I played my first 9 holes of 2007 this afternoon. All in all, I’m quite pleased with the results:

• 4 pars
• 4 bogeys
• 1 double bogey – I should have taken relief from casual water and didn’t, it cost me a penalty stroke when I splashed into a hazard.

My chipping was solid on pitch and runs, but not good on flops. Putting was pretty decent. I hit the fairway with my first tee shot and only missed 2 fairways. The wind was kicking pretty strong – about 2 clubs worth. I hit a straight tee shot into a left to right cross-wind and it moved about 60 yards from left to right. Good thing I played for it; aiming OB left and letting the wind bring it back (though I didn’t expect quite that much).

The main thing I was encouraged about though was the progress I’m making keeping my swing under control. The long lay-off doesn’t seem to have hurt me much in terms of the swing changes I made last summer (that finally kicked in at the end of the year). I was ending up in a nice balanced position – something that I fought hard to attain in the past.

I’m encouraged for the rest of 2007.