Going to Perth - Tim going well - Plenty on.

David and I have been busy finalising the Perth trip details this week. We only have a small group going but for the first trip to the Western state we understand it takes a while to build these trips up and we also very much like the one on one nature of a smaller group, so we are pumped and ready to go.
We have golf booked at the Cut, the Links at Kennedy Bay, The Vines and Joondalup which are all exceptional courses and an aspect of the trip I am very much looking forward to, as I have only played one of the four courses myself. We are staying at the Sebel Mandurah and the Novatel at The Vines so our accomodation is of the highet quality and on Wednesday we are travelling to Whaleback Golf Academy for a 1/2 day golf school at the home of our old Friend Peter Hopkins (he's been a friend for a long time - he's not really old). Peter is somewhat of a legend in WA with a very distinguished record as a player, teacher, PGA director and all round Professional Golfer. Dave and I are very much looking forward to catching up with Hoppy and finding out what he has been up to.
Everyone is booked, paid for and excited to go, so bring it on and we will keep you posted.

Tim Frazer has made his way to the states for his 2nd run at the Dakotas Tour, better and more prepared than ever before. The boys arrived on the 12th of June (Yes there is 3 of them this time) and were straight into it with their first event being in the Provo Open. The boys were treated like rock stars as an Australian accent is a pretty rare thing in that part of the world and they graced the pages of the local newspaper, a golf magazine, as well as the Utah Morning show (who would have thought). Tim payed well in his first event back shooting 74 - 72 making his first cut as a Professional and shooting 74 keeping him just outside the money with plenty of room to improve. Great start. The boys had a few more days in Utah before heading to Mineapplis before driving to Sioux Falls in Iowa, venue for their first two events on the Dakotas Tour. It's been an exciting week getting settled in, practicing for their first events, Tim even won his first Professional cheque in the Professional section of the Sioux Falls Open (a whole $63 dollars - you have to start somewhere) the boys are prequalifiing on Friday for the Saturday - Sunday Event this weekend. We will be waiting with baited breath. Good luck mate. 

Plenty of organising going on at the Absolute Golf Headquarters with golf schools, On-course days, specialty corporate schools, even a golf cruise on the table at the moment and as usual our constant obsession with our upcoming USA Trip. Picked up another two for the upcoming trip this week which is moving us closer to our total of 9 guests and we still have plenty of interest in the festivities. It's going to be great. September 15th through to the 26th. For more information go to http://www.absolutegolf.com.au/ . Click on the online schedule or Contact us for more information.

Will keep you posted on next weeks trip with pictures and plenty of stories to tell.

See you on the course.
Jeff Mansfield  

US Open, On-course and The End Of An Era.

Last weeks US Open at The Olympic Club in San Francisco was as exciting a golf tournament as I have seen for a very long time. What a challenging golf course with it's sloping fairways, small greens and typical Californian summer weather. Foggy. It was very interesting to watch this event. I don't know if i have seen as many mental errors as i saw last weekend (which is what a tough course does to even the best players). Our old friend Bob Duncan must have been shaking his head the amount of times players were trying to hit draws from fade lies and fades from draw lies and all this does is puts pressure on their long games which in turn puts pressure on their short games and hence the big scores. It is an amazing golf course with holes as short as 160 yards (145 meters) up to the longest hole in US Open history at 670 yards (over 600 meters). The course is in a very good golf area with the Olympic club having 45 holes, and nearby courses being Harding Park, host of US PGA Tour events and the Presidents Cup, The San Francisco Club another US Open Venue as well as other famous courses like Pasa Tiempo and many more. All of these courses are only minutes away from where we stay in San Fran on our annual trip as we have driven past the Olympic Club gates and visited Harding Park on previous visits. Congratulations to Wade Simpson, to post those two weekend scores while everyone else was back pedalling was a phenomenal effort and deserved of an Open Champion.

The new par three 8th at the Olympic Club

The On-course lessons are going gangbusters. Our new venue for On-Course Days Twin Creeks has been a great addition to our repertoire giving us a championship golf course for our guests to learn what they need to do to play better golf. The course has been in terrific condition and the weather has been sensational giving everyone involved a fantastic opportunity to get the most out of their day. David and I are On-Course every Friday and are out to give each golfer what they want from there golf. If you would like to attend an Absolute Golf On-Course Golf Day contact either David or myself, we would love to have you along.

The End of An Era. Sydney Olympic Park Golf Range.

