The second Audi Tour event of the season was played is hot, sunny conditions at Linna golf. The course was in fantastic condition and the greens were excellent, perfect surfaces and very fast. The course seemed to be too difficult for most of the competitors but Juuso Lehtinen managed to play a terrific round of 69 to take the victory. |
To play well on this course you need to hit the ball accurately off the tee. The greens are well protected and the surfaces are fast... and you just cant play the course from the rough. All year I have hit the ball very straight and felt like I had it under control, including many times (e.g. at Vuosaari) when there would have been no problem to spray it about a bit... but in today's round I was really struggling with my swing and I just didn't hit it straight enough.
I hit only 5 fairways today, so it was some kind of a miracle to be able to hit as many greens as I did (12)... but my putting was just rubbish unfortunately. Despite struggling from the tee I managed to have birdie putts on my first 11 holes... but that only led to 10 two-putt pars and a three-putt bogey... after that I started to miss greens and the shots just started to add up. I had only one single putt green today... you just can't win competitions putting like that.
Luckily everyone else seemed to struggle also and my 79 was good enough for 8th place (my 8th consecutive top 10 finish on the Audi Tour!) so I feel like I "got away with it" on a poor swing day today. I am in a good position in the rankings (4th) after two events and looking forward to the next chance.