Hi everyone, hope you’re all enjoying this chilly weather! Having just come back from Florida I have to say that I am definitely feeling it!

As far as the golf went this year, it wasn’t exactly the season I was hoping for but have to admit that I was trying to finish in the top 30th of the Race to Dubai to ensure my place in the Open, so it was a good feeling to find that I was the ‘last man in’!

After the Dubai World Championship I went back home to Ireland for a week and caught up with things there. Three weeks away from the boys is an awful long time for me and just about the maximum I can manage, so that week was great with them.  I was given their Christmas lists – I’m not sure what happened to Lego and Scalextric etc but times are a changing!! It’s now a TaylorMade Rossa Putter, 33 inches, new TM wedges – the ones with the “deep grooves to get extra spin” and all that sort of carry on! Oh and I forgot the most important – their own TaylorMade golf balls with their numbers on! My two now spend their time trawling the TaylorMade website and can’t wait to get their little hands on the latest products.

After the week at home I then went over to the States to play in the Shark Shootout at Tiburon with Gmac.  We played really nicely and finished 2nd – but the fact that we did play so nicely certainly curtailed our evening activities so the socialising was unusually quiet. So basically the golf got in the way of a really enjoyable week!!!

We had great fun and tried to catch Dustin and Poults on the last day but they played fantastic as well and we just couldn’t quite catch them. All in all it was a great way to finish off the year and spending some time with Greg Norman the tournament host was fantastic – one of my all time golfing heroes.  Gmac was in great form, especially coming off his win in the Chevron the week before, so was a great partner.

I’m currently sitting in a traffic jam waiting to get into the car park in Belfast to do some Christmas shopping and seem to be going nowhere fast.  Mind you for once I’m not in a rush to go anywhere – I’m spending Christmas at home with the family and we’re all really looking forward it – three weeks without getting on an aeroplane is total luxury these days.

I leave on 2nd January to go to South Africa where I’m playing in the Africa Open in East London and then the Joburg Open the week after. They’ve been so good to me down there over the years and I just love playing the courses there, catching up with old friends etc, so it’ll be a great start to the 2011 season.  The weather here in Portrush isn’t conducive to much golf in January so I’m definitely heading in the right direction.

So that’s it for this year and I’d like to thank you all for your support and hope you all have a fantastic Christmas and great 2011.

Speak to you next year. Darren.