Howdy y'all!

Hope you've all had a great week. Paul is back from Dubai, with a super smashing report later in the newsletter. But first.....!

Get into Golf day number four!

Not content with a Tri golf festival in June, a Get Into Golf day in Portishead in July and the Bath of Beans Challenge (you know me, flog 'em to death and still make them clock in at 8am!) ohhhhh noooo there's another Get Into Golf Day coming in August! Wooooooo hoooooo get and iron those shirts boys, 'cuz this time we're off to ......MILLENIUM SQUARE!

On Saturday, 8 August, the Paul Mitchell Golf Academy, fresh from Portishead Lake Grounds on July 25th, will be coming to @Bristol! I am super excited and I am hoping we can make a big impact there. This is our biggest challenge yet and we will need to be on our toes to coach lots and lots of people. As the balloon fiesta is also on that weekend, I would expect Bristol to be super-busy and we are ready for the challenge!

This year I am also going to put my neck on the line and do something I don't think has been done before. This September I am looking to host the first B&C inclusion games on a reserved and converted driving range. I am going to invite ten pupils from the five special schools we are currently coaching, to take part in an adapted mini tri-golf festival. There will be prizes and medals for all, and I hope to do this with help from the Golf Foundation. I haven't quite thought the logistics yet but where there's a will there's a way (or failing that, there's Prosecco). I will let you know more as we go along!

So I will now hand over to Paul for his middle eastern report, and I will bother you all again next week

Ciao for now

Cxx

The three days I spent with Chris Wood in Dubai last week were extremely productive, with my main goal to create pressurised situations in practice, to help the transition to his first tournament this week in Africa. We pretty much did three full days working on every aspect of his game and managed to get on the course for nine holes each day.

Jumeirah Estates have some of the best practice facilities in the world and has been developed in conjunction with the European Tour. The European Tour Performance Institute has now been completed and boasts three indoor squash court sized swing analysis studios where the players can hit Titleist Pro V1 golf balls directly out onto the grass driving range using computerised swing analysis and FlightScope Launch monitors. There's also an indoor Huxley artificial putting green with Putt Lab computerised analysis for putting strokes. As well as this, they have a body screening and physiotherapy suite and a fully equipped gymnasium. The money they have spent on this is just incredible, and amazingly it is hardly ever used.

    

Each day Chris started at 9am with a thirty minute gym session concentrating on stretching and correct muscle recruitment which is a new program set by his golf fitness instructor.

Now onto the pitching area to focus on distance control and as Chris hadn't played since October he really wanted to assess how far his wedges fly through the air. Chris carries three or four wedges depending on the golf course from week to week, and wanted to find out how far his half swing, three quarter and full swing shots were going with each wedge. His caddy Mark Crane, nicknamed 'Punk', made detailed notes and we used walkie talkies to be able to communicate with each other from distance. I stood where the ball landed and Punk would use his laser to see how far the ball went. We actually did three to four hours of wedge play over the three days and carried out some pressurised tests to get Chris in the mood.

After a short break inside enjoying the air conditioning, we ventured back out to sharpen up the short game. Chris' shots around the green back at Bristol and Clifton had been excellent, but as you can imagine, it takes quite a few shots to adjust from the soggy slow greens to the firm rapid speedy greens in Dubai. I set up a short game par 2 course for Chris to play, and Punk and I had a gamble on Chris' total score for the course. This worked really well as you could see Chris wanted to achieve the better score to win the gamble for Punk. There's no better way to practice than to have some sort of consequence!

After lunch we went to the driving range and completed some iron play tests and a tee shot test. Again Punk and I had a bet to put pressure on Chris and it worked beautifully. The driver test was particularly difficult as he had to find the fairway to make a birdie, semi rough was a par and a miss was a double bogey. Chris was so focused and really wanted to achieve the score we had set him for 20 shots. In the end it came down to the last two shots and Chris was so disappointed to score a double bogey, for Punk to lose, with his last shot. He fell down to his knees and was very dejected. By the way, Punk and I weren't really gambling for real money but Chris thought that we were all week! I thought it would be worse for Chris to have to play with someone else's money and I wanted him to feel some sort of pressure after such a long break.

On the Thursday, the Head of Mizuno Europe flew in to fit Chris with a new driver. The company had custom made Chris a couple of driver heads with the intention of trying to get Chris to play one of their drivers. Within twenty minutes we had found the right combination of shaft, loft and spin and Chris was merrily pounding 300 yard drivers down to the bottom of the range. The Mizuno driver has now officially gone into the bag for its first tournament this week in Africa.

On the course, Chris played one ball trying to score and I dropped another ball randomly around the green and Chris had to try to get up a down in two shots with this second ball. I gave him some crackers too, really difficult shots but he managed to hole a thirty yard chip on the last green to achieve my predicted nine hole score.

    

We did manage to let our hair down a little in the evenings. We met up with one of Chris' sponsors, who took us out onto his three million pound boat from Dubai Marina and a very posh meal at the Yacht club. How the other half live! Chris also managed to get tickets for the Dubai Championship tennis semi finals although his hero, Andy Murray had been knocked out in the quarters.

Unfortunately Woody's caddy Punk had to leave for Scotland on the Sunday as he had a family bereavement and will be missed.

Chris is absolutely buzzing about teeing it up on Thursday and hopefully it can be a decent first round opening score in his first event of the season.

Paul Mitchell Golf Academy presents:

Dr Karl Morris - The Mind Factor

Bristol and Clifton Golf Club

Wednesday, 11 March @ 7pm

We still have spaces available for this unmissable event. Please get in touch with the pro shop if you are interested.

Click here to find out more about Dr Karl Morris.

Have a great week

Paul, Caren, Andy, Luke & Kristian