Australian Women's Amateur

Tsai Pei-Ying played the 36 hole final of the Australian Amateur yesterday at Royal Queensland Golf Club. She played against Justine Lee from Australia who had also played well in the stroke play section.

Justine jumped out of the blocks in the morning 18 and had opened up a four hole lead by the time the players had finished the 14th hole. Tsai Pei-Ying fought back though, winning three of the last four holes of the morning round to head into the lunch break only one hole behind.

The break was handy for Justine as she opened up another two hole lead with only nine holes left to play. Tsai Pei-Ying showed what a fighter she is by getting herself back to square after the 35th hole. Unfortunately she lost the final hole and Justine Lee became the Australian Amateur Women's Champion for 2009.

Tsai Pei-Ying had a great tournament two weeks and gained a lot of experience from playing in this event. It is a lot of golf (11 rounds in 8 days) in both match play and stroke play formats and for her to finish 3rd in the stroke play section and runner up in the match play section shows how good she is as a player.

I spoke to her quickly last night on MSN and she said she was feeling a little sad and happy at the same time. I told her she should be really proud of herself and that she did so well in a strange country travelling by herself. I will speak to her more when she gets back to Taiwan later this week.

I also want to give a big thank you to Michael Craperi and Hills International Golf School for looking after Tsai Pei-Ying while she was in Australia. I really appreciate all the the help Michael gave her while she was in Brisbane.

Just a quick update on the Faldo Series Final at Mission Hills in China. Hsieh Yu-Ling shot 69 to be leading both the girls section and the tournament, Liu Yi-Chen had 71 to be well placed in the girls section as well. In the boys section Hung Chien-Yao had 71 and Hsieh Chi-Hsien had 75. Both boys are well placed to compete in the rest of the tournament. You can find the live scores here.

Until next time,

Brent

Faldo Series/Australian Women's Amateur

Some of my students are currently in China for the Faldo Series final at Mission Hills. They flew from Taiwan to China yesterday and were playing a practice round today. I spoke to a couple of them on MSN last night and reminded them them to make sure they do their yardage books and plans while they played the practice round. We focus fairly hard on preparation during tournaments and because I am not travelling with them this week I like to make sure they still do what they are meant to do. I will hopefully catch some of them online tonight so we can go through any questions/problems they might have so they are all ready to play when the first round starts tomorrow. I will let you know scores as the tournament progresses.

As you already know, Tsai Pei-Ying is in Australia playing the Women's Australian Amateur. I am pleased to say that she has progressed through the matchplay to be playing in the 36 hole final tomorrow. She won her first two matches on Monday 3&2 and 3&1. She won her quarter final match this morning 1 up after chipping in on the 17th hole to get back to square and winning the 18th hole with a par. She then played Julia Boland (the stroke play champion) in the semi-final and managed to win 3&1 in that match. I spoke to her quickly on the phone and she was very excited about her results so far. I will make sure we speak on MSN tonight so she can tell me all about the good golf and then we can refocus her for the final tomorrow. Live score updates will be here.

Until next time,

Brent

Australian Women's Amateur

In my last post I mentioned that one of my students, Tsai Pei-Ying, was playing in the Australian Women's Amateur. The stroke play section ended on Saturday and Tsai Pei-Ying shot rounds of 74, 74, 73, 73 to finish in third place, four strokes behind Julia Boland. The final scores are here. She will be playing in the matchplay section starting on Monday at Royal Queensland Golf Club. The matchplay section is for the Top 32 players from the stroke play section and is a knock out until one player is left. This player is the Australian Women's Amateur champion.

I spoke to her on MSN tonight and she is a little concerned about the golf course for the matchplay. She played the stroke play section at Brisbane Golf Club but the matchplay is at Royal Queensland. She played a practice round there after the men finished their final round and she told me that the course is a lot different to Brisbane Golf Club. There are a lot of bunkers, the greens are fairly undulating and some of the greens have little run off areas that make it tough to get close to the hole. She also has not played much matchplay so she is a little worried about this section. We spoke about how golf is golf and there shouldn't be much difference between stroke and match play. We spoke about sticking to her plan, keeping the ball under the hole as much as possible and not worrying too much about the other player. Hopefully she plays well and you can watch the scores on the Golf Australia website.

Until next time,

Brent

Australian Womens Amateur/Faldo Series

One of my players, Tsai Pei-Ying, is in Australia currently playing in the Australian Women's Amateur Championship. The stroke play section is being played in Brisbane at the Brisbane Golf Club. This section is 72 holes and the top 32 will qualify to play matchplay to find the national champion. Tsai Pei-Ying had a first round score today of 74 which puts her in a nice position after the first round. The first round news story is here and the complete score list is here. I will keep you updated as the tournament progresses or you can check her progress on the Golf Australia website.

