“It’s always great to win, and it’s nice to win over three days,” said Great Britain & Ireland Professional, Gane.  “The team struggled a little bit today…we were all pretty exhausted but we’ve had a great week and it’s been a great Pro-Am and I’m looking forward to coming back next year.”

Gane began the day with a comfortable lead, but with hot conditions at the event supported by Fine & Country Golf and temperatures reaching 39 degrees it was always going to be a high performance battle.

A birdie at the first hole was a dream start to move to eight-under par but with two bogeys and a further birdie, he finished at level par for the front nine.

A single bogey on the back nine at the 13th hole gave Gane his only over-par round of the tournament – his final round 73 added to his 66 in Round 02 at Yas Links Golf Club and Round 01 71 at Saadiyat Beach Golf Club, was still more than enough to secure victory.

A Confederation of Professional Golf Sanctioned Event win will also see Gane receive an invite to the 2016 UniCredit PGA Professional Championship of Europe later this year:

“I got into Pravets two years ago and it’s a great event,” Gane added.  “A chance to go and play the Confederation of Professional Golf Club Pros, well…I can’t wait – it’s nice to win [here] and that’s a real added bonus.”

In second place was another PGA of GB&I Professional, Simon Lilly.  Lily got off to a good start with a birdie at the second but bogeys at three and nine, and a further three bogeys on the back nine resulted in a four-over par 76 and a 223 (+7) finish to squeeze stand-alone second place by two strokes.

Third place went to the PGA of Spain’s Adam Sagar after his even-par 72, the low round of the day.  His one-under front nine and one-over back nine was a consistent finish to the tournament, completing a total of 225 (+9).

The Team Pro-Am honours went to wire-to-wire leaders Team Makszin – PGA of Hungary Professional Áron Makszin and his amateurs Csaba Nagy, Zsolt Bohacs & Adam Osztovits culminated their tournament with 85 points (-13) taking their overall total to an outstanding 269 points (-53).

PGA of UAE Professional, Ross Bain, and his amateurs, Stephen Rutter, Scott Horne, David Minchin, took scond place with a 252 point (-36) total, whilst individual winner, Gane, and his amateurs Neil Foulkes, Andrew Doswell & Stuart Munro took third place with 243 points (-27).

For Full Final Scores Visit: http://eur.pe/2016AbuDhabi

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For more information about the 2016 OnCourse Abu Dhabi Pro-Am visit http://eur.pe/2016AbuDhabi follow @PGAsofEurope on Twitter and search the hashtag ‘#AbuDhabiProAm‘, or like the Confederation of Professional Golf Facebook Page.

For more information on OnCourse Golf visit www.oncoursegolfme.com.

The PGA of Great Britain & Ireland Professional carded a bogey-free six under par in Round 02 of the Pro-Am supported by Fine & Country Golf to take a lead of 10 shots heading into the final round.

“A 66, no bogeys – it went pretty well to be honest,” said Gane.  “We played first off this morning and the wind didn’t get up…then by the time we got up on the back nine it was really tricky.

“The course was great, I heard a lot of reports about it and it lived up to everything.  It’s a good test of golf – the last few holes, especially 15 onwards, down the back of the creek are really tough, but is well worth all the hype.”

Gane’s card was notably cleaner than it was in Round 01 with three birdies on each nine for his seven-under par (137) total.

GB&I Professional Simon Lily made five birdies, a double bogey and three bogeys to move up and down throughout the round, finally ending at level par (72) for the round, and remaining at three-over par (147) for the tournament.

Tied for third place are the PGA of GB&I’s Gavin Hall and the PGA of UAE’s Ross Bain.  A level par front nine for Hall was a solid start but three bogeys on his closing three holes took him to three over for the day.

Bain’s second round did not get off to the best start with a double bogey at the par-four third hole, and ended the nine at three-over.  But a fantastic bounce-back eagle at the par-five 11th hole followed up by a birdie at 14 got him back to level for the day.  A final bogey on 17 gave a one-over Round 02 score and a share of third at six-over par (150).

The Team Pro-Am continues to be led by Áron Makszin and his amateurs Csaba Nagy, Zsolt Bohacs & Adam Osztovits.  The team were far from resting on their laurels at the top of the leaderboard, carding 90 points (-18) to give them a 184 point total (-40) through two rounds.

14 points behind are Chris Gane and amateurs Neil Foulkes, Andrew Doswell & Stuart Munro – 84 points (-12) in their second round helped them gain a healthy advantage over third position with a 170 point (-26) total.

The Final Round of the 2016 OnCourse Golf Abu Dhabi Pro-Am begins at 12:30am (GMT+4) 28th April at Abu Dhabi Golf Club, UAE.

For Full Round 02 Scores Visit: http://eur.pe/2016AbuDhabi

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For more information about the 2016 OnCourse Abu Dhabi Pro-Am visit http://eur.pe/2016AbuDhabi follow @PGAsofEurope on Twitter and search the hashtag ‘#AbuDhabiProAm‘, or like the Confederation of Professional Golf Facebook Page.

For more information on OnCourse Golf visit www.oncoursegolfme.com.

Marc Leishman of Australia [pictured] and South African Jaco Van Zyl have both been propelled into the reckoning for places in the Olympic Games golf competition in Rio de Janeiro.

With Adam Scott, Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel asking not to be considered for Rio, the potential beneficiaries are Leishman and Van Zyl. Leishman enters the Rankings in 16th place, behind No.1 and fellow countryman, Jason Day.

A delighted Van Zyl is 27th with the leading South African, recent Hilton Head champion Branden Grace, continuing his upward progress into tenth.

Yuta Ikeda of Japan produced a masterclass performance in front of his home fans to win the Panasonic Open Golf Championship by three shots after closing with a six-under-par 65. That success enabled the 30-year-old to take his place in the Olympic Rankings at No.33 alongside Hideki Matsuyama (11th) with Shingo Katayama dropping out of the top 60.

Charley Hoffman edged out Patrick Reed on the PGA Tour to claim the Valero Texas Open while Korean Soomin Lee won the Shenzhen International on the European Tour. Neither player figures on the Olympic Rankings but are moving in the right direction.

Quote…Unquote

“It’s a great privilege and an honour to be able to represent my country on such a big stage. It will be very special for me to be able to look back one day and remember participating in the Olympics. Initially, I thought my chances of playing were slim, but when it became clear that I could play, I made sure I did all the paperwork!” Jaco Van Zyl

“I pride myself that I play this game to get into contention. Just the way you react and, sort of, be able to maintain composure. To be able to close the door like I did, it’s a very good, gratifying feeling.” Charley Hoffman

“I’m really happy and really excited. This is really good for me and really good for my golf life.” Soomin Lee

THE WOMEN

Haru Nomura joined her fellow countryman, Yuta Ikeda, in the winner’s circle in an impressive weekend for Japanese professional golf.

Nomura recorded a nine-under-par total of 279 for a four shot victory in the Swinging Skirts LPGA Classic Presented by CTBC to jump four spots on the Road to Rio, from 18th to 14th place in the Rankings. Japan’s other Olympic contender, Shiho Oyama, is currently 20th, having replaced Mika Miyazato in the Rankings.

Denmark’s Nanna Koerstz Madsen [pictured] enters the Rankings in 37th, taking the place of Emily Kristine Pedersen.

