The workload of a professional golfer is so heavy these days that it is essential to be fit of body and mind all the time. Keeping pace with your peers is a tough job both on and off the course and as I head towards the peak of my powers I don't intend to be found wanting in any respect. That's why I have just taken on a personal fitness trainer to ensure that I am in top condition for the next few seasons when I will be trying to realise all my career goals.
 
I am already beginning to feel the benefits of working with Steve Hampson, the former Great Britain rugby league player.   He is a tough task master, but I know if I am to get my body into tip-top condition, I have to do what he says. Steve has been travelling with me, but there is no let-up when I am at home, because I am in the process of converting the room above the garage into a fitness centre and I already have the Technogym equipment I need to fill it.
 
At the moment I am still using the gym I shared with Paul McGinley when we were neighbours in Sunningdale, but very soon I'll be pumping iron at home.
 
I will be watching the golf from America more avidly than usual this weekend, because it will determine whether I have qualified for their Tour Championship. If I have then, after next January when I will be playing in the Mercedes Championship - open all to the winners of PGA Tour events of the previous season - there will be just one tournament still to play on my list of goals. That's the Grand Slam event and we all know what I have to do to qualify for that.   I will certainly be fit and ready to contend in all the Majors
thanks to my new gym regime.