All-Golf Report from El-Jadida

The golf course here at Royal Golf El Jadida is one of the sweetest I have ever played, and it suits my game as well as any course I have seen in a long time. I feel like I can successfully compete at any course, but I know that I am at my best on tight golf courses with small greens that require a lot of precision. This course has some of the smallest landing areas off the tee and on the greens of any place that I have ever seen. The course is difficult, but I love it.

I played an early practice round this morning and started to feel a lot better about my game. I need to stay within myself a little bit more than I did last week in the desert, and I feel like I'm doing a good job of that so far this week. The firm fairways and dry air of last week encouraged me to try to hit the ball a mile, but I know that that is not my game, and I am very satisfied hitting fairways and smoothing 7-irons from 152 yards, rather than trying to bomb drives and jump on 9-iron from 145. I have really tried not to hit anything hard the last two days, and I feel a great deal of rhythm coming back into my golf swing. I'm really starting to feel good about it again.

I have also been back into a good fitness routine the last three days. After allowing a couple of recovery days after my sickness five nights ago, I have enjoyed a nice run, a couple of light workouts, and a great stretching session in the past three days. I really do feel like I'm 100% right now.

I feel great, and I really like this golf course. I fully expect that I will win this week. I am playing the pro-am for the event tomorrow, and the tournament begins on Saturday. I need to have some wedge and putting practice just to further sharpen those areas of my game, but I truly think that my game is ready to win out here.

Keep it here for another report soon!

Morocco in Pictures

This is about 50 yds from my new hotel room!
This is the new hotel. Photo taken from the beach.
The Atlas Mountains--just 20 miles from the (very flat) Samanah Country Club outside of Marrekech.

This is the view from the hotel in Marrakech.

It is crazy that my fellow golfers and I are living somewhat in the lap of luxury over here because it doesn't take much investigating to see that the vast vast majority of Moroccans live in severe poverty. Immediately above are a few pictures that I snapped while on the bus between Casablanca and the city of Marrakech. These are "houses" for rural farmers and shepherds in Morocco.

Once in Marrakech, we found that there are very select few in Morocco who have a lot of money, but for the most part, the city-dwellers are quite poor as well.

I was able to spend a decent bit of time exploring the city of Marrakech while I was there. Unfortunately, I didn't feel comfortable taking my camera to the market (or "Souk") as it is called because I had heard some stories from other golfers who had been their previously. The Souks are the coolest part of Marrakech as a tourist, and, according to a wealthy French woman I met who lives part time in Morocco, the Souks are in fact one the most unique aspect of central-Moroccan culture. At the market, vendors cram unbelievable amounts of merchandise into the tiniest spaces imaginable. Walkways are often only a couple of people wide between vendors, though the market does have a number of "open-air" areas where performers such as snake charmers put on their shows. The snake charmers were real, and their cobras and other snakes would stand and rise to the music of the charmers' flutes. I kept a safe distance from that! The markets were also crazy simply in the shear volume and variety of items available. Everything imaginable from jewelry to live chickens was available for purchase at the souks. The vendors would often follow us for hundreds of feet trying to entice us to by their merchandise. Prices were completely irrelevant there. The vendors would start the bidding by saying what they wanted for a product, but the actual selling price was often not even half of the original number. I'm not the best at that kind of haggling, but I am very tight with my money, so it would have been interesting to see what the outcome would have been if I had tried to purchase anything. The souks were a crazy but great experience. I wish I did have pictures to share with you, but I hope that my description gives you at least a small idea of what it was like.

The pictures really aren't posting the way I wanted them to, so this isn't what I had in mind, but I just decided I was going to go ahead and attach a bunch of pictures up there at the top of this post, so I hope you enjoy them!

By the way, I'm at a new place now and though my game is still not feeling perfect, I do feel really good. I played nine holes today at the new course, and I absolutely love it! This is my kind of place! Come back here for more news soon.

My Game was Still Sick in Round 2

Physically, I feel fantastic. Whatever caused me to be sick most of the night before the first round is completely out of my system, and I am feeling 100%. Unfortunately, that did little to behoove my golf game today in Round 2. I hit the ball very poorly today with my irons, and despite a lot of good work around the greens, I simply put too much pressure on my short game and wasn't able to hole the necessary putts to hold on to a decent round. I bogeyed four holes on my closing nine today and finished with a very disappointing round-2 score of 75. My two-day total of 149 will miss the cut by three shots, and leave me working on my game instead of competing for a win the next two days.