There was no change at the top of the Rankings with tied sixth finishes for Lydia Ko and Lexi Thompson which keep them at No.1 and No.3 respectively, with Korean Inbee Park in second position.

Quote….Unquote

“You know, when I came into this year, I had two goals – to win an LPGA tournament and also win a major tournament. Now I’ve won two tournaments LPGA this year, so I think my goal now is to win a major.” Haru Nomura

View Women’s Olympic Rankings
View Men’s Olympic Rankings

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For up-to-the-minute information on #OlympicGolf and regular updates, please follow us on Twitter (@OlympicGolf), Facebook.

Images courtesy of Action Images & Ladies European Tour/Tristan Jones

Membership referrals are simply new members who have been introduced to the club by current members.

The concept of referral marketing is nothing new – indeed, there has been plenty of research on the subject with many studies professing the virtues of referred custom as opposed to new custom from complete strangers.

So why is the concept of ‘referral’ so potentially rewarding for our club?

Benefits of Referrals

The power of recommendation

People trust the opinion of other people in their lives that they respect – family members, friends or work colleagues. For instance, we’ve all watched a television programme that we’ve heard other people talking about – that’s exactly the same referral principle. We heard it from people we know therefore we trust their opinion.

Targeted marketing

Unlike many other forms of marketing, referral is laser targeting at its most effective. Members know their friends, family and/or work colleagues pretty well. They can spread your membership message to the very audience you want to target.

Data quality

Due to the nature of referral the quality of the data is more likely to be correct, without false email addresses or such like.

A trusted sales pitch

We’ve all had the unfortunate experience of being on the receiving end of a door-to-door sales person. No doubt most of us didn’t buy anything from them based on issues of trust. How could you be sure those products they were selling are genuine? How do you know they’re going to work? How do you know they’ve not “fallen off the back of a lorry”?!

“Trust” is an important part of the buying decision for any consumer. We are far more likely to buy from someone we trust – so to encourage members to perform our ‘sales pitch’ for us will be making full use of a perceived trustworthy communication channel.

See the research below conducted in the Nielsen Global Survey of Trust in Advertising. Powerful proof indeed.

Huge volumes of people

Not just huge – the entire world! Certainly the entire world if you are to believe in the theory of six degrees of separation. This is the notion that everyone is six steps away, by way of introduction, from every other person in the world. It’s the underlying principle of social media in many ways. You know six people, who each know another six people, who each know another six people – and by the time you do that six times you have a connection with, well, absolutely everyone.

Golfers like to talk golf

It’s true in many cases that golfers like to talk about golf. It stands to reason – golf is their pastime and their leisure pursuit of choice. It also seems that the sport itself has a lot of conversational ingredients. It almost sparks debate and conversation, perhaps as golfers try to rationalize exactly why they play like they do and/or why Rory McIlroy plays like he does. In any event, if you invite a golfer to talk about their golf they usually have a fair amount to say.

It attracts the same types of people

It is often the case that people get on better with other people ‘of the same type’ as them – “birds of a feather flock together”. When you are encouraging members to refer people to the club – you are encouraging people with similar characteristics to them. They may be similar in terms of political persuasion, affluence, professional background, age range and/or in terms of social attitudes. This then helps create a membership body that mixes well with each other, encouraging a happy and harmonious group of customers.

Referred members are less likely to leave

We like to call it “stickability”. It is in the dictionary:

“A person’s ability to persevere with something; staying power”

This is the notion that someone can be more ‘attached’ to a club and therefore less likely to leave. It’s a topic that plays more of a part in our membership retention course, but it’s worth mentioning as a benefit to referred members. As soon as they join they know at least one person at the club, which gives them an instant familiarity and makes integration into the club’s day-to-day happenings a lot easier. This often means they’re a lot less likely to leave in the immediate future as they are socially tied to the club.

Placating Members with Referral Opportunities

It seems some golf club members believe that commercial common sense and financial prudence ends at the gates to the club. They want their club to remain a largely exclusive hideaway from the outside world – to be a hidden sanctuary from society. The very same members are usually the first knocking on the Managers door with incredulity at seeing external advertising of the latest membership promotion.

This is where a pro-active, highly-valued and visible referral campaign within a club can go a long way to placating such members, who rightly or wrongly feel aggrieved at any external membership promotions.

In itself, it won’t convince them of the need for the club to grow the number of members – but it may help convince them that they also have an opportunity to personally benefit from the growth if they refer new members to the club.

In fact, it’s true to say that the preferred route to growing a club’s membership base is through referral, for all the reasons already given. As such, there doesn’t appear to be any logical reason why a club wouldn’t implement a member referral initiative if it were also advertising externally for new members.

Referrals are the lowest hanging fruit – they’re the easiest to pick.

To learn how you can create a referral culture within your golf club, along with other membership lead generation tactics, visit www.promotetraining.co.uk and discover more about the “Generating Membership Leads” eLearning course by Promote Training.

For us, the common tipping point in our poor sessions is the moment we take the reckless leap down the rabbit hole of technique.  We encounter a technical change that must be addressed, and as is easy to do, we mistake the amazingly evolved learning machine in front of us for a brainless cadaver fit for our technical experimentations.

It’s not just addressing the technical aspect of performance, that’s obviously an important and necessary part of coaching golfers.  But in the bad sessions, possibly due to an ineffective technical solution being applied or mistakenly prioritizing style over functional ball control, we lose our way and our student ends up internally focused on explicit cues.  Phrases like ‘maybe we could try this now’ can be overheard during these doomed lessons, which at best, yield short term results.

The research that we are drawn towards obviously has urged us to NOT do this.  We know that in the off chance that these lessons actually produce some kind of positive change, it’s not likely it will stick.  If we get lucky, some transient changes will occur and golfer and coach alike experience a short-lived illusion of mastery.

Some motor learning research suggests that the mechanical changes we seek of our players can often emerge as a result of effectively designed learning environments that allow the coach to act merely as a facilitator.  But sometimes they don’t.

Either we aren’t good enough at designing these environments yet or maybe the complex series of movements required in a functional golf swing don’t always appear so spontaneously.  This is where the experience of the practitioner may diverge from those of the researcher.  Sometimes we have to dig in.  We would love for every lesson to be play-based explorations of performance, but it’s not always the appropriate strategy.  If the changes that need to be made to enhance performance are not ‘emerging’, we have to improve the dysfunctional technique.

So how do we stay mindful of how golfers learn and still effect technique without letting a session devolve into an internally focused lesson that won’t transfer to the actual performance context?  To prepare us to deal with this conundrum in a proactive fashion, we wanted to develop a framework that allowed us to attack technical change in way that kept us organized, respectful of the learning process, while keeping us from the rabbit hole of explicit technique tinkering.  When we follow this framework, we have found that the player is best equipped to begin their journey down the pathway to permanence.

THE 4 C’s – THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR ADJUSTING TECHNIQUE

CONCEPTUAL CLARITY

It is paramount that anyone set on learning anything has a clearly defined concept to work with.  In golf, this is usually as simple as describing how the club has interacted with the ball to produce the resulting shot.  For our more coordinated athletes, this clear concept can solve much of the issue.  And for some, as a result of receiving some bad information, they may be trying to do the very thing that is the root of the dysfunctional technique.  In essence, the ‘what-to-be-learned’ serves as a compass, directly influencing how the learner perceives their results and orients their attention. So that’s our starting point– clarity for both coach and player for what changes will occur and their relevance to improved ball control.

