Puerto Rico

I arrived into San Juan airport on Sunday afternoon, our first adventure was to get 8 people and baggage into three cars for the half hour drive out to the resort, we managed and made it to the hotel. I had enjoyed the flight, on a low cost airline that has live TV channels over main land America, so for half of the flight I was able to watch the final round at Bay Hill, shame it cut off as it got interesting.

The tournament is the first PGA tour event in Puerto Rico and everyone seemed really proud to be involved. Chi Chi Rodriguez was at the tournament all week as this is his home country and the tournament was dedicated to him. He wasn't the only celebrity in town, as the golf course has just become a "Trump International" so Donald Trump was in town, it was probably him in the helicopter that kept landing next to the course.

I played in a Pro-Am on Monday at 11am with a really nice team, I thoroughly enjoyed my day, one of the team, Jose was a member at the course so he pointed out some places to avoid. We played well as a team but couldn't compete with the winning score of 53 and that's nett not stableford points! Narcisco one of my team came out to watch and support me everyday.

Tuesday morning I played nine holes with my caddy Ron, we bumped into James Driscoll's caddy Kevin on the way around looking at pins and walking yardages. Later that afternoon I went for dinner with Ron and Sticky the Adams Rep, we went into town which was quite an adventure as traffic is busy and a horse strolled out into the middle of the road!

Wednesday there was a Pro-Am on the course all day so I had a lazy morning taking care of some plans for my charity day in September and then I went to the course at lunchtime, I practised for most of the afternoon. We joined Larry who works for Scotty Cameron and his wife Barbara for dinner at another local hotel for dinner. We had a great meal and laughed lots. Larry always advises me which local restaurants are good in every city we go to as he has been travelling for years so it was good to see that he can even pick a good restaurant in a new city.

The weather has been quite unusual according to the locals as it was warm but with cloud cover and with strong winds. I'm glad it was as when the sun did come out it was very hot. The El Yunque rain forest is overlooking the course and it rains there every day so it can be sunny at the course and on the hillside it is covered in cloud, it is the biggest rain forest in USA, its also the smallest as it's the only one!

My tee times this week for the first two rounds was last off in the afternoon on Thursday at 1.35pm and last of the morning starters on Friday at 9.05am. I played with Miguel Rodriguez and Max Alveiro, Max is only 21 years old and one of the players to receive an invite to play in the tournament as he is from Puerto Rico, he had a large group of supporters on Thursday which was nice to see. The fickle fans all left him on Friday and went to watch another local player who was near the top of the leaderboard!

Thursday and Friday I played very well and made the cut comfortably at three under par, both days could have been a handful better had a few putts dropped instead of sliding by.

Saturday I played with James Driscoll and Chad Collins. I played well and although I made a few bogeys I kept counteracting them with birdies, I shot two under but was frustrated with my bogey on the last.

The wind was howling on Sunday and there were a number of difficult pin positions, I didn't play quite as well as the first three days and a few more bogeys crept in, I finished the day at three over par and two under par for the tournament in a tie for 39th place. I played with Ben Curtis and Jay Williamson, it was nice to play with a Major winner and all around nice guy. After my round I got a courtesy car to the airport where I stayed in a hotel overnight so I could avoid San Juan's Monday morning traffic, the journey took us forty minutes but could have taken up to two hours so I thought it was better to be there than worry about missing my flight.

Today I am flying to New Orleans, I have never been there before and am looking forward to tasting a little bit of the atmosphere and to see if it has been rebuilt after the devastation of hurricane Katrina.

I hope everyone had a happy Easter even though I hear it was snowing at home.