Chris Wood: I’ve finally mastered distracting Dunhill Links

For the first several years when I started out playing on the European Tour, I just could not manage to get my head around the week at The Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.

I wasn’t able to figure out how not to be distracted by the pro-am element of the four rounds. Not that I got to play all four rounds… because I missed the cut the first four times I entered!

It got so bad that I even seriously wondered whether I should leave the tournament off my playing schedule.

However, that record has improved over the last few years thanks to playing alongside someone like Steve Redgrave, who knew instinctively when to chat on the fairways and when to let me concentrate on the shot in hand.

And on Sunday afternoon I sat in the players’ lounge at St Andrews glued to the TV screen for an hour and a half with my amateur playing partner Mark Madden.

When we signed our fourth round better ball card – a not inconsiderable nett 59 around St Andrews – as a team we were 39-under-par and one shot clear of the field on the leaderboard.

Also having handed in a 65 of my own, I was only two shots behind the leader and eventual winner Thorbjorn Olesen – who still had six holes to play.

At the time a pretty strong and cold wind had started to blow in off the North Sea and I thought there might be a chance that I could be involved in a play-off.

The missus was not too happy when I told her that I was switching from a 7.30 flight back home to Bristol to one at around midnight, but watching the leaders on the screens I was still very much in golf mode.

Unfortunately, Thorbjorn holed a crucial and lengthy birdie putt on the 15th green that ultimately led to his win.

And up at the 18th German football star Michael Ballack later made a par nett birdie to take his team score with pro partner Florian Fritsch to 40-under-par, pipping us at the post by one shot.

Looking back over the week, however, I was really pleased to have shot 65 on both Saturday and Sunday to get into contention, especially after seeming to have got the wrong side of the draw at Carnoustie in the second round.

Playing the toughest of three courses used during the Links week, I found myself battling into the wind for the first 12 holes.

Then, having hit my second shot into the green at the 12th, by the time I got to my ball the wind had switched and we had to play the last six holes with the ball blowing in off the right hand side.

It was so tough that at the par three 16th I had to take a one iron off the tee. Yet, at breakfast the next day, Bardley Dredge told me how different it had been.

Talk about a golfer’s luck of the draw! With the wind at his back, Bradley had reached the green at the infamous 18th hole with a drive and a wedge.

However, I do have to admit I know why I finished three shots behind the winner, and that was because over the first two days I had three sixes on my card, which was the equivalent of dropping six shots.

But overall it was a very good week. To finish joint-fourth in the tournament and runner-up in the pro-am event was certainly a far cry from stories of my first few visits to St Andrews.

And I hope the good golf I played over the weekend has now travelled with me to Woburn for this week’s British Masters, which is back on the European Tour Schedule for the first time since 2008.

It is good news to have a second tournament in England again because, while Wentworth is always a big hit with the fans, the rest of the season is empty for them.

All credit to Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood, Justin Rose, and Luke Donald, who have  all agreed to put their names to the Masters over a four-year stretch.

And credit also to SKY for becoming the title sponsor, which has helped provide a very healthy £3 million prize fund.

From what I have heard, the broadcasters are also laying on some extra entertainment outside of the ropes which should also attract the fans’ interest.

I have never played Woburn before, but have heard a lot of good things and I hope I can produce four good days of golf rather than just the two I had in Scotland.

Tagged Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, Chris Wood, European Tour