’t do it without the support of some great people and companies. Forever grateful and can’t wait to get back to playing some more of these events in the future. It’s the only place I want to be!

Back home now and having a few days with Lauren and Hugo before they head back to Abu Dhabi next week, absolutely loving daddy duties and having an excuse to act like a child! I then have two events in the UK before heading back to the sandpit myself to finish off the season. The game is getting there, ready for a strong finish to the year

Many thanks for ready, always appreciate the support

All the best and have a great bank holiday weekend

Cheers, Luke