Monday 17th of June
In August, the Asian Tour have an event at Foxhills, the only tournament in England on the schedule which includes players Richard Bland, Ian Poulter and Graeme Mcdowell.
It is an 18 hole qualifier where the top 6 will gain a spot in the event.
I have only played the course once which was a practice round last week but I had my friend Guy on the bag who is the member there, he would be vital in guiding me round.
The weather was ideal, sun with light winds and I was the 14:40 tee time which was 3rd to last group, not exactly ideal timing but I had to deal with it.
The course was playing tricky, firm and the rough was pretty thick if you missed the fairway.
I started very scrappy but managing to save pars through good short game and putting. The slow play and waiting for 15 minutes on one hole didn't help the flow of the round but I managed to roll in a 15ft birdie on the 8th to kick things off. I felt like I was getting better as the round progressed but again, another 15 minute wait on the 220 yard par 3 11th didn't help. I proceeded to hit one of the worst 5 irons I've hit in a while, a big flare right. For those of you don't know, the 11th green slopes severely back to front and right to left so I was left almost no shot to a back right pin. I managed to hit a great shot to around 15ft then rolled in the putt that had 3ft of break on it.
Guy said to me, that was always looking like a par! I then really got going, make birdie on 13 and 14 then I had a short birdie putt on 15 horshoe around the hole! My only bogey came at the difficult 210 yard par 3 16th to put me at -2 but I didn't know where I was placed on the leaderboard until walking up to the 18th green. I hit a great drive and 3 wood just in the green side bunker, where I knew a birdie would automatically get me a qualification spot. As we got to the bunker, my ball was stuck on the upslope which left a super tricky shot to a back pin around 40 yards away. I hit a decent shot to 30ft and two putted for par, which got me a place in the playoff.
After around a 45 minute wait, it was a playoff with 8 players playing for 3 spots. We would start on the 330 yard par 4 10th and if needed would carry on the 11th then 18th. We would play in two groups of 4 and depending on who scores what, a redraw would happen. In the draw, I picked number 4 so I was the last player in the 1st group.
In regulation, I hit 3 wood here in the fairway bunker and made par but Guy said to me, let's do this and hit driver. We had around 30 people watching which was quite cool and I stepped up to hit probably my best drive of the day, straight at the pin. Walking down Guy believed it could be on the green and absolutely perfect, we got up there and it just caught the front left bunker, which was a pretty good spot to the front left pin. 2 players hit irons off the tee and not the best approach shots, the other player hit driver pin high in the right rough, he hit a great chip to 3ft. It was my turn to play and I managed to hit a good bunker shot to about 5ft just under the hole. The two guys who hit irons made par, then I stepped up to roll in my birdie putt which was closely followed by the final guy to make it 2 birdies. We then had to wait for the other 4 players to play, knowing that 2 birdies would send us to further holes, but anything worse than birdie, we would be through.
Fortunately, only 1 other player made birdie so that was the 3 spots taken.
It was a great feeling to get it done in the playoff and to earn a spot in the Asian Tour event in August.
A great start to the week and a special thanks to Guy on the bag!
I would love to have as many of you there for support for the event in August, so get in touch with me for more details.
Ryan
