Taiwan Winter Cup

The players in the Winter Cup ranking event here in Taiwan are starting to finish their second rounds. The common theme amongst all the players is problems on the green. A lot of them are striking the ball well but not holing putts. Lots of 3 putts are being reported as well as a couple of 4 putts and even a 5 putt!

It is interesting to watch them practice as well. Looking out the window now I can see one player chipping with one hand while talking on the phone and another two players standing on the green talking. The two biggest complaints seem to be that the players are having trouble reading the green or judging the speed yet none of them are doing any green reading or speed control drills.

The leading score after one day in the girls section was 67 with a 69 and 70 close behind. The boys section is being led with a score of 68 with a 69, 70 and 71 close as well. I will update the final results after the last round on Friday.

Liu Chen-Lin, who I mentioned in an earlier post was currently in America is playing another International Junior Golf Tour event this week. You can watch his progress here http://www.ijgt.com/details.php?id=276

Until next time,

Brent

My Australian Students

I sent an email to all of my students in Australia this week with a link to my new blog and asking for any news that they had to share. I always enjoy hearing from my students and love hearing about their successes and struggles with this game we all play.

It was great to see Box Hill Golf Club win the Division 5 Pennant last year and hopefully they will continue the form into the next season in the higher division. Box Hill was the first golf club I worked at when I made the move from country New South Wales to the city of Melbourne. Hopefully they will keep up with the success. Check out the club's website at http://www.boxhillgolfclub.com.au/

One of my students from Box Hill Golf Club told me in his return email that he had his best score ever recently at Box Hill. He shot a 78 off the stick and wasted a number of shots during the round as well. This was the first time he had broken 80 and I am so excited for him! It was also interesting that he said he hasn't been playing much recently due to other commitments and he went out and just played golf without thinking about the score, his swing etc. It made me think about how much importance we put on swing mechanics and trying to build a "perfect" golf swing. It always amazes me how well people play when they just stop thinking and just swing the club. I think there needs to be a blend of swing mechanics and freedom from thinking but in an ideal world we would just let go and only think target when we are on the course. Feel free to post any comments/thoughts you might have.

Another one of my students and an ex workmate from when I was at Burnley Golf Course also had some great news to report. He is currently coming second in his club championships with the final round left to play! I am sure he won't mind me mentioning that his swing when I first met him was a little..... how should I put this?...... Unusual! It is a credit to his dedication and work ethic that he has changed his swing and improved his scoring skills to the point that he is contending in his club championships. I am extremely proud of him and hope he continues to get better and better.

For him, working at Burnley Golf Course, is a great asset to his golf. Burnley Golf Course is a great little short course which really tightens up your short game. It has a great chipping and putting green to work on those little chips that really save you shots and the course is short enough and the green small enough that you need to be precise with your short irons and wedges. A link to their website here http://www.yarracity.vic.gov.au/Leisure/Golf/index.asp It is a great course for working on these important scoring shots and if you are driving past, drop in for a hit. Tell the shop staff that Brent says hi.

Until next time,

Brent

Girls Camp/Winter Cup

I just got back from a two week training camp in China with six of my girl students. We worked hard and covered lots of fitness, short game, putting and introduced them to some recovery tools we will be using through the coming year. I will post some more details about the camp in the next day or two.

Next week is the first of the quarterly ranking events here is Taiwan. All of the top players from Taiwan will be playing and the results will help us pick teams for the upcoming Queen Sirikit Cup in Bali and the Asia-Pacific Junior Championships in Thailand. I will post more next week as the tournament unfolds.

Brent

International Junior Golf Tour

One of my Taiwan students has recently moved to the United States to continue his golfing development. He has moved to Oak Valley in California and is using Oak Valley Golf Club as his training base. He is living with an American family and going to school there which will help him develop his English skills and move closer to his goal of going to college in America and playing professional golf.

Oak Valley has set up a nice training facility with a good emphasis on fitness and golf training. A few of my students have spent time there and the golf club was our base during our trip to America last northern Summer.

My student's name is Liu Chen-Lin and he played his first event in America this week. He emailed me his statistics after his first round and was very excited to shoot a score of 8 under 64. This placed him tied first after the first round and was a huge boost to his confidence. He shot 72 in the second round and missed out on a playoff by one stroke. Second place in his first tournament in a strange country was great and I was very proud of him. A link to the final results is here http://www.ijgt.com/results.php?id=294

I spoke to him via MSN after the final round and we spoke about what he was feeling and how he was finding the new settings in America. He was excited about his scores and also a little surprised that he was only tied for the lead after scoring 8 under. We spoke about the amount of talent in America and how he will get a more realistic idea of what level his golf is at and what parts need to be improved. Overall he was justifiably excited with his results and I was very proud of him. He was also enjoying the training at Oak Valley and I am sure he will be fitter and stronger when I see him next.

