Season End
Well, that's it, it's now the end of my season. It's been one of those that I feel I haven't performed as well as I should have but in the same respect I have done some things that I am proud of. It's been a year of massive highs and then some lows too.
The last couple of weeks I have taken part in the European Tour Qualifying School and things started great. Once again, I had a week with most rounds under par finishing twelve under for the week. That places me in fourth place and safely through to the final stage of the tour school. For the whole week at Desert Springs I had hit it normal, nothing amazing but holed out nicely and had plenty of chances. It was a good week and one I felt I could have easily have made up another eight shots. I had a great guy on the bag who has caddied for some great players and he made a huge difference to my performance. For example, in the second round I hit my tee shot into a hazard, the ball was playable but with the potential for me to just make the situation worse. Garry advised me to take my drop, try and make par and get onto the next hole. We discussed it and decided that the weather was allowing plenty of birdies that day and I took a drop. Unfortunately I had a couple of bad breaks and wound up with a double bogey six. The next tee Garry handed me the driver and told me to get back to the routine and give us seventeen looks at birdie. I managed to just about do that, I birdied nine of my last fifteen to finish the round seven under and I feel Garry influenced that round massively.
Once you get through second stage you have four days until you get going at the final stage and to be honest, that's not a lot of time to figure out travel arrangements, practice rounds at two courses and be ready for the next step. I knew it was going to be a tough week, hopefully six rounds of golf with a great prize at the end. Garry had found a different way to travel up to Tarragona, an overnight coach, it maybe wasn't the most comfortable but it was certainly the cheapest. We arrived into Salou by eight in the morning on the Tuesday and both walked separate courses. We discussed on the coach journey how I wanted to plan the week and I decided that an easy day on Tuesday was best with a walk of the course and then a round on each course Wednesday and Thursday before a practice day on Friday. The prep went well and come Saturday I felt ready to go, I knew the greens were going to be tricky as the wind was up so they would be slow and the grain affecting the ball more. Unfortunately that was my downfall all week, I gave myself constant chances, in fact off the top of my head I would say the least greens I hit would have been 14. That's a lot of chances at birdie to finish a tournament two over. It was one of those weeks where if I had a look at birdie I shaved the hole and then the rare occasion I missed a shot I wasn't able to recover well.
I tried my heart out all week and unfortunately I couldn't turn it around, I wanted so badly to get things going my way it was frustrating to see chance after chance wasted. In round four I knew that I needed at least a 67 to make the cut and I gave myself sixteen putts for birdie, ten inside twenty foot. I missed one green and chipped in for eagle on the other. Now you don't need to be a stat man to figure out where my issue was that week but its taught me a valuable lesson in that I need to learn more about reading greens with grain. At Desert Springs with no grain if the putt didn't go in, it looked like going in, I always felt like the ball was going to go in. Maybe another thing was that at the final stage I wanted to play well too badly which meant I done the opposite. All of these things are great things to learn which I hope I will never need to know again. I hope to never have to go to Tour School again but only time will tell if that will be the case. One thing is for sure is that I will giving it my all and am looking forward to what the '18 season has in store. I see only positive things to take into the year and any failures I have had I have seen more as learning opportunities and that will result in me becoming a better Golfer, and person.
Now a lot of people have asked me 'What's next?'
Well at the moment it's in planning, I know when I would like to compete again which is mid January but I am looking at my playing opportunities. I may head down to southern Spain or Portugal and play some mini tour golf until the Challenge Tour season begins but that is something I am talking to my management team about currently. Which brings me on to the next thing, I have made a choice on who I want to take on my management and I feel I have made a great choice. I met with several companies and I have chosen the one that fits best with my image and who I am as a player, they share the same goals as me and I can see it being a great partnership going forward. I'm looking forward to being able to announce myself joining the family once the contract is signed but I know that it is going to be a great partnership.
That's my update for now, but as always, if you would like to know more or have something you want to see a post about please DM or tweet me and I will do my best to get some content that you all want to see.