Today's round was pretty bad. I chipped in for birdie on my second hole (the 11th) and converted an easy up-and-down for birdie on the par-5 12th to go to two under par through three holes. After that, however, I began to struggle. Three times today I missed the green from inside of 130 yards and made bogies on all three occasions. That is terrible. I was quite dreadful today with my longer iron shots as well. I missed a couple of greens by a pretty wide margin and just couldn't muster the short game magic to save it. I am actually very pleased with my chipping and pitching, but I left myself too many tricky shots today and didn't putt the ball very well either. I do feel like I'm putting the ball well, I just didn't get many to go in today in that 5-10 foot range. My ball-striking with the irons was the real culprit of my struggles, and that will be something I spend some quality time practicing in the coming days before the next event begins in El Jadida on Saturday.

My game was very disappointing today. I really expected that I would play well given how well I felt and how good my game has felt all year thus far. I am not discouraged, though. I know that this game deals out some hard times. I always hope that I will never have to deal with struggles and missed cuts anymore, but I know that hard times and some frustration are a guarantee in the game of golf. I am ready to take this temporary setback in stride and go get 'em next week in El Jadida. I'm still encouraged by the way my game has felt all year, and I will go find that lovin' feeling again!

The two tournament weeks that I have had so far this year have definitely not been great weeks toward achieving my process goals. This week in Morocco was a challenge because the available practice facilities somewhat hindered the types of practice that I could do, but I need to be more creative and find ways to accomplish my goals. Today is Monday, and I will start checking off some of my goals for this week tomorrow. I know that my wedge play and putting need to continue to improve, and I will also spend some time working on my ball-striking. My rhythm was a little bit off on the course this week, so I am just going to think about that while I practice in the coming days. My process goals for tournament weeks are very realistic, and I plan to start making strides towards achieving them this week in Morocco. I know that working towards my process goals every week will get me to the outcome goals that I want.

My game may have been awful today, but I am still doing great. I'm healthy and I'm motivated. I can't wait to go play and practice tomorrow so that I can get my game whipped back into shape. I only have to wait four more days before it's time to compete again, and you can bet that I'll be ready. Between now and then I'm going to enjoy being in Morocco and enjoy the challenge of overcoming the recent struggles that have entered into my game. Life is good, and I'm still smiling!

By the way, I'm sorry that this update is "all golf" as well. I do have some info and a few cool pictures to share that will tell you more about my experience here in Morocco. I'm excited to share that kind of stuff with you, too, and I promise that I will soon. It's been a pain in the butt because internet is very rare here, it seems. There is no internet in my fifth floor hotel room, so I can only use it in the lobby, and even there it is very sparse. In any event, that is a poor excuse. I will share more from Morocco in the coming days with short updates about the improving status of my game and more about the cool experience I am having in Africa. Thank you for following, and come back soon for more!

Hard Day on Day 1; Feeling Great for Day 2

The night before the first round of the tournament, I was feeling great. I was in bed by 10:30 and had three alarm systems ready to wake me up at 5:15, so I was certain that I would have plenty of time for breakfast and a good warm up session before my 7:50 first round tee time. Unfortunately, my wake-up call came well before 5:15. Around 2 a.m., I woke up with an achy stomach. I rolled around for a while hoping it would go away, but it didn't. By the time my alarms started ringing, I had been awake for over three hours and had spent way too much of that time in the bathroom. That is more than enough details about that, though. In truth, I felt okay as I went to the golf course, but I was definitely exhausted and weak. I played my round without eating or drinking anything, and was definitely struggling to keep myself focused during the round. I'm angry with myself because I feel like focusing and going through my routine is something that I should have been able to do despite feeling weak, but I was very lazy at times. In the end, I struggled my way to a disappointing round of two-over-par 74. Scores were expectedly low in round 1, but I still have a chance to get myself right back in the tournament with very good play the next three days.

