After months of negotiations with many different parties, I finally made the decision to go with ItsAlreadySigned4U.com as the exclusive provider of my memorabilia.

Now, all my fans can get an authentic autographed picture of me. We will have framed pictures and hats in a few weeks. This is the same company that does the memorabilia for Natalie Gulbis & Heather Bowie/Young on the LPGA. And I must admit they are really good! They are dedicated, committed and reactive - three key values that I live by.

They've build a dedicated online store which is is linked to my own memorabilia proshop. It will be densified with hats and framed pictures in the coming weeks, and they issued a press release after we signed our contract. I am excited!

This new sponsorship comes in addition to the many other sponsors and world class brands I work with on Tour and is complementary to my 2 other website proshop partners The Golf Warehouse and cSwing software.

I am working now with a couple of the major golf brands to extend our partnership even further.

Tomorrow Friday, R1 of the Indiana Tourney. I have an afternoon tee time...not a big fan of pm tee times because if it is really slow you might not finish until the next day. And I hate those overnights with unfinished business.

Follow my score on my homepage or even better download my toolbar for immediate updates of my scores, my blogs, specials from my proshop and easy access to your different email boxes. Try it for a few days, it's really cool.


Cheers,
Meg

Well...See what patience brings? A couple of 68's! Finally everything came together for me this week. Ball striking, fairways and greens in regulation, and most importantly my putting. 6 birdies the first day and a bogey free round with 4 birdies the second. Then the third and final day rolls around...74 :(

State of mind is key

I have had enough time to cool off and really think about the round and say that I choked and maybe giggle a little about it too. I have not had the experience of being at the top of the leaderboard so I was very protective on Sunday. But it's all experience and preparation for the future. Now that I have that experience of being in the second to last group on Sunday, I can learn from it and improve my state of mind. Because that's all that it is.

A life saving choice

When I first arrived in Lima, I went to the Holiday Inn to see if they had any vacancies. They were all booked up for the weekend so the receptionist helped me out by calling nearby hotels. Because there was a motorcycle event at the fairgrounds, everyone seemed to be full. I was going to go the hotel next door but then the receptionist realized that there was one more room left that he had missed on the computer; so I took it.

Drove into a tornado

Thursday afternoon I decided to head to the range but when I arrived and got out of my car, a man was yelling and waving his hands at me and a couple of girls to find shelter because there were tornado warnings. That's when I heard the sirens. Going back to the hotel, I was actually driving straight toward the storm coming from the west. I have never seen the sky turn so black, so fast. I got out of my car at the hotel and ran for the doors! I could barely pull them open because the wind was blowing so hard. As soon as I got inside the power went out.

Chaos!!!

Children were screaming and crying. Parents were rushing them around to try to find protection in their rooms and under the stairwell. A man that was staying there was yelling at everyone to get in their rooms. I asked him if I could stay in his room with his wife and his daughter. My room was on the 4th floor and there was no way I was going up there. So I found myself hunkered down in the bathroom with their 10 year old daughter in the pitch black not knowing what was going to happen next.

Are we going to survive?

Employees ran around and got everyone together. They immediately directed us to the safest place in the hotel which was a hallway at the other end of the building. There were about 50 of us in that hallway for about an hour...that seemed to last a lifetime. And I'll tell you, I can't remember the last time my heart was beating that fast.

An absolute mess

The storm finally calmed down. We all went outside and saw the damage of the winds. Next door, the whole roof of the hotel had been ripped off and debris was scattered everywhere. To think that I almost stayed there! Fire trucks, police and ambulances came and evacuated the area. Trees were everywhere, completely ripped out of the ground by their roots. Billboards had blown over. The whole area was an absolute mess and 28,000 people in the area where without power.

Thanks to all the volunteers

The golf course was in pretty bad shape as well, with a lot of trees down and branches scattered everywhere. Thanks to all the wonderful volunteers, the course was cleaned up by Friday morning and we were able to get in our first round of the Lima event with only a few light showers in the morning. The rest of the weekend, the weather was beautiful. And I shot my pair of 68s.

So, I am in Indiana now looking forward to this week. I want to get back up on that leaderboard and prove to myself that I can handle it on Sunday.

Thank you all for your wonderful comments and support.

Cheers,
Megan

I flew into Chicago, picked up my rental car and drove a couple hours south to Decatur. On the drive down, I realized that the fire flies were out thick that night. I could see them glowing all over the corn fields and on the side of the road. I actually pulled off the side of the road to get a better look, and realized that I was in the middle of acres and acres of corn fields. The fire flies were everywhere. There were literally thousands of them hovering just over the tops of the fields, sparkling as far as I could see. It was beautiful. Since I have never even seen one single fire fly, this was one of the most amazing things I have ever observed. It was a nice introduction to Illinois.

