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Donnafugata resort welcomes Very Important Kids this summer

Donnafugata golf resort is a five-star location and they have recently introduced a new activity during the summer months for children which is called Very Important Kids. This is going to be an activity that is run through July and August and it is going to be open to kids who are aged under 12.

There are going to be numerous activities that take place during the day including sports, team games, and creative workshops. There are also going to be excursions organised to various attractions in the surrounding area and there will also be swimming lessons held.

The idea behind this introduction is to allow adults to enjoy the facilities at the centre including the spa and pool. They will also be able to visit the nearby town of Ragusa, which is a World Heritage Site. The private beach attached the resort is going to be the perfect place to relax while your children are being entertained and, of course, you’re going to be able to enjoy a round of golf, or several.

From July 1-August 31, a week for a family of four staying in the five-star hotel on a bed-and-breakfast basis starts from €3,570, with an upgrade to two interconnecting deluxe rooms, with private balcony, available on request at the time of reservation, from €945.

Breaks include free access to the VIK club (Tuesday to Sunday), for children aged four to 12, access to the private beach and a 50 per cent discount on all food for children up to the age of 18 during July.

What’s more, children aged seven to 12 years have the chance to learn from the resort’s golf coaches, with specially organised golf and sports camps running between July 23-29 and August 13-19, including the chance to play on the same fairways that European Tour golf stars Matteo Manassero and Eduardo Molinari graced during last year’s Sicilian Open. These camps have limited availability and are priced at €450 per child.

The five-star Donnafugata Golf Resort & Spa lies near to the town of Ragusa, the cradle of Sicilian Baroque architecture, with its neighbouring towns listed among the pearls of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Modica, Scicli and Noto.

Donnafugata offers two championship golf courses, the signature Parkland Course, designed by Gary Player, and the testing Franco Piras Links layout, a spa and wellness centre, swimming-pools and three restaurants and is the ideal destination for a holiday focused on sport and relaxation in a truly exclusive setting.

The resort has 202 rooms – each with terrace or balcony, Wi-Fi access, satellite television and coffee maker. Each is elegantly furnished in keeping with its status as a five-star hotel. The three restaurants and various bars of the hotel offer a wide assortment of dishes prepared with top-quality local products, creatively presented and accompanied by perfect wines to enhance their flavours.

It also has a golf academy complete with a 70-bay driving range, putting/pitching greens, and a highly qualified multilingual golf professional.

For further information, or to book a stay please call 0039 0932 914 200 or visit www.donnfugatagolfresort.com.

A driving range can be used in many ways.   If you want to spend a few hours just hitting the ball as far and as hard as you  can – fine; if you want to learn the ropes before hitting the fairways – no problem;  if you’re a seasoned pro looking to warm up before a major competition – you’re more than welcome.

If you are looking to improve your game, however, a careful, considered approach will need to be adopted when spending time at the range. Many golfers see practice as playing the same shot over and over again until it’s pretty slick, which is great if you only intend on playing the same shot throughout the entire 18 holes. Real competition just isn’t like that so there’s no reason why your practice should be.

It’s far more effective to embark on a session with a plan, usually to rectify any flaws in your game whilst practicing a variety of shots – multi-dimensional is far better than one-dimensional. Don’t blindly hit down the fairway either, you’ll only know if things are beginning to fall into place if you pick out a target and begin to get near it on a regular basis.

Modern ranges are designed to be both fun, and a place to really get your game together. Driving ranges supported by technology can offer different target games where distance will not be the only thing you look for. For example TopGolf has three centres around London where you can set up special custom games where points are scored by accuracy instead of how far you can hit the ball.

As well as the physical side of your practice session, the psychological aspect is just as important. In modern day sport, practice or training often features rehearsing the ‘feel’ of competing for real, so you should prepare just as you would when on the course. This could be anything from going through your normal pre-shot routine to imagining playing through a full round of par 3s, 4s and 5s.

Repetition, whether in the mind or by stroke-play, is great up to a point however the real skill is knowing when to stop as over-repetition can lead to tiredness and a drop in performance levels which can put you right back to where you started. When you feel like you’ve reached your peak, either change strokes or even cut your session short and finish on a high – you’ll be amazed how this confidence can carry through into competitive action.

