By Andy North
Special to ESPN Golf Online
Thursday, April 20

Editor's note: Two-time U.S. Open champion Andy North is chronicling life on the Senior Tour in a diary for ESPN Golf Online. Since turning 50 in March, North teamed with Jim Colbert to win the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf, tied for sixth at The Countrywide Tradition, and tied for 46th last week at the PGA Seniors' Championship. This week, he is in the field for the Las Vegas Senior Classic.

LAS VEGAS -- It was certainly a hard week last week at the PGA Seniors' Championship, where nine inches of rain and seven weather delays turned it into a long, hard week.

	Andy North's season
	Tournament	Scores	Finish	Earnings
	Legends of Golf	59-66-66--191 (25-under)	1	$161,000
	Tradition	71-72-67-74--284 (4-under)	T-6	$60,800
	PGA Seniors' Championship	73-75-73--221 (5-over)	T-46	$4,720

One of the things that made it so difficult is that the Champion course at PGA National is a very difficult course to begin with. It's the kind of course where if you're not playing terrific, you're walking on eggshells. If you're not on top of your game, there are so many holes you can make big scores on.

Combine that with the weather, and it was a long, long week.

It got to the point where it was a strange week. I warmed up eight different times to play three rounds. On Thursday, after starting late, I played three shots on the first hole before we got called back in and sat around for a couple of hours. When we finally got out there, I played 16 holes before stopping at 7:45 p.m. in the dark.

That meant having dinner at 9 p.m. and a wake-up call for 5 a.m. the next morning for a 7:30 a.m. tee time to finish the round.

That's the thing about weather delays like we had. It's more than just the delays at the course and the stopping and starting. It messes up your night, you don't sleep well, and I hate eating dinner at 9 p.m.

At some point Friday, it just became comical. I got to the course at 5:30 a.m., and the start was pushed back several times. Finally, about 2 p.m., play was cancelled for the day. So I spent about eight hours at the course without hitting a shot -- although I warmed up a few times.

	Groundskeepers work to drain a flooded trap during the PGA Seniors' Championship.

It was a tough week for the PGA, a tough week for Advil, the tournament sponsor, and a tough week for the players and fans. It was just one of those weeks you hate to have happen, but at some point you just start laughing about it.

I had no shoes by the end of the week. I tried on a pair here in Las Vegas on Wednesday that I had worn early in the tournament, and they were still wet. Players went through two or three changes of clothes every day. I tell you, the cleaners in Las Vegas have been quite happy with us this week.

We are such creatures of habit that you like to get in a routine of how you like to operate. With a week like we had, that just wasn't possible. But it was the same for everybody. Every player had to deal with stoppages and lots of the same situations.

Doug Tewell certainly deserved to win. He hit the most greens, hit the most fairways, had the lowest score each day. He surely deserved it.

Doug is a guy that's going to have a lot of success out here. He's a guy who has played better later in his career. He's never been a great putter, but he is a very good ball striker. He's obviously putting better, and he's very much like Bruce Fleisher. He puts the ball in the fairway and on the greens, and he's going to do terrific.

This should be a fun week in Las Vegas. The tournament has switched to just one course, the TPC at Summerlin, which is a good thing. When they used two courses, sometimes the luck of the draw determined the winner because of different weather conditions.

At Summerlin, you have to drive the ball in the fairway and be aware of the altitude. The ball, particularly in the afternoon, goes a long way, from 5 to 7 percent longer. The third thing is the course is built on the side of a mountain, so every putt breaks to the valley. The greens aren't easy to read, but having done TV here, that's going to be a big advantage for me compared to guys who haven't been here before.

I'm playing on a sponsor's exemption this week, the first one I've gotten. I played the first three events on my own merits.

I haven't hit the ball the way I'd like yet. At The Tradition, I got it around and managed well, but I didn't hit it real well. Last week, I didn't hit it well at all.

But the win at the Legends has helped my confidence level, and it's sure fun to be playing again.