League to Dubai Finals - Part 2.

Saturday was a rest day before the competition starts and I took the opportunity to play at Saadiyat Beach golf club by Troon in Abu Dhabi. Gary Player has designed a beauty!! What an outstanding golf course! The views were spectacular and the condition of the course was almost as good as the experience offered by the very helpful staff.

12 of us dragged ourselves out of our very comfy beds and scurried down to the buffet breakfast in the Choices restaurant at 0630(ish), stuffed our faces and left the Yas Rotana for Saadiyat Beach golf club at 0700. Our bags were put onto our buggies while we all got changed. A nice touch was having your name on your locker.

From the changeroom we were whisked to the practice area and I got to use my first ever pyramid of golf balls! Yay! (little things for little minds and all that.....).

 We didn't have too much time for practice and after a quick putt it was time to head to the 10th tee for kick-off. Even though it was only a practice round, I felt myself get a bit nervous as I was getting ready to hit my hybrid down the fairway and away from the absolutely monstrous bunker down the left side of the hole. A quick shake of the head and a gentle reminder that it was only a practice round calmed me down and we were away.

To be honest, I don't really remember much of the round! I remember getting a couple of birdies. I remember losing two balls on our 18th hole. I remember being in a lot of sand. I remember hitting some very nice bunker shots and I remember duffing a couple of chips and also hitting a few nice ones too. I came away with 27 or 29 stableford points but the biggest thing for me was the views and the spectacular course. It took me a while to get the camera out, but these are the photos I took from our round.

The photos don't quite do the beauty justice, I might try to take richer photos tomorrow at Arabian Ranches for our first round of the Finals.
Even though we took just over 4.5 hours to complete our round, it didn't feel like long enough and I would have gladly gone straight back out for a second round (and hopefully played better!).

Proper nerves tomorrow. Arabian golf TV will be filming. Looking forward to playing better over the next three days...... wish me luck!!

The League to Dubai Finals, part 1.

I left at Lunchtime on Wednesday, stopped over at Manchester Airport and then spent all day Thursday from 0545 to 2300 in either a queue or on a seat in a plane. It was a pretty good trip and I managed to watch a couple of good movies on the Etihad plane. The Y-bar at the Rotana hotel on Yas Island where we are staying got a pretty good workout by the majority of us on Thursday night and last drinks was called at 0200 so an incredibly deep 5.5 hour sleep had me wondering what the annoying noise eminating from my phone was at 0800.

Friday was a great day. I was so excited about getting out and seeing the Yas links golf course that I took these two pictures from my window

After a fantastic breakfast we were given a briefing and welcome by the League to Dubai team, given our tee times for our first two games (Arabian Ranches on Sunday and Yas Links on Monday) and also given a couple of shirts with compliments of Sub 70 clothing.

After the chat I went for a walk to Yas Links golf club with a few of the guys. We were like a bunch of excited schoolkids finishing school for the summer holidays as we walked the service path along the course to the clubhouse.

We got to the clubhouse at Yas Links and found out that we could use the practice facilities before our par3 challenge so the plan was to get back early in the afternoon for a session of blowing the cobwebs from the swings. First things first though and it was lunch and a dip in the pool.

Lunch was incredible! the food was gorgeous and the variety was huge. I was absolutely stuffed afterwards.

The afternoon practice session was definitely worthwhile as it took be two big buckets to figure out what I was doing wrong and the greens are very different in their behaviour to any I have putted and chipped on before. Now it was time for the floodlit par3 challenge!

I had a great time, although I still couldn't hit the ball well. The format was best three stableford scores (no handicap) from 4 players in each team (except ours which was a team of 3). Our team managed to not win and we were a massive 15 points back from the winners who shot 68 points! Nice shootin' Tex! One of my team members (Chris) did manage to win a sleeve of balls for being the nearest to the pin on the ninth hole after knocking his shot to within 18 inches of the flag!

It was a top way to start our golf and gave us all more of an opportunity to get to know each other.

Part 2 sees 12 of us heading to Saadiyat golf club in Abu Dhabi. It looks amazing and I can't wait to play it!