Vietnam is a country with several golf courses and a rivalry has developed between two courses in the country. These two courses are located very close to each other and they are currently competing for the title of best golf course in the country.

Recently one course was named as the best location for golf in Vietnam, but the other was declared the best course in the Asia-Pacific region. This has left people wondering which of these golf courses is the best in Vietnam.

This is a rivalry that has been going on for a long time and it is a largely friendly affair as both courses are aware that they are both exceptional and highly ranked internationally. The competition has just been intensified as one of the clubs has been named as the best course in the country by the popular magazine, US Golf Digest.

What makes the competition between Danang GC and Montgomerie Links especially interesting is that both courses are founding members of a new co-operative marketing group, Golf Coast Vietnam (www.golfcoastvietnam.com), formed earlier this year to promote golf tourism to Vietnam’s Central Coast region.

The two courses’ general managers, Ben Styles at Danang GC and Jon Tomlinson at Montgomerie Links, are both Australian PGA members who are strong rivals while recognising that co-operation is the best way to attract visiting international golf tourists to Vietnam’s rapidly-growing central coast region.

The competition is likely to intensify when a third course, Laguna Lang Co Golf Club, designed by six times majors’ winner, Sir Nick Faldo, opens north of Danang later this year. It, too, is a member of Golf Coast Vietnam and promises to be as good as its fellow courses.

Ben Styles this week said that being recognised by arguably the world’s most prestigious golf publication was a great honour.

“We are proud of this distinction and will continue to deliver the best course conditions in the region,” he promised. “Greg Norman designed a truly unique golf course that has been recognised officially as one of his best. This honour also shows that Danang is the best destination in the country for world class golfing facilities, with Montgomerie Links being named in Vietnam’s top three.”

Jon Tomlinson said the US Golf Digest listings illustrated the quality of golf in the Golf Coast Vietnam region.

“Reputable publications are now arguing over whether The Montgomerie Links or Danang Golf Club is better, so the only way to solve this issue is for golfers to play both courses and make up their own minds. But they should be aware that with Sir Nick Faldo’s design at Laguna Lang Co opening later this year, there will be another Golf Coast Vietnam course to make the choice even more difficult.”

Montgomerie Links, which opened in 2009, and Danang Golf Club (2010) adjoin each other on a classic stretch of duneland between Danang and the World Heritage-listed city of Hoi An. Although they share the same environment, the courses’ designers – Colin Montgomerie and Greg Norman – adopted different philosophies.

Danang Golf Club makes maximum use of the natural environment and features exposed sand dunes with large natural waste areas and few water hazards. It is one of few genuine links layouts in Asia. It is part of the Vina Capital Group, the largest asset management conglomerate in Vietnam, and adjoins Vina Capital’s Danang Beach Resort and adjoining real estate developments.

Conversely, although named Montgomerie Links, the eight times European Order of Merit winner’s course is a links-style layout rather than a true links design. Fully-grassed with minimal natural waste areas and featuring water on 14 of the 18 holes, it has a resort course feel more akin to other top golf courses in Asia.

Montgomerie Links is part of the real estate arm of IndoChina Land, which has investments in hotels, resorts, apartments and office buildings in north, central and south Vietnam.

Hyatt Regency Danang, a new five-star hotel that is part of IndoChina Land’s property portfolio and is situated in a prime position on famous My Khe beach (popularly known as China Beach), is also a Golf Coast Vietnam member.

For more information about Golf Coast Vietnam, visit www.golfcoastvietnam.com

Rory McIlroy started well at the Wells Fargo Championship in an effort to regain the world number one position from England’s Luke Donald. If he finishes in the top seven he will be on top again and he managed to post a two under 70. The tournament leaders are Ryan Moore, Webb Simpson and Stewart Cink with seven under and there is another group following on six under, including England’s Brian Davis.

McIlroy, who was making his first appearance since the Masters where was struggling, managed to save some unlikely-looking pars on the back nine. Despite not hitting as many fairways as he would have liked, he only carded two bogeys with this dogged performance.

Tiger Woods looked to be in trouble again with the problems of the last year still in evidence. He had said before the tournament that the problems that he had with his swing in the Masters were over. This didn’t seem to be the case for Woods who signed for a 71 with three bogeys and four birdies. There were still signs of the Woods of old with an 8 yard putt for birdie on 13 sticking out, but his performance was lacklustre.

