Dan Seymour’s Blog

Over the last 2 months ive been working extremely hard on my golf game to get it somewhere back near to my best. I knew that only my best golf would get me through the 1st stage of european tour q school. So my goals were simple, if i want to qualify i need to improve and work hard. I spent loads of time with Nick Mitchell, he gave me some valuable advice and more importantly got my game back to what i know i can do. Hours on the range working on technique and shot shaping was required in order to be prepared for frilford heath where 1st stage of european tour school was taking place.

Preparation was perfect, i felt like i worked on the right things, the game was getting progressively better as the week got closer. I started playing better in bb&o and south region events, winning the BB&O assistants event at bicester.

Finally the week was here and after 2 months of hard work and preparation i had gone from no confidence and being a little unsure to being completely ready, confident and excited to play.

I wont lie to anyone, i was very nervous on day 1 and as a result my score reflected it after the front 9. 4 over after 9 holes was not the ideal start when there was still 3 and a half rounds to play. I proceeded to play great from that point onwards. Conditions all 4 days were very different to practice, the temperatures dropped and the wind most definitely got blowing. Was very difficult conditions.

rounds of 76/72/72/74 (+6) finished me 17th. Top 25 qualified.

brilliant week, i played great.. to be honest i played alot better than more score so the good thing is i know i can improve.

id like to say a big thank you to my dad, charlie butler and tom fleming who caddied for me over the week, also to anyone who came to watch and support me. much appreciated.

2nd stage of qualifying is in spain the first week of december. I dont get told what course im at until end of this month. cant wait, the hard work will continue and hopefully success will follow.

Since the good and promising start to the season, my season has been a mixed bag. Very frustrating. Ive had some good performances in the bb&o and have played my best golf in the PGA south region order of merit events. Theres been 4 south region OOM events, ive played in 3 and havent finished outside the top13 in all of them, as a result im currently 6th in the OOM. There are 3 events left this year. Im going to make a big push to attempt to finish inside the top 3 which will get me into the PGA playoffs.

Euro pro’s have been very frustrating, and can only really be described as a big learning experience. My results have been poor but thats due to poor play. Im still trying to find a way of getting the best out of my game and playing how i know i can play in these Euro Pro events. If i could play like i do in the BB&O and PGA south region my results would be alot better. Plus the standard this year on the Euro pro is phenominal, alot of great players and scoring has been excellent. Need to Improve!!

Im working hard at improving in every aspect of my game. Tee to green, short game, putting, psychology, fitness and strength is all getting addressed. Some changes are being made. The problem im having is getting it all to work and gel together at the same time, very difficult to do when theres so much being worked on. Of late the short game has improved massively but the long game has gone downhill, frustration is the word.

Lets hope for a strong finish to the season.

Its been a while since the last blog, ive been experiencing some problems with the website company but all sorted now and back in control of my webpage. So apologises to those of you thats been eggerly awaiting my latest blog.

Where do i start? its been a busy but successful start to the new season.

Early season i successfully made it through both stages of qualifying for the euro pro tour for 2011. This now allows me to play all the events this year. The first euro pro event was at wensum valley in norwich. It proved to be a tough week for all the players. Strong winds, firm conditions and not the purest greens in the world made it tough and frustrating to score well. I managed to make the cut which was a steady start to the euro pro season but didnt threaten the leaders all week.

More recently ive started to play really well with some very promising performances. I spent a few days in the midlands at Little aston golf club trying to qualify for the PGA glenmuir club professionals championship, which ended in a success, finishing 7th and booking a place in the grand final at the belfry. I finished 4th in the PGA worthing Masters which was the first south region event of the year. A few days later i won the BB&O frilford heath pro-am.

