Clutch Pro Tour - Event 9 Oxford Golf Club - DP World Tour Qualifier

Monday 22th July - Practice Day

We decided for an early practice round of 8am so we could get done in good time and beat the busy period of people playing.

A super early alarm for me and with the 2 hour drive, I arrived with only 15 minutes before our tee time so my warm up was very minimal.

Oxford golf club is a quirky course with some very good holes but the main defence is the speed and undulating greens. If you hit it in the wrong spots around the greens, it's almost impossible to recover. We had some light rain for the practice round which kept the softness on the greens and the speed of them down a little.

The 3 of us played a skins match with birdies and nearest the pins on par 3s, I played very nicely and managed to win to take a little money off the boys!

Tuesday 23rd July- Round 1

9:20am was the tee time to start this event. Unfortunately the practice facilities are limited, there is a small range that you can only hit irons on it so the warm up wasn't as ideal as I normally like. But I didn't really mind, it was just a case of getting the feels going.

The weather was nice, with a little breeze and the course had changed quite a bit from the practice round. The greens were a lot firmer and I had to adjust to that quickly.

It was a day where everything was a little bit off. I didn't quite put it the right positions off the tee which led to the approach shots being in the wrong sections a lot of the day and then I three putted 3 times on my way to +4. I managed to finish birdie, birdie to help it a little but the whole round was a battle. It was frustrating as I hit it really nice on the practice day but for some reason, today I just didn't have it. The main area that I struggled with was putting as I had 37 putts which really isn't good enough.

Wednesday 24th July - Round 2

An even better day for weather and I was lying in 90th position after round 1 but I knew that a good round this morning would climb me up the leaderboard.

I started on the 10th hole, a par 5 and I hit 2 perfect shots into the green to make a birdie. Followed by a close wedge shot to 3ft on the 11th so a perfect start. Everything felt very much in control and my third birdie came at the 325 yard par 4 14th where I drove it at the front of the green. However, I got to the 3rd hole so my 12th, I pulled my 4 iron off the tee slightly behind a big tree where I had to hit a high hook around it to get to the green. I thought, it's now or never to pull this off so I went for it, unfortunately I clipped the tree and the ball dropped down in the ditch. I walked off with a triple. This really frustrated me because I felt like I didn't do much wrong and 3 shots were gone already. After this, the momentum dropped and I dropped a couple more shots to finish at +2 for the round.

A very frustrating way to finish the 3 week stretch after starting it so well at Studley Wood.

My focus is now to rest, reset a little and then get ready for the next run of events ahead, staring with the International Series at Foxhills.

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Ryan