New Job

I have just accepted a new job as the Head Coach of Nanshan Golf School in China. This golf school is based near the city of Yantai in the north of China. Nanshan is a large company based in China that have interests in golf courses, education, construction, manufacturing, textiles, wine and many other things. The company has the largest golf facility in the world and there are 275 holes at last count with several new courses in development at the moment. My job here is to develop and improve the golf training program at the school by training the coaches currently here as well as attracting new students to the program. As well as this role, I will also be doing some work for the China Golf Association with their development program. I will be working with some players on the fringe of National Team selection and hoping to improve them to make the National team.

My first job here was to run a junior training camp over the Summer vacation period. I had a group of around 20 players of varying standards and we worked together for around four weeks. During those four weeks there were also two tournaments for the kids to play in so it was a little difficult to fix too much in their games. We had some fun and did some video coaching and helped them a little with their on course strategy and it was a good opportunity to introduce myself to some of the students and let them know what my coaching style is all about. The students will choose a coach to train with when they come back to school next month so we will see who decides to train with me.

The camp finished last Sunday and this week I have been helping the players from the CGA National Squad. I have four junior boys that I am helping and we are training alongside the National Squad so they can see how the National Players structure their training. It is lots of fun and they have a tournament this weekend so hopefully I have helped them with their preparation and they have a nice result.

That is about it for now but I will post again really soon and fill you in on some of my student's results since my last post. Some of my Taiwan students have had some good results lately and I will tell you all about it next post.

Until next time,

Brent

Queen Sirikit Cup

April 1-3 were the dates that the Queen Sirikit Cup was held in Bali, Indonesia. This tournament is the women's team championships for the Asia-Pacific region. Each country that plays is represented by three players who play stroke play for three days. The best two scores are used each day to give the team score for the country. The winner of the Queen Sirikit Cup is the country with the lowest team score for the three days. Last year this event was held in Japan and the winning team was Korea. My Taiwan players finished third last year so I was keen for them to improve this time.

The players representing Taiwan this year was Yao Hsuan-Yu, Hsieh Yu-Ling and Tsai Pei-Ying. They teed up on the Par 74 Nirwana Bali golf course for the first round on the 1st of April. Hsieh Yu-Ling had 68, Tsai Pei-Ying had 71 and Yao Hsuan-Yu had 72 which gave us a team score of -9. This placed us in second place behind Korea who had a team score of -11. The second day scores were Yao Hsuan-Yu 68, Tsai Pei-Ying 73 and Hsieh Yu-Ling 77. This gave us a daily score of -7 and two day score of -18 This placed us in second place behind Korea on -25. The final round produced scores of 71, 75 and 76 for Yao Hsuan-Yu, Tsai Pei-Ying and Hsieh Yu-Ling respectively. This was our worst day for scoring but our final team score was -18 which placed us in second place, 10 strokes behind the winning team from Korea.

Yao Hsuan-Yu finished 3rd in the individual section of the tournament with Tsai Pei-Ying coming 7th and Hsieh Yu-Ling finishing in 11th place. This will be a confidence boost for Yao Hsuan-Yu as it is the biggest tournament she has played for Taiwan and she has played very well.

Overall the girls did very well and I am very proud of their achievement in this event. We improved from last year both on score and finish position so they should be very proud of themselves. 3rd in 2008, 2nd in 2009 and Queen Sirikit Cup champions in 2010 is what we are aiming for now!

Until next time,

Brent

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