CALIBRATION OF AWARENESS

Once we are clear on the concept, we need the player to become more aware of the critical variables at hand.  Calibrating the feel of the player through exercises that expose them to both ends of the movement spectrum are critical in facilitating the change and expanding awareness.  Experiential reference points enable the learning process to start (and continue) by providing something concrete that the learner can refer back to, that helps them gauge improvement.

In essence, we can tell someone to do something, but if they are unable to either execute it, and/or feel a difference between what we are asking them to do and what they do by habit, any change will be difficult to make.  Developing a solid base of kinesthetic awareness, that is rooted in an understanding of the difference between the habitual and desired movements, is critical to traveling towards the pathway towards permanent change.  This article from Cameron McCormick demonstrates a fantastic way to help people heighten their awareness of what they need to do.  A good rule of thumb; feel opposite to find optimal.

CORRECTION CAPACITY

When a performer possesses the capacity to accurately detect whether or not their movements were successful, the variability between trials decreases, thereby leading to increases in skill and performance.  To develop that capacity, people need to be cognitively engaged during practice, actively assessing what they felt, relative to their kinesthetic awareness, conceptual understanding, and the outcome of the movement. The better foundation of ‘knowledge’ that the coach can help the athlete develop, the better this process goes.  How, can we as coaches, do a better job of this? Ask them what they think caused the effect.  This enables the learner to contrast their experience with the augmented and intrinsic feedback, thereby helping them close the gap between feel and real.

To enable the athlete to self-coach, we work diligently to develop the golfer’s problem-solving skills.  Specifically, during practice, we have quizzes.  Quizzes are 10 ball sets where the athlete will guess and/or quantify a key element of their performance after each ball.  At the start, the guesses are usually quite a bit off, but over time, the ability to detect where her club/body is moving and then make the necessary adjustments, increases tremendously.  By being asked to think critically about the preceding motion, given only the ball flight and internal feedback to work with at the start, helps golfers refine their movements to meet task demands once augmented feedback is provided.

CONTEXTUAL PRACTICE

It is very easy to get stuck at the first stages of the learning process, learning the ins and outs of the technical change.  However, at some point, the movement will need to be performed on the course.  To that end, it is of critical importance to the integrity of the process that the learner is exposed to situations similar to what they would experience during the course of play.  Varying, or mixing up the practice, forces the player to apply the new movements for the purpose of accomplishing a wide array of tasks and ensures that the technical changes are trained to withstand the demands of golf.

Ultimately, training the skill under game-like conditions tests the strength of the motion and  helps bridge the gap between practice and play.  In the poor lessons that we described in the beginning, this step is inevitably omitted.  This step is what differentiates instructors from coaches.

In closing, it is important to view our roles as coaches as facilitators of learning.  In the case of technical interventions, we need to empower players to self-coach by helping them develop their understanding, awareness, correction capacity, and ultimately, their ability to perform the new pattern in context and under pressure.  However, only through sustained diligence and effort can something become truly permanent.  By walking the learner through the pathway to permanence, we can facilitate positive change, and start the process of building skills, expanding confidence, and improving performance.  And as a side benefit, when we follow this general framework, we feel a lot better about our lessons.  We are hopeful it has the same effect for you.

Round 01 of the inaugural Pro-Am supported by Fine & Country Golf got off to a hot and sunny start at the Gary Player-designed Saadiyat Beach course in Abu Dhabi, with teams competing over 54 holes.

Gane’s round got moving early with a birdie at the par-five second hole, followed by another on the seventh and a bogey on hole nine.  It was then a case of continued ups and downs in the back nine with two birdies and two bogeys to close with a one-under par 71 and a four shot lead.

“Having not played here before you didn’t really know what you were going to face, but it was great,” said Gane.  “I’m not sure you get any bad courses out here but we’ve got three great ones this week and I’d heard a lot about Saadiyat and it didn’t disappoint.”

Tied for second place at three-over par are the PGA of GB&I’s Simon Lily and Gavin Hall.

Lily too got off to a good start at one-under through four holes but a double at five and a single bogey at six knocked his progress.  Through to the 14th hole, Lily managed to get back to minus one, however four bogeys in the four closing holes moved him away from Gane’s lead, finishing on 75.

“It was really tricky out there – I had a terrible finish…it’s definitely a course you need to have played [before]” said Lily.  “The course is just beautiful though, the scenery is fantastic…it’s my first time here and I’d definitely come again without a doubt.”

Hall’s round was somewhat more straightforward with two bogeys and a birdie heading out, followed by three bogeys and a further birdie for his opening round of 75.

In the Team Pro-Am event it was the team of PGA of Hungary Professional, Àron Makszin, and amateurs Csaba Nagy, Zsolt Bohacs & Adam Osztovits [pictured above], who took the early honours with a 22-under 94 points score.

Team Makszin lead by eight points over the team of individual Leader, Gane, with amateurs Neil Foulkes, Andrew Doswell & Stuart Munro after their 14-under 86 points kept them just within reach of the top.

Round 02 of the 2016 OnCourse Golf Abu Dhabi Pro-Am begins at 11:00am (GMT+4) 27th April at Yas Links Golf Club, UAE.

For Full Round 01 Scores Visit: http://eur.pe/2016AbuDhabi

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For more information about the 2016 OnCourse Abu Dhabi Pro-Am visit http://eur.pe/2016AbuDhabi follow @PGAsofEurope on Twitter and search the hashtag ‘#AbuDhabiProAm‘, or like the Confederation of Professional Golf Facebook Page.

For more information on OnCourse Golf visit www.oncoursegolfme.com.

Amazing Grace!

South African Branden Grace fired a final round 66 for a two shot victory over British pair, Luke Donald and Russell Knox to record his first win on the PGA Tour. A profilic winner around the world, including six times on the European Tour, Grace’s win has enabled him to move just outside the top ten on the Olympic Rankings with Rio just over three months away.

Grace climbs from 13th to 11th and, for the first time, leapfrogs his fellow South African Louis Oosthuizen, who drops from 11th to 12th.

This week’s Olympic Rankings have brought countries closer together. Bubba Watson and Rickie Fowler of the US are fourth and fifth respectively; England’s new Masters winner Danny Willett and Justin Rose are ninth and tenth; Grace and Oosthuizen 11th and 12th and Sergio Garcia and Rafa Cabrera-Bello of Spain 14th and 15th. The letter moves up one place – the fourth successive week he has been upwardly mobile.

Denmark’s Søren Kjeldsen’s recent good form has lifted him from 24th two weeks ago inside the top 20 in 18th place.

Quote…Unquote

“You know, I was fortunate. The God up above gave me a talent to do anything with a ball. I played rugby. I played cricket. I played hockey. I played pretty much everything growing up and was pretty good at it. It was hard to go from team sport to individual sport. And so I made the right decision and it’s paid off.” Branden Grace.

“We never grew up watching golf in the Olympics, so it wasn’t really on my radar ever as a junior, amateur or professional. But now it is.

“So the perspective of being an Olympic athlete has changed a lot, and having the opportunity to represent your country – my country of Australia – is huge and I’m looking forward to it and it would be a complete honour to go down there (to Brazil) and represent Australia and try to win a gold medal for my country.” Jason Day, No.1 on the Olympic Rankings.

