France

“take time with a broken hand, because it likes to heal…” Stone Temple Pilots

My feet hurt.

Last week in Versailles (outside Paris) was tough on the legs. Felipe and I got there Monday early morning and went directly to play a practice round at Le Golf National. Played again Tuesday, practice Wednesday, and played the Thursday through Sunday. We finished early Sunday and ran to the airport to fly to London. Felipe was close to qualifying directly to the British Open which is played in 2 more weeks, but Pablo Larrazabal won the Open de France taking his spot, so we ran to London to play another qualifier Monday. Two rounds in one day and we came up short again. My feet were killing me.

And then my back snapped.

For all of you that know me well, this might not come as a surprise. Getting “old” has its price and my back is the place where I suffer. Woke up Tuesday to get ready to go practice and as I bend down to close a zipper of a bag, my back cringed and there I was… left walking like a 90 year old man trying to old his poop (a punto de cagarse).

The good news is that I am feeling much better and I think I will be ready for tomorrow when the European Open starts here in London. (I wrote this yesterday, I survived the whole round today... MOM I AM OK!)

But let me talk about France, starting with the food: in one word, it was terrible! Can you believe that? The club was far from downtown Paris and we were pretty busy with the tournament, so we had to eat there every day. They only had jambon et fromage (ham and cheese) baguettes for the caddies… every single day. The hotel kitchen was awful too, it was clear they did not have the volume of people they had to handle this week, and the food was expensive and bad. Imagine that one of the Argentinian players (Ricardo Gonzalez) bought some meat and asked for a grill to make a barbeque ourselves! Which the “nice” French hosts let us do only once (oh yeah, French can be very rude, it is really uncomfortable sometimes). I also walked 2 days in a row outside the hotel and golf club grounds (they were in the same place) searching for a place to eat, and one and a half hours later I found NOTHING! (did I mention my feet hurt?). Oh man was I mad! One afternoon though I practiced with Felipe and I was able to hit some balls. It was just me and Ian Poulter practicing on the range... you know how "we" great ones do it until late in the evening...

We did go to Versailles a couple of nights. One of them the cab driver dropped us in the wrong area of town, so we ended up in another pizza place than the one we intended to go, but we had an illustrious guest who showed up and joined us for dinner: Angel Cabrera. For you non-golfers, he is a very famous player who won a huge event last year (the US Open)… and I had him across the table talking golf and drinking beer. Pretty cool.

One sad thing happened last week. A very good friend of my dad, and consequently of mine, passed away. Although I did not agree with many decisions he made in the later years, he ALWAYS had one great virtue, and that was that no matter where he was or who was there, he ALWAYS made everyone around him laugh. The jokes, the stories, the comebacks... it was a real gift that he had. It was funny when Felipe and I started talking about Johnny and remembering his jokes the second round there in France, we started laughing quite a bit and we played pretty good, enough to make a comeback and pass the cut for the weekend. I guess Johnny helped us out making us have a good time even after he is gone. I will miss him.

keep in touch people! send me news!

love you all

M

ps. the first picture is Rafa Echenique's brother and daughter helping me out caddying here in London on the practice round. the second is Felipe on the 2d hole of France... I know a lot of people who would NOT make it over the water from there, and yes, it's a par 3!