Until next time,

Brent

Qualifying - World Junior Teams Championship

The first tournament this year that I travelled with the players for was the Asian qualifying for the World Junior Teams Championship. This event is open to qualifiers from all over the world and the final will be held in Japan later in the year. The Asian qualifying event was held in Malaysia and I took the Taiwan team of four boys to play in this event. The same four boys played last year and Taiwan didn't qualify for the final so we were all keen to do better this year.

The tournament is three rounds of stroke play with the best three scores from each country to count each day. The top two teams from the qualifying round are the ones to go through to the final. There are teams from Japan, Korea, India, Singapore, Philippines and of course Taiwan playing. Korea and Japan are traditionally the strongest and Korea have two teams playing.

We flew from a cold winter Taiwan to a hot tropical Malaysia and then drove for six hours (meant to be four but the driver got lost) to the resort/golf course we were staying at. The boys rested well that night and we played a practice round in the morning trying to avoid the tropical heat. I walked the course with them helping them with their yardage books and discussing different options for certain holes. The 9th is a drivable par 4 over water and we decided that the longer hitters could go for the green if their driver was working well for the early holes. I thought it was strange that Taiwan players were the only team to attempt to drive the green. Our players made some easy birdies and never made worse than par. We also noticed some amazing views and some interested spectators around the course (see pictures).

All the players played well the first day with Huang Tao scoring 69, Hung Chein-Yao scoring 73 and Hsieh Chi-Hsien and Hsu Hao-Sheng each scoring 76. This gave us a team score of 2 over par and placed us in first place, one stroke ahead of Japan.

The second round scores weren't quite as good as the first round. Huang Tao had 72, Hung Chien-Yao had 73 again, Hsu Hao-Sheng had 76 again and Hsieh Chi-Hsien had 79. This gave us a team score for the day of +5 and moved our overall score to +7. Fortunately we increased our lead and went into the final round with a seven stroke lead over Japan and an eleven stroke lead over one of the teams from Korea. Three of the Taiwan players were also in the top 10 of the individual rankings as well.

Before the final round we spoke about making sure we just played to our course plans and did not worry about the other players around us. We spoke about how easy it would be to go out and try and protect the lead rather than sticking to our plans. The players did well with Hsieh Chi-Hsien having 70, Hung Chien-Yao shooting 73 (again!) and Huang Tao and Hsu Hao-Sheng having 75. Our team score for the day was +2 and our final score for the tournament was +9. We managed to increase our lead over the other countries and we finished first ahead of Korea and Japan.

So the boys will be off to the final in Japan later in the year. With the rest of the world being there it will be a great challenge for the Taiwan junior players and will give them a better idea of how they compare to the rest of the world.

Until next time,

Brent

Happy New Year

Hi Everyone and welcome to my new blog. This will be a way that you can keep in touch with me and keep track of the results of my students all over the world.

For those of you that don't know me, my name is Brent Davis and I am an Australian PGA Golf Professional. I am AAA rated with the Australian PGA and I have Masters in Applied Science (Sport Coaching) through the University of Queensland. I am currently working in Taiwan as the National Coach and am based at Sunrise Golf Club. I coach the national squad in Taiwan as well as some of the younger players here. I coach the players in Taiwan on all aspects of golf. We cover long game, short game, putting, fitness, nutrition, club fitting, planning, periodisation, practice routines, statistics and lots of other things that make up a top level golfer. I will talk about our training here and some of the things we do in other posts.

As part of my job here I get to travel with the National team to all of their major events throughout the year. Last year we travelled to China, Japan, USA, Philippines and Australia to compete in some of the major amateur events on the world calender. This travel allows me to coach the players in effective travel techniques. They learn how to play different golf courses in different conditions and deal with such travel problems as jetlag, finding food in strange countries and dealing with language barriers. I will keep you updated on the player's results in these events on this blog.

I also keep in touch with my students in Australia and enjoy hearing from them and helping them with their golf in any way I can.

Now that I have introduced myself and what I do, I look forward to posting on a regular basis and hearing from all of you and helping where I can.

Until next time,

Brent