Sweden

Last week in Sweden was a strange week, my caddy was called home tuesday for family business and I spent most of the rest of tuesday trying to sort out someone to loop for me. I got sorted early afternoon and headed out to play a practice round, the course was in good shape and was a real mix of holes, some tree lined, some heathland and even three links holes! The course is the longest that we play on tour playing at over 7600 yards, I'm not a fan of these hugely long courses as it tends to eliminate the need to hit different clubs off the tee and hit different shots into the green!

With Tuesday being such a long day, I spent Wednesday chipping and putting as I figured this would be important as the wind was forecast to blow and I didn't want tire myself out slogging balls.

I was the first match out in the afternoon on Thursday but due to delays in the morning we went out an hour later than we were supposed to. I got off to a decent start, but I hit my approach shots over the greens at the 6th and 7th which led to bogeys, a comedy of errors followed on the 8th hole which added up to a double bogey. I made a couple of birdies and finished my round at 3 over par, which wasn't bad after the start but not what I was looking for when I teed off.

I went straight back to the hotel to relax after such a long day, only to spend most the night awake with an upset stomach. After only managing an hour of sleep, I made it out onto the course but after nine holes. I had to withdraw from the tournament as I was unwell and got weaker as the day went on, I didn't think I would make it round the back 9 and felt it was unfair on my playing partners as I was getting slower as the round went on.

I managed to change my flight and caught the train back to Copenhagen airport and headed back to Heathrow, where I would find out there had been some bad storms. I sat in the lounge waiting for my connecting flight to Newcastle, it was cancelled twenty minutes before it was due to board. After having to go out of departures, pick up my bags and recheck in, followed by another trip through security, I found out that the 9pm flight that I had just been rebooked onto was now delayed by two hours. As I waited the delay got longer and longer, finally the flight left well after midnight! I eventually got home and in to bed just after 1.30 am! This is the not so glamourous side of professional golf, spending hours waiting on flights and lost baggage, which is bad on a normal day, but when you are ill it is not enjoyable. British Airways always manage to provide poor communication, you are told different things by every employee you speak to, you are fobbed off with lame excuses, and of course the icing on the cake, they think a £5 food voucher will appease you! Let me tell you a £5 voucher to get food in terminal 5 will get you nothing more than a bag of crisps and a chocolate bar.

Sorry for the rant but they do brass me off, huge companies like BA don't seem to care about their customers as they have such a huge share of the market and they know people don't have a choice of who to fly with on certain routes. If I had the choice of airlines BA would be one of the last resorts and that's from a former Gold executive card holder! If a small company were to treat their customers like this on a regular basis they would be out of business in no time at all.

The weekend was spent relaxing and getting over the stomach bug I had picked up in Sweden. I am off to the Czech open this week, it should be fun as I have never been before...let's just hope there's no more delays or problems getting there, especially as I have three flights and a bus ride to get there!