THE WOMEN

Down Under…but reaching up!

Australasia has enjoyed a rich vein of form on the LPGA Tour in recent weeks. Hard on the heels of New Zealand’s  Lydia Ko’s triumph in the ANA Inspiration, the first women’s major of the year, it was the turn of Australian Minjee Lee to scale the heights.

Lee came from five shots back, shooting a final round of 64, to win the Lotte Championship Presented by Hershey in Hawaii to move up from 13th to tenth place behind No.1 Ko, and ten places above her fellow Autralian, Karrie Webb, who slipped down from 19th to 20th.

Japan’s Harukyo Nomura and Mika Miyazato both moved up two places and both now reside within the top 20 in 18th and 19th places respectively.

Quote….Unquote

“(I am) really excited. I mean, I think the Olympics is going to be great. The atmosphere is going to be totally cool, so I’m really looking forward to it.” Minjee Lee.

View Women’s Olympic Rankings
View Men’s Olympic Rankings

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For up-to-the-minute information on #OlympicGolf and regular updates, please follow us on Twitter (@OlympicGolf), Facebook.

Images courtesy of Action Images & Ladies European Tour/Tristan Jones

A professionally managed golf course also can demonstrate environmental stewardship and provide a place to meet exercise and fitness goals. Just walking 18 holes, for example, can burn more than 2,000 calories.

As part of the celebration of “Earth Day” on April 22, here are 10 facts about golf that help promote the sport and the environment:

1. Golf courses are professionally managed landscapes where environmental stewardship is important – from using water and nutrients more efficiently to implementing improved methods of erosion control.
2. In general, the golf industry is striving to deliver firm playing surfaces that are better for everyone and improve the bottom line. More than two-thirds of golf courses report that they are keeping turfgrass drier than in the past.
3. The golf industry is continually investing in research to identify drought-tolerant grasses and improve water conservation through best management practices.
4. Golf courses continue to adopt water conservation practices, reduce irrigated acreage and use innovative technologies, such as targeted irrigation systems and ground moisture measurement tools, along with weather monitoring systems, providing the science to water only when and where it is needed.
5. Irrigated areas on golf courses have decreased by more than 14,000 acres between 2006 and 2014.

6. Use of recycled water has increased by 32.7 percent from 2006 to 2014. Recycled water now counts for 25 percent of all water used on golf courses.
7. Golf courses routinely have recycling programs to reduce and reuse.
8. More than 90 percent of a typical golf course is comprised of turfgrass, a water body or other natural areas that prevent erosion, filter runoff, and provide for cooler temperatures when compared to urban settings.
9. More than 70 percent of acreage on an 18-hole golf course is considered green space that provides benefits to the ecosystem, reduces maintenance and supports wildlife habitat, including protected species.
10. Through governmental affairs involvement, professional education and public information, the golf industry continues to promote environmental responsibility as a widespread industry practice.

Find out more about Earth Day at www.earthday.org and tweet using #EarthDay2016. For more information form the World Golf Foundation visit www.worldgolffoundation.org.

You’ll notice that I made the title of this post sound quite impressive (at least I hope I did!).

But the great thing about this story is that anyone can have such an impressive outcome, and it’s not at all as daunting as it might sound.

In fact, all these outcomes came from doing small things every day over a long period.

I’m a big fan of working smarter, not harder and finding small ways to make my work more efficient. As Buffer’s first Content Crafter about two years ago, I got the chance to explore these topics quite a lot.

Now I’m excited to be back to show you exactly how I came by these wins in 2015.

• From a habit of practicing French for just 5 minutes a day, I can now read, write, and speak basic French.
• From a habit of reading just a page every night, I managed to increase my reading list by five times over the past couple of years.

Basically, I used small, everyday habits to build up into big, long-term outcomes.

There are four principles I try to stick by whenever I’m building a new habit. Through everything I’ve tried, these are the principles that seem to work every time.

1. Start small: Repeat a tiny habit daily

When I first started focusing on building more healthy habits a few years ago, one of the biggest mistakes I made was to ask too much of myself.

I would go from reading hardly ever to attempting to read one book per week. Or from getting up at 9 a.m. most days to trying to roll out of bed before 6 a.m. every morning.

The distance between where I was starting and where I wanted to be was so great that I would fail a lot. And each failure made it harder to succeed the next day.

At their heart, as James Clear explains, habits are about routines.

And what I really needed was small wins and visible progress to help me create new routines I could keep at every day.

Finally, I came across this idea of starting small. The point is to focus on repeating the habit every day, but not worrying about how effective that habit is. In other words, quantity first; quality later.

A great example is flossing. Say you want to floss every night, but you haven’t flossed for years. If you take up flossing out of the blue and expect to spend 10 minutes doing it every night, you probably won’t last more than a week. It’s a very big ask.

But starting small is so effective, it’s almost like a super power. Here’s how it would work for flossing: you take the tiniest part of the habit you can work with—in this case, it would be to floss just one tooth. It’s still considered flossing, but you won’t make huge leaps in dental hygiene this way.

But here’s where it gets powerful: at first, you focus on just flossing one tooth every night. And you stick with it for more than a week. Then, more than two. Then three, four weeks. You can stick with this habit because it’s so easy. There’s barely any effort involved with flossing one tooth, so it’s hard to make an excuse not to do it. And once it’s become easy and automatic to floss one tooth, you start flossing two.

For a while, you floss two teeth every night. Then, you increase to three. And slowly you work your way up, never taking such a big leap that it becomes a chore.

By starting small you focus on making the behavior automatic, before you worry about making the behavior big enough that it produces a useful outcome.

As Scott H. Young says, we tend to overestimate how much we can get done—especially when we’re stepping into the unknown. Scott suggests planning as if you can only commit 20% of the time and energy you’d like to, in order to be more realistic.

Here’s how I applied the “start small” process to my habits in 2015:

Reading: One page a night

I started by reading just one page of a book every night before bed. Often I would read more, but if all I could manage was one page, I would count that as a win.

Later, when the habit was already strong, I would put on a timer and read for 15 minutes, and eventually I was reading for 30 minutes before bed and another 30 minutes most mornings.

Just starting with one page added up: In 2013 I read 7 books. In 2014, 22. In 2015, 33. That’s almost five times what I read in 2013.

I worked on this habit over about a year and a half. That probably sounds like a long time, but it only seems that way in retrospect.

When I’m working my habit, all I think about is how much I need to read today to count a win. It’s always a small, daily effort that I focus on. But when I look back on my progress, I realise what big achievements those daily habits have developed into.

French: One lesson every morning

I had dabbled in French with before, but I wasn’t very good at sticking with it. When I decided I really wanted to improve my French, I started by building a habit of doing just one Duolingo lesson every morning while I drank my coffee. (If you haven’t tried it, Duolingo is a free web and mobile app to help you learn lots of languages.)

One lesson takes around five minutes, so it’s a tiny commitment, and quite easy to do when I’m sitting around drinking coffee anyway. Eventually I started doing more than one lesson—two, three, sometimes even four or five, if I was enjoying it.

I did as many as I felt like, but I always did at least one.

Only one lesson was required to check off that habit for the day, so it was easy to stick to, even when I didn’t feel like doing any more than that. These days I also use Babbel (a paid web and mobile app for language learning) to get a better idea of the grammatical rules and structures of French, and I’ve finished the whole French section in Duolingo.

