Rookie blog: Chris Lloyd on his first top-30 finish

It is hard to imagine a more immaculate course than the Golf du Palais Royal in Morocco as it only gets used once a year.

Thankfully my golf was a lot tidier too and I recorded my highest finish this season, a tie for 28th, and got inside the top 10 at the halfway stage.

I did some work with my coach Paul Mitchell at home before the tournament and gave myself a lot of chances and managed 21 birdies over the course of the week which was much more like it.

I got the better side of the draw going out late on the Thursday and took advantage of that with four straight birdies from the 14th and then repeated that run from the 15th the following day.

I think I have had five successive birdies once in a tournament and last year I had eight in nine holes on the Challenge Tour in Scotland when I was one over after six for a 62.
If you missed the fairway you would do well to find it in the ice plant. In one round I was in there, maybe three yards off the fairway, and my recovery actually went backwards. When you are in that sort of run you just keep attacking and go with it – the hole looks like the size of a bucket and you have to take advantage as it doesn’t come along very often.

I made a few high numbers the other way but that seemed to be the way it was for everyone and I was six over for one hole, the 4th, which was the hardest hole on the course.

If you missed the fairway you would do well to find it in the ice plant. In one round I was in there, maybe three yards off the fairway, and my recovery actually went backwards.

I was lucky that the next was sitting OK and I could move it out with a full swing by about 10 yards.  

• Chris Lloyd, from Bristol, is a rookie on the European Tour having come through Qualifying School