G'Day Everyone!!

Well, well...what a week!!! My love affair with the ANZ Masters and Royal Pines Golf Club continues!! After a solid couple of weeks in Asia, I arrived on the Gold Coast, a little tired but looking forward to playing a tournament where I have had so much success. We weren't able to have the preparation to the tournament we would normally get, after the course received a huge amount of rain over the weekend before we got there and the beginning of the week. The Tuesday practice round was cancelled and so was the pro am. The course was that flooded that it took the whole two days for the staff to get it back into playable shape. We were able to get on the course for a practice round Wednesday afternoon which was lucky as I think the officials seriously considered not letting any of us practice before the tournament started Thursday.

So after a wet few days, the tournament did start on time Thursday morning as scheduled. I played pretty solidly the first two rounds, shooting 7 under to be tied for third going into the weekend. I was swinging quite as well as I thought I could be but on my last two swings of the day on Friday, I figured out something that I thought would help with my timing over the weekend. Well it certainly did help, Saturday I came out firing, swinging the club as good as I have all year. I shot a very solid 8 under par 64 to give me a one shot lead going into Sunday.

Obviously, I had given myself a great opportunity to win my 7th title, but there was a lot of low scoring on Saturday and the leaderboard was bunched. I knew that Sunday was going to be a tough one and I would still have to shoot a pretty low one. I was paired with Katherine Hull. Katherine was the defending champion and if there was anyone else in the field who might have felt pretty confident on Royal Pines, it was her. Well, what a day!!  I stood in the middle of the 13 fairway that day, 8 under through 12 holes and I only had a 2 shot lead! Katherine and I were going birdie for birdie and I knew that even though I was starting to feel a little mentally fatigued, I knew that I had to dig deep and continue the aggressive birdie run that I had been on. I finally got the break when I birdied the 14th, holing about a 30 footer. I think that was the straw that broke the camels back. She then didn't play the 15th, par 5, all that well and I went on to make another birdie. So now I had a 4 shot lead with 3 to go. Still not a done deal but it ended up being a really great walk down the 18th. I capped off my unbelievable weekend by holing a 20 footer on the last to shoot 61! It was a sweet feeling, playing so great for 4 rounds and making the putts under pressure on Sunday felt awesome!

My family and friends were all there to celebrate with me! My niece Olivia was there at 18 to run and give me a big hug! She is only 4 but I hope she will have that memory when she's older.  It was really great to share it with her!

So it's already been a great start to the year!  Hopefully it's a sign of things to come. I am at it again this week...four in a row for the veteran, as I am often now called!!  I am in Melbourne this week to play the Women's Australian Open at Commonwealth Golf Club.  The course is certainly going to be a tougher challenge this week, as is always the case playing on a sandbelt course here in Melbourne.  Apart from the challenge of the course, the weather looks like its going to be tough as well. Its supposed to be a little cooler and very windy. So I don't foresee any 61's this week but after getting over the fatigued of last week and the 2 tournaments before that, I am looking forward to the challenge and seeing what I can get out of my game this week.

Cheers,

Karrie