A week off at Wentworth, 29 June

I just had a nice week off with the family at the house at Wentworth. It was good to be back – you know, as much as we like our new place in West Palm Beach, we’ve missed it here. And the weather last week in London was kind of Florida-like anyway, so it was perfect! Seriously, it’s hard to beat England when it’s like this.

I played some golf at Queenwood and spent a couple of sessions working on my chipping and putting. Everything feels good in practice; I just haven’t been converting it into my tournament play of late. But that will come. It’s a bit of a cliché, but I just need to stay patient.

It’s been a good week to catch up on a few of my other favourite sports. I played a lot of tennis when I was growing up and got to a pretty decent standard. So when Wimbledon comes around I like to watch some of the key matches…mostly on television, but Liezl and I go to Wimbledon for at least one day’s play which we did again last week. We love it.

I also made sure I was in front of the television for the second Lions’ Test on Saturday. It was pretty exciting stuff, with the Springboks scoring a last minute penalty to win the match and go 2-0 up and win the Series. Against any other team I’d have been gutted for the Lions, but against our Springboks…well, it was obviously a bit of a result! Even though the Series outcome is decided, you can bet the third and final Test will be another very competitive and tough contest.

So, what about this week? Well, being at Wentworth gives me an opportunity to find out first hand how construction of the new West Course greens is coming along. I’ve been involved in the designs and studied all of the technical drawings with Greg Letsche, our Head of Design, but there’s nothing like seeing it with your own eyes. It’s still early days. I mean, we’re barely a month into the project. But Chris Kennedy tells me things are moving pretty fast, so it’ll be interesting to see where we’re at.

I obviously want to work some more on my golf game, too. But I’m also looking forward to spending time with the family. If the weather stays this hot, which I hear it’s going to, we’ll get plenty of use out of our swimming pool. The kids will be pleased!

Okay, that’s about it for now. I’ll write again at the start of next week, before I fly to Loch Lomond for the Barclays Scottish Open.

Bye for now.