Lee Westwood and Phil Mickelson are both on one under. Westwood had some good approach work but again his putting let him down and he was wobbling around the turn. He did manage to recover somewhat with three birdies in his last eight holes, which made things look a lot better for him, at one point having been one over.

41-year old Mickelson must have thought he was re-living his Masters nightmare when at the fourth he had a triple bogey seven. Digging deep and using all his past experience, he managed to pull things round a bit, getting a birdie at the next hole and five altogether.

After winning last year’s US Open at the Congressional Country Club, near Washington, Rory McIlroy will be defending his title in June at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. Last Year he won with a 16-under par, 268 total but the wet conditions led to some pretty low scores on the usually fast course at the Congressional. There was a lot of rain beforehand and the course didn’t really dry out properly.

Northern Ireland’s McIlroy lost his ranking as World number one to Luke Donald from England on Monday. He had been at the top for two weeks for the second time in two months. When he tees off in the 112th US Open he is hoping that the Olympic Club will be seeing a ‘two in a row’ Open winner. This has not happened there since 1989 when Curtis Strange took the title.

McIlroy, just two months before winning his first major title, blew the perfect chance to win the Masters at Augusta National when his game collapsed with only nine holes to play. Just 22 at the time, he was joint favourite with Tiger Woods to win but they both had trouble and ended up sharing 40th position. They will be playing against each other again this week in Quail Hollow, Charlotte, North Carolina at the USA PGA event.

This years’ US Open tees off on June 14th. The Olympic Club has a 7,170 yard, par 70 course and features the longest par 5 hole in the history of the event which is the 670 yard 16th hole. For whomever out of the 9000 entrants gets to play it will be no picnic. The conditions will be a lot better this year and McIlroy says that it will be more about controlling the ball than anything else.

The Zürich Classic has recently not had a promising start for Luke Donald. Many people were hoping that the golfer would put on an excellent performance so that he would be able to recover his number one position in the golf world rankings. In order to reclaim his position at the top of the sport he needs to finish in the top seven.

Currently the number one spot is being held by Rory McIlroy and he is not competing in the event, so the number one spot is being left wide open for Luke Donald to regain. Despite this invitation for him to take the number one spot away from McIlroy, Donald started with a rather poor opening round of just 73. The 34-year-old is significantly behind the competition leader and it is currently looking unlikely that he will be able to take the leading spot back from McIlroy.

Bubba Watson has also not been playing at his usual level and came in with an even worse score than Donald, of 71. He did manage some impressive shots around the course, but he has been unable to make his game consistent enough to be higher up the rankings.

Duke has had a much better round and is clearly hoping that this could be his first win on the Tour. His game also started rather badly, but after the third hole he managed to significantly improve and really set the tone for the rest of the game.

The leaders in the competition are quite ahead of the others and there are six players currently chasing them, although they are still quite far behind. Greg Owen, the only English player in the competition, is not looking good to be able to take home any prizes. Graeme McDowell is the best placed player from Britain

Seb Crookall-Nixon, the golfing star from Cumbria, recently admitted in an interview that he was very disappointed with the performance that he put on in the United States recently at the Junior Invitational. The player is only 18 years old and a disappointing performance left him in 53rd position overall in the competition. The event was staged in Georgia at the Sage Valley Golf Club.

Playing at the event were over 50 players who are all aged under 19 and came from a wide range of countries all over the world. Mr Nixon began with a terrible start in his first two holes and only managed 81 in the first round. His performance in the later rounds was slightly better, but still not very encouraging and this resulted in is poor finish position.

The tournament was won by an American, Zachery Olsen. The highest Englishman to rank in the competition was Harry Casey, who finished 14th overall. Mr Nixon commented, “I’m incredibly disappointed with my performance. In many ways I’m embarrassed and have disgraced myself. I was so excited to go into the competition and was ready to give a great golfing performance, but I simply couldn’t do it and I’m very disappointed in myself.”

Mr Nixon is currently in the sixth form at Cockermouth School and many people thought that his performance in the competition was going to be excellent because he recently finished 10th in the Duncan Putter competition which recently took place in Wales.

He has said however that this is just going to be a blip in his usual performance record and it is expected that he’s going to bounce back to his usual self this may with the first competition that is occurring, the Lytham Trophy, taking place on the 4 to 6 May.

