Fraser's "Glog" (Golf Blog)

Dear friends,

It has been some time since I've written my latest newsletter. In this one, I will catch you all up on my latest whereabouts in the BC golf scene.

The past four months have absolutely zoomed by with good reason. Along with the usual busy nature of the golf business in both the teaching and playing sense, I have beeen extraordinarily busy with my new role as the Commissioner of the SRIXON TOUR and the newly created VANCOUVER GOLF TOUR.

Let me share some of my most memorable moments in all four 'departments'of my life:

In the teaching side of things at Seymour Creek Golf Center, the staff and myself have been very busy with all of our returning clients as well as newcombers to the game. Our junior camps this year have been extremely successful. Our lead junior instructor Brian Crowe has been taking most of the begginer and intermediate camps the past five years since I joined the Seymour Creek team and has done a great job with all these young golfers. I have been sharing some of the camps with Brian and have focused on both the intermediate level camps as well as our high performance camps. It's truly amazing how quickly some of the young golfers improve and seem to transform from 'newby' to advanced golfers within the week. With is phenomenal play this year (16 tournament wins) Bryn Parry has also had his phone ringing off the hook, as many of the top BC juniors in our area have been flocking to see what is the secret to his success- and with Bryn's help, they are catching on very quickly!

On a personal note, I have been enjoying my role at Seymour Creek as the Director of Instruction and all the students I have had the opportunity to meet. I really do get a sense of pride and pleasure when my students share stories of their improvement in the game. I'd like to share a couple with you if you don't mind.

The first is from a student I just started working with this spring. His handicap when he started with me would have been about 22 and after having a handful of lessons, we did see some remarked improvement in his swing, although he would report at his next lesson, not always showing on the golf course. He took a week's holiday with some friends to Maui and upon his return shared a very special moment from his last round of golf at the Plantation course at Kapalua. The 18th hole at the Plantation is a 600 yard downhill par 5 from the tees he played as you've most likely seen in the opening PGA Tour event of the year, the Mercedes Championships. As he reported, he Banged his best ever drive and a five wood from 260 yards onto the front of the green and sunk his 40 foot putt for the first eagle of his life!! What a thrill for him and for me to hear when he returned from his holiday.

My second and almost unbelievable 'feel good' story this year came from a client who visited me for a 30 minute private lesson. A week after her lesson, I received a thank-you card from her at the golf center. Inside the card read the following: "Hi Fraser, My name is _________ ________. I visited you for a 30 minute lesson last week and wanted to share some special news. Before our lesson, my personal best score was 115. Yesterday afternoon, I played in the Surrey Ladies' group tournament and shot 50 on the front nine and 46 on the back nine. What a fantastic feeling. I can't thank you enough!

Now I know what you're saying. You'll all come out for a 30 minute lesson if I can guarantee shaving 19 shots off your personal best score. My answer to that is I know I can't guarantee it will happen, but I do know that it is possible!! I can't wait to hear the phone ring to see if we can get it to happen for you too!!

As rewarding as it has been in a teaching sense this year, I have had a few of my own great moments in golf(although fewer than the past couple of years). The playing this year has been a roller-coaster of scores and emotions that have been at the lowest of the low and highest of the high. I had a great start to the year winning a couple of Lower Mainland SRIXON TOUR events, lead the BC Assistant Pro Championships after 26 holes only to have the worst stretch of golf in the next five holes lead to as disappointing a finish in my professional career I've ever experienced.

Alot of the inconsistency in the game (especially the last couple of months) has come as a result of the two new positions I took this year, the first being the Commissioner of the Lower Mainland SRIXON PRO TOUR.

As much as it has taken a toll on my own game, the commissioner position has been very fulfilling for me this year, seeing the surge in membership from 34 to 53 and the number of events organized from 8 in 2005 to 15 in 2006! With the incredible help of a couple of amazing guys (Bryn Parry - Assistant Commissioner) and Michael West (Mousepad Publishing -www.mymousepad.com),we managed to run a very organized schedule of events and allow both members and public golfers to follow our schedule, stats and results through our new tour website - www.vancouvergolftour.com.

The second reason the game has bounced up and down so much is from taking time away from the practice tee to develop a new golf tour for the city of Vancouver, appropriately called THE VANCOUVER GOLF TOUR. The idea behind the tour came from years of whining and grovelling from alot of the BC golf professionals that no growth has happened here in Vancouver (or across most of Canada)in the way of the tournament side of things. And I'd have to admit, I was one of those guys joining in on the 'beef sessions'. Well, this spring after chatting to a fellow golf professional, I took the ideas we spoke of that day (and alot that I have thought of for the past 10 years) and put them into action. My goal for this year was to organize one significant championship event this year and attempt to make a difference on the BC Golf Scene. Well, I think it worked (see Aug. 31st blog).

With only 3 months to pull it off, I was dead scared of failure, but with a team of 8 very dedicated committee members pulling all nighters and putting in a combined total of over 700 hours, we hosted the INAUGURAL VANCOUVER GOLF TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP PRO-AM on Aug.31st at Northview Golf Club. A sold out event meant we didn't loose our shirt the first year around, but it did mean a deadly slow round of golf that barely finished in the dark!! We had an amazing amount of talented golfers playing in the tournament, including 36 of Vancouver's best professionals and junior golfers- A very exciting day indeed where we ended up offering the low professional (Jay Balloch) a paid entry down to PGA Tour School for 2007!

Although it came with a couple of gliches, The Inaugural event was instrumental to the development of the tour for future years to come. The first full schedule of the tour comes next year in 2007 where we will invite some of BC's best young junior and amateur golfers to play alongside our best professional golfers head-to-head!

The tour will require alot of funding from both local businesses who want to take part in the tour through hole sponsorships and a corporate team challenge whereby business people can team up throughout the year alonside one of our best professionals/juniors to see who reigns as 'Corporate Champion' of the tour. We are also in the midst of securing a number of more significant sized 'MAJOR' sponsorships from larger companies that want to play a role in the development of the best golfers in our city and province and in exchange get some great exposure for their partnership with the tour.

The latest developments will be featured in my 'GLOG' and I will be posting them here for all interested parties to stay informed of my whereabouts in the BC Golf Scence as well as reporting the progress of the tour itself, its members and any exciting news that comes with sponsors that are taking part.

Please feel free to write or give some feedback regarding the latest news releases. We will be looking for a significant number of people to take part in the tour for it to run successfully, whether its in the form of amateur players in the pro-ams, volunteers helping with scoring and ball spotting or people taking a more active roll on one of the many committees we will need to make things run as professionally as the PGA Tour.

Keeping it in the fairway,

Fraser Mulholland
Commissioner
Vancouver Golf Tour
fraser@vancouvergolftour.com