The Golf Range at Sydney Olympic Park is closing after ten years trade. The range was one of the busiest in the country and offered quality programs with a friendly atmosphere and it will be a real shame to see it go. I have been a regular part of the furniture for the past five years offering the club fitting services as the Head Club Fitter as well as coaching to the poor unfortunates who got to come and see me (just kidding) and it will be a shame to lose contact with all the wonderful people we have had contact with over the recent years. There are a few people i would like to thank after five years of working at this fun venue, firstly James Commerford and Chris Chilton for having the foresight to try and run a top class venue and providing activities and services that were not being offered in the Sydney area.
To all the coaches for entrusting me with your students and allowing me to fit them to help with their golf improvement. I am always very honoured that a professional allows their pupils to go freely to work with another professional even it is for a common goal, I hope i always deserved that trust.
My regular pupils, i have meet some terrific new friends working at the range which many of whom i may not get to see again as the distance may be too great. Thank you for you trust and your support and remember to let me know how you are going, good bad or ugly i would love to help.
All the range staff, for your efforts to make the range a happy place to work and for the best coffee in the Sydney Olympic Park Precinct and last but not least Scott Davis who as head professional at the range lead by example and left blood on the tee offering his students the best he could. Mate i look forward to working with you in the future in the Golf School business and doing the Golf Trips and I hope we can keep doing great work together.

Go to http://www.absolute/ golf to check out our US Trip information or any of our upcoming golf school dates. We would love to see you.

See you on the course.

Jeff Mansfield  

Assesment days, On-course days, Tim Frazers Golf Day and Western Aust Trip.

Absolute Golf started their official season with Twin Creeks Golf and Country Club last weekend (the 27th May) with a new format designed to help golfers evaluate what they need to work on to help their golf. We ran two assesment days, Sun 27th May for 23 golfers and Friday 1st June for 18 golfers. The goal for the day was to allow the attendees to get a better understanding of what it was exactly that holds them back and how this information would allow each player to improve their games in the desired areas. Both days were really well responded too with Twin Creeks putting on a terrific day with registration, lunch, range balls before the round. David, Scott Davis and myself watched all players from a distance trying to get an insight into what each player does when he or she is playing and how it will help and each golfer recieved a statistic sheet to fill out while they were on the course. We got plenty of information from the sheets and observations, so much so that processing all the data is taking longer than first thought but we are working through it all to get each player their own individual report. Watch this space to see who the big improvers are.

This week (Fri 8th) we have our first official On-Course day at Twin Creeks with at present 8 golfers booked in to spend the day with Scott Davis, David Reckless and myself. These days have been very popular since we have taken them to the "Absolute Golf" regulars and Twin Creeks proves to be a great venue for us to run these very unique days. We will keep you posted on how they are going. There are more days coming up on Friday the 15th and 22nd of June.

Last Sunday my good friend and star pupil Tim Frazer held a farewell golf day at the place where it first started, Wentworth Falls C.C. It was a typical mountain day, foggy, misty, light rain and cool, but this did not deter the spirit in which the day was taken in. There were about 30 players who played in the specially designed format to maximise the enjoyment of all who attended. Tims range of sponsors provided all matter of gifts from trophies for the winners, runners up and third, nearest to the pins and drive and pitches as well as raffle prizes and auction prizes. After such a miserable day it would have been easy for all involved to dissapear into the night but it is a testiment to the mateship of these strong band of brothers who hung around, eating and drinking, telling stories, collecting trophies and raffle prizes and bidding in auctions all designed to help Tim with his time over in the states playing on the upcoming Dakotas Tour ( he leaves next Tuesday for his first event). Congratulations to all involved in making sure the day ran smoothly and to all who went out on a tough day to support this worthy cause. Special thanks to my playing partners for the day, it was great getting out and having a game with my old mates Brad Farrell who travelled up from Picton and Sam Dzwinek coming up from Bathurst. It was terrific to see that youv'e still got it Sambo. Also well done to our other playing partner Chris Samios who made a rare appearance and still managed to get runner up for the day. I will keep you posted on Tim and his results.

We are down to the pointy end of putting our Western Australian Trip together with just the final few people getting back to us whether they will be making the journey. The courses are great, the accomodation is first class and with David there it will never be dull. This is a very special golf destintion in Australia, with Perth having some of the best courses in the country within a 40 minute drive and a range of styles that would make any travelling golfer envious. We are taking final enquires for the WA Trip over the next week. So if you would like to get away from the East coast winter blues and come and play some great golf with us, contact us today or go to http://www.absolutegolf.com.au/ .

All the best
Jeff Mansfield