Hi All!
What can I say. It has probably been one of the best months ever for me. I have been so excited since being here and loving ever single minute of it. I really wasn't close with my expectations about this place before coming here, it has blew my mind!!! Everything here is incredible! I got to be honest this whole experience so far has been very overwhelming!! I am absolutely chuffed to bits that I have been given the opportunity to further my career at New Mexico State University. I have to be very thankful for Coach Dirks in giving me this chance and especially my family for giving me this amazing opportunity. I have never been so excited and more motivated than ever before.
One of my first days here I was introduced by Coach Dirks to my own locker with my name plaque shining above it, the locker is filled with everything you can think of, its a type of locker that any tour professional would be grateful for. The locker provides more than I need and everything single thing is branded heavily in NMSU logos, its brilliant.
Two weekends ago we started our qualifying, Coach entered us 13 lads into a local amateur open which was actually held at our home ground, New Mexico State University Golf course. I fired two respectable scores of 70 (-2) and 68 (-4). It meant I finished 4th overall in my first competition here. My teammate from New Zealand, Tadgh Campbell won the tournament with a very nice total of -11 under par. It signs like this that tell me I am at the right place if I am willing to learn and improve, I can already significantly tell I am going to learn a lot not just from the coaches but my teammates too.
As for my teammates, they are all really great lads and they have all made me feel very welcome in my first few weeks. I can't wait to progress this journey with them and make these next couple years special.
For Coach Dirks and the assistant coaches, I can't thank them enough for making my introduction to NMSU very easy and making the start of my journey here very special.
For now, I have started back at college and classes are underway. We will continue to qualify for the next two weeks and then the first 5 men that successfully qualify for the team will be heading to the first tournament September 7th in Colorado Springs at The Gene Miranda Falcon invitational.
I look forward to telling you all soon how I got on!
Take care,
Niall