Not qualifying for the US Tour’s play-offs meant I had to return for a week in California and then across the country to the east coast’s Sea Island to complete my 15-tournament obligation.

California was not particularly memorable from a playing point of view, but I was much happier the following week.

I’d been working quite a bit on my putting and it was nice to see the ball going into the hole again at the Davis Love-hosted McGladrey Classic.  I had a good feeling about the event because I’m not a big city person and like it when it’s nice and quiet.

Not that it was that quiet for the first three rounds because I was paired with Tiger Woods so obviously there was quite a lot of attention.   It was nice to play with Tiger again during my trip because the last time we’d shared a tee time was in Miami in 2008.

It was very enjoyable even though Tiger’s obviously still struggling a bit with his swing and trying to sort everything out.

I really liked the golf course as well so now it might be a tournament I’ll definitely be looking at playing every year.

I was also helped by the conditions because it was a bit windy and I grew up playing in the breeze. The wind made it tough for everybody, but if you can keep bogeys off your card you can save quite a few shots against the field.  Wind makes the game a bit more fun.

It felt good to be back in contention and I needed to birdie the last hole to get into a play-off, but unfortunately went for it a little bit too much and went over the green and finished with a bogey to be 4th.

We had a week back in Manchester after that, generally relaxing and enjoying time with the family away from the golf course. The weather wasn’t that good so we didn’t go out much and then set off on Saturday for China for the start of a five-week run.

We had two, seven-hour flights with a two-hour stopover in Dubai, but I wanted to get their early to counter jet lag before the tournament starts.  Hopefully I’ll have brought my American form with me and can carry it through to the World Cup in a few weeks.  Unfortunately I didn’t bring the weather with me because it’s more like Manchester than Georgia here so I’m just hoping it warms up soon.

Everything all good on the family front with Nel Mare and Jana both growing at roughly the same pace.   It won’t be long before Jana has a playmate.