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Greetings from Paul Mitchell Golf Academy

Bristol & Clifton Golf Club - PGA Golf Professional

Well it's been another frantic week of franticness! But it wouldn't be the Paul Mitchell Golf Academy if we weren't chaotically busy.

The winner of the Wednesday medal last week was the ever successful David Bow. David's handicap was also reduced due to exceptional scoring, so congrats David on your continued golfing excellence! In second place came Richard Goldberg, who is a new member, and in third was Richard Carver. Well done to you all.

The Reid Quaich was played last Saturday and the weather stayed fine and dry for this. In first place was Greg Gough, followed by Andy Harris in second and Dave Pope in third. What a good week for our golfing fabulousness!!! (Is that a word?!)

The Academy has been a bit unwell with nasty colds this week, I have no voice left and Andy is sniffing, but we are trying to smile through the sniffles.

We have a bit of very sad news - Kristian is leaving our academy for pastures new. He is starting another role which comes in the form of Thornbury Golf Centre. He starts on 1st June, and we are very sad to see him go, but we wish him all the very best in his new position. I sure he will make a massive impact on Thornbury, and he will always be welcome here at the academy and the golf club.

And then there were four……..(but we are the fab four! Just like the Beatles (but less musical, although some of the passing wind in here occasionally has a distinct tune!!!) or the Stones, we are a four-CE to be reckoned with!)

We finished our work for this term with Belgrave School and they enjoyed it so much that we received a very special card from them.

It is a pleasure to teach these children, they have steadily progressed and always had a smile on their faces. We welcome them back after the summer for more group coaching.

We have been asked to spend a day at Westhaven Special School next term. This is a special school in Weston-super-Mare, which caters for children with all types of need. Their pupils all struggle with the idea of change, many of them being severely autistic, so we are not going to ask them to come to us, we are going to them for the day. This allows all their classes to try golf, and it is a really great thing to be able to reach all their pupils. Looking forward to a busy June!

Paul is seriously busy at the moment coaching Jimmy Mullen - Jimmy is looking for a place in the Walker Cup squad and he is one of the favourites. This is a huge thing for Paul and the Academy, so we are watching every shot with great interest! There is also a very special position coming up for Paul - can't say anything yet but hopefully all will be revealed soon!!! He has been over in Wales at Ashburnum watching the European Amateur Championships. Over to Paul for his report of the week!

I spent a couple of days at Asburnham last week watching four of my pupils from the Gloucestershire County Squad play in the men's Welsh Open Strokeplay Championships. For a couple of the players, it was their first major national outing and they did superbly well. James Dobbs (Ross-on-Wye) and Noah Hessey (Long Ashton) both made the 36 hole cut and were lying in an excellent position heading into the 36 hole, final day. Jimmy Mullen had taken a one stroke lead with two rounds of 67, lying at a ten under par total.

Both James and Noah started brightly in the third round and for a moment moved inside the top ten, but poor finishes to their rounds saw them fade down the leaderboard. Nether the less, this is great progress for Gloucestershire as we had six players competing in the event and three players made the halfway cut, including England Squad player, Jamie Dick who lost in a playoff for the title in 2014.

I watched Jimmy play some fantastic golf throughout the tournament and he showed his true potential in winning by nine shots on a fifteen under par total. What a quality player this young lad has become and an absolute pleasure to work with. With a win here, a third place at the Duncan Putter and a top 25 performance in the Lytham Trophy, has Jimmy cemented his place in the Walker Cup team in September?

Jimmy is certainly, how can I describe him? A 'different' type of player. With ginger/white hair. A height of six foot four, a skinny pale complexion and a need to talk to himself out loud after each shot, Jimmy provides a new comedy style to golf and I'm sure he will be battling his successes on the European tour in the next year or two.

His next event is the St Andrews Links Trophy but he will be flying down to Bristol and Clifton to compete in South West Week in just a few weeks' time. The 36 hole stroke play event takes place on Tuesday, 9 June at B&C and is a great opportunity for you to watch these lads in action. Ten years ago, David Dixon won this event at B&C with an eleven under par total (64/65) and a couple of years later, went on to win on the European Tour. It will be a great week and hopefully Gloucestershire can put up a strong challenge for the team title?

Click here to read more about Jimmy.

I took my Gloucestershire County Junior Coaching Squad to Walton Heath on Bank Holiday Monday to watch the US Open Sectional Qualifying. We had a great day walking the fairways with many well known golfing stars such as Padraig Harrington and other European Tour winners.

Only eight of the seventy competing professionals qualified with some excellent scores, including an eight under par afternoon 64 from Swede Alex Noren. The boys picked up some valuable tips being able to stand right next to the players and their caddies, listening to their conversations and watching the players go through their pre shot routines and mental rehearsals.

A great day for the boys!

We are now ever so close to the Pudsey appeal decisions for funding - in two weeks' time we should be close to finding out whether we are eligible for the £10,000 small grant from Children In Need to create a disabled/junior/beginner academy course and an associated practice membership. I'm scared frankly! As soon as we know, we will let you know. No secrets here!

So our clubhouse looks beautiful now - it's a real pleasure to drive in to the car park and look at it. The inside of the Ladies' changing room and the hallway also looks stunning due to the flowers expertly arranged by the Ladies here at B&C. This week's flowers are absolutely stunning - the work of my gorgeous friend Chrissie Savage. How beautiful are these?

I had the pleasure of taking my little lad to Falmouth in the sunshine - oh my, what a quaint and beautiful place this is. If you're passing, pop into the Harbour Lights restaurant for great fish and chips with an awesome view, or there is also Rick Stein's plaice (ha ha oh cod what a bad joke, extremely fishy comments). Cam loved Gyllingvase beach and we came back with a fair few shells.

We have been approached by England Golf to have a video made of our work to be used as a template for others to follow. I am uber-excited and they have confirmed they are coming to video us at our Tri Golf Festival on June 24th. This is always a great day, especially as there will be over 120 children from all backgrounds competing at the level two games event, and we look forward to meeting the film crew and working with them. They have also asked to film us working with Kingsweston Special School so I am also popping with thrill over that too. I never for a second imagined that our little project to improve disability services for local kids would be so far reaching and have such an impact. We can rightly afford to be proud of ourselves for this - all that means all the people who work for our academy. Every one of us has worked so hard to achieve and it is certainly showing.

The next step for all of us is a Golf Foundation workshop here where we learn all about the differing levels of golf coaching for games events - we are running another level 2 games event (tri golf festival) but we want to look at level three events - the real finals of the school games fixtures. This would be massive for us if we could host a final. Watch this space, I never say never!

Thank yous

This week I wanted to say a massive thank you to Ian Robinson, who bought me/the boys (but predominantly me!!! Ha ha) a bottle of exquisite pink champagne (this is how I know it was for me!) to celebrate winning our award. Ian bought it at a special place in France, so it is not even available to buy in the UK. Ian you are wonderful, I appreciate it so much.

I also want to thank my lovely Tony Mann for my tinned pears - I am off to make a sponge with pears at the bottom, an upside down pear pudding. Yummmmmmmmmm!

We had the pleasure of meeting Bernard Gallacher at the Wentworth awards ceremony, so it's been a really nice week.