Scott
The last couple of weeks I have taken part in the European Tour Qualifying School and things started great. Once again, I had a week with most rounds under par finishing twelve under for the week. That places me in fourth place and safely through to the final stage of the tour school. For the whole week at Desert Springs I had hit it normal, nothing amazing but holed out nicely and had plenty of chances. It was a good week and one I felt I could have easily have made up another eight shots. I had a great guy on the bag who has caddied for some great players and he made a huge difference to my performance. For example, in the second round I hit my tee shot into a hazard, the ball was playable but with the potential for me to just make the situation worse. Garry advised me to take my drop, try and make par and get onto the next hole. We discussed it and decided that the weather was allowing plenty of birdies that day and I took a drop. Unfortunately I had a couple of bad breaks and wound up with a double bogey six. The next tee Garry handed me the driver and told me to get back to the routine and give us seventeen looks at birdie. I managed to just about do that, I birdied nine of my last fifteen to finish the round seven under and I feel Garry influenced that round massively.
Once you get through second stage you have four days until you get going at the final stage and to be honest, that's not a lot of time to figure out travel arrangements, practice rounds at two courses and be ready for the next step. I knew it was going to be a tough week, hopefully six rounds of golf with a great prize at the end. Garry had found a different way to travel up to Tarragona, an overnight coach, it maybe wasn't the most comfortable but it was certainly the cheapest. We arrived into Salou by eight in the morning on the Tuesday and both walked separate courses. We discussed on the coach journey how I wanted to plan the week and I decided that an easy day on Tuesday was best with a walk of the course and then a round on each course Wednesday and Thursday before a practice day on Friday. The prep went well and come Saturday I felt ready to go, I knew the greens were going to be tricky as the wind was up so they would be slow and the grain affecting the ball more. Unfortunately that was my downfall all week, I gave myself constant chances, in fact off the top of my head I would say the least greens I hit would have been 14. That's a lot of chances at birdie to finish a tournament two over. It was one of those weeks where if I had a look at birdie I shaved the hole and then the rare occasion I missed a shot I wasn't able to recover well.
I tried my heart out all week and unfortunately I couldn't turn it around, I wanted so badly to get things going my way it was frustrating to see chance after chance wasted. In round four I knew that I needed at least a 67 to make the cut and I gave myself sixteen putts for birdie, ten inside twenty foot. I missed one green and chipped in for eagle on the other. Now you don't need to be a stat man to figure out where my issue was that week but its taught me a valuable lesson in that I need to learn more about reading greens with grain. At Desert Springs with no grain if the putt didn't go in, it looked like going in, I always felt like the ball was going to go in. Maybe another thing was that at the final stage I wanted to play well too badly which meant I done the opposite. All of these things are great things to learn which I hope I will never need to know again. I hope to never have to go to Tour School again but only time will tell if that will be the case. One thing is for sure is that I will giving it my all and am looking forward to what the '18 season has in store. I see only positive things to take into the year and any failures I have had I have seen more as learning opportunities and that will result in me becoming a better Golfer, and person.
Now a lot of people have asked me 'What's next?'
Well at the moment it's in planning, I know when I would like to compete again which is mid January but I am looking at my playing opportunities. I may head down to southern Spain or Portugal and play some mini tour golf until the Challenge Tour season begins but that is something I am talking to my management team about currently. Which brings me on to the next thing, I have made a choice on who I want to take on my management and I feel I have made a great choice. I met with several companies and I have chosen the one that fits best with my image and who I am as a player, they share the same goals as me and I can see it being a great partnership going forward. I'm looking forward to being able to announce myself joining the family once the contract is signed but I know that it is going to be a great partnership.
That's my update for now, but as always, if you would like to know more or have something you want to see a post about please DM or tweet me and I will do my best to get some content that you all want to see.
Scott
Good luck in 2018. Have followed you and know you have even more ahead. A credit to Hampshire and a credit to yourself.
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