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Right guys I have finally arrived at the Gold Coast for a months golf at the Australian Golf Academy. I am staying in a town called Robina, about 10 minutes from the beach. This is the heart of the gold coast, with places such as surfers paradise only a few miles down the road. The entire area is golfing heaven. There are dozens of golf courses all with 5 miles of where I am staying and they all have houses built all the way around them. Its perfect for me.
I am doing what they call homestay over here - where I stay with a local Australian family for the month I am at the Academy. My host is called Steve and he lives alone, but his wife lives just down the road and she is often around (a good arrangement...). I thought homestay would be fairly quiet but I was very wrong. Steve plays host to bunch of students from both the AGA and Bond University. Bond Uni is a very rich university with lots of foreign kids coming over to study English. Therefore, when I arrived the house contained a Brazilian guy, a Japanese guy, an Arab guy, a Chinese guy and there is also one other English guy also doing the golf. Its a pretty international household. Since then a French guy also turned up.
Our golf academy is based 5 minutes walk down the road from where we are staying. The golf course is called Robina Woods and that is where we are based. There is a driving range and a short game area for practice. There are 3 coaches who work there full time. Todd, the head coach is an Australian, as is Travis. The third coach is from
South Korea, called YB. They are all really nice guys and very good coaches. Robina Woods is set in a forest, with monkeys everywhere making one hell of a noise. Its extremely tight and the greens are very undulating. Its a tough course. The AGA also play at Colonial Springs golf course. This is a very different course. The greens are unbelievably fast and there is water everywhere you look. Its a privilege to play at these course every day.
Our schedule is very simple - we get up at half 6 and get to the range for 7.45. We usually practice and have lessons in the morning before we play golf. Monday and Wednesday we play 18 holes and Tuesday and Thursday we play 9 holes. This gives us more time to have video analysis and have more intensive coaching, because playing 18 holes takes up a lot of the day. It gets dark at around 5 here. We alternate between courses depending on when each one is free. Some times on Wednesday we also put a bit of money in the pot and play different formats of the game to mix things up a bit. Friday is also student competition day. Everyone puts in 10 dollars and the winner takes 40 and the runner up takes 15. There is a gross winner and a net score winner (based on handicap) so all standards have a chance to win. Its a pretty intense round, as most people want some beer money for the weekend.
The other students are a mix of nationalities. There are half a dozen Koreans, all of whom seem to have a large amount of money. There is a South African, a Canadian, another English guy, James, my housemate from Liverpool, 2 Japanese guys, a Malaysian girl and a Chinese guy. Its very interesting being around so many different nationalities. The standard is also mixed - some very good players and some bad players getting better. There are a few people there wanting to go pro.
Our first weekend and the Chinese guy, Tim, was leaving us. We all decided to go out to a seafood restaurant in Lagoona Bay called Aqua, as Steve knows the owner, and the Japanese guy called Yo, invited 6 of his friends out as well. There was quite a mix but we all got on really well and even though the language barrier was sometimes challenging we had a lot of laughs explaining things as best we could. On Saturday James and I decided to play another golf course - Emerald Lakes. As the name suggests there is a lot of water and its a pretty beautiful course. On the Sunday we went to Wet n Wild water park for the day. Its now their winter but it is still 26 degrees, plenty warm enough. It was a great day out.
During our first week Steve also took us out to experience the night life in Surfers. We went to a few bars, places he said he's been going to since he was 15 and we ended up in a club called the Bedroom. It was weird being out drinking with an Arab, a 44 year old Chinese guy, a 51 year old Aussy, an Englishman and a Japanese guy, but we had such a fun evening. Steve is not shy and he was proudly telling everyone who would listen about how he hosts all these people from other countries. On Saturday evening I also meet up with Joel, Brennan and Tom, my travel mates from New Zealand. We all went into Surfers and had a really good night just catching up. It was great to see them again.
This is a rather mixed blog entry but I will not write about my every day life playing golf as that would send everyone to sleep, except me. I hope you get the general idea. I will update again soon on the rest of my time here at the AGA. So far I am having the time of my life!!!
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