The key to my good performances recently has definitely been down to driving the ball great of the tee. My new titleist driver is phenominal. My putting is slowly improving, if i could hole 2/3 more putts a round then a really good performance could be just round the corner. Lets hope its this week at Burhill (2nd euro pro tour event)

Happy golfing to you all

Ive been in america the past 2 weeks practicing for the 2011 season. I went with Nick Mitchell and was a very hectic few weeks. The weather was much better than here in England.

We started the first 2 days at the PGA demo day and merchandise show in orlando. After that it was relentless practice and the odd tournament to test our skills. It was clear to me that im rusty, but thankfully it is pre season for us, plenty of time to improve. As the time went on i definitely felt my game improving and getting sharper. Big thanks to Nick for helping me out throughout the trip with my golf game, much appreciated.

It was a valuable experience once again in america, learnt alot about my golf game. Now have time to develop the game further.

First event of the year starts in march. Cant wait, really looking forward to it

Happy golfing!!

I’m back!!

Looking forward to the 2011 season, excited to get going, can’t wait.

The good news is I have the enthusiasm back and really want to play and practice. This weather isn’t helping but everything is coming together, shaping up for the new season starting in March. I’ve been practicing hard once again, I’ll be soon be back in the gym and all the administration required has begun. Big thanks to Paul Tebbutt who has agreed to help and assist me in running my website again, he does a great job.

The plan is a quiet Christmas and then the fun begins. Plan is to get away in January and February for pre season practice. In the middle of March there is a tournament in Spain which I’m aiming to be my first event. Nothing is finalised as of yet but I will keep everyone informed once I know.

So Merry Christmas to you all! Happy golfing!! (if you manage to get out there in this crappy weather)

Thank you for everyone’s support this year, on and off the golf course. This year has been a very tough year and I appreciate everything people have done for me.

Roll on 2011..time to shoot some good numbers

Due to my Mum’s sad recent death i am currently having a break from competitive golf and will return when i feel ready. Mum passed away on 31st July 2010.

I will keep people updated, but at present i have no plans of playing any more euro pro or south regions events this year. The BB&O PGA have been good to me and i will continue to play pro-ams to try and bring some enjoyment back.

The played the Glenmuir Clubs pro’s only a few days after mums passing because that was one event she wanted me to play.. i wasnt prepared for the tournament, had no time for practice and certainly wasnt ready mentally. But i played missed the cut by one shot. Glad i played for mum but wasnt really good for my own mental state.

Thanks to everyone who has supported me through the season with my golf and even more to those that have supported me through this tough period.

Since Open qualifying my golf has continued to be good. 

Although i played well at both West Berks and North Oxford Pro-am’s my scores where a little bit disappointed.

Newbury & Crookham Pro-am was a great day, good weather and the golf course was in phenominal. Again i played great and shot 2 under par (67) to finish tied 2nd. It was perfect preparation and gave me confidence going into the next Euro Pro event at the Players Club.

Euro Pro at Players Club, Bristol was Wednesday 14th - Friday 16th July. It was the worst 3 days for weather conditions that ive ever had to play in. All 3 days had relentless strong winds and the odd heavy rain shower made conditions very difficult. The Players Club is tough enough at the best of times so in these conditions it was going to be a real tough test. First 2 days i played great, 1 under first round and 3 over 2nd round had me lying tied 7th going into final day. Unfortunately i had a disasterous start on the final day which ruled me out of contention to win. From the 7th i settled down and played great again. So really 6 holes on day 3 have cost me a top 10 finish or maybe even a chance to win. I finished tied 21st. Alot of positives again and alot of confidence taken away, another good experience that can only bode well in the future.

Tuesday 20th July was the PGA South Region Studley Wood Pro-am. WHAT A DAY!! i finished 3rd in the individual professional event with 2 under par, but the highlight of the day was undoubtably my teams event. Myself, Shaun Irlam, Alan Irlam and Paul Hyde shot 13 under par as a team to win the event. 1st prize believe it or not was a holiday!! Holiday to Spain for 4 days, accomodation, golf etc all paid for. DELIGHTED.. Well done team

This week im at the English PGA Championship at Goodwood GC, which i qualifed for earlier in the year at Tudor Park.

