Playing a few holes

I set the alarm for bright and early this morning, 6am to be exact, and drove over to my local golf course and teed it up at 6:30, I was the only person there and I managed to play 18 holes and still be home in time to log in before 9am.

I've done that a few times so far this year and it really is a great way to start the day and no matter what the day brings, a smile won't be too far away from my face after starting my day like this.

What's more I played well, even after a shaky start with doubles on the first and fourth holes, but I scored on every hole, holed out some good putts, but what was really positive was my irons shots were backnon point. It's an area of my game I had been struggling with recently, but I figured out that I was swaying and not keeping my head still. Today I kept my head still and hit some irons right on the money. It was very windy and blustery this morning too, so 87 is a score that I'm very pleased with.

Golf is a game where practice is absolutely paramount and anyone with the ambition to play of a single figure handicap needs to be playing at least twice a week, plus some practice, so that's why I try to squeeze in these early morning rounds when time allows. That's right, I have the ambition to get to single figures, I'm currently off 17.1, but on a good day I can beat that, but to be fair 13 or 14 would be some achievement for the year and if I can get there, who knows what would be possible next.

I'm sure most players playing off 9 and under were off 17 at some stage and worked hard on their game and played regularly while they slowly filed off more and more shots.

Now that the important business of my early morning golf had been dealt with, let's move on to the secondary purpose of this post. Let's talk about the PGA Championship at Southern Hills. It's the second major of the year and the opening round is nearing it's conclusion. It's late here in Ireland and I'll be laying my head down to sleep soon. So let's talk about what's going on up to now. We'll have a peak at the leaderoard first and then talk about the runners and riders.

PGA championship Leaderboard

Our friend from North of the border here in Ireland Rory McIlroy is currently top of the class and looks very focused this week. It's a while since he has had a lead at a major and it's been an age since he's won one, all the way back in 2014. I do think when it does finally click, that we will win a few in a little purple patch in his career.

Zalatoris has put together a very tidy 66 and sits one shot adrift, as does Hoge. These guys all played earlier today and got by far the best conditions. It's much windier now and many very good players like Cantlay, Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka who are +5, +2 and +6. They need to get their shit together or they'll be finished after tomorrow's round and haveto watch it on the telly like the rest of us.

Even though McIlroy is on -5 after round one, things will get harder and the pundits are saying that -8 overall may even be enough to win it. We shall see and we'll also see where Rory's head is and whether he can handle the pressure that the next few days will bring.

Morikawa and Rahm were both expected to go well and are not firing on all cylinders yet, but this is a marathon not a sprint, so they still have time.

Let's see what tomorrow brings.

Thanks a million for reading as always.

Peace out