Quite a rare week off for me last week and it was good to capitalize on that and get in some solid practice sessions at the Bear’s Club.
As anyone who follows me on Twitter @TheBig_Easy will know, not even the wet weather puts off your typical tour pro. On one day, and with the rain falling, it was still pretty busy out there with myself, Rickie Fowler, Michelle Wie and Camilo Villegas all on the range at the same time! We had some fun. There were also enough breaks in the weather to play a few social games. Had a couple of good workouts on the putting green with Dr Sherylle Calder, as well. #EyeGym
So all in all, I’m feeling refreshed and ready for a big week at the European Tour’s flagship tournament, the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth (pictured above). We’ll fly from Florida this evening and get into London Tuesday morning. I might play a few holes and then later in the day I’m cutting the ribbon at a new @AdamsGolf swing studio on the range at Wentworth. It’ll be good to catch up with some of the guys again and I’m happy to lend my support to this great new facility. I’m sure the Wentworth members will enjoy what it has to offer.
It’s well known that we have a close connection with the Wentworth Estate. We’ve had a house here since 1998, the kids went to school here, so this was basically home for us for a while. Obviously we live in Florida now, but we love coming back here. It still feels like home in a lot of ways. And when I think about the seven World Matchplay wins and the changes we’ve made to the golf course these past 6-7 years, it all adds up to a nice affiliation with the Club. To be honest, there probably isn’t a golf course in the world that I know better than this one.
From the feedback we’ve got these past couple of years, it seems the players are now appreciating the few tweaks that we’ve made to the West Course since the original renovation. The last couple of championships have shown that if you play well then you can score well, but if you’re marginally off then the golf course will penalize you. That’s how it is meant to be with top-class championship golf.
And let me tell you, everything about this week is really top-class. It’s wonderful that the Tour and Wentworth is being rewarded with such a great field these days. Like me, they have so much passion for this tournament and everyone just wants everything to be perfect. The support from the fans is incredible, too. They always show up in huge numbers, whatever the weather. They really love their golf here and they understand the game and appreciate what this historic event stands for.
For my part, I’m still trying my heart out to try to win this thing. In that respect, as I‘ve said many times before, the seven Matchplay wins don’t count for much. The format is obviously completely different; in 36-hole matchplay even if I got out of bed a little bit slow, as they say, I felt like I had the whole day to get my guy. That helped me. Strokeplay is a very different animal; sometimes you’re protecting your score, other times you’re being aggressive. Yes I’ve had decent weeks here, but I haven’t really gotten all the pieces together. Let’s see how we go this time.
