2007 Mid Year Diary Entry

I'm back on Tour this week at the AT&T National, which is hosted by Tiger Woods. This event comes after I spent some time in Ontario, looking after some business affairs, visiting with family and taking a little time to relax.

It's amazing just how busy things can get even when I'm not playing on Tour. While many people might think that when I'm not at an event I'm just kicking back, nothing could be further from the truth. For instance, I spent nine days in the Southern Ontario area and I think I had two days off. That's pretty standard for most top players and it's one reason I look forward to the real off season in November and December.

Last week I hosted my charity tournament in London, visited the winery in Niagara Falls, did a photo shoot and made an in-store appearance for Sears, played in a charity event at Taboo in Muskoka and played a practice round at Angus Glen North (more on that in a minute). So you can see that there's a lot more to this job than just competing on the PGA Tour. It's busy, but it's all things that I like doing so it's a good busy.

One of the major events of last week, of course, was my charity tournament, the Mike Weir Miracle Golf Drive for Kids at the Sunningdale Golf Club. It was a huge success with more than $550,000 raised. I was really happy with the way everything came off. That's why we took the time to put this together after we ended the event in Sarnia a couple of years ago. We wanted to make a bigger impact and raise a significant amount of money. It was great doing the events in Sarnia but we knew we could make it bigger. It was a wonderful start in London, the team did an awesome job and we're going to start planning for the next one right away.

On Canada Day, I played at Angus Glen, which is the site of this year's Canadian Open. I hadn't played the course since Davis Love made the design changes and I'd say Davis did a very good job. The course is much stronger, especially off the tee where many of the holes are visually intimidating. The rough was already long and heavy and I'm sure the course will be playing fast and hard when I get back in a few weeks. I was especially impressed with the par 5s on the back nine where the tee shots will be very tough. All in all, it will provide a good test for the players.

Just a few days before that, I received the news that I had been named to the Order of Canada - wow, what an honour. I was really blown away by this. When they phoned, I was told that it would be a while before they made any sort of official announcement but it came almost right away. I now have to see when I can attend the investiture ceremony.
I know a lot of people have been wondering about the state of my game as we head into a busy final stretch of the PGA Tour's new season. I have to say that, compared to a year ago, I feel much more comfortable with my game. I had better results last year but I just didn't feel like I had any direction. Sure, I was able to piece some things together some weeks and have some good events, but I never felt great about my golf game. Now I feel much more solid and that I have some direction of where I want to go with it. My confidence is high and I feel that every week I have a chance to win. Last year, it seemed that I really had to try and convince myself that I had a chance, but this year, it's a really honest feeling about it.

After this week, I'm off to the British Open at Carnoustie, which was the site of my first British Open back in 1999. That's when it was dubbed Car-Nasty, and boy was it ever. I don't think things will be quite as severe this time around.
To me, the toughest part about Carnoustie, like any British Open course, is staying out of the fairway bunkers. They're really a stroke penalty. At most North American courses, you hit it in a fairway bunker, you can still reach the green. But not over there, so staying in the short grass - even it if means hitting a three-iron off the tee - is really the key, I feel.

I really enjoy the British Open. It's such a great feeling to be there, where the roots of golf are. There's always such a great atmosphere with the tournament and I'm looking forward to teeing it up.

After that, I'll head right back for the Canadian Open and hopefully put that advance scouting I did last week to good use.

As always, thanks for your support.

Mike