According to Duo, that means I know about 41% of French! That’s a big achievement from just five minutes a day!

2. Focus on one habit at a time

One of the hardest things for me when it comes to building new habits is to not take on too many at once. I always have such grand plans for the things I want to get better at, and so much enthusiasm when I first start out, that I want to build several habits at once.

Every time I’ve tried that approach, I end up failing. Usually a few of the habits don’t stick, but sometimes none of them do. It’s just too much to focus on at once—a bit like multitasking, where your brain has to switch contexts constantly, because you really can’t focus on multiple things at once.

So my new rule is to work on just one habit at a time. Only when that habit is so automatic I can do it every day easily do I start on a new habit.

With the example above, I was reading every night before I started focusing on French. And I was easily doing a French lesson every day before I started focusing on getting up early.

Sometimes building a habit can take a long time. Getting up early was one I really struggled to do consistently. I spent around four months focused on that same habit: trying different approaches, tracking my progress, and reporting in to friends who helped keep me accountable. I was determined to make it a consistent habit, but that meant not building any other habits for months.

These days I’m glad I committed to building that habit for so long, because I get up early almost every day without even trying. It didn’t come easy, but it was worth the effort.

How long it takes you to build a habit will vary, so four months might be longer or shorter than you need. We often hear the idea that it takes 21 days to build a habit, but studies have shown we all take different lengths of time to build new habits. In one study, the average time it took to build a new habit was 66 days—about two months.

The lesson I’ve learned is to treat each habit differently, depending on how hard you find it to stick to consistently, but also to focus on just one habit at a time so it gets your full attention and energy.

3. Remove barriers: Have everything you need at hand

I find it much easier to complete my habits when the equipment I need is at hand. For instance, having my phone in my hand already while drinking coffee made it easier to build a habit of doing a quick French lesson at that time. Reading a page of a book every night became a lot easier when I kept the book by my bed.

Malcolm Gladwell calls this the tipping point. It’s that small change that tips you over from making excuses to taking action. One great example of the power of a tipping point comes from a study of tetanus education at a university. The study tested whether trying to induce higher levels of fear about tetanus would encourage more students to get vaccinated against it. The fear level of the education program didn’t seem to make any difference, but one surprising change did: adding a map of the university campus showing the health center and the times vaccinations were available increased the vaccination rate from 3% to 28%.

The tipping point is that tiny change that makes it easy enough to take action that you’ll actually follow through. I like to think of it as removing any barriers that make it easy to not follow through on my habits.

One habit I want to build in 2016 is to play piano more often. Right now I play whenever the mood strikes me, which isn’t often enough to get a lot better. But I have noticed that I tend to play more often when the piano is easily accessible. Right now it’s in a corner of our lounge/dining/kitchen area, so I can easily sit down and play a little while waiting for something to cook or when I visit the kitchen for an afternoon snack.

Another habit I want to focus on this year is exercising more regularly. I’ve noticed that once I put on my exercise clothes, it’s pretty much certain that I’ll go outside for a run, but until those clothes are on it’s a lot easier to think of excuses for not going out. Getting out my exercise clothes the night before and putting them on quickly in the morning before I can think of excuses tends to help me get out the door faster. This is something I plan to do more regularly when I’m focusing on building this habit.

4. Stack habits: Build new routines onto existing ones

One of my favorite ways to build new habits is to stack them onto existing habits. This builds up several habits into a routine, and each habit acts as a trigger for the next one.

The cool part about this is you already have lots of habits you probably don’t realise. Brushing your teeth before bed, getting out of bed in the morning, making coffee at the same time every day—these are all existing habits. So long as you do something at the same time every day without thinking about it, it’s a habit you can stack others onto.

If you do your new habit after completing an existing one, you can rely on the strength of your existing habit to help keep your new habit on track. For example, when I get out of bed, the first thing I do is go downstairs to make a coffee. When my coffee is made, I start my French lesson. My existing habit of making coffee acts as a trigger to complete my French lesson.

And when I go to bed at night, I open the book sitting by my bed. Getting into bed and seeing the book act as a trigger to do my nightly reading.

Research has shown a cue to work on your new habit may be the most effective way to ensure you stick to the habit long-term. When you stack habits, you use the existing ones as cues for each new habit you want to build.

Over time you can keep stacking new habits onto your existing ones to take advantage of automatic behaviors you’re already doing.

Building new habits has become something of a hobby for me. It’s exciting to think of all the skills I can gain and improve over time, just by building tiny habits that I repeat every day. It makes huge accomplishments seem much more achievable.

If you’d like to learn more about how I build habits that help me work smarter, not harder, you can sign up for my course, Productive Habits.

P.S. Get all our posts on workplace culture, productivity, transparency and more in your email.  Sign up now.

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Written by Belle Beth Cooper (@bellebcooper)

Belle Beth Cooper was the first Content Crafter at Buffer. She’s the co-founder of Melbourne startup Hello Code, an iOS developer, and a writer.

In fact, three different Golf Pride swing grip models were used by more individuals than any other brands. Golf Pride’s Tour Velvet was used by 43 players while 13 players trusted the MCC – #1 Hybrid Grip in Golf.

“Developing innovative performance grips that meet the needs of the most demanding players in the world is at the forefront of what we do at Golf Pride. Over 80% of tour players choose to play Golf Pride without endorsement,” said Brandon Sowell, global sales and marketing director for Golf Pride. “To see our products trusted to perform at golf’s highest level is both validation and motivation to keep pushing forward.”

Golf Pride’s success in the game’s biggest events is a well-established tradition.  In fact, players using Golf Pride grips have won 10 of the last 10 Masters championships. To view Golf Pride’s entire line of products played on Tour visit www.golfpride.com.

Eaton’s Golf Grip Division is the world’s largest manufacturer of golf grips, with manufacturing, sales and distribution facilities on six continents.  The division’s Golf Pride brand is recognised globally as the number one choice in grips among tour and recreational players, competitive amateur golfers, club manufacturers and club repairmen.

For more information on Golf Pride visit www.golfpride.com.

Click Here to Visit the Golf Pride Corporate Partner Hub Page

Danny is the daddy

Danny Willett, the 2016 Masters champion, not only consolidated his position in the field for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, but for the first time he moved ahead of his likely Great Britain team-mate, Justin Rose in the Olympic Rankings.

New dad Willett, who profited from Jordan Spieth’s collapse over the back nine at Augusta, continued his rapid ascent towards the top of the men’s professional game by winning his first major title in the week when it was announced that the winner of the gold medal in Rio will gain access to all the majors in 2017.

The Englishman moved up from 11th to ninth on the Olympic Rankings as Rose, the 2013 US Open champion, slipped from ninth to tenth.

The upward trajectory continued for Spain’s Rafa Cabrera-Bello (16th from 17th) while Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama edged up one spot from 13th to 12th. A fine week, also, for the Dane, Søren Kjeldsen, brought him within reach of the top 20 in 21st place (from 24th).

At the top, it is a case of ‘as you were’ with Jason Day, Spieth and Rory McIlroy occupying the first three positions on the Road to Rio.

Quote…Unquote

“I can’t put it into words. To win golf tournaments on  the PGA and European Tours is what we dream of doing.  It’s what you practice for and it’s what you play for. You dream about these kind of days, but to actually be sitting here with a green jacket on is still mind‑boggling.” Danny Willett.

