COMMENT: Ross Fisher column

my debut in last year’s Open Championship remains my biggest thrill in the game to date but the CA Championship, the second of three WGC events on the calendar, is not far behind.

As soon as you arrive at Doral you immediately know you’re at a special event. The grandstands are massive, the galleries huge and it is a brilliantly organised week where you want for nothing. Also, with Tiger having won his first three PGA Tour starts, and with Augusta just a few weeks round the corner, there was an extra buzz around the place.

The first thing you want to do when making your WGC debut is get off to a solid start, particularly on a course with the reputation of the Blue Monster. There are only a handful of American courses that conjure up an image in your head with just a single word – Augusta, Pebble and Kiawah are some – and Doral is another.

At over 7,200 yards length is a big factor. Throw in deep, tangly rough and water everywhere and you have a real test on your hands. Thankfully my week opened with an eagle three! The 1st in Miami is a 529-yard par five and, on the Thursday, was playing slightly downwind.

One of my playing partners Miguel Angel Jimenez, who would go on to share the first-round lead at seven under, knocked his second in to eight feet and I managed to get inside that with my seven iron. With the extra incentive of seeing Miguel make three I matched him and with the other member of our threeball Scott Verplank adding a birdie four we were off to a flyer.

The day continued in a similar theme and I gave myself plenty of birdie opportunities and converted five of them, before a closing bogey at the 18th, which all added up to a 68 and a tie for 9th. I saw my name a few times on the leaderboard, which in the States is a giant electronic screen called ShotLink. It has all sorts of information and statistics on it, and although it’s never great to finish on a dropped shot the end result was more than satisfying.

The 18th at the Blue Monster was ranked as the hardest hole on the tour in 2007 and it was easy to see why. In practice I hit a five-iron approach a couple of times and on the Monday needed as much as a three. As you can see from TV coverage there really is no obvious bail out – go left and you are in the water, go right and there’s thick rough.

So if you are going to miss it anywhere you might get a decent lie right of the fairway bunkers but then you would have to contend with some trees. In short it’s a great finishing hole. The rest of the week was not quite so profitable, and I followed up the 68 with rounds of 73-70-72, but overall I was pretty happy. My driving and iron play was great but I struggled on the greens a little bit.

I may have eventually only finished in a share of 34th but I did top one particular chart. I didn’t think I had played the par fives that well so I was a bit surprised to be told that I was joint leader with Tiger at 11 under which was very encouraging and proved that I was obviously doing something right.

The most important list was headed by former US Open champion Geoff Ogilvy who had just one bogey all week, which was a staggering effort, and on the rain-delayed Monday parred all nine holes with the likes of Vijay Singh, Jim Furyk, Retief Goosen and Woods breathing down his neck.

The first two days we had pretty decent weather and there wasn’t too much wind all week but to limit yourself to a solitary dropped shot in 72 holes is pretty special. I would have needed a top two or three finish at Doral to play my first Masters so instead I headed to Dubai with my coach Kristian Baker for nine days to get my game in shape for the coming month.

I’ll be playing in the Irish Open ahead of the BMW PGA Championship at my home course. I look forward to Wentworth probably more than any other week and to go out in the final pairing 12 months ago was something I have dreamt about since joining there as a 13-year-old.

But, as I mentioned, there are a few tournaments before then and hopefully there won’t be too much rust in my game in China. The work we did in Dubai was very encouraging. It is fast becoming a true golfing hotspot for the British golfer and we had a real feast over our time there playing the Emirates, Dubai Creek, Four Seasons, the Montgomerie, the new Ernie Els and Arabian Ranches.

The last one may not be known to all of you but it is one of the toughest courses you could ever imagine, measuring 7,700 yards – so after that everything else felt pretty straightforward!