Hi everyone-

Happy New Year! I know it's a bit late seen as though we're nearing the end of February already! I'm trying something new, seen as though I'm very slack with posting my blogs. I've added my twitter feed as well to the website so if I am a little tardy with my blogs you will be able to somewhat keep up with my tweets. We'll see how that goes.

So firstly, I had a great off season! Although time does fly...the couple months just flew by! I spent most of December in Florida which was nice. I actually didn't get on a plane from the beginning of November until after Christmas so that was a record in itself!

I headed back home to Australia just before New Year, which was good timing as a small renovation turned big, at my Florida place and was in full swing so I was going to be kicked out of there anyway.

I spent the end of December and all of January at home in North Queensland which I just loved! I got tons of family time which I just treasure. My nieces and nephews are growing up so fast and I miss them so much during the season that it’s great to have that time with all of them.

I made one pretty cool trip down to Sydney with my Dad and brother in-law Troy. We went to the 5th Ashes test at the SCG. When I planned the trip I didn't expect we would be going to see a whitewash of the Poms but we did indeed get to see that!! All 3 of us had a great couple days at the cricket and to get to see the Aussies win the Ashes back in such dominating form was really fun!

So after some hard work in January I headed down to the Gold Coast to defend the Volvik Australian Ladies Masters. My game felt in ok shape but I hadn't played a lot of golf. I had done lots of practice but hadn't just gone out and put a score together. So I wasn't sure where my game was but felt like Royal Pines would bring something special out of me. Well I couldn't have been more wrong in the end. I scraped it around for the first two rounds to finish at 3 over. I had made only 2 birdies in 2 days! On a course where I think my scoring average is around 68. So I was sitting in the scoring tent thinking that I had missed the cut. I was being very careless with my card and not doing the proper checking. I walked out of there and a few minutes later realized that I had signed for an incorrect score....DQ! As it turned out I would have made the cut on the number. Lesson learned...never predict the score and be accurate from start to finish.

Moving onto last week, the ISPS Handa Australian Open. I definitely felt a little more underdone than I perhaps would have if I had played all 4 rounds the week prior. My preparation before we got started went pretty well and I loved the layout of the Victoria Golf Club! It is one of the great sandbelt courses I had never played before. Not sure why I hadn't but I did feel good playing it.

My first round started out a little up and down but I finished strongly and posted 1 under. The next two rounds improved steadily and by Saturday night I was at 8 under with an outside shot of winning. The leaders being at 13 under. I woke up Sunday pleasantly surprised to see that after one if the calmest weeks I had ever seen in Melbourne we had some rain and wind. Fortunately the rain cleared before we played but the wind started to crank! I knew I needed to get off to a good start but not to force things. I birdied the first two and never really looked back. Without being to cliché, I was seriously in a zone on Sunday! It's probably some of the best mental work I've done on a golf course. It's hard to explain what that feels like but there's just a real quiet calmness about everything that I do. I make decisions calmly, I back myself and play shots without trying to play them. My feel around the greens is heightened when I'm in this place. It really is golf nirvana which unfortunately I don't feel it often enough and can't achieve it by trying to "get in the zone". I am aware of the good place I'm in when I'm there which in itself gives me confidence to back myself and go for it. Whether or not I won on Sunday, I was really proud of myself for the job I did and to pull of the win was the ultimate satisfaction!! What a difference a week makes! From the lowest of lows to the highest of highs!

So I'm very happy with my start to my year and hopefully looking for more to come throughout the year! Let's see how it goes this week in Thailand. I play well here so it would be great to follow up this week with some more great work!

Cheers,
Karrie