In the middle of a three week break from competitve golf, Peter last  week made a brief trip to Chicago to play the venue for next week's PGA Championship and liked what he saw. 

"I had a couple of days back here in Orlando after returning from the Open and my trip to Ireland and then headed up to Medinah near Chicago. I have a mate from Melbourne, Sean Summers, staying with me at the moment and we headed up and played the one round there and I thought it was a really good golf course. There are a couple of really tough par threes and the fairways were tight. I'm sure that is the best way to prepare for majors - to play it away from the hype of tournament week in fact the day we played we were the only players on the course."

Peter stayed on in Britain after his 16th placed finish at the Open Championship where bogies at the last two holes proved very costly. "I was disappointed with the finish. 17 was a always a potential bogey hole but the 18th I hit it in a bunker and had to chip out sideways. I really had a golden opportunity to finish quite well with perhaps a birdie at either of the two closing par fives but two bogies burnt me. Mind you after twenty seven holes I would have taken the finish in a heartbeat."

Midway through his second round Peter was four over for the tournament but he powered home on Friday with six birdies in the closing nine holes for a homeward nine of 31 and he was not only back in the tournament but back in the thick of things.

"I liked Hoylake. It was not windy that week and the back nine holes played a lot easier than they would have with more wind.  It was a tricky course and rock hard and to a large extent was what Open golf is all about. There were a lot of bunkers from 210 to 300 off the tee and so it was hard to take them completely out of play."

After the Open Peter was about to play as a roadie for his good friend and Australian rock legend, Jimmy Barnes, on Barnes' tour of Ireland. "Jimmy arrived up to Hoylake on the Sunday of the Open and then on the Monday he, his family, his band and one or two others including myself, climbed on this purpose built tour bus which would be our travelling vehicle for the next few days. We took the bus across to Ireland on the ferry and based ourselves in Dublin."

"The first night we travelled across to Galway  and Jimmy opened for Simple Minds then it was back to Dublin for another gig then up to Belfast . I didn't do a lot but pretended I was a roadie and sold a few tee shirts, carried the odd guitar or two and we had a great time." 

"I came back here on the Saturday and have taken it easy in terms of hard practice but have still played most days. " I'm quite happy with the way the game is progressing. In recent months I have made a lot of cuts and gotten into contention occasionally and now it is a case of stepping it up."

Peter also feels that his putting is making progress. "I have been working hard on ensuring that I start the ball on the line I intended it to and making sure that the putter face is properly aligned. It has felt a lot better of late and obviously if I  can start to hole those ten footers on a more regular  basis which has not always been the case then it permeates positively through the rest of the game."    

Peter has adopted a new schedule in 2006, limiting the amount of tournaments he has played and taking longer breaks. "I am certainly enjoying it more and getting to do some things that I haven't done in the last five years. The last few years, especially last year, I was not enjoying it as much and at the end of 2005 I was really just going through the motions. In the past I have tried to play in the US, Europe and Australia and perhaps too many tournaments so I have tried to revise my schedule somewhat. Having said that my schedule will get busier over the next few months."

"It has been an experiment to some extent this season and it might be that in 2007 I play a little more."

Peter will play the PGA Championship, then at the WGC Bridgestone event in Akron, Ohio, then the Deutsche Bank Championship in Boston before another break with his next event after that likely to be the American Express Championship in Ireland.  

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