Hi Everyone

Well its with a great big smile on my face that I write to you today!! :D   I am back home in Australia after flying in yesterday from Singapore.

What a great couple of weeks!  My first week in Asia, was the Honda Lpga Thailand, played at the beautiful Siam Country Club in Pattaya.  After arriving in from Australia, I was a little tired after a hectic couple of weeks playing at home, but I prepared well and felt good about things starting on Thursday. The weather in Pattaya was good but extremely hot and humid, but coming from Australia I think any of us that had played down there adjusted a little better than anyone coming from the Northern Hemisphere winter. Never the less, my first round was a bit of a struggle.  2 over, 74, was not what I was looking for but I really did a good job of hanging in there and not making it worse than that.  Surprisingly, I felt like my swing was making some good progress but I just wasn't trusting it. So my goal for the next 3 rounds was to do just that....trust, trust, trust. What a turn around!  I swung it very nicely and again surprisingly, after being 11 shots behind after the first round, I found myself in contention on Sunday. I got off to not a great start but made a great come back to finish T-3. As it turned out Yani Tseng ran away with the tournament to win her 3rd tournament in a row.  I was very happy though with my finish after the way the week had started.

So it was off to Singapore...feeling good about my game and a nice start to my LPGA season.  Last year I started my season playing four in a row and really felt tired in the last event of the stretch.  I didn't want to let that happen this year so I really tried to get some rest early in the week and not think too much about being tired.  So I did as much was required to be ready for the week.  I had played this tournament on the Tanah Merah Golf course the past three years so I didn't feel like I had to work to hard on getting to know the course.  Well what a week....I played very solidly all the way throughout the whole four rounds. I went into Sunday 1 shot out of the lead and with a real shot at winning. Saturday night I tried to not get to involved with thinking how great an opportunity I had.  A lot of the players and caddys were wishing me all the best which was nice of them.

So Sunday's round started off a little shaky.  I bogeyed the first and really had a hard time settling in.  Yani Tseng was making a run but fortunately I think Yani's run was holding Chie Arimura back as well.  So after making birdie on 9, I turned in even and was still only 1 shot behind.  At this point so was Yani.  We both bogeyed the 10th as Chie birdied. So I was 3 shots back with 8 to go.  Not the spot I wanted to be in...but I gave myself a good talking to before I played the 11th which was that there was still a lot of golf left and to buckle down and play and stop worrying about the outcome.  That's just what I did!  I rolled off 4 birdies in a row and walked off the 14th green with a 2 shot lead.  That caught me off guard a bit but I knew there was still a long way to go and not get ahead of myself.  As it was I bogeyed 15, birdied 16 and par the tough 17th and 18th to close with a 1 shot win of Chie Arimura.  I had quite a quick 40 footer on the last that at one point during the putt I thought I had made it but it just missed but I only had 6 inches left for par which was a relief as I marked it and waited to see if Chie could hole her putt from just off the green. She missed and I was able to casually tap in the short one for maybe a little unexpected win but a great one at that!  When I say unexpected, it is really because I hadn't given myself many opportunities to win over the past 12 months, so you wonder how you're going to handle the pressure.  Fortunately I did a great job in that area and I got to experience the wonderful feeling of victory!!  Hopefully it's the start of things to come!

So as I said, I am now home in Australia visiting my family. It's great to be home and to be able to share the win with family and friends.  It will be a very laid back stay, especially the next few days.  I would have taken quite a few days off even if I hadn't won but now it makes it all the more enjoyable.

Thanks to everyone for their support!  I hope I have plenty of good stories to blog about as the year goes on!!

Karrie