“We believe the game’s visibility will be dramatically elevated by the global platform that only the Olympics offer. New audiences from all over the world, some for the very first time ever, will be exposed to our great sport and come to know and appreciate the amazing athletes and heroes in golf.” Billy Payne, Chairman, Augusta National, announcing that the Olympic Gold Medallist will be invited to all majors in 2017.

THE WOMEN

It was a quiet week off for the women as the men fought over the Green Jacket. However Lydia Ko, No.1 in the Olympic Rankings, savoured her own major victory in the previous week’s ANA Inspiration, by wearing the traditional Augusta boilersuit and caddying for Kevin Na in the Par 3 contest as a curtain-raiser for the Masters.

Ko, who sits on top of the Rankings ahead of Korea’s Inbee Park and American Lexi Thompson, was also recognised by the Golf Writers’ Association of America as the female Player of the Year for 2015.

However, the teenage Englishwoman, Charley Hull, who finished tied second in the first women’s major, is now the third highest rated European at 15th on the Olympic Rankings.

Quote….Unquote

“I think it will be a buzz to say you’ve played in the Olympic Games and you’re an Olympian. Hopefully to come away winning something would be great. It’s not like it’s a team event, but you feel if you come away with a medal you are putting it towards the whole GB thing.” Charley Hull, on BBC.

View Women’s Olympic Rankings
View Men’s Olympic Rankings

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For up-to-the-minute information on #OlympicGolf and regular updates, please follow us on Twitter (@OlympicGolf), Facebook.

The men’s winner will secure an invite to the Masters Tournament, the US Open, The Open and the PGA Championship in 2017, while the women’s gold medalist will earn an exemption into the Evian Championship in 2016, and the ANA Inspiration, the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, the US Women’s Open and the Ricoh Women’s British Open in 2017.

With four months left to go until the sport returns to the Olympic programme for the first time since 1904, officials from golf’s leading organisations came together at the Masters to make the announcement.

“We collaborate on many initiatives designed to showcase and to grow the great game of golf,” Augusta National Chairman Billy Payne said. “As we represent so many of the championships in our sport, we thought it would be important and timely to come together today in a total and unanimous support for Olympic golf.”

Joining Mr Payne at Augusta National was Martin Slumbers, Chief Executive of The R&A, Pete Bevacqua, CEO of the PGA of America, and Mike Davis, Executive Director of the USGA.

“All of us at The R&A are looking forward to seeing our great players join the finest athletes in the world, and it undoubtedly provides an unparalleled opportunity to grow golf globally,” said Slumbers, who confirmed the exemptions into The Open and the Ricoh Women’s British Open.

Mike Whan, Commissioner of the LPGA, said,“Having the male and female gold medalist exempt into major championship fields is not only great for the game worldwide, but shows our support for this year’s game in Rio and golf’s involvement in the future Games to come.”

The silver and bronze medalists in the men’s competition will also earn exemptions into sectional qualifying for the 2017 US Open.

The men’s and women’s golf competitions will each feature a field of 60 golfers competing in a 72-hole stroke-play event. The men’s competition will be take place 11-14 August and the women’s competition from 17-20 August.

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Golf is a sport with many health and well-being benefits. It is played across the world by people of all ages including into their 80’s and 90’s with a reported 60 million participants.  The health benefits have been widely reported in recent years with an 18-hole round representing somewhere between six to eight kilometres of walking and often requiring physical exertion across variable outdoor terrain.  This can burn more than 1,500 calories as well as requiring more than 8,000-12,000 steps.

A recent Scandinavian study of more than 300,000 golfers showed that people who play golf on a regular basis have a 40 per cent decreased mortality rate compared to their peers, which equates to a five year increase in life expectancy – regardless of gender or socio-economic status.

Another study found that walking 18 holes of golf was the equivalent of moderate-high intensity exercise for the elderly and moderate for the middle-aged.

But it isn’t just physical benefits to be gained from playing golf.  The sport suits participants of all ages, abilities, sex and age, who can all play together providing unparalleled socialisation opportunities and psychosocial benefit.

Golf is much more than just walking and can be very demanding, requiring strength, endurance, explosive power, flexibility and athletic ability to perform a movement which produces some of the fastest club head and ball speeds of any sport.

However. the effect of repeated large forces on the body can lead to a number of different types of injuries. Due to the biomechanical requirements of such an asymmetrical swing, these are often specific to certain areas and sides of the body in golfers depending on their lead side.  For instance, right handed golfers, wholead with the left side, are more likely to suffer from Extensor Carpi Ulnaris (ECU) injuries on the left wrist and Dorsal Rim Impaction Syndrome DRIS injuries on the right wrist.

A wealth of research has been conducted on the types and likelihood of injuries experienced by golfers with the back, shoulder, elbow, wrist and hips appearing the main areas of the body prone to problems.

These injuries are generally caused by acute trauma, poor technique, a lack of physical conditioning, the accumulated effect of repetitive movements over many years or a combination of these factors while, interestingly, the occurrence of certain pathologies differ between amateur and professional golfers.

Now, in the first part of our series on golf injuries and physiotherapy, we look at the wrist, potential injuries to the joint and associated soft tissue, and how physiotherapy can help in the treatment and rehabilitation of an injury in order to fast-track recovery and help return you to activity as effectively and efficiently as possible.

Wrist Injuries

There are a large range of common wrist injuries in golf but in this brief study we will concentrate on one commonly seen in a variety of golfers. – the Extensor Carpi Ulnaris (ECU) injury.

What Is It?

The ECU is a skeletal muscle located on the ulnar side of the forearm which acts to extend and adduct the wrist.  It has to work very hard during the golf swing and so is highly prone to injury in golfers.  ECU pathologies include tenosynovitis of the tendon sheath, tendinopathy, tendon disruption and tendon instability.  These injuries can occur in isolation or combined and can be caused by high force trauma, such as hitting a tree root or thick grass, rapid increase in loading, continued excessive loading and technique faults. This can lead to a variety of changes at the tissues depending on the stage, severity or structure affected including cellular tissue disruption, thickening, matrix breakdown and increased vascularity.

How does physiotherapy treat this type of injury?

The key aim of physiotherapy is to attempt to clearly identify the injury and its cause.  This greatly helps direct the golfer’s treatment and management.  Often this type of injury will require ‘load modification’ with more traumatic sudden onset injuries requiring immediate removal of load and PRICE protocol (protection, rest, ice, compression and elevation) or POLICE (protection, OPTIMAL LOADING, ice, compression, elevation).  The aim here is to reduce the bleeding and swelling from the injury site if severe tissue disruption such as a partial or full rupture has occurred.

In presentations that have a more gradual non-traumatic onset, a reduction rather than removal of load is often required.  This reduction in load can be achieved by encouraging the hitting of less balls or avoiding hitting from hard ground or mats – which often increase the stress on these tissues.  There are several strapping techniques which physiotherapists use that can also help to stabilise the wrist and give support to the structures.

In layman’s terms if your problem is a slow gradual onset of pain and symptoms in the outside of the wrist a reduction in the amount of balls that you hit or stopping practicing on hard winter matts may help to reduce symptoms and allow recovery  In situations where a sharp and sudden onset occurs after a specific incident (like hitting a tree root or when hitting out of heavy rough) you may need to stop playing golf immediately for a period of time and see a physiotherapist of wrist specialist for a detailed assessment of your injury.

