I'm ill and David's been shafted!

1:29pm Wednesday 19th March 2008

I HAVE just returned from America after another ill-fated few days on Tour - quite literally in my case.

I picked up a stomach bug while we were out in Malaysia and by the time we landed in the US I was feeling quite ill really.

The ridiculous trip around the world from Kuala Lumpur to America cannot have helped either.

We flew from Malaysia to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to Los Angeles (where we stayed over night) and then onto Orlando, in Florida.

When we left Malaysia we were eight hours ahead of the UK, and when we arrived in America we were eight hours behind - all on the same day!

No wonder I wasn't feeling at my best. I went to the see the doctor and he wanted to put me in hospital, but in the end I persuaded him to let me see my own doctor when I was back in the UK.

Meanwhile, I had to put on a brave face for David because as you know he has not had the best of times lately.

The last thing he needed was to be worrying about me, as well as worrying about trying to make the cut.

As it happened, my stomach bug was the last thing on David's mind when he stood on the first tee at the Bay Hill Invitational on Thursday - he had a whole new set of clubs in his bag to keep him occupied!

After we missed the cut in Malaysia, we did some testing of his equipment and we found out he was spinning the ball far too much.

It turns out the shafts David had in his irons were not suited to him, so we had to swap them for a new set.

Then we had to get some new club heads, and we also had to switch to the Pro V1 ball.

Finally, David got some new wedges and a new Never Compromise' putter, which he used on the Thursday.

I have to say he was swinging the club much better and despite missing the cut I thought he played really well, although he putted poorly on the Thursday.

David switched back to his old Yes' putter on the Friday and was much improved, although it wasn't enough to get him in for the weekend.

But that wasn't the end of his stay in the States.

While I was jetting back to the UK, David was linking up with his main sponsors - Computer Associates - for the CA Championship at Doral.

Unfortunately, David did not qualify for the $8 million event, so he is out there entertaining clients for CA while the tournament is going on.

It must be very frustrating for him not to be involved, but on the plus side David will have plenty of time to practice with his new clubs.

He is not in action again for another two weeks, when we head off to Portugal, but I'm sure we will catch up again before then on the phone.

In the meantime, it gives me chance to work on my own game. I'm really enjoying playing myself at the moment, so I'm quite looking forward to the time off.

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