Players Tour – Moor Park

Venue: Moor Park
Date: 15/04/15

The weather today could not have been more different from EuroPro qualifying as I arrived at Moor Park in Hertfordshire for my first ever professional golf event, to the hottest day of the year so far.

I was playing on the The Players Tour, a one day shoot out which had attracted a few of the guys from Challenge and EuroPro Tour so it was nice to be up on the range with these guys and then see how I compared with them once we hit the course.

The course was playing pretty tricky, the fairways and the greens had firmed up in the last few days with the warm weather.

The greens although superb to putt on were very difficult to hold where they had dried out making scoring very difficult.

I got my first tee away straight down the middle which settled a few nerves and I made a steady par.

I bogeyed the 2nd and the 4th before making back to back birdies on 5 & 6 getting me back to level.

Unfortunately I then went on to bogey 7 & 9 to reach the turn in 2 over par, I saw the leader board and although the leader was 2 under, level par was in 6th place and I made this my target to try and get back to.

I didn’t start well with bogey at 10 and another at 12 & 15 so now at 5 over I thought to myself if I par in for 5 over total it will be a steady start for my first event

The 16th a long par 5 I hit in two to set up a late birdie chance which I took!, and then after I chipped in on 17 for another birdie I moved back to 3 over.

My birdie putt on 18 just grazed the hole and I tapped in for a par finishing my first event with a three over par 75.

However my delight at getting back to finish at 3 over quickly turned to frustration as I walked past the leader board to see that +2 was in 6th place and this was the last position to get paid out – and I had finished 7th

So close in my first event to pick up a pay cheque, just one shot away, however many positives, I handled myself well when things looked like they were going the wrong way and the two late back to back birdies at the end of the round so nearly got me paid.

Can’t wait now for the season to get in the full swing, really looking forward to moving on from here

Please click here to see the scores from the day