It is now almost 10:00 a.m. local time the morning before my second round. Last night I was still feeling a little bit strange at dinner time so I ate very cautiously. At 8:30, I laid down in my bed still dressed and with the lights on in the room. The next thing I remember was waking up around 5 a.m. this morning, taking off my sweatpants and long sleeve t-shirt, and then going back to sleep. I slept until just after 8:00, and woke up feeling awesome! I still used some caution this morning at breakfast, but I ate very well. I feel energized, healthy, and ready to play great in round 2. I tee off at 12:20 today, so I had better start getting ready to go. Today I have absolutely no excuses. I am going to use the same formula that I had on the table in round 1, but today I will not allow myself to be lazy. That formula is: have a solid game plan on every shot, trust that game plan, execute the shot with confidence, go find the ball and repeat. I'm going to have a great day.

I will be back with a good round 2 report and more from Morocco later tonight. Come check it out!

Almost "Go Time" in Morocco

Today was fairly uneventful but good. Though I felt incredibly refreshed at days' end yesterday, I had absolutely no objections to the fact that my alarm clock didn't go off this morning and I slept in until 8:00 o'clock. (I have multiple wake-up alarms set for tomorrow.) At that point, it was a little too late to run and still make breakfast, so you can imagine which of the two I was willing to skip! After breakfast, I went to the course for an hour of practice before the pro-am. The pro-am was a lot of fun. I played with two Moroccans, Chakib and Khalid, and a Frenchman, Jean Louis. Jean Louis was fluent in English and Chakib was extremely conversational in English as well. We had a really fun afternoon. My game today was very odd. I hit the ball very well at times and very poorly at other times, yet my short game managed to always perform to the exact opposite of my ball-striking on every hole. I looked brilliant around the greens on the holes where I hit it poorly and struggled around the green on the holes where I hit it well. In the end, I made 17 pars and a lone birdie. Though my game was erratic today, I actually feel very comfortable heading into the first round tomorrow. I know that I am playing well, and I really feel good about everything over here in Morocco. My first round will begin early tomorrow morning at 7:50 local time. I'm planning to play well and then go with some friends to see the town of Marrakech. It should be an awesome day! Check back here tomorrow for a full report and some long-promised pictures!

Tomorrow's formula for success on the course: have a solid game plan on every shot, trust that game plan on every shot, execute the shot, go find it and repeat. It's going to be a fun week, and I am going to play well!

All Golf on Friday

I feel awesome. I had nine of the deepest hours of sleep I have ever had last night, and I woke up feeling great this morning. I was at breakfast by a quarter of 7 local time, and after a relaxing morning, arrived at the golf course around 8:30. I played the whole course today with a couple of buddies, and I really had a good practice round. After the round, I had a long session on the driving range to further sharpen my ball-striking before ending the day with a very good hour on the putting green. I got back to the hotel at sundown, with just enough time to get in a quick workout before dinner. I had hoped to see some of the town of Marrakech today, but the day of productivity I had on the golf course was well worth putting that off for a later day. I feel really good about the status of my game right now.

The course, which is called Samanah Golf Club, is really cool and pretty darn good. It's a desert style course with wide fairways that are bordered by a very small bit of bermuda rough before giving way to desert sand and cactus bushes. The tee-shot landing areas are generous, but wide misses will find more than enough trouble to keep things interesting. The golf course is very long, but the fairways are absolutely rock-hard, which means that any straight drive will roll a long way, effectively making the course play much shorter than the scorecard yardage of nearly 7,500 yards. The greens and areas surrounding them are awesome. The turf around the greens is so bare and tight that errant shots can run well off of the greens and recovery can be difficult and require a great deal of creativity. The greens themselves are very good. They are pretty large, have great speed, and are very undulating. Precise iron and wedge play will be required in order to get approach shots into the correct area of the severely sloping greens, and great touch will be needed with the putter. The course is certainly not difficult, but it does demand a lot of good shots and some creativity in order to be successful. I think the course sets up well for me, and I know that with a firm commitment to a good strategy and some decent execution, I can tear it up.

Tomorrow will likely be "all golf" again, as I am playing in the pro-am for the event at 11:00 a.m. I think I will have a short run (indoors, on a treadmill, don't worry) before breakfast and will head to the course for a little bit more practice before the pro-am starts. The pro-am should be really interesting because I'm playing with three local citizens, and I have no idea if they will speak any English at all. I'm not too worried about it though. I'll still talk to them even in they can't understand a word I say. There is some kind of competition associated with the pro-am, so even though I don't know what the format will be, I know that I will have some motivation to be focused and to play hard, which is always fun for me. Tomorrow should be a great day of final preparations before Sunday's first round of the tournament.

