I always enjoy coming back to a course where I’ve played well before. I had a great week in Holland last year to win the tournament. It couldn’t have gone much better really particularly since Tyrone and Conor were there to witness it. Hopefully I can do the same this year?

In fact the boys enjoyed it so much last year, I thought I’d bring them again. They’ve been on the beach enjoying the sunshine and the forecast is good.  It’s a beautiful place when the weather is like this so hopefully they’ll have another good week. 

Last week at the US PGA Championship was disappointing, but it summed up my year a little bit. I’ve threatened to play well, only to come unstuck with a bad few holes or a poor round. So I’m looking for a particularly strong end to the season. There’s certainly nothing wrong with my ball-striking, I just need to gain a bit of confidence and momentum.

I couldn’t wish for a better start than here because the course is quite linksy and you have to use your imagination on a few of the holes, which I like. It’s a very good test.   You’re bound to like a course you’ve won on, but even allowing for that, I think it’s a great layout.

I’ve been asked where I think it’s been going wrong this season and I don’t really know. It’s mainly due to a lack of confidence. I played so well on the practice days on Tuesday and Wednesday last week and then so poorly on the first two days of the tournament. So there’s no real way to explain it, but something’s obviously not quite right. I haven’t had a top ten all year, which is not me at all. I haven’t eased off my workload, but for some reason I’m not able to produce the results at the moment. I’ve got no issues with my swing, so it’s more the mental side.

I’m going to be playing quite a bit from now particularly with Ryder Cup points starting. It’d be good to get off to a decent start, and I also need to improve my World Ranking to get into the WGC events and the Majors next year.

Making the Ryder Cup Team excites me just as much as it ever did. It’s probably my main priority over the next year. I’m working as hard as I’ve ever done, and I’m also trying to stay patient, which is difficult because I’m going through a very frustrating time at the moment. Let’s hope I can start with a decent performance this week and my first round was particularly pleasing.