The rehabilitation of injuries to the ECU and its associated structures depends on the exact injury and the severity of the tendinopathy.  But where no severe tissue disruption has occurred – as opposed to partial and full ruptures, which could require surgical opinions or interventions- the aim is to gradually restore the tissues ability to tolerate load through load management, isometric and eccentric exercises and graduated return to play.  As with so many injuries in golf it is key that technique and playing habits are reviewed to help identify solutions to poor technique and practice faults which can often lead to excessive stresses on certain parts of the body. For example, reduced ability to separate your pelvis from your upper body during the back swing is often associated with a higher incidence of wrist, elbow and shoulder injuries, due to the poor swing techniques these limitations create.

A golf-specific physio such as those that work at the ETPI in Terre Blanche and Jumeirah Golf Estates will be able to help you with these sort of biomechanical adjustments or conduct a joint assessment with a golf coach or instructor.

For safety, optimum treatment and to reduce the risk of re-injury, players and patients should visit and complete a full assessment of all injuries and receive treatment and rehabilitation under the guidance of a chartered physiotherapist.

Part 2 of this series on ‘Physiotherapy and Golf Injuries’ will look at ‘The shoulder’ and will be out next week.

To see an in depth guide for sports physicians and physiotherapists on examining the wrist and assessing its injuries you can watch this video by European Tour Chief Medical Officer Dr Roger Hawkes and Consultant Wrist & Hand surgeon Mr Doug Campbell:

https://youtu.be/0sewWiHAhk8

The European Tour Performance Institutes in Terre Blanche, France and at the Jumeirah Golf Estates in Dubai have highly qualified and expert physiotherapists, osteopaths, medical staff, biomechanists and support staff that are able to help you with your injury assessment, diagnosis, treatment and improve your golf performance.  To arrange a visit or book an appointment with them email:

Terre Blanche –  Email: info@biomecaswing.com

Jumeirah Golf Estates – Email: ETPI@jumeirahgolfestates.com

Glossary of Terms

Isometric – is a type of strength training (muscle action) in which the joint angle or muscle length do not change during the muscle contraction.

Eccentric – Is active contraction of a muscle occurring simultaneously with lengthening of the muscle.  The muscle elongates while undertension due to an oppossing force greater than the muscle generates.

Concentric – A concentric muscle action is a type of muscle contraction where the muscle is shortening while generating force.  This occurs when the force generate dby the muscle exceeds the load opposing its contraction.

Background check.

Do your homework when preparing to work abroad. Get a good understanding of the market that you are intending to enter. Research the internet, ask questions of people who have already made the move to find out what pitfalls are waiting for the unsuspecting and above all make sure that you, and those closest to you, know exactly what you hope to achieve by making the move. Get a feel for what that market really wants and then check that you are able to satisfy that demand.

Emerse yourself.

Visit the area to get a feel for the culture. Many people make the mistake of thinking that living in a new country is all great. Be assured that if you visit and stay in anything from a B&B to a five star hotel, it is nothing like living there. Of course it is great when your breakfast is served and you can go about your day like a tourist. No cooking or dishes to do, no beds to make, no forms to complete, (in another language) no tax, immigration or financial offices to visit and best of all a new exciting place to explore every day.

Avoid getting sucked into purely expat communities. Sure it is good to have people who have had a similar experience and have some inside knowledge of your newly adopted country. But guess what? Locals who were born and bred in the area know their way around even better. Enjoy the process of making friends with people who are not like you. After years of travel, I have friends of many nationalities and I have adopted some customs and traditions which are now my own.

A few words of the local language can really help. We all like to meet people who have made the effort to at least learn a few phrases in our native tongue. You don’t need to be grammatically correct in those first few months. Keep trying and you will be able to pick up enough of the language to make yourself understood.

Don’t compare.

Don’t compare or try to change people or processes. Comparing is just about the least productive thing that you can do with your time. The number of times I hear people say, “this is the way that we do it in…..”. Well guess what, if you notice that people here don’t do it the same as you did in your home county, there is probably a perfectly good reason. Find out, ask questions, seek answers as to how this method of doing things evolved. It will help you to understand the culture and to identify any part of the process that you might have an opportunity to tweak.

Make it your home.

Home is where your heart is. It is where the important things to you are. From the first day of arriving in a new country, try to make it your home. Create your own lifestyle, enjoy your new surroundings, make friends, follow a new football team, eat like the locals and emerge yourself in this new culture.

Whatever your baggage you will bring.

If you are not good at getting lessons in your home country, then there is no reason to think that you will all of a sudden become good at it in another. There are loads of things that we are not good at and so use the change of country as an opportunity to work on yourself to get good at the things you feel that you would like to improve.

Ko is a real knockout

Lydia Ko consolidated her lofty position as No.1 on the Olympic Rankings after capturing the first women’s major championship of the 2016 season, the ANA Inspiration, at Rancho Mirage, California. No, this wasn’t a mirage, as the New Zealand teenager collected back-to-back victories following the previous week’s Kia Classic and in the process became the youngest player to win two major titles in LPGA Tour history at the age of 18 years, 11months and 9 days.

A last-hole birdie landed the k.o. blow by Ko, who finished one shot ahead of England’s Charley Hull and In Gee Chun of Korea. Hull climbs from 20th to 15th in the Rankings while Chun moves above her compatriot, Amy Yang, to claim the current fourth spot on the Road to Rio in eighth position as Yang drops out.

Fourth place at the ANA Inspiration elevated Thailand’s Ariya Jutanugarn from 25th to 17th while Diana Luna comes into the top 60 in 53rd place at the expense of her fellow Italian, Giulia Molinaro.

Quote…Unquote

“Ever since they announced that golf would be in the 2016 Olympics in Rio, I said I want to get myself to Brazil. That was going to be my ultimate goal, and I can’t believe it’s already around the corner. It’s just been a dream. I feel so fortunate that we’re getting this opportunity to be in the Olympics. Golf isn’t the most physical sport. It’s not the fastest sport, but it takes a lot of skills, a lot of hard work to get here and get to be in this position. So I think it’s great that golf is returning to the Olympics.” Lydia Ko.

The Men

Herman books his Masters ticket

Jim Herman, aged 38 and without a victory on the PGA Tour in his 16-year-career, ended that streak by holding off a group of would-be Olympians to win the Shell Houston Open. The American stood firm despite intense pressure from Henrik Stenson of Sweden, fellow American Dustin Johnston and the in-form Spaniard Rafa Cabrera-Bello to became a winner at long last.

Herman proved that dreams do come true, and the same could be said about the chasing pack who will be dreaming of Olympic gold in Rio de Janeiro in August. Stenson replaces Adam Scott as No.6 on the Olympic Ranking with Johnson up one place from ninth to eighth.

Cabrera-Bello, who finished third in the WGC-Dell Match Play the previous week, followed up with another strong performance to take fourth spot. He has moved ten spots in two weeks from 27th to 17th to chase his compatriot Sergio Garcia, who holds onto 14th position.

With Fiji’s double major champion Vijay Singh removing his name from the Olympic Rankings, Siddikur Rahman of Bangladesh comes into the frame in 60th spot.

Brazil gets a taste for Olympic golf

Andrew Svoboda of the United States was a winner in Brazil 125 days ahead of the Olympic Games commencing in Rio de Janeiro.

