Graham DeLaet Blog - Rough Start to 2009 in Mexico

Canadian Tour Postpones Next Two Events Due to Swine Flu - Click Here for More Info

DeLaet's 1st Blog Entry on www.cpga.com after Inagural Canadian Tour Event:
April 26, 2009

Hello,

I’m excited to write my first of many blogs for the Canadian PGA website this week but I’m not so excited to tell you how I played in Mexico!

This past week I played in the Mexican PGA Championship in Mazatlan, Mexico. I shot rounds of 73, 76 to miss the cut by four shots in my first event of the year on the Canadian Tour. The event was won in a playoff by Mauricio Molina of Buenos Aires who actually joined the tour at the end of last year during the Argentina swing and also won the Costa Rica Classic. His win in Costa Rica gave him playing privileges for the entire 2009 season and he is obviously taking full advantage and has a $14,000 dollar cushion at the top of the money list now.

The top Canadians included my good friend, roommate for the week and fellow Canadian PGA Member Mike Mezei of Alberta who finished in 4th place and narrowly missed making it into the playoff. Another Alberta native, Stuart Anderson finished alongside Mezei in 4th place at 9-under par for the Championship.

I was playing really well going into the week, and felt really good about my chances. However, my ball striking was very poor this week and that didn't allow myself a very good chance to make the cut. The course has some very tight holes with OB on both sides. This is not very much fun when you don't know where you're hitting it. It caused for many tight, guided swings. I hit 3 balls out of bounds and 1 ball in the water during my two rounds.

I also had an interesting situation occur during the first round. In Mexico, the majority of the caddies do not speak English and we really have to take whatever we can get in terms of caddie skill level. I hit a ball that looked like it was out of bounds across a cart path. In my caddie's defence, the road said Out of Bounds on it but the player's rules sheet did not list the cart path as Out of Bounds. We waited for a rules official and after a while decided to play 2 balls and get the proper ruling following play. I first pitched my original ball that was currently over the cart path. I then went back to the fairway and played my second ball that I hit off the tee. However, when I had gotten back to the green, my caddie had picked up my original ball without saying anything to me because he assumed it was out of bounds in the first place. It turned out that it was not OB and I had to drop the ball as close as possible to where it originally lied, with a 1 stroke penalty. It’s a tough situation b/c he usually caddies for TOUR-ists and not TOUR PLAYERS and on an average day most golfers would just play that hole with out of bounds on the left.

You do hear some funny stories from the guys after the round. One of my friends had a somewhat rookie Mexican caddy and on the one hole the caddy just decided he was a little bit tired and put the big golf bag down for a rest. Typically that’s not a problem at all but the issue here was that he had put the large tour bag down on the green and right between the ball and the hole where another player was trying to make his birdie. All of the players got a pretty good laugh out of it but it does highlight some of the peripheral components of the golf tournaments down here that we have to deal with that we typically don’t have to back in Canada.

I do have a bit of surprise news as I had originally committed to playing in 3 more events in Mexico in the following weeks but have since withdrawn and am now back in Boise, Idaho. As I'm sure you've all heard about, the swine flu is running fairly rampant in Mexico. I didn't really feel like it was worth the risk to get really sick, especially because San Luis Potosi (where the tournament is this week) is one of the major cities listed in the epidemic. I was feeling nervous about the entire thing and it’s never easy to play golf if you don’t feel comfortable. It’s always tough when things like this happen because we don’t play for millions of dollars on the Canadian Tour and every week is so important to try and make some more money to stay afloat. I could sense that some players that haven’t been playing well and are feeling the pinch a bit want to try and play in every single event to try and recoup some of their funds. I’ve been lucky enough to have had a strong year in 2008 and felt that I would rather be comfortable and back home in Boise to work on the game and then head back to Mexico for the last one or two events if I feel safe enough.

I will update everyone in the next couple of weeks if I decide to head back to Mexico.

All the best,

Graham DeLaet
Proud Member of the Canadian PGA

** Click here to read updated statement from Canadian Tour regarding Swine Flu**