It was great to be back out for my first event of the 2010 season at the Qatars Masters. This was my first visit to Qatar, for what is the 2nd event in the early season 'Desert Swing'.
The Doha Golf Course is a great facility and the course was set up very tough, with thick rough, hard greens but soft fairways. The practice days also brought strong winds, which is common I believe in these parts, that only added to the difficulty.
On the Tuesday it was good to catch up with Edoardo Molinari with whom I hadn't seen so far this year. Edoardo was meant to visit the studio in early January but his flight was cancelled due to the snow we had. Edoardo however has been in good form and the improvements we have been working on looked like they were taking shape.
I also met up with Henrik Stenson on the Tuesday to do some work on the SAM Puttlab, and see how his stats were, in comparison to where we left off last year.
Dave Horsey was also playing this week but was happy with what he was doing. Prior to coming out into the Desert, Dave had been to the studio where we had worked on a few different aspects.
Last week in Abu Dhabi Dave led the putting stats with 100 putts over the 4 rounds, an average of 25 putts per round!. He also had an average of under 1.6 putts per green in regulation on his way to a top 10 finish.
From a product point of view we had a few guys pick up the Yes! Putter. Rafa Echenique picked up a Callie as did Oscar Henningson. Mark Brown also picked up a Victoria 2, while Mikael Lunberg picked up a back up for his Donna.
Next week its Dubai for the Desert classic. I will be meeting up with Darren Clarke over the weeked prior to the practice days to do some more work on his putting. Darren took a week off this week and stayed in Dubai to practice as opposed to playing in Qatar.
Things hopefully are improving on the greens for Darren with a 2nd place finish in the Jo'Burg Open a few weeks back, while in the Abu Dhabi Tournamnet last week in the first round he only needed 22 putts.
More from Dubai next week.