Cubs & Blues

I played a practice round the next morning and got some putting practice in afterward. Then I was off to Chicago airport again to pick up Andy who was caddying for me this week. From there, we took the L train downtown to Wrigley field and went to a Cubs game. They were playing the Astros. Unfortunatley the cubs lost 5 to 4 but Andy and I had a great time. Experiencing Wrigley field is something to always remember. Afterwards, we enjoyed the free Blues Festival in the park. It was a lot of fun. The Band was great! We just sat there and enjoyed some blues and beer for a couple hours.

This game is so funny

I shot 72 Thursday and missed a few putts to shoot 75 the second day and made the cut right on the number. I felt like I hit the ball great with everything, but this week I struggled with my putting, missing a few short ones and getting a lot of looks from within 15 feet that just never found the bottom of the cup.

This game is so funny. Just a few days earlier when I was playing in the Open qualifier I was hitting the ball terribly and making everything I looked at. This week it was the complete opposite. I am still staying patient and waiting for it all to come together. It is easier to stay patient also because I know it will happen eventually.

I made a phone call to Doctor Parent and talked about the weekend and got a couple different strategies. Doc always seems to put things into perspective and always helps me feel better about everything that's going on.

This is a great job!

This morning when I was helping myself to the continental breakfast, I heard the man next to me say "good morning!" I looked up and he had a huge grin on his face, and I said good morning back. He asked "are you dressed for work?" Obviously I had my golf clothes on. I of course said yes and then he said "you have a great job!" He just made my day a little brighter.

Next tournament, in Lima, OH.

Cheers,
Megan

On a very sad note: "Duramed FUTURES Tour player Gaelle Truet of Noumea, New Caledonia died in a car accident Sunday afternoon. The third-year, 27-year-old pro was driving from last week's tournament in Decatur, Ill., to the next event in Lima, Ohio, on eastbound I-74 when her car lost control on the wet surface, veered across the median and collided with a westbound tractor trailer.
click here for the tour's press release"
My heart goes out to her parents, Remy & Madeleine, her twin brother Loic, and her entire family.

This week I am back on the road to Illinois, Ohio and Indiana for three tournaments on the Futures Tour. Yesterday Monday, June 12th, I did not qualify for the U.S. Women's Open. Although I was exempt from the local qualifyer because I played in the final last year, I just did not play well in the one-day 36-hole loop here at the Hacienda Golf Club in La Habra heights, California.

Andy my caddie and Doc Parent my mental coach are both telling me that I am placing too many high expectations on myself rather than just go out there and play one shot at a time. Now that I had the night to sleep on it, I realize that I did put too much pressure on myself. I guess because I played in the U.S. Open last year, I felt that I had to make it this year.

My friends, my family, all were excited to make the trip out there. So I felt failure was not an option, and with each bad shot I raised the bar even further for the next one. Eight birdies, a phenomenal 45-ft sinker, and decent ball striking were not enough to make up for stupid bogeys.

In any case, I've put this behind me now, and I am going to focus on the Championship Tournament of the Futures Tour this week in Springfield, Illinois - The Michelob Ultra Futures.

On another subject, I want to thank Stacy Salomon of Golf for Beginners. She did a great interview and added unique insights into her feature on me. Part I is up on her website now, Part II is coming up at the end of this week.

My new Photobook from Picaboo.com is now ready. Thanks to my friend who created it for me. It looks fantastic! You can order it in soft cover in various colors from $14.95 or you can make it really nice in hardcover format with linen finish starting at $39.95 And if you do, mail it to me when you get it, I'll autograph it for you ;)

I just loved the free download of the picaboo.com software. It took less than 15 mns to do my photobook. Now I am going to do, all by myself, a bunch of family photobooks with the hundreds of pictures that have been stored in my hard drive for the last four years! That will sure pass time on the 5-hr flight to Chicago today.

Finally, a great website was launched this week. Ladies on Tour. It is soon going to become one of the most comprehensive websites for tournament info and ladies tour pros profiles. Check it out and register for their updates and features.

Cheers,
Megan

News Update - Well I'm sitting at home resting, after being up for 24 hours. I only got 6 hours of sleep so I'm taking the day off. My clubs are still in London so I am going to have to go on another phone hunt for my clubs. Things didn't work out quite the way I had planned at the KLM tournament. That persistent fade from Wednesday and Thursday practice came back at the worst moments during my Friday and Saturday rounds. Did I tell you that the head of my pitching wedge fell off on Friday afternoon when I was practicing on the range? Luckily there was a repair guy there who fixed it. And luckily it didn't happen on the course that day or the next day. I really thought that I was going to play a lot better. Hitting 8 fairways in two days doesn't help. On a narrow course like this one, fairways are a must.

