It was Holland this week for the KLM Open. This place is a little bit like Gleneagles in that we always seem to get bad weather the week of the Dutch open, which is a shame as the Hilversum course looks a great layout. Having walked the course it reminds me a little of the great inland/heathland courses we have in the UK. In fact some of the holes remind me very much of Ganton.
I arrived Monday evening ready to meet David Horsey early on the Tuesday to walk some of his practice ground and spend some time with him on the course. The course was really wet due to the heavy rainfall it has suffered in recent weeks. The greens were also very soft, and you could sense they would suffer as the week went on with the heavy traffic and more rain due.
On the Tuesday I also met with Steve Lewton who is in his rookie year on tour. Steve visited the studio last week for the first time so we caught up to see how he was progressing. Most of the stuff we had worked on was set up related. Steve has been struggling starting the ball on line, as we managed to spot a few things in his body alignment which affected his head positioning which in turn affected aim and path. Demonstrating, even with tour players, the set-up is all so important.
On Wednesday I met up with Chris Wood. We spent a little time before he played in the pro-am. Chris's stroke has been looking really good in recent weeks. His aim had got a little out so we worked on that. I feel confident Chris will show some form between now and the end of the season.
Michael Hoey was also playing this week so we spent some time on the Wednesday. The main focus for Michael at the minute is pace work. So we spent some time doing some specific pace drills to fine tune that.
There were a few players I work with that were not playing this week such as Darren Clarke, Thomas Bjorn and Ollie Fisher so it wasn't as manic as it can be.
Finally late on Wednesday I spent some time with Lee Westwood. This is the first time I have had the opportunity to work with Lee. His coach Pete Cowan had asked me prior to the event that if we both had the time would I have a look at Lee and capture some data of him on the SAM system. After the pro-am late on Wednesday we managed to do that. The brief session proved interesting and Lee was very engaging and good to work with. Hopefully he liked what I had to say and we get a chance I really to improve his putting. From experience having walked with Lee in the Ryder Cup there are very few players from tee to green that are better.