TORC Swingtrainer

I managed to get a TORC Swingtrainer from @TorcGolf on twitter to have a play with and try to improve my golf. I've been getting smashed at work lately and haven't really had a chance to test out my initial results yet but my swing 'feels' better and I think my timing, swing path and club head speed have improved. The acid test will be my round of golf tomorrow (in about 2 degress celcius).
This is what Hank Haney said about it:

He has a few more videos going through the uses and benefits on the TorcGolf website

The weight attaches to the shaft of the club really easily and can be moved around to help you work on different aspects of your swing. The hosel position helps to increase swing speed and gives me a feel for the correct point for the club to be at it's fastest. The hosel position helps to release the club better and the balance point has really helped me to get a feel for a better swing path. I have been a notorious 'caster' and this little weight has really helped me to feel the lag or delay in my hands a lot better. I'm also looking forward to using it an a pre-round warm up tomorrow.

This photo isn't part of a swing, just posing as it always turned out to blurry!
Have a look at www.torcgolf.com 
It's well worth it.

League to Dubai finals itinerary has arrived!

OH MY GOD!!!!
I'm so excited that for £35.00 entry fee I have been able to be eligible for and qualify for this amazing finals experience. It's really looking like a once-in-a-lifetime deal (unless I can qualify next year, Sorry Clare!).

On the 12th December we are meeting at Manchester Airport's Etihad check in desk at 0545. That's going to be an early start from Bridgend, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make!!! It is the start of what I am certain will be six days of incredible golf and an amazing trip, all complimentary, to the United Arab Emirates. We will be arriving back at Manchester airport at 0600 on the 18th December.

Arabian Golf TV will be covering our entire finals experience from our arrival at Abu Dhabi airport to our departure from the UAE with the main focus on our 3 round, 3 course final shootout. AGTV can be found on facebook and youtube and I'm looking forward to meeting fellow Melbournite Sarah Lawrence.

We are staying on Yas island in Abu Dhabi at the Rotana hotel which looks awesome and I hope the person I'm sharing a room with likes Jack Daniels and can sleep through snoring! The Rotana Hotel looks pretty damn cool and I can't wait to make the most of it's top class facilities.

Our first golf experience in the UAE will be under floodlights for a par3 challenge at the Yas Island Golf Club. It should be a lot of fun and a great way to get to know the other competitors lucky enough to have made it to the finals.

The 3 final rounds of golf will be played on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. First up is Arabian Ranches Golf Club and looks like a good introduction to desert golf with a lot of sand around the course! 

Second is the absolutely incredible, world renowned Yas Links (Widely regarded as the finest links course outside Scotland!) 

and the Final course is the Earth Course at Jumeirah Golf. I can't wait to play the courses our favourite pros have all enjoyed and been challenged and tested by.

Really looking forward to representing Coed-y-Mwstwr Golf Club and Wales/Australia in the finals experience and hope I can do them proud!

Keep an eye on my blog, Arabian Golf TV and League to Dubai over the finals dates and get inspired to take part next year!

Record Keeping

In the interest of keeping records and tracking some stats to aid setting goals for improvement, I created a little excel file to help me out. If you woul like a copy (I can't upload it here, sorry), send me an email to clayts@landells(dot)com.au

First sub 80 today!

Today was the first time I have ever had a sub 80 round of golf. It was from the yellows (general play) but it was in a comp so I'm quite pleased with myself! I went around in 79 strokes. I had two birdies, one was a tap in from just over a foot for a two! And the other was a long downhill putt on the difficult 16th.
I scored 37 points from my new handicap of 11. Stoked.
The difference from Saturday's 27 point debacle was a looser grip pressure allowing the club to lag and not cast, combined with a more solid core and a stronger right leg to coil against.
Saturday I experimented with a different mindset too. I tried to concentrate on each hole in its entirety (aim for par by going....) rather than each individual shot and its process. Not sure it worked, my swing was poor and had no chance to follow through on my goals.
Looking forward to more improvement!

Golf fitness with TPI and Adam Scott

I think I take my golf fitness a little (lot) for granted. Check out this episode from the TPI guys with Adam Scott. Got some work to do yet!
TPI link to video