A last hole birdie earned Svoboda a one stroke victory in the Brasil Champions presented by Embrase in Sao Paulo. However there were moments of excitement for the home supporters as three Brazilian players made the cut in, in the case of Alexandre Rocha, made the top 15.

Rocha, who was born and lives in Sao Paolo, finished tied 14th with Rafael Becker tied for 57th and Lucas Lee sharing 71stplace. Currently, Adilson da Silva is the host country’s Olympic representative at No.58 in the Rankings.

Quote…Unquote

“It’s nice to go to the Masters. This was the last ticket to Augusta. Packing up and heading right to Augusta. I don’t know how we did it. It’s over, but it still hasn’t sunk in. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. There were so many great players out there. Just very proud of myself the way I hung in there.” Jim Herman.

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Governments, environmental and community-based organisations around the world are using new tools and concepts to try to determine how much and what forms of economic and leisure development can be deemed ‘sustainable’ in locations. It’s recognised as important for society to try to understand at what point development moves from being beneficial to damaging.

Of course, none of this is an exact science, nor is it rigorously and consistently applied around the world, and much depends on the type of development being considered.

However, the following methodologies are being applied to help stakeholders gain a better understanding of when development will start to exceed the aesthetic, biological, energy, water, social and cultural capacity of our surroundings.

Cumulative Impacts

Cumulative impacts result when the effects of one action are added to or interact with other effects.

For example, several golf developments in close proximity may give rise to significant landscape, ecological or resource effects in combination, when none would have by itself. Analysis of cumulative impacts is important in identifying the carrying capacity of a bio-diverse area under threat by humans, known as a hotspot, to accommodate multiple golf developments. Such analysis can also help reveal appropriate thresholds for sustainable development.

On the other hand, clusters of golf facilities that have been well planned, designed and constructed can help to preserve the landscape and ecosystem fabric of larger units of land, and bring them under conservation-based management for decades and centuries to follow. Golf can be associated positively with increasing the ecosystem and resource-carrying capacity of a region.

Carrying Capacity

Broadly, carrying capacity refers to the amount of an activity or resource use that a system can support sustainably, without showing economic, social and environmental deterioration and decline in the longer term.

This fundamental concept underpins modern-day approaches to sustainable development. Strategic planning now seeks to define the capacity of areas to accommodate various levels of development of different types, and when accumulated.

Carrying capacity studies can be beneficial to developers in anticipating and addressing competition for limited resources and customers. Such studies can also help in phasing development. Energy and water capacities might increase through the use of new technologies, increasing the amount of permitted development.

Thresholds

By better understanding the carrying capacity for golf development for a defined area or region, taking into account its other land and resource use needs, it is possible to
begin to identify thresholds for sustainable development.

Although not usually precise, given the complexity and subjectivity involved, this concept is increasingly tied to strategic land-use planning decisions.

For example, when governments release parcels of land for macro-scale tourism development, they often set a pre-determined ratio for the number of golf courses and density of residential units for that area. Doing so creates a planning framework that protects sensitive and vulnerable ecological and cultural zones. This approach also ensures that soft landscapes will be present amongst harder elements of development.

Threshold-guided plans for development are often of great interest to the local community, which may wish to see economic development and the creation of employment and wealth, but which also wants to protect other valued assets, such as access to green space, protection of historical sites and biodiversity hotspots.

A Common Language for Discourse

In many places where concern about the sustainability of golf development exists, the concepts of cumulative impact, carrying capacity, and threshold level can be used to help understand whether the concerns are legitimate or unfounded. Often people simply want to know that thoughtful consideration of environmental issues has guided the types and overall levels of economic and tourism development.

Within reason, the application of these concepts can help everyone generate an understanding of issues that need to be considered when seeking to evaluate sustainable levels of golf development.

An employer may only scan your CV briefly, so it is essential that the format and the layout enable them to quickly understand what you have to offer. Make it lean, clear, concise and targeted to the job or occupational field for which you are applying.

Marketing yourself requires you to be positive and upbeat, it is about persuading an employer to share your view of yourself. Your CV should help the employer to distinguish between you and the other applicants, therefore it must be an honest and individual document that tells your story and not anybody else’s.

Ten basic tips

1. Assess your skills and abilities – know yourself and what you have to offer.
2. Decide what type of CV you want to write and how you are going to use it.
3. Research the employer and gather information about the vacancy and understand what the employer is looking for.
4. Present information in terms of benefits to the employer, not the benefits you want.
5. Prioritise your information stating the most important and most relevant first.
6. Target your strengths, skills, experience and accomplishments to match the employer’s requirements.
7. Ensure that information is set out clearly and is free from spelling mistakes.
8. Your CV should be no longer than two pages.
9. Use good quality plain paper.
10. Don’t forget to take copies.

Constructing your CV

Suggested headings for your information and some examples of the information to include:

• Personal Details – name, address, email, telephone, mobile
• Career Objective or Personal Statement – What do you want to do?  What level?  Who with?  Where?
• Education or Academic Qualifications – dates attended, name of institution/course, subjects/majors
• Relevant Skills – Eg. teamwork, problem solving, communication.
• Employment and Work Experience – dates, name of employer, job title, roles/responsibilities, skills
• Professional Development – dates, name of qualification and institution, brief description
• Interests, Achievements or Extra-curricular activities – other relevant examples to enhance your resume, give examples that indicate that you are a ‘well rounded person’
• Referees – name, job title, contact details of 2 or 3 referees

The different types of CV

There are four main types of CV: Reverse Chronological, Functional, Targeted, and Customised. The primary difference is in the way the information is presented and which elements are emphasised. Regardless of type, each section in a resume should be presented in reverse chronological order (most recent experience first). Consider the following descriptions to decide which best suits your situation.

Reverse Chronological

This is the most widely used type of CV and therefore employers are usually familiar with this format. It lists your qualifications and experience outlining major points only. This does not work to your advantage if you have gaps in employment history or if you do not have relevant work experience, as this style makes these elements really stand out.

This type of CV is most effective when:

• You have recent work experience related to the position you are applying for.
• You can effectively demonstrate measurable achievements.
• Your employment history is consistent and has few gaps.

Functional

This type highlights the wide range of skills and abilities you have developed through your education, work experience and other activities. It is generally far more detailed than the Chronological type.

This type of CV is most effective when:

• You want to focus on your relevant skills rather than dates.
• You do not have a lot of relevant work experience.
• You may have gaps in your employment history.

Targeted

This combines the best elements of the Chronological and Functional styles. It is targeted towards a particular position and in some cases it can be so specific that it also addresses selection criteria. The main difference between this type of CV and a Functional style is that the Targeted CV will draw on examples of specific skills, whereas in a Functional CV the examples may be of a more eclectic nature. A Targeted CV style is effective in most situations and is probably the most versatile of the different types.

This type of CV is most effective when:

• You have had varied work experience.
• Your previous positions are not related to the vacancy you are applying for.
• You are required to address selection criteria.

Customised

This is basically a Targeted CV adding specialised information that the employer expects you to include. For example if you were applying for a teaching position you would be expected to include headings like Teaching Philosophy, School Practicum Experience and Voluntary Teaching Experience. If you were applying for a Nursing position you might include Clinical Placements or Key Clinical Experience. To find out whether you need to include specialised information contact Professional Associations, or relevant employers.