Im back in England!! Apart from all the scottish enjoying and cheering on the germans in the football, Scotland was brilliant. No better place than St.Andrews.

Early Sunday morning Gary Moore (caddie) and I set of on a 8 hour car journey to Scotscraig Golf Club for local final qualifying for open championship. We got there in time for the football, disappointing!! Sunday evening and Monday was crucial preparation time to get ready for 36 holes on the tuesday. Scotscraig is a brilliant golf course but very difficult. Very narrow fairways, pop bunkers and gorse bushes everywhere made it very demanding. The R&A set the course up hard and bouncy with extremely fast greens.

Mondays preparation went well, i was playing well and was confident. Tuesday was 36 holes, 1st round started for me at 7.05am. I played good and holed a few putts, shot 2 under and was only 2 behind the lead going into final round. 2nd round i actually played slightly better but the putts dried up, i shot 2 over and finished level for the tournament. Unfortunately that finished 3 shots short of a spot in the Open Championship. I was slightly disappointed, i feel like i played well enough and definitely had a chance. But at the same time im satisfied with an 8th place finish in a strong field. Im proud of my performance and had a fantastic experience.

Big Thanks to Gary Moore (Caddie). He was a massive help and did a brilliant job. We had a great time.

 The Thursday before Open qualifying was BB&O Wokefield Park Pro-Am, the course like Scotscraig played firm and bouncy which turnt out to be good practice for qualifying. I took my own team with me which consisted of Charlie Butler, Lloyd Childs and Joe Bell. We had a good day all round, I finished 3rd individually and we finished 3rd as a team, so well done to the boys!!

Another 2 weeks have spaced with mixed results.

I finished 6th at the Chipping Norton Pro-am on Sunday 13th June. I shot 1 under par and played pretty solid.

14th June I headed down to Devon for Euro Pro at Bovey Castle. Preparation went well, played well in practice and had a good plan for the tournament. 15th June was my birthday!!! In Devon with no signal on my phone, it was pretty quiet. I started day 1 well but struggled on the back nine. 5 over first round followed by 6 over 2nd round made my trip a little disappointing. The course was awesome but very tough if you weren’t hitting the ball straight. The course was playing hard and bouncing making the ball difficult to control. Another learning experience, I took a lot of things away from the week.

I worked hard on my game with Nick Mitchell over the weekend to get myself ready for Open Qualifying on Monday at Ferndown. It payed off as well, had a great day. Weather was brilliant and my golf wasn’t bad either. I shot 4 under to finish 1st and book a spot into final qualifying next week. There were 14 spots available. Local final qualifying is next week in Scotland. Scores are on opengolf.com

Not a good start to the week, the first PGA south region event didnt go according to plan. I struggled from the 1st tee onwards, lacking confidence of the tee and the Drift GC is not a golf course for the wayward shots. Starting my round with an 8 (4 over) on the 1st is obviously not ideal. I battled and grinded it out for 17 more holes, it wasnt pretty but managed to finish 3 over. Wasnt good enough to make the cut, didnt deserve to anyway with the way i played.

Tuesday gave me the chance to correct a few things with the swing ready for the Flackwell Heath GC Pro-am on wednesday. Well what a difference a few days make, i was abit apprehensive for the first 4 holes after mondays poor play but settled down nicely and played great. 1 under thru 8 holes was a slowish start on a good day for scoring, things turnt bad quickly after i double bogeyed the par 3 9th, simple 9 iron hole. Time to knuckle down again!! i played great on the back nine, shot 5 under (29 shots) to give me a total of 4 under. Finished 4th on my own!! 1 shot behind the 3 winners on 5 under.

Big thank you to Conor Dick who caddied for me at Flackwell, he did a fantastic job.

Next stop Chipping Norton pro-am followed by euro pro at bovey castle.