Sunny Scottsdale

After a long week I was a bit frazzled so I decided to have Monday off. I had a lie in and then had to return my rental car and go to the golf club to collect my courtesy car. While I was at the club I had some lunch and then made my way back to my room. I went out for dinner and a walk around the mall before an early night.

My alarm went off at 6.30am and I struggled to get out of bed, but made my way to the course for some breakfast before going out on the course at 8am, I got around the front nine very quickly, but got held up by a four-ball on the back nine. The tournament was at Greyhawk golf club, a private club in Scottsdale, Phil Mickelson is a member there and the player's lounge was in "Phil's Grill" which was adorned with his memorabilia.

We played the Raptor course, it was in good condition and was good as it was a course where if you played well you were rewarded and if you didn't you were punished. Which is how I believe golf should be played. It is a Tom Fazio design and many of the holes have an element of risk and reward. There were some stunning views of the McDowell mountains and the holes were surrounded by cactus and baron ground. The weather was hot and dry and was in the mid to high 90's for most of the week. Because of the high temperatures the ball was flying further and was something that my caddy and me had to keep an eye on when making clubbing decisions.

On Wednesday I went to a local laundry-mat to do my washing, the not so glamorous side of travelling! The course was closed all day as there were two Pro-Am's so I went to the cinema and watched "Max Payne" to fill a couple of hours. I went out for dinner with my caddy Tony to a local sports bar so we could watch the first game of the baseball world series, as we were staying in Old Town Scottsdale it was nice to be able to walk to restaurants.

I played late on Thursday with Bob Heintz and Todd Demsey. We started on the 10th tee, I played nicely but missed a couple of fairways which was unusual for me, which caused me to hit a couple of greens along way from the hole and had a couple of three putts.

Friday was an early start, it was nice to get out before the full heat of the day. I had seven birdies and four bogeys and ended up missing the cut by a single shot. It was particularly frustrating as I had a run on the back nine where I hit it close to the flag but none of my putts would drop. I went back to my hotel and kept an eye on the cut line hoping it would go back to level par so I could play on the weekend. As the cut stayed at one under par I changed my flight to Florida to Saturday morning, as the one I had originally was an overnight flight on Sunday that wouldn't arrive until Monday afternoon. I drove to Lakeland to stay with my friends as I hadn't seen them in a few months, it was great to catch up and have some home cooked food.

On Sunday morning we went to IHOP for breakfast, my friends had a family from Ireland visiting so the kids were all excited about Halloween and were showing us there outfits they had been buying, things have changed from the plastic mask and paper cone hat I used to wear as a kid. After breakfast my friend Randy who is a dentist took me to his office to get tested and fitted for a "Pure Power Mouthguard" it is a new idea in sport and professional golfers are no different to amateurs looking for something that could make a difference to their performance, I am usually quite sceptical of the many fads I see but after speaking to a number of players and Randy showing me how it worked I decided it was something I wanted to try. The basic concept is that by correctly aligning the jaw balance and performance are improved. It took just over an hour to get tested and have molds taken. Hopefully they will be ready for Disney so I can try it at a tournament but if not I will have it to go home.

After my morning in the dentist's chair I drove to Palm Coast where I checked into my hotel and headed to the airport to drop my hire car off and meet a volunteer to take me to this weeks car. What a disaster, they forgot to send a driver and when they did send one the car had flat tyres and the poor driver had to try a number of garages to put air in the tyres.

Two weeks left of the season, Cameron Beckman managed to win this week and he was in a similar position to me on the Order of Merit so lets hope I can pull it off too.