Here I am back in South Africa, the country of my birth, to play in two tournaments, the Nedbank Challenge in Sun City this week and the South African Open at Pearl Valley in Paarl two weeks after that. For me it feels unusual. The calendar says it is the end of one year and yet here I am competing in two events on next year's schedule.

I love South Africa. The moment I get off the plane I take a deep breath and have a sense of relaxation. I am a child of three continents. Emotionally, I am British first, South African second and American, where I now live, third.

On the way over here from the United States, I had time to think about my year. Obviously, finishing 81st in the Order of Merit and falling down to nineteenth in the world rankings, which I am now, is disappointing. The trouble in 2008 was that I didn't have enough good weeks, nothing like enough good weeks, in fact. Yet it is important to remember that I did have some good weeks: I led after the first round of the Masters in April, finished second in the Memorial tournament in the US at the end of May and played really well at the Ryder Cup in September, when I was the second-highest points scorer for Europe, second to my old mate, Ian Poulter, whom I referred to as “the fat git from the Leighton Buzzard pro shop” during the Ryder Cup.

I felt that my schedule this year didn't do me any favours. It was very stop-start. Next year I am going to play three weeks in a row, take one week off. I have proved I can be a great player at the highest level, but this year I played too much golf. I didn't have enough down time. I didn't relax and get away from the game enough. When I did have down time, I tended to sneak away for practice because things weren't going too well.

I am hoping to have a better balance in my life next year. My wife, Kate, is pregnant and we are due to have our first child in March. We don't know if it is going to be a boy or a girl and we don't want to. We want it to be a surprise.

We have given thought to names but we are going to keep those thoughts to ourselves. Next year I am hoping to find the perfect balance of father, husband, family man and golfer. Kate is not travelling much at the moment, for obvious reasons. Once I have finished in South Africa, I return to Orlando to spend Christmas at home with Kate. This year, I guess I shall be on turkey-cooking duty. At least I can ruin it for only one person.

I had a good practice session with Nick Bradley, my coach, before I left Orlando. We hadn't seen one another for a while because he couldn't leave the US because he did not have his green card. But we got a good theme going in our few days together. He has made changes to my clubs which he says have helped me to release the club through the ball and I have noticed some improvements already.

Next year I shall see Nick more often because he is opening an academy at Old Palm, in West Palm Beach, and that is only a couple of hours from Orlando. It will be a lot easier to go and visit him there then that it was when he lived in South Carolina. One thing I have to learn is that I am 28 now and, as I mature, I need to stand alone more and do it myself. That is what Tiger Woods does and it's what Nick Price did when he worked with David Leadbetter, too. He saw “Lead”, took one or two things away with him and went off and worked on them. I need to learn to do that.

If I look back on the year and assess my golf, then I must conclude that my putting was not so good in '08 as it had been in '07. When you are putting well, the game is easy. I started to use a different, softer ball this year and I changed from a mallet-style putter to a blade before the Masters before changing back to a mallet-style club. I am happy with it now and I hope it will help me to score more birdies in '08. In birdies scored in '07, I was way up there. In '08, I was 150th. Not good, eh?

But I did manage my back, which had been a concern in 2007. I did a lot of fitness work at the start of the year and that helped. I take an anti-inflammatory if I feel it. I need to work on my posture.

As I said, I am really looking forward to these two tournaments and the week off I shall have in between. I have relatives in South Africa, including my grandmother, my brother, my half-sister, my three nieces. My mother lives there for six months each year. I have a house at Fancourt and that is where I shall be for the week between the tournaments. I love it there. It is near the beach. And I can practise my golf there, too. I feel I am relaxed after several weeks off and ready to go, and that can only be a good sign.