Hua Hin, Thailand, December 27: After several years in the wildness and hitting rock bottom, Australia’s Rick Kulacz is slowly beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The two-time Asian Tour winner is among the 242 players who have made it through to the final stage of the Asian Tour Qualifying School this week.

In this heartfelt blog from Lakeview resort and Golf Club, Kulacz opens up his love for the game and trying to regain his self-belief all over again.

By Rick Kulacz

“Life has been very rocky off the course at times but I think I’ve found some sort of a game the last two years to come back to the course and compete again. Everything just sort of spiralled out of control.

You try harder and harder and you dig a bigger hole for yourself until you basically hit rock bottom. You either find different ways of trying to play the game again or you give it away. I kept at it and tried different things and see what works and what didn’t.

I’m here now and looking forward to the rest of the week. I took a couple of part-time jobs, like doing some green keeping at Royal Perth, just a couple of days per week and I worked with my brother at a factory nearby just to get away from the game.

For about six months. I was still practicing, just to see if I still wanted to play golf. I came to the realisation that I still wanted to play, so I gave up those jobs and got back into the game again.

There were times when I wanted to quit but I never quite got that far as I still wanted to play at the back of my mind. It was always something inside me that kept me going.

You got to make a lot of birdies at Q school and try not to make big mistakes. I played pretty well today, I didn’t have a bogey which helps. It’s still a long way, five rounds in this heat and I still got another three rounds to go. So let’s see how it goes.”

Ends.