I spent the Sunday after the tournament resting and went for a stroll around Eindhoven to check things out. I discovered a cool outdoor mall. In any case, I am glad I made the trip to Europe. This was a good experience to build on.

This coming week is a pretty big week for me. I am at the headquarters of Cleveland Golf to get my new clubs - I am really excited. I'll be practicing with them every day until next Monday when I have my U.S. Women's Open qualifier.

I also want to share with you some great news about my website.

Vive le Internet!

My site officially launched on March 16th, 2006. This means that all my stats are based on a little over 2 1/2 months worth of traffic and are compiled directly from my site's log files. So here they are:

Total visitors: 521,255 (March 16-May 31)
Total Page Views: 1,251,012

BLOGS RULE!

This means that on an annualized basis, I might get to 2.5 million visitors in the next 10 months...Wow! and I am not yet on the LPGA??? Or won a professional tournament anywhere???
How do I explain this? Blogs, Google, Domain referrals, Reciprocal Links.
I estimated that the total traffic received by the 37 sites that blogrolled me so far totals over 9.5 million visitors annually, hence the volume of referrals to my site.

My rankings (see graph above)

Based on worldwide web traffic as tracked by netratings, my site's 3-month trend ranked as shown in the graph above compared to some of the top trafficked professional golfers' websites from the PGA Tour and the LPGA. Of course, if Tiger gets any more global notoriety, he'll probably beat Google too for the top world ranking!!!

Not surprising at all, Natalie Gulbis gets more traffic than anyone on the LPGA (Michelle Wie's site is not up yet), and my current 3-month traffic trend shows that I am surpassing Natalie's traffic. Phil and Lorena are trailing us by a few spots. Maybe in a few months, I can get up even further in the rankings.

Two that really surprised me on how low they were ranked were Grace Park and Erica Blasberg. The mention is worth analyzing since Grace Park has a huge following in Korea (maybe she has a Korean website that gets more traffic), and Erica for all the press she's been getting by the LPGA.com portal as well as the constant touting by SI.com columnists.

Other Noteworthy stats

A whopping 728 fans signed up to my Club Megan since it's been up in the last 75 days. It's the little pink box in the upper right side of this page. That's close to 10 a day! Wooowie...these numbers blew me away. My highest day was 53 signups - the day after Karrie Webb won the Nabisco and I wrote a post about it in my blog. Go figure.

Buckle up for the adventure to a new paradigm shift

So with your help, and a few wins on the LPGA, this can be a heck of an adventure for all of us! Maybe I can change the way tour pros earn their living, in addition to on-course winnings :)

Vive le Internet!
Megan

Note 1 (added June 8): see my international stats in the comments section below. Visitors from 165 countries!! can you believe it?!?!

Far away I flew from home,
All the way to Amsterdam where I shall roam.

I flew from L.A. and was Amsterdam bound,
But when I arrived, my luggage was nowhere to be found.

I searched high and low, far and near,
But the baggage claim service, said not to fear.

I picked up my car and drove for an hour,
Couldn't wait to get to the hotel to take a shower.

Tuesday came and I slept all day,
Got word that my clubs were coming soon, hurray!

Pumped some iron and swam a few laps,
Go back to my room and watch a movie perhaps.

Lucky me, Old School was on,
Starring my favorite actor, Mr. Vince Vaughn.

It's Wednesday afternoon, I'm waiting for my clubs to arrive,
Without them I don't know how I would survive.

it's 2:00 and finally here they are,
Now I have no excuse not to shoot under par.

I head to the course to hits balls on the range,
Fading to the right which seems a bit strange.

So I worked hard and put in a good grind,
Problem solved, it was not hard to find.

Found myself listening to my favorite Dave Mathew Band,
Hitting slight draws and fades, on command.

I played the next day and enjoyed the view,
Made lots of pars and some birdies too.

The wind is blowing and the weather is cold,
I will stay strong and dare never to fold.

I will play hard all weekend long,
If I make a mistake, I'll keep going strong.

so for now keep your fingers crossed,
But my drive to succeed will never be lost.

Note: my dad and I used to do stuff like this all the time when I was kid, on road trips and stuff. So I get it from him.
Enjoy!
Thx Pappa.

Note #2 (added on June 8): please click on the comments section below and read the fantastic translation of this poem in French. He is a great golf photographer (onedayoneshot.com) and now, I find out, an excellent poet. Thank you Patrick!

Megan