Next week some of my students will be heading to Mission Hills in China for the final of the Faldo Series. This is a big tournament and I will update the scores here as they play next week.

Until next time,

Brent

Volvo China Open

This week one of my students, Hung Chien-Yao travelled to Hong Kong to compete in the pre-qualifying rounds for the Volvo China Open. This tournament is a co-sanctioned event on the Asian and European Tours. I was glad that he travelled to play this event as I feel the more experience he gets playing with better players under pressure, the better he will become as a player. He travelled with Chen Ming-Chuan who is a student at one of the sport colleges in Taiwan and is another player who has attended some of the training I have held in Taiwan.

The event was 36 holes of stroke play and the best four scores would qualify for the tournament. It was held at the Discovery Bay Golf Club in Hong Kong on Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

Both Hung Chien-Yao and Chen Ming-Chaun had first round scores of even par 72. The best score for the first round was 71 so they were both well placed to qualify. The final round again produced identical scores for both players. They both shot 2 under par rounds of 70 to finish at 2 under for the 36 holes.

Two players finished the event on 3 under so they automatically qualified for the tournament. Four players finished on 2 under for the 36 holes so a play off was needed to see who would take the remaining two spots. Unfortunately, my student, Hung Chien-Yao, made pars in the play off and didn't manage to secure one of the remaining spots. The good news for Taiwan golf is the two spots were taken by Taiwan players Chen Ming-Chaun and Chan Shih-Ching. Check the final results here.

Although Hung Chien-Yao didn't qualify this time it is a great experience for him to get so close and experience a little of the pressure that tour players face all the time. I spoke to him on the phone yesterday and he sounded a little disappointed. I stressed to him that he needs to be proud that he got as close as he did to playing in a co-sanctioned event. He is only 16 years old and will learn so much from playing in this event. I will talk to him more when he comes and sees me next week.

Until next time,

Brent

China Girls Camp

As I mentioned in an earlier post we held a girls training camp recently in China. This was held in the Chinese city of Xiamen at Orient Golf Course. This golf course is part of the Orient Golf Group which runs eleven golf courses all over China as well as one in Taiwan. This golf course allowed us to stay at the club in the caddy accommodation and utilise the golf course and practice facilities.

In previous training camps I have run in Taiwan we have had a mixture of boys and girls and quite a large number of players. This camp was different in that we had only girls and the number was kept to six. This allowed me to run things a little bit differently and get into some more detail in certain areas.

One of the challenges of this camp was some of the players have spent a fair bit of time with me over the past year while some of the girls were either new students or players that, for different reasons, hadn’t spent a lot of time with me over the past year. The main focus I wanted for this camp was “playing golf” as apposed to technical golf. We have worked fairly hard last year on the player’s golf swings and this year I want them to have a greater understanding of all the other pieces that make up successful golf. As some of the girls hadn’t spent a lot of time with me last year, I did some technical coaching with them along with the “playing golf” sessions with the rest of the players.

One of the first things we did with all the players is run them through a physical evaluation. We did a basic body screening as well as some basic physical fitness tests to evaluate where their bodies are currently. The video on this post shows one of the players running through the body evaluation. We run them through a number of tests which highlights a player’s body weaknesses and allows a total body conditioning program to be written. These tests are used periodically through the year to assess a player’s progress.

Another focus of this camp was fitness. Each morning the players completed a physical training session. We were lucky enough to have one of the girl’s mothers at the camp. She has a background in physical education and basketball coaching so the players had some basketball style training combined with some golf specific exercise. This cross training kept the players interested and the sessions fresh.

Competitive practice also played a large role during this camp. Lots of games and competitions where used to simulate on course pressure. Putting challenges, with the bridge as a punishment for the losers, as well as ball flight control games were all used during these sessions. Everyone disliked doing the bridge so the competition was intense and serious, just like on course play.

We also utilised the golf course on several occasions and used these sessions to develop and finetune warm-up and tournament day routines. Each player designed a perfect warm up plan and listed the steps they would take to warm up before a round. I then asked them what would happen if the golf course didn’t have a driving range/practice fairway (like a lot of Taiwan golf courses) to warm up on? They then had to design a warm up plan that they could use if they faced this situation. After these two were designed and finetuned I asked them what would they do if their car broke down on the way to the golf course and they only had 10 minutes to warm up? They then had do design an emergency plan that they could use if they ever had to face this situation. The players now had three separate warm up plans that they could use to handle any situation they found themselves in.

Overall, the camp was great fun and I finished the two weeks learning more about each of the players and I am sure the players also learnt a lot about themselves and how to continue their improvement.

