Dissapointing 82 today to miss the cut.

Met my old friend out of bounds six times today, so yeah, real joy.

Got off to a bad start on the first, hooked 2 iron OB. Follow that up with an approach shot into the green from 238m with a 6 iron and airmail the left corner, land on the cart path and leap OB. 250m carry 6 iron…. I can’t figure that out….. and it’s getting annoying. Seriously, how much can you allow for a flyer?

I hit straight back by driving the second, 375m par 4 downhill. Worked my way back to 1 over through 10, but went bogey, triple, double to blow out.

So…. until China on the 9th July.

Shot 72 today. Quite pleased to get the ball around on what turned out to be a long day for everyone. I was ment to tee off a 7:54 but ended up teeing off 2 hours later due to fog in the mountains. The winds eventually cleared it away. Two birdies and two bogeys made it a fairly solid round.

The par 4’s and 3’s are easy. The par 5’s will be the key holes this week. They are all dead straight, long, and lined with out of bounds. If I play them well I will be right up there.

Forget the Amazing Race…. they should just call it the Korean Tour!

On the way to our only practice round the bus driver trusted his navigation too much. We ended up going down a narrow road which just didn’t seem right. After doing a 10 point turn to just continue down the road we ended up here:

Heavenland bus 1

The bus was now stuck. All the international players relied on this transport for their practice. 1 hour later and this was the solution:

Heavenland bus 2

We loaded the clubs on the truck, took a 1km walk, jumped on another smaller bus at the end of the road and arrived at Heavenland GC late for the International players alloted time slots. Thankfully they still got all of us on the course for our one pracitce round:

Heavenland GC 1
Heavenland GC 2

75 today for a +7 total. Means I miss the cut by 3.

Not a good tournament for the international players with only 4 of the 26 competing making the cut.

I hit the ball realy well today but putted terribly. The shots I’m firing at the flag aren’t ending up near it yet as I’m still struggling to adjust to the long fairway grass.

At the same time I’m enjoying the challenge of these courses very much and look forward to each round.

My Titleist 905R driver decided to crack during today’s round…. fun, fun and more fun. Getting left hand clubs replaced in Korea should be a real hoot!

Teed off in the afternoon and shot 76. It puts me in 82nd spon after round 1. Hit the ball great at the pin all day but struggled with distance and spin control off the long fairway grass and swirling winds. Quite frustrating to shoot that score while hitting is so well. Starting to get my head around these tracks though.

The winds picked up in the afternoon and swirled around because of the surrounding mountains. It was almost surreal. Every shot the wind virtually changed depending where the hole was positioned in the mountains.

Good scoring is possible at Montvert. There should be some low scores available out there tomorrow morning like today.

On a side note: Here’s how Monday to Wednesday works for the international players at Korean Tour events. We have one practice round on a Tuesday morning in given time slots. Monday is off limits to us and Wednesday is pro-am day for the Korean players. But that’s the Korean Tour though. Love it or get lost 😀 . It’s nice when Tuesday morning is dead calm……

The Montvert CC located about 2 hours north of Seoul and not to far from the North Korean border, is a beautiful 45 hole golfing complex (5 x 9 holes) that is floodlit for night golf.

Surrounded by mountains it’s not hard to appreciate the work that went into creating the golf courses. The rocky ledges amongst the hills add to the background scenery and feature on many holes. None more so than the 8th hole of the Printemps Course.
Just click on the drawing of the hole and you will be taken to pictures of the course. Well worth your time to have a look at. There are some fantastic holes on the Printemps and Ete courses.

Overall I found the course to my liking. It’s great to play a course that has it’s fairways half mown as well. Might see the return of some distance control here.

If you pick the right holes to attack you will be rewarded. And I mean that in more ways then one! Take a look at the 3rd hole of the Ete Course. It’s a 615m par 5 that has an Audi on the line for anyone who eagles it. How cool is that! Legend goes that no one has ever reached it in two….

These photos are from a couple weeks ago at a convention show for doctors. I was invited along and asked to hit some drives into the simulator as bit of a promo. Henry Epstein also did a mini trick show.

The bloke holding the microphone is Byung – Ho Choi, chief manager of Jgolf. Jgolf run one of the two golf stations in Korea. They cover the European Tour and put together a lot of local golf shows.

After our efforts the audience hit some drives and we gave them a few tips. The lady in the following photo was keen to obtain more power in her swing.

The high heels might help her get some more leverage….

78 today means missed cut. Got off to a solid start, hit the ball great all day, but could not convert any of the birdies chances to mount a charge.

Gee it’s so easy to shoot high numbers on this track. I hit it better today than I have been the last 4 months back in Qld and look at the diffence in scores. Execution was great today but the results were not there.

It’s all down to fine tuning my routines and game plan to handle these challenges. The small improvements in those areas will result in big differences on the score card. I look forwards to the next event.

Well, thank goodness Marc Leishman was on our bus out to the golf club. The bus driver got lost for goodness sake, but Marc redirected him. Arrived 15min before I teed of. Chased down my caddie and we were away.

I thought the greens were going to be the biggest factor… four out of bounds later and there’s my 81. It’s fair to say the go for broke driver tactic didn’t work. I can only blame myself for puting a new driver in the bag for the first time today after hitting 10 balls with it yesterday. Swinging the club like an axe murderer doesn’t help either. Got my setup sorted out this arvo and am ready for a good one.

Looking forward to tomorrow .

Ok, now I know what the definition of sloping fast greens is: Asiana CC. The greens had clearly been trimmed from last weeks round. Now I know why the Korean players don’t like this courses greens from past years. Also we will be playing on the other greens for the tournament. Not the ones I played last week.

It’s fair to say they are quite tricked up, I’ve never seen anything like it. It makes the Riversdale Cup look like a walk in the park. Course management will be cruitial to have birdie opportunities. Hit it close, on the right side of the hole and you will be rewarded. Miss it in the wrong section on and around the green and you will have no chance of getting the ball within 12ft let alone on the green.

Overall I think this is a course I can play very well on and I am really looking forward to the first round. I’m going to adopt an agressive approach with the driver on many holes leaving myself short approaches where possible. Hitting wedges into these greens will greatly increase the probability of getting in the right section, resulting in a lot more makeable birdie putts.

This tournament is going to be won on the greens.