Haas blog: It's a good feeling to know you belong

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FedExCup champ Bill Haas is making his Presidents Cup debut.

Editor's note; Bill Haas, the reigning FedExCup champion, is playing in his first Presidents Cup this week at Royal Melbourne. The three-time TOUR champ is following in the footsteps of his dad, Jay, who played in two Presidents Cups and serves as an assistant captain this week for the second time. Bill will be doing an exclusive blog this week for PGATOUR.COM and this is his first installment.

MELBOURNE, Australia -- I've been Down Under for 10 days now. I came over from China after playing in the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions in Shanghai and played in the Australian Open last week. So I think I'm pretty well-adjusted to the time difference, and I'm pretty happy with the way I'm playing. It's been nice to get to Melbourne and get settled. Everybody is on the same floor in the hotel. It's just us, too. You walk out of your room and it's pretty cool. There are guys on the team walking around the halls, and the team room is down at the end. It has a ping-pong table and Xbox and drinks and lots of other things. That's where everybody seems to hang out during the day. It's just a unique feeling. We go to different tournaments all year and you might not see another player in your hotel the whole week. So this is fun. To be on the same floor with everybody on your team is a pretty cool feeling.

Turns out, my dad is staying in the room right next to me. It's nice. We're sitting in the room, me and my wife, and if I want to talk to him I just have to knock on the door. At the other end of the hall is the team room and you can talk to any of the guys. It's been very social but so far it's been pretty tame. There's been a lot of flag signing and we're been getting the necessities of the week out of the way. From tonight on it's a lot of fun, I think.

I know people have heard about all the big ping-pong matches that go on in the team room. I've played a little bit this week but I haven't gotten competitive with anyone yet. I know Matt Kuchar's the best and Phil seems to think he's right up there with him but can't quite get him yet. I heard Phil say on the bus today that all he cares about is Sunday night -- he knows he's going to get him at the end of the week. So it's fun to just play when you're spending some time in the room -- you can just tell somebody to pick up a paddle. It's an easy way for a guy to pass the time and bond with the rest of the team.

I've been to these events in the past as a spectator. I watched my dad in a couple of Ryder Cups and the Presidents Cup over in George, South Africa -- which was an unbelievable event, probably one of the best sporting events I've ever been to. It came down to a playoff in the dark there on Sunday and ended in a tie. It was awesome. So I kind of got a sense of what it was like but this is my first time to live on floor with the team and be a part of it and feel like you earned your way on the team. I've got o say it's a pretty neat feeling. We've got the gala tonight and the opening ceremonies tomorrow, which I hear are really cool. I knew it would be a great experience. My expectations were very high and everything's held up to them.

I played practice rounds with Bubba Watson and Nick Watney on Monday, and today I played with Nick, Bubba and Webb Simpson. We are all Presidents Cup rookies, which is neat because it's all new for us. We're all kind of getting our feet wet. More than anything we're trying to get comfortable with each other's games. Today Nick and I played a match against Webb and Bubba. We played the front nine in Four-Ball and the back nine in Foursomes which was fun. In Foursomes we all hit tee shots but we played alternate shot from there. I am not sure who I will play with but I've expressed my opinion that I'd like to be Nick's partner. He and I are good buddies and I like his game. People sometimes tell us we look alike. I told him he needs to shave his head and we'll get everyone really confused. It should be fun. I'll write more tomorrow.