Fatima Bint Mubarak Ladies Open

My first sponsor's exemption into a Ladies European Tour event!

I found out just about 10 days prior to the event.  Probably would have been nice to have a little bit more time to prepare (mentally more than anything else perhaps!) but thankfully, I had been practicing. It was just this past September when I headed over to Kuala Lumpur to try and qualify for the Sime Darby LPGA Malaysia.  At this point, I had also started taking some lessons from the local pro here.  It's been working really well with Danny!

During practice one day, just as we were coming back towards the clubhouse, I noticed a familiar face.  No way! But sure enough, my eyes were not playing tricks on me. It was Annika Sorenstam!

For some reason I thought she would have been taller/bigger/bulkier but she has probably slimmed down from not playing full-time.  A legend no less!

Soaking in the atmosphere.  Malaysia Boleh! :-)

Well, Day 1 rolled around with a 11:05am tee time.  I really didn't think I played all that badly.  By the end of the day though, all my bogeys added up pretty quickly as I couldn't get up-and-down for par all day.  I ended up shooting a 79.  Our group was also put on the clock for like 4 holes when we made the turn, which didn't make much sense as we had been waiting on the prior nine. Anyhow...

It was an early day the next morning. I was in the first group out at 6:45am on #1 tee.  The alarm rang at 4am. It felt like a nap!!!  After getting the boys' school lunches sorted, I fed myself and packed my snacks and headed for the course.  It was not as windy as the day before and I started out with 2 birdies!  In the end, I ended up with a score of 69, with 5 birdies and 1 double bogey (ouch!).  Still, it was a great day for me considering this was my first LET event! Some scoring stats from the LET website:

Here are the comparisons for both days.  Front nine:

Back nine:

A 10 shot difference!  I ended up tied for 102 out of 126 players. Obviously lots of room for improvement!

By the way, I had one of the staff from Abu Dhabi Golf Club on my bag.  Funny enough Rodolfo was starting up his vacation time just as the tournament week begun so it worked out perfectly!

And here's the official score board.  I obviously need to work on my pointing skills. I blame the photographer for this one (i.e. Bobby :-P).  Speaking of Bobby, I would have loved to have seen his face when he saw my score of -5 at one point on Day 2. The excitement! :-D

What a great experience!  The Ladies European Tour will be back in the UAE later this December for the Omega Dubai Ladies Masters.  I just submitted my request for another sponsor's exemption spot. Let's see what happens!