Russell Crane, the golfer, has recently qualified for the championship being held in Dubai. Normally this player plays at Aylesbury Park but he is set to appear in the grand final of this tournament having beaten off competition from thousands of other amateur golfers. This game is being held in Dubai as part of the biggest competition held for amateur golfers in the UK, the Matchplay Championship.

As part of the competition Mr Crane is going to be flown to Dubai where he will compete in the event. He qualified for this event after playing in the South Regional Qualifier as part of the European tour and he has proved himself a cut above the rest of the amateur golfers in the country.

The course where he is going to play is round of golf has been visited by some of the best golfing players in history including Colin Montgomerie, Robert Allenby and Thomas Bjorn. Three rounds are going to be held at the event which is taking place at the Els Club. As well as being able to enjoy golf, he is also going to enjoy a stay at the Marriot hotel in Dubai and all costs associated with the trip are included.

The director of the tournament is John Woosey and he has commented, “All of the people who have got this far in the competition are going to be treated like they are professionals this week. There are all sorts of players from many backgrounds and we welcome them all to compete in the competition.

This is the ninth year in which this tournament has taken place and this is the largest tournament that has taken place so far.” Mr Crane won the opportunity to compete here after paying £25 in order to enter the competition. He stands to win an extraordinary prize.

5,000 units of all-pink, limited-edition G20 drivers are to be sold by Ping Golf to raise money for the Drive to $1million Bubba & Friends initiative. According to Ping Golf, only five percent of all the sale proceeds will be given to the company. Bubba Watson has become known for using the G20 driver since his early appearance during the first part of Farmers Insurance Open golf tournament.

Since his early appearance, Ping Golf has donated over $60,000, including $300 for every 300+ yard drive that Watson makes and $10,000 donated directly to Watson himself. The ‘Drive to $1million’ campaign aims to collect $1million to distribute between a number of charities in Phoenix.

The drivers for sale were announced recently, just after Watson experienced victory during the Masters Tournament and the driver sales are expected to help the campaign considerably.

Watson’s recent successes include outshining his opponent to earn the green jacket at the second hole during playoffs. Watson claimed that the G20 driver was a large part of the reason why he has had so much success recently. Some of his recent success include reaching sudden death playoffs after tying with Oosthuizen and his climb to victory during the Augusta National.

“Bubba’s already approaching the 300 mark for 300+ yard drives and we wanted to find a way to show our support for the campaign he’s launched” John A. Solheim, chairman and CEO of Ping Golf said. “Even before his Masters win, people were requesting G20s in pink. We wanted to cater to that demand and increase Bubba’s campaign’s publicity, selling pink G20s is the perfect way to do so.”

The G20 golf driver has been given the rating of best piece of game improving equipment, last March, by GOLF magazine. Many different pieces of game improving equipment were tested, the G20 came out on top.

The golfer from Northamptonshire, Gary Boyd, was sharing the lead halfway through the Volvo China Open, a PGA European tour event, with the French golfer, Jean Baptiste Gonnet. Mr Boyd is 25 years old and he has recently matched the Frenchman score with a 5 under par score of 67.

Boyd had a disappointing start to the most recent game as he was unable to continuous form of the previous day. However, as the game progressed he started getting much better and really delivered a very impressive game of golf. At the fourth hole he delivered an incredible shot which left him three under par after he drove his ball directly onto the green.

Branden Grace, the South African golfer, is third in the competition and is a close contender to the leading two players. Nicolas Colsaerts, the Belgian, is fourth and is a little way behind the leading three.

Other players leading the competition include Choc Jin-ho from South Korea who is currently drawing level with Marcus Fraser from Australia, as well as Ignacio Garrido from Spain. After this group of golfers are a larger group of players including Danny Willetts and Oliver Wilson from England.

This tournament involves the youngest player of all time to compete in the European Tour and this is Guan Tian-lang, a teenager from China who is just 13 years old. It is a remarkable achievement that he has managed to achieve so much in golf, but it is clear that is age might be a limiting factor in his play as he is clearly finding this competition rather tough.

He did manage to achieve birdies on the seventh and 18th holes which is very impressive, but he is still struggling to keep up with some of the competition from the older players.