IT has not been a bad week. Liverpool won the Champions League, Hartlepool United made it to the Millennium Stadium and I broke the £100,000 barrier for the first time.

In fairness it could have been an even better weekend had I been able to cope with the testing conditions that caused havoc at Wentworth in the BMW Championship.

The near £6,000 pay cheque I picked up for making the cut and finishing eight over par - tied 65th - could have been improved on had I not carded a third round 82 on Saturday.

It could not have come at a worse time either. I had gone 73, 71 and was confident about the way things were going but I was unlucky with the draw.

For those of us who went out early morning we had to deal with extremely windy conditions and that is something that I have struggled with this season.

On more than one occasion my game has let me down when the conditions have taken a change for the worse and that's exactly what happened at Wentworth.

The wind had an influence on my swing but it also had a negative effect on my short game. My putting was disappointing and nothing seemed to go right.

What made the whole situation worse was that those who teed off later in the day were able to enjoy a largely wind-free round - which left me in the lower reaches of the leaderboard.

With that in mind I'm meeting up with my coach, Ian Rae, today to try to work on ways I can deal with poorer conditions. Hopefully, at the Welsh Open, I will be better prepared.

NEVERTHELESS the cash picked up did boost my earnings ahead of the Welsh Open at the impressive Celtic Manor Resort which starts tomorrow.

I'm 57th in the Order of Merit and well on course to retain my Tour Card next season. Further good results in south Wales and in Holland - at the KLM Open - next week should see me within reach of my £130,000 target.

Both events have a £1.5m prize pot and it would be lovely to have done well in those before taking a time off during the US Open week, which is at Pinehurst in North Carolina in a fortnight.

It would be fantastic to go into that break in a good frame of mind and having built on my 18th placed finish in the Nissan Irish Open last week.

MAKING the trip from Wentworth to Celtic Manor was a relatively light experience considering the amount of miles I have covered this season.

But travelling to Wales would have been even more enjoyable had my hometown team Hartlepool not been robbed of a place in the Championship in this neck of the woods.

I had to watch it on the television unfortunately but it left me feeling sick at the thought of how close the club came to promotion - only for referee Phil Crossley to send Chris Westwood off after awarding a dubious penalty.

Victory for Pool would have been tremendous for the whole town and I had been quietly confident about things going into the game having been on such a high from Liverpool's Champions League triumph.

There's always next season for Pool and let's hope that this was not their only chance of a place in the Championship.

Published: 01/06/2005