Here I am in Qatar hoping to inject some acceleration into my first-gear start in Abu Dhabi.

I had a few issues to negotiate in Abu Dhabi as well as my notoriously slow kick-off to every season.   I hadn’t played a lot having been concentrating mainly on my fitness so it wasn’t too surprising that I was a bit off the pace.

But I hadn’t factored in a shoulder injury which hampered me for a couple of days, but has cleared up now.   I've been working on setting the club higher at the top and I couldn't really support the club with my shoulder and neck.    Once that started to ease off on the weekend, I felt like I swung it a lot better.

Neither had I thought I would have as much trouble reading the greens as I did although I wasn’t the only one in that respect.   A top 20 finish, however, made for a decent start in the circumstances.

I’ll be looking for an improvement here where I’ve had a couple of top 10’s.   The rough’s not as long as it was a couple of years ago, but it’s supposed to be fairly windy and when that happens here it’s a really tough test.

Length off the tee seems to have been a deciding factor on this course so you need to be in the fairway and have control of your ball.  The greens are good and firm and run true so you do need to hole a few putts to get in there.

Last week was a little frustrating because I felt like I was hitting really good putts, but kept grazing the hole, but you have those weeks now and again so this is a new week and hopefully a new story.

It would be nice to have a good finish because that would be a confidence builder.  But I’m looking two and three months down the line so what happens now isn’t so much of an indication of where I’ll be once I check in for The Masters in April.  I’m happy with what I’m working on and I know the route I want to take that will see me peaking when I want and need to.