Hi everyone,

I hope you've all been wearing your winter warmers as it's been a bit chilly this week!


 

What's been happening at the club this week? 

In the absence of a formal club competition this week, we held our Pro Shop Stableford. A whopping eighteen lovely people signed up for a yellow tee stableford over 14 holes, the winner being the most fabulous Sean Devane, with 30 points, followed by lovely Matt Heappey with 29 points in second place. Well done guys, great job in freezing weather!

The next competition is once again a Pro Shop Stableford, to be held on 30th. Don't forget the next monthly club competition is the February Stableford on 6th February, booking online two weeks in advance of the competition.

So now we lead into academy news for the latest on all things Pro Shop!


 

Oh we've had such a good week in the shop. The refit is well on the way and the lemon walls are a (hideous) thing of the past. The changing room is up in the corner and the counter and raised area with banisters is now varnished. I cannot wait for my carpet to arrive and finish the look. 

Don't forget, wine and nibbles this Thursday, 21 January, our official reopening day. Next week we will feature before and after pics of the finished article!

This week saw Andy and Luke head off to Ravenswood special school to coach 17 pupils - they had a great time and Andy heads back again this week to deliver another 2 hours of tri golf and target practice. We love coaching these guys, just to see these kids get so much pleasure from what we do is absolute joy to us. The PE teacher at Ravenswood sent me this lovely report, which I always love to see!


"Once again pupils at Ravenswood School are able to access some golf coaching from professional golfers from Bristol and Clifton Golf Club. Andy and Luke will be at Ravenswood for two afternoons working with middle year classes. Pupils from P16 will be given the opportunity to play at the club later in the term.

   

The pupils were asked what they could remember from last year so that these skills could be built upon. Using a putter the pupils were reminded how to hold the club and aim for several different targets. The next challenge was to use the chipper and try to hit the ball over the 'river' onto the green. After some practice the pupils had a competition, scoring points depending on how well they hit the ball and whether they hit the target.

   

The shots varied in height and distance but all enjoyed learning new skills and aiming for a target.

Many thanks to Luke and Andy for giving the pupils such an enjoyable experience."

J Hawkes 
SSCO


Paul held his England Golf weekend here at the club last weekend. I had to laugh as one of the EG lads Dan walked straight through the newly plastered floor (!) but he was so apologetic I couldn't be mad with him! 

He wasn't the only one, Paul also did the same despite knowing it was being done!!!

Anyway here's Paul's report of the England Golf weekend:


 

My role with the England South West Under 18's is slightly different to one of my normal lessons. I would class the style required as more of a teacher than a coach, and I have had to adapt the way I deliver the sessions. Within my squad are some talented young players, one of them is the England Ladies Junior Champion and most are regional champions of some sort.

Group coaching is very different to one-to-one and the programme needs to be varied, fun and interesting. This weekend was held at Bristol and Clifton and the juniors love to come and use the excellent facilities that we have here at the club. The parents tend to stay in Bristol overnight as many travel from the south west corners and are as committed as their children in attending the weekends.

The juniors on the other hand could potentially earn an extra A level by completing the two year AASE course as well as work on moving their games to the next level.

The first item on the itinerary involved walking a few holes, which we did backwards, making notes and drawing a detailed map of each hole. We Identified and noted; potential pitfalls, bounces, pin positions, lines into greens and off tees, captured distances using a laser and target points on tee shot strategy. With many of them playing in national events and regularly having to play courses that they may not have ever played before, this was an important exercise. After spending many a practice round with Chris Wood, Chris Lloyd, Jimmy Mullen and a number of different caddies, I had some tricks of the trade to pass down to the squad.

My FlightScope Launch Monitor came into great use with a skills test that involved each player having to hit ten random golf shots to various targets. The closer the ball finished to its intended target, the higher the player would score and they all performed extremely well as expected. Just take a look at the club head speed of one of the lads who plays off scratch! I can't even get to 100mph myself with a driver but he easily crunched long straight drives with his 111 mph swing speed.

The main focus of the weekend was to introduce how they could monitor their thinking on the golf course. I asked them to complete a mindset questionnaire scoring themselves out of a possible ten for each question, as to how good they thought they were at the mindset statement. Why not try it yourself?

I then asked them to choose three of the statements, preferably the ones with the lowest scores, and to play with the thought of trying to score ten out of ten at each hole.

This is something Chris Wood and I did when he was a wee nipper and I know it was of great benefit to him. It works, so give it a try. Over time, why not get ten out of ten at every statement? I'm sure Jordan Spieth wouldn't be too far away from full marks.

If you need help in knowing how to achieve ten out of ten, come and see me and I'll show you how.

Paul




So what have I been up to? You may well ask....!

I have been a very busy bee, organising our calendar of coaching and events and we are already pretty full up until after Easter for schools and inclusion work. Even then we start a six week block of Belgrave School coaching in April so it's all go!

I have also started the Get into Golf Day process and I picked a cracker this time! We have already been to Clifton Downs, Cabot Circus, Portishead and @Bristol, but this time we are taking the kit somewhere historic!

Can you guess where we might be going? 

Well this time it's a castle folly in a parkland near Shirehampton........guessed it yet....? Yes it's BLAISE CASTLE!! I'm ever so excited because it has considerable footfall on warm days and there's a sizeable play area for children, so I think we may be ridiculously busy. 



The plan is to run this day on 9th July in bright sunshine - I may have to negotiate hard on the sunshine but hopefully not too hard with Bristol City Council.

I have also been asked by North Somerset Council if we can run a golf day at Weston Air Festival this summer. I was deeply honoured to be asked and will try to gain funding to do so if possible.



So all in all it's been busy and exciting - the best combination ever! This piece of wall in the shop sums us up this last year and beyond - we do it because we love it and we love helping people

Have a fun week everyone! 

Caren, Paul, Luke and Andy