I definitely want to experience a little bit of Marrakech before we leave here, too. I'm excited because My friend Billy Hurley and I both have very early first round tee times (I play at 7:50), and I think we are going to buddy-up and check out some of the sights in downtown Marrakech on Sunday afternoon. I spoke with a rather wealthy lady today from France who has a vacation home on the golf course we are playing and she told me some of the places to go and assured me that they were safe, so I feel very good about heading out for a very little while with Billy on Sunday.

I took a few pictures from the golf course today, but it more or less looks like a good golf course. I will post some cool pictures from Morocco soon.

Everything is going great. I'm feeling well, eating well, and my golf game is really on track. I'll be back with more info again soon--tomorrow probably. Thank you for keeping up with me!

I'm in Morocco! ...And Tired

What an adventure the last 30 hours of my life have been! I started on Wednesday at 6:00 a.m. in Pine Mountain, Georgia, with my last-minute check-list before making the journey up to the Atlanta airport shortly before 7. Things went smoothly as I flew from Atlanta to JFK Airport in New York with a one-hour layover in Charlotte. I got into JFK with just the right amount of time to comfortably claim my bags and get back to the ticketing counter of Royal Air Maroc to re-check my bags and sign in for the flight to Morocco. Then, at 5:45 Eastern Time on Wednesday, I took off for Morocco. My plan was to try to knock myself out with a Nyquil-like medicine and sleep through the 7+ hour flight. Unfortunately, I didn't execute the plan as envisioned. I slept very little, but somehow was excited and awake when the flight landed at 6:00 a.m. (Morocco Time) in Casablanca, Morocco. The process of claiming our bags and going through customs took ages, and it was well past 8 when we boarded busses for a three hour drive from Casablanca to Marrakech, the site of the first Egolf Event here in Morocco. It was noon before we arrived at the hotel to check in, and I figured that I might as well just force myself to stay awake the rest of the day so that I can try to reestablish a normal sleep cycle tonight. After settling in at the hotel, I took another shuttle for the 25 minute ride out to the golf course and had a short practice session before playing the front nine. It's been a good day, but I am ready for a great night of sleep! I am heading to bed as soon as I finish typing this, and I think that I will wake up in the morning feeling refreshed, on schedule, and ready to go!

The country of Morocco is really interesting. The ride from the airport to Marrakech revealed many locals tending to scraggly herds of sheep, goats, and cattle that were grazing in very sparse, rocky pieces of land. Small groups of living establishments dotted the landscape, but it would not be accurate to call them "houses." Many of the buildings that seemed to serve as peoples' homes had a roof over only one small room. It seemed like a very impoverished land between the airport and the city of Marrakech. Marrakech is a fairly large city that seems to have some modern or even "western" features, but I get the idea that the vast majority of the locals are not able to take advantage of any modernities that the city may offer. I'm excited to (very safely) explore a little of the city and learn a bit about it. I will share more and some pictures soon.

My top priority, of course, is to prepare and be ready to play well in the two golf tournaments while I am here. I feel that I am off to a very good start in that regard. While I wish I had been more well-rested today, I do believe that I maximized my practice time and that my choice to stay awake through the day will be rewarded in the form of a non-jet-lagged, well-rested feeling when I wake up tomorrow morning. Tomorrow I will play the whole golf course and spend a little time sharpening all the areas of my game. Saturday I will play in a Pro-Am associated with the event and do all of my final preparations before the tournament begins on Sunday. The practice facilities are very limited at this particular course, so I will have to find creative ways to reach my weekly goal in terms of practicing my wedge play, but I am determined to that. My putting has felt great leading into this event and continued to do so today. I think I am in good form right now and believe that a couple more good days of preparation can have me ready to perform very well here in Morocco.

It is exciting to be here. I am looking forward to discovering more about Morocco, and I am even more excited to start pursuing my first international win. This is going to be a fun time all-around, but I am being certain to stay focused first and foremost on the task of preparing well and playing great golf. Keep it here for good news about golf and exciting information about Morocco. I'll be back with more and hopefully some pictures tomorrow or Saturday at the latest. Thank you for following!