Bahrain Championship

After a quick flight from Dubai to Bahrain we got into the Bahrain Championship at the Royal Golf Club, which is the only grass golf course in Bahrain. At first glance the course was nice, really lush fairways and rough, a little different than what he had played in Ras-Al Khaimah where it was a Bermuda grass, this was a very different grass quite similar to the North-East in the US. Unfortunately, the greens weren’t that great but it was another chance to play some golf on the big stage.

I played a practice round with Nicolas Colsaerts who I played with in the 3rd round at Ras-Al Khaimah, to play with someone I’ve grown up watching on tv was pretty cool and something I’m still getting used to. After seeing the course I thought it could be a good track for me, stay out of the rough and hopefully roll a few putts in.

I got off to a seriously slow start in the first round lipping out for birdie from 3 feet on the 10th (first hole of the day) and then proceeding to make an absolute mess of the par 4 11th where I ended up making a triple bogey 7 which got me over par early. It caught me off guard and left me fighting all the way coming in.

I just couldn’t get anything going the rest of the day, really struggled on the greens and hit a few pulls with the irons, I battled coming home with a couple birdies to finish at 5 over for the round, not an ideal start. The 2nd round was tough, the wind really got up and besides a 3 putt from 10ft on the 2nd and a poor double bogey on 13, I played quite solidly and finished at 1 over for the round.

I put myself way too far behind the ball in that first round and didn’t really have a chance of making the cut. I just didn’t play good golf, I had the game but a few decision making errors and poor swings at the wrong time really put me in a bad spot. A triple on an easy hole plus 2 doubles on par 5’s was just not good enough scoring and you can’t afford to make those mistakes out here.