Well that was fun. Not the outcome but the experience – playing in a DP World Organised event. It started to get real when the flag on the course was changed to the DP one. This is real. Then seeing players whose names I recognised starting to arrive – Matteo Manassero for example.

We flew into Faro, Portugal although the course I’d been assigned was in Spain. It was literally on the border. The river that ran down one side formed the border between the two countries. And the course was fantastic. This was a last minute change but you wouldn’t have known it.

I met up with some of the other Scottish guys for practice rounds and, to use a cliché, it was a course of two halves. One was wide open and links-like whilst the other was tight and more parkland with interesting water based challenges!

The first round proved tougher than I thought – four birdies but only making par is not what I wanted. And the standard was apparent as level par left me in T58. It’s all a learning process though and there were three rounds still to go.

Another beautiful day dawned – I was definitely enjoying playing in this weather in November with highs in the low 20s (that’s 70s for my American family and friends) – perfect. And on the second day it wasn’t just the weather that was good. Time to make a move – lots of birdies moved me up the leader board following a much improved round – now I just needed to build on this.

But round three didn’t work out quite how I’d hoped with lots of near misses and not enough birdies to keep me heading up the leader board. There was lots of chat about how many places would be available for final stage from our venue and I knew I needed to be well up to be in with a chance.

The standard and the scoring was incredible and I was proud to be part of it and I really wanted to go to final stage so the last day meant going all out. This is where the standard really started to show. I was so pleased with scoring four under again but it resulted in me going from T43 to T54 – four under par and I moved down the leaderboard – wow. What a lesson.

And despite the disappointment of not making final stage, it was a great lesson and a great experience. I learned that I could hold my own amongst top professionals. I already knew that consistency was key – this was just another reinforcement of it. I learned that I could come back from an average round and score well. And I learned that I wanted this more. I want to play in events like this against players like these. Preferably in warm, sunny places.

A big thanks to dad for caddying for me after scouring the Algarve for a pair of tailored shorts. Did you know caddies aren’t allowed to wear cargo shorts? And to mum for coming along to support. Due to not being able to book flights back immediately, we managed a few days on the Algarve to reflect and enjoy more sun!