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Senior European Q-School 2006
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After missing out going to Q-school in 2005 I was really looking forward to
going to Q-School in 2006. I had sent in my entry and did not specify the course
that I wanted to play on. All I cared about was that I was at the same course as
my travelling buddy Bertus Smit. Bertus was coming in from South Africa and I
was flying in from California. We were to meet at Gatwick and then fly over to
The Algarve in Portugal via EasyJet, which is one of the cheaper European
airlines that you could find.
All went well and I arrived at Gatwick at out 7 in the morning and had to hang
around Gatwick airport until 5 pm when our flight was to depart. What do you do
in an airport for 10 hours, well you try and sleep, you walk around and just
generally get bored. There was nowhere for me to leave my golf clubs so I ended
up dragging them around for the day. Not a lot of fun.
Bertus had to fly into Heathrow and then catch a train to Gatwick, well so I
thought. Turns out that he has a daughter living in London somewhere and she
picked him up at the airport the night before and he had a great night’s rest,
breakfast, lunch and an early dinner, while I am eating airport fast food. I
guess I must be abnormal as I have not eaten anything from Mc Donald’s, Burger
King, Jack in the Box, or any other fast food joint in over 10 years. I just
don’t like it. In fact I have not eaten a fast food Pizza in about just as long,
so finding real food was quite a challenge. I would rather go hungry than eat
that stuff. I guess, because my wife is such a good cook I have become spoilt
over the years. Thank god for Subway, Togo’s and such, but I digress.
Anyway Bertus shows up happy as a clam at about 4:30 and we board the flight to
Faro, where we land at about 8 pm. Bertus has arranged a rental car and we get
to it and it is about the size of a Smart car, well just a little bigger but not
much. Now here we have 2 adults each with a large suitcase and a golf bag in a
carry case. That is 4 big items. Anyway after much rearranging and packing and
unpacking we get everything into this thimble of a car but I have to basically
sit on the dashboard as the seat is pushed so far forward. Ah, but the golf
course is not far, or so we thought. First we have to find the correct road out
of Faro and neither of us read or speak Portuguese, which turned out not to be a
problem as the road signs were quite understandable.
Oh, before I forget, I the rental car agencies work quite differently in the
little towns, they did not have any offices, just a private guy with a briefcase
and you sit at one of the tables in the Airport and you give some guy that you
have never seen before, who could be anyone, all your personal info, your credit
card etc. I was pretty nervous about that, but it seemed to be the norm and
there must have been 15 guys with briefcases all sitting in a row waiting for
clients to arrive. Well this guy says whatever you do, do not speed as you will
get a huge ticket, and tells us that the speed limit is 80 or 90 kph. Remember
you in Europe you and everything is in kilometers, fortunately they drive on the
same side of the road as the USA, so that would at least be easy. Well we are
driving down the freeway at 100 kph about 10 over the speed limit and we are
literally getting run over, everyone here is driving at least 130 kph. In fact
guys on bicycles were going past us. We must have been the slowest drivers in
Portugal, the flow of traffic was at 130 and the fast guys were going upwards of
180. After being flipped off and cursed at a few times we soon figured out that
130 – 140 was a safe speed. (In the 10 days I was in Portugal I did not see 1
policeman, traffic or otherwise).
After driving for an hour and a half we find the golf course, by this time it is
dark so we go looking for the hotel, which is another 30 minutes East. We are
staying in the Pestana Delfim, and after a few stops for directions we find this
hotel, which turns out to be fabulous. The tour has booked a block of rooms and
we pay the equivalent of $35 per night for a room with an ocean view, and a free
full breakfast each morning. This could not be better.
The following morning we go to the golf course and find that there are 2
courses, one is the qualifying course which is called Gramacho and has been
designed by Nick Price and the Finals are played on the other Course called
Pinta. We meet a fellow Mini tour player, John Rushnell, from Canada and we go
and play. Well it seems that they had a drought in Portugal and the water table
got so low that the salt from the ocean got into the water table, the course
superintendent did not figure this out until too late and the fairway and greens
were dead. The tour staff was out there marking dead areas with white aerosol
paint, but it was an exercise in futility. Anyway the course is pretty tight and
has some funky designs, but is playable even with the dead areas. One thing to
remember that Olive trees are protected and they are everywhere, including in
the middle of the fairways. I shoot 70, which is not too bad for a first look.
John Rushnell has been in Algarve for a week already and he shoots 67. Bertus
has a tough day and shoots 68. As I said he is one helluva player. After the
round we head back to the hotel and catch up on some much needed sleep and
attempt to get over the Jetlag.
Anyway we play 2 more practice rounds each in absolutely calm conditions and I
shoot 70 again and a 72. I am not really concerned as I am not here to win the
1st stage of qualifying, all I want is to make it through to the finals and then
post good numbers and get my Senior Euro tour card.
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