Until next time,

Brent

Winter Cup

The first of the quarterly ranking tournaments, the Winter Cup, was just completed last week. These four season cups combined with some other Taiwan events, such as the Taiwan Amateur, form the list of ranked players that players are selected from for overseas tournaments throughout the year. Obviously, they are important for the players and everyone tries their hardest to score well.

The boys section was close with two of my students, Hung Chien-Yao and Hsieh Chi-Hsien, tied for the lead on 6 under heading into the final round. Hung Chien-Yao made a great start to the final round and was 4 under after nine to take a 4 stoke lead heading into the final 9 holes. This lead was quickly cut to 1 after 12 holes due to 2 bogies made by Hung Chien-Yao and a birdie by Hsieh Chi-Hsien. Hung Chien-Yao regrouped and played the last 6 holes in 2 under to shoot a final round of 68, finish 10 under for the tournament and 4 strokes clear of Hsieh Chi-Hsien in second place on 6 under.

Overall, in the boys section, my students won the open section (Hung Chien-Yao 70, 74, 66, 68), the over 18 section (Hsieh Chi-Hsien 69, 72, 69, 72), the 16-17 age group (Yang Fei-Hao 71, 75, 71, 71) and the 14-15 age group (Lee Chieh-Po 75, 71, 73, 69).

The girls section was even closer than the boys section. The leader after three rounds was one of the students from one of the Sports Colleges in Taiwan. She was 2 under par and 2 shots ahead of another girl with two of my students Yao Hsuan-Yu +1 and Liu Yi-Chen +2 sitting close behind. In the end, the leader had a tough day on the last day and shot 77 which gave the other girls a chance.

The final round was exciting with three girls coming down the final hole with a chance to win the tournament. In the end Yao Hsuan-Yu had a final round of 72, Liu Yi-Chen had a final round of 71 and the girl that was coming second after three rounds had a final round of 73 which led to a three way tie at the top of the leaderboard. As it is difficult to actually get on a golf course in Taiwan, let alone have a playoff, the final results were determined by countback. This meant that Liu Yi-Chen finished first and Yao Hsuan-Yu finished second. Although these are the official results, I consider all three girls as joint winners.

Another of my students, Hsieh Yu-Ling, charged home with a 68 on the final day to only finish two strokes away from the girl winners.

Until next time,

Brent

My Golf Game

Today I decided to head out on the golf course with three of my students. Now, this may or may not have been a good idea as the three players I decided to play with are the three top ranked players in Taiwan and we were playing on Sunrise Golf Course in Taiwan which is not exactly the easiest course in Taiwan. We were also playing from the back tees because the players were preparing for a tournament that starts on Wednesday. This combined with the fact that I haven't played a game of golf except for two rounds with borrowed clubs when I was back in Australia for Christmas and my total number of rounds for 2008 would be approximately six 9 hole rounds.

Standing on the first tee I (foolishly) decided that we should play for some money. I asked them to give me 4 shots start and we would play for $100 NT (approx $4.50 Aus) for every shot the winner finished in front. The players had the cheek to ask if 4 shots was enough!

We started on the 10th tee and as you can see from the picture it is not the easiest tee shot to face when the last time you played a golf course was two months ago. I managed to keep the ball out of the water and actually played some fairly decent shots for the first three or four holes. I was being accused of being a hustler as the players have seen my attempts to hit a few shots on the driving range this year.

Things were not going too badly until the first par 5 we came to. This is when I let my ego rule my brain and attempted a 250 yard water carry with my 3 wood and splashed in the water. I then proceeded to do exactly what I tell the Taiwan players to never do. Still thinking about how stupid my previous shot was I dropped another ball and, without thinking, dumped a wedge in the water as well. So I had just committed the sin of following one mistake with another. A score of 9 was the result and much laughter from my playing partners as we made our way to the next tee.

I managed to find the fairways and greens over the next few holes and made a few pars and even a birdie and as the rain and fog closed in on us as we headed up the 6th (our 15th) I still had all 4 of my strokes over one player, 3 strokes on another and 2 on the final player. I was also enjoying the fact that a coach who doesn't play anymore was keeping up with the top Taiwan players and I was letting them know! Actually, I shouldn't say too much as I think it was me dragging them down to my level rather than me playing to their standard.

It was interesting, from my perspective, as I found that my ball striking was not that much different from when I was playing more often but my chipping and putting was disgraceful! I think I had over 30 putts for the 15 holes we played and didn't hole a putt over 4 feet for the whole day. That being said, it was fun to get out there on the course again and I will try and play a bit more this year.

Until next time,

Brent