Five and three-quarter hours later and I've finished a round of golf. One of the biggest rounds of golf of my career. It's a disgrace and I can't believe The Northern Echo hasn't been printed yet.

I'm sorry but that's just how I feel after going around St Andrews - the most famous golf course across the world.

It was really slow, I know Kenneth Ferrie in front of us was chuntering on about it too.

What makes it worse is that Simon Dyson went off first this morning and finished 45 minutes ahead of schedule, but I think it stemmed from a fifth group who we know went round slow.

On the European Tour you get penalised for slow play. That should have been the case here.

But I don't want this to sound like sour grapes. At St Andrews there are double greens left, right and centre and that doesn't help.

I started at 3.30pm, finished at 9.15pm and really I should feel relieved that I managed to finished on only three over par.

MY 75 is a little disappointing, but to keep it at that after double bogeying the first is not too bad in a way.

I was battling with the elements out there. Not just the wind which I expected here, but also the rain came down which made it doubly difficult.

The late draw didn't help me, but that was the same for the rest of the players on the afternoon. Those went out in the morning all faired better because of the better conditions on the fairways.

I SPENT the morning preparing for the first round by in fact watching the play unfold on the television. I just thought it would help to monitor where the flags were positioned - but the way I'm feeling at the moment suggests that I don't think it worked too well.

Now it's back to my accommodation to relax with family and friends with possibly a curry or Chinese. That's probably the best way about going about this morning's second round.

Hopefully, going off at 10am will have better conditions for me to play than those that descended on the course at around teatime yesterday.

I feel with being just three over par that I can still come back and hopefully make the cut.

I expect the cut off point to be around level par, that's what I'm aiming for and we'll see if I can make the weekend play.

Published: 15/07/2005