Oscar Pistorius’s Dunhill Links blog: ‘This is all a completely different experience for me’

Published on 05/10/2012 08:57

We teed off at Carnoustie today and it was pretty nerve-wracking. Running in front of a big crowd is easy when I know what I’m doing but this is all a completely different experience for me – I was just hoping to get my drive past the ladies’ tee! Fortunately it was a decent tee shot, fairly straight and it carried some distance so that was a relief.

I bogeyed the first hole and then the second one I birdied so it was a decent start. But then I think I got over-confident and kind of lost my way for a couple of holes.

We had a really good morning although we didn’t have a great score at the end, finishing two over. However, we saw today as our warm up and were happy that we’d got the toughest course of the tournament out of the way.

Being paired with Paul McGinley is really a blessing for me and he’s such a nice guy. He really relaxed and mentored me throughout today. Early on he told that I just needed to focus on enjoying myself and that took a lot of pressure off me. My caddie is a local lad called Angus who plays off of two and he has also given me a lot of guidance. He’s got a great line and a good eye and I’d probably be a lot more lost without him.

Playing on such a beautiful course in a foursome with Paul, Colin Montgomerie and Steve Redgrave, was such a great to spend a day. They are all top guys and all very down to earth. I’ve known Sir Steve for a long time. We are very good friends and enjoyed a lot of banter between us around the course but we kept it clean with no bets. From what I hear Michael Phelps is a gambling man so I might put a little wager on tomorrow’s game.

I jumped straight in at Carnoustie today. We’re looking forward to a better day of play tomorrow at Kingsbarns which we’ll hopefully find a little easier going.

• Oscar Pistorious is blogging exclusively from the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship for Scotsman.com