Last minute trip to Oz

Fourteen years ago I spent roughly six months picking fruit and doing random odd jobs in Australia and fell in love with the country.  I never knew if I would have an opportunity to return, but then a week ago an offer landed in my inbox.  A TV show, SBS Insight, was interested in having me fly out to take part in one of their upcoming episodes.

When they first offered to bring me over I was very interested and excited about the chance to see Sydney again, but then I realized that they meant this week, which aligned with the club championship at Riverside.  Last year I didn’t do so hot in that tourney and I was looking forward to retribution, but after discussing the options with the closer people in my life as well as social media it became pretty obvious that the right decision was to take the chance and going down under.

I leave this Tuesday for two weeks on a different continent.  I scheduled a few rounds and hope to find ways to practice and play every day while over there.  At least two of the rounds are club “tournament” ones that I can post and all of which will be on unfamiliar golf courses and with new people so are good ways to continue playing under pressure.  I didn’t realize this, but outside of the US you have to play in a club sponsored tournament round in order to post it to your handicap.  They have a few of them a week at each course and I hope to play in that format to see what it is like.  I suppose it’s similar to playing in the men’s (or ladies) day at the local course, but will have to check it out to see for sure.

I am very excited about the trip and have been running around getting things sorted for the past 24 hours.  I don’t know much about golf in Oz so any tips or heads-ups will be appreciated.  The schedule right now is that I land in Sydney this Thursday and stay there until Wednesday July 16 at which point I am heading up to the Gold Coast with a fellow who has a TV show called Golf Getaway to work on some of the courses up in that neck of the woods. Then I fly back to Portland on July 24 from Brisbane.

If anyone is around those parts on those dates let me know.  I’d love to meet up and play some golf.  It’s a brave new world over there and I’m excited to experience golf outside of the US for the first time.

Also, if anyone is interested in watching the show it will be this Friday’s, July 11, episode of Insight.  I’m not sure if it can be streamed online but will check into that.

I have been working hard on developing Play Boxes and will post about that soon, it’s a longish process and I am on to some great new feels, but still need to put in some more work before reporting back.  I will continue to pursue that and to push my learnings while abroad.  It’s actually a perfect time to note how I perform under pressure, with jet lag, on new courses, thousands of miles away.

Can’t wait!

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