WA PGA at Kalgoorlie Golf Club
(10th-13th October)
Sunday 6th October
After a 5 hour flight from Sydney to Perth that landed at 10am, we set in for a 7 hour stopover as our next flight to Kalgoorlie wasn’t until 4:30pm. During the stopover, it was important to look after the body as much as we could and did lots of stretching, foam roller work, and even used the massage chair – $5 for 15 minutes what a steal!! As the clock ticked on, it was time to head to Kalgoorlie and we were able to watch the first half of the NRL grand final before we boarded the plane. We picked up a rental car in Kalgoorlie and drove to our Billets place, and after a long day of travel it was time to get some sleep and get ready for a week!
Monday 7th October
With the WA Timezone being 3 hours behind Sydney, I didn’t realise how much it would affect the body clock and I woke up at 4:30am, a very inconvenient time. I decided to get up, do some stretching, have some breakfast, have a shower, and the next thing you know we arrived at the golf course at 6:30am. The first thing we noticed was dirt, dirt and more dirt. We registered at the tournament office, got our yardage books, and headed to the first tee. When there is so much orange around, you know you’re in outback Australia! The golf course presented very differently to the courses we are used to in Sydney, with the hole set up being fairways and dirt – rather than fairways, rough and trees. The greens were slightly narrow on some holes and there was not 1 par 5 under 500m with the longest being 576m!! Once the practice round was done it was time to fine tune on the range, do some putting and chipping work, before we headed back home to relax, have some dinner, do some more stretching and then bed.
Tuesday 8th October
The weather forecast for the day was predicted to hit 40 degrees in Kalgoorlie so we decided to get to the course first thing (6:30am) and play 9 holes, do some chipping and putting and a little bit of range work before it got far too hot. By 1pm the mercury had hit 40 degrees and we were well and truly ready to head back home and in to the air con where we could do some putting drills as well as more stretching. As a thank you to the billets, we decided to cook up some dinner for them and got to know them a bit better. They had 2 dogs and their names were: COVID and Pfizer!! I did chuckle a bit when they told me their names.
Wednesday 9th October
The day before the tournament meant that we decided to do some light practice rather than put our body through a rigorous practice session. I also decided to get a massage from the Tour Physio to help release the tight muscles that will help my swing be more free flowing. The PGA had sent us the pin locations for round 1 just after dinner, so it was time to prepare for the round and mark out the location of the pins on my yardage book – After all, preparation is key!
Thursday 10th October
Round 1 of the 2024 WA PGA was finally here and boy was I pumped. I was feeling pretty confident and the game was feeling good. My first round tee time was 8:15 I arrived at the course an hour and a half before to go through my stretching, range, chipping and then putting routine. This is the routine I have before every round and is something I’ve done for a very long time. The wind was up and the temperature was down, making the first 9 holes pretty tricky and I found myself being 2 over after 9 with 2 bogies. Heading into the back nine I decided to change the mentality a little bit and start being aggressive. This unfortunately led to a change in rhythm in my swing and 3 bogies in 4 holes between 11 and 15 saw me sitting at 5 over par. Feeling frustrated, I just had to finish the round on a positive and the highlight of the day was at the par 4 16th hole where I proceeded to slam dunk a 60m pitch shot for birdie after hitting my tee shot in the fairway bunker and flubbing it out! The slam dunk damaged the hole a bit but it was a very cool feeling! A 4 over par first round wasn’t the ideal start but back to the range to work on a few things and we’ll be back for round 2.
Friday 11th October
12:30 was the starting time of my second round so a nice breakfast and coffee was on the cards as well as a quick stop to the ‘Super Pit’. Anyone that hasn’t been to Kalgoorlie needs to check out the Super Pit, I felt like a kid again watching trucks go back and forth, up and down the roads, picking up and dumping rocks – was very cool. Anyway, back to the golf. The warm up routine still stood and we were fired up ready to go. Starting on the 10th hole, a slightly pulled 3 wood saw my ball finish halfway up a bush – an unplayable was taken and I thought to myself ‘this is going to be a long day’. The next hole was a slightly different feeling when I holed a green side bunker shot for eagle on the par 5 11th hole. That set the tone for the day. A slight hiccup my 6th hole of the day with a double bogey didn’t stop my from finishing off a solid round of 1 under par. It could have been even better if a few putts had fallen in to the hole rather than shaved the edge of the hole. A missed cut to start my tour career isn’t ideal but we live, we learn and we’ll go again.
Saturday 12th & Sunday 13th October
After doing a post round debrief and figuring out where things went wrong, I spend most of Saturday and Sunday at the golf course working on the weak points of the game which was rhythm in the swing. When I start trying to attack, I lose the rhythm in my swing and start hitting lose shots so the focus of the practice sessions were to slow it down and keep it simple. By the time Sunday afternoon had arrived, it was time to pack up and get ready for our 7pm flight back to Perth and drive an hour south down to our accomodation in Mandurah and get ready for WA Open week. Safe to say my body clock is still trying to adjust to WA time but we’ll be right!