The Olympic Gold Medalist took time out of his BMW PGA Championship preparation to write about Chelsea FC, living in the Bahamas and his memories of Wentworth.
The BMW PGA Championship
is the event I used to watch as a kid. It’s always been an inspiration to me. It has felt like a hometown event, growing up just 20 minutes away. I’ve had some good results at Wentworth, finishing runner-up in 2007 and 2012, and it’s definitely a tournament I want to win one day. Safe to say, it’s on my career bucket list.
I remember coming to Wentworth
with my dad when I was young. I would turn up at Wentworth with a backpack full of sandwiches and watch the likes of Faldo and Olazabal play the course. I was one of those kids behind the 18th green, waiting to try and get a ball or an autograph from the top players. I always remember itching to get back to my home club in the evening and hit balls and try to replicate what I had seen at the tournament that day. Those memories are what motivated me to play the game and want to turn pro.
The changes this year
have softened the course somewhat. Small tweaks here and there to the shapes of fairways and bunkers and replacing all the greens, it looks incredible. The greens are in fantastic shape. It’s very easy when you build a course to design it with a championship in mind and make the course overly penal but what these changes have done is restore it what Wentworth was like before and make it more playable, both for us and the average golfer. To have the players advisory board involved in the changes was a great idea and I can’t wait to see how it play this week.
This week will be the perfect start for the Rolex Serie
s. There’s been a huge investment from Rolex into the European Tour and it’s created a series of events that are as good as anywhere else in the world. I think that is what the Rolex Series is and you’ll see these events attracting the best players in the world to play at some amazing locations.
The Masters was a great week for me
. Of course I would have liked to win but there’s no hole in my heart after what happened. When I think back on it, I do view it as an opportunity missed but I also got a lot of confidence from it. You are never going to go through your career without disappointments but that week showed once again that my game is good enough to win Majors. As much as Sergio will take confidence from that week that he can go on to win another Major, I’ll do the same.
After the Masters
, I took a few days out and enjoyed a well deserved holiday. I was very disciplined and dedicated ahead of Augusta for about six weeks and had always planned to take a few days off and it was the perfect tonic really. We were on a boat in the Bahamas, sailed down to the Exumas and really just switched off after a busy week. We did a little fishing, hung out on the boat and I even managed to get a little practice in, hitting a shot off the back of the boat, which was a first. And yes, it was a bio-degradable ball!
I spend a lot my time in the Bahamas.
We have a house there and I love going there and getting away from life on Tour. A lot of guys like to live in England or in Florida and on their days off, they’ll see ten or 15 players on the practice range but for me it’s nice to just relax and be away from the crowds a little. It’s on America’s doorstep yet has a strong British community as well so overall it has a really nice balance which we enjoy. Adam Scott has a house there as well, and I’ll see him from time to time, but otherwise I feel like I have the run of the place a little and that’s important on my weeks away from events.
I also like to get to Chelsea FC
games whenever I can and I was there on Sunday to see them lift the Premier League trophy. I feel like I swooped in for the glory a little bit, coming in for the last game of the season but it’s been great seeing what they’ve done this year. When I have my time off in the UK it is summer time, which isn’t in season for the Premier League, so when I’m over for Wentworth it can be a good time to catch a game. My little boy Leo is now in his football and it’s great to share a match day experience with him and take him to Stamford Bridge. We were there with my manager and Alex Levy, who’s a friend and part of the same management group, and we had a fun day watching the team win and pick up the trophy.
I’ve been lucky
to become friends with John Terry in recent years. He’s a keen golfer and we’ve played a few rounds together and now that he’s retired maybe we’ll get to play a little more. It was special to be there at the Bridge for his last game in a Chelsea shirt. What he has been able to do for the club and for English football over the last 22 years is amazing and I was glad we were able to clap him off in his last appearance.
It still feels strange to think that I am an Olympic Gold Medalist
. That was such a whirlwind of a week in Rio; making a hole in one, coming down the stretch against Henrik and managing to win a Gold Medal for Great Britain. I definitely have new goals and ambitions for this year but that was certainly a highlight of 2016.
It’s amazing how heavy a Gold Medal is
. I don’t think people appreciate just how dense it is. I’ve been lucky enough to take it to some amazing places over the last six months and share it with some people who helped me along the way in my career. I think the strangest place it has been might be on a statue in a house we rented after Rio. My son thought it would be cool to put the medal on this statue and he didn’t quite think it through that when he let it go, it would drop onto the metal body of the statue. One day when I’m gone, it will be his and he’ll be able to tell people where those little dents on the edge came from.
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