I traveled to Graz on the Monday, quite an early arrival but as i was staying with a friend it was nice to get out there early and away from the poor weather we had been having, however that backfired as there was a heat wave in the UK and torrential rain in Austria!!!

The course at Maria Lancowitz is one that I'm very familiar with and have played numerous times now, I felt that it would be a nice simple course for me to come back to, it offers lots of birdie chances and as always was in great condition with some of the grainiest greens you will ever play on.

My preparation before arriving in Austria had gone really well and I felt ready for a good couple of weeks and was just excited to be back playing and catching up with players that I had not seen for a long time.

I opened up with a very disappointing +3, the only positives to take from it were my short game and holing out were were great, tee to green was some of the worst I had ever played, its hard to say weather it was lack of competitive golf, nerves or just a bad day, it became clear by the end of the two weeks that it wasn't the latter!!

My second round was not much better however I managed my game a lot better and again with some great short game and putting I found myself -4 through 15 holes, I needed a couple of birdies in the closing three holes to make the cut so I tried to attack but just couldn't hit the shots required so a missed cut it was for the first week back.

So off to Slovenia it was, a great golf course and really nicely run event, I had a nice runners up finish here in 2009 so it was a course that suited my game and a week that I really look forward to, the golf course itself is tree lined from start to finish and its a must to not only hit the fairway but position the ball in the correct part which is sometimes very tough when they are only 9 yards wide!!!

The third hole at Slovenia is a great example of some of the quality holes, this was playing a faded 3 wood off the tee and a 9 iron to the green.

I played the pro am on the Wednesday and was fortunate to have a great team which made the day fun even if I was 30 mins late thanks to some great organisation ( not by me may I add).

So to the first day of the tournament, unfortunately it carried on from the previous week, I struggled from tee to green like never before and if not for some great pitching and putting it could of been very embarrassing, I had 24 putts for a +4 first round, it was a tough scoring day with gusting high winds but that score left me needing a good second round to make the cut, I shot +1 to make the cut on the mark but again thanks to the short game, I have never played rounds of golf where i had to think where was the best place to miss the green so I could get up and down. I again scrambled it around the last day with a score of level par to have a 30th place finish which normally would be a disappointing week but under the circumstances it really was a pleasing week to scramble and get it round such a tough golf course.

The back itself gave me no problems for the two weeks and although my game was a massive struggle I really did enjoy the challenge, I'm sure where to go from here as a can't compete playing like this, it could be a case of having the next few months off and working hard on the game.

Sam