Junior Golf World

Masters fails to inspire

2008-04-14T20:03:00.004Z

Look I know it was windy and the greens were like glass but for the first time in years I actually went to bed at 11.00pm last night with four holes to play.

It wasn't just that it was a foregone conclusion that Trevor was going to win, but the fact that it was so uninspiring. Not that I thought that the players were not trying because that was obvious, but quite a few of them just lost their bottle, in particular, Paul Casey, and Phil Mickleson (who seemed to take his bat home when he hit the pin and ended up with a bogey).

Its normal for the leader to get wobbly over a few puts going into the final round, the great white shark was renowned for it, but not the chasing pack. I mean it was all so disappointing, Tiger crept up to 2nd by not having a complete nightmare, and by the time I went to bed the BBC were struggling for highlights to fill the space between shots.

If that's the cream of the crop then its looking rosy for all you junior golfers

New website for Junior Golf World

2008-04-14T19:54:00.004Z

Its seems like an eternity since I last updated this blog, and that's really shoddy, but I do have something to say now. I have just completed a site rebuild! Well actually I found a really nice template on oswd.org and added my own content.

Well it was preferable to paying someone to create something I don't like, and I was inspired by the fact that there seems to be a lot more Junior Golf content on the web these days. Anyway it's now live so please have a look.

Whilst I was at it I decided to freshen up the look and feel of this blog, and to be honest I was a little disappointed that there was not more choice especially since its been 4 years I picked the last one.

Hope you like it!

www.bookbeads.co.uk - A quick post for my wife

2007-07-04T20:38:00.000Z

Visit www.bookbeads.co.uk please.

Several months ago now, my wife and a friend of hers discoved the joy of arts and crafts. Well, thats not exactly true, my wife's friend already had an interest in making cards and on an excursion to a local arts and crafts shop they found beads. Now for most of us boxes full of sparkly beads would send us running for the nearest exit. But not for these two, in less time than you can say sticky back plastic they had already bought enough beads and leather twine to keep Blue Peter in business for several months, and had begun making 'book beads'.

Book beads or Book Thongs as they are known in the good 'ol USA are sparkly book marks. To a largely uneducated fella like me they are a small peice of leather with 4 or 5 nice beads on each end. To book lover everywhere they are 'book art'.

Gone are the days when you folded the top corner of the page over to denote where you had read up to. This got especially confusing when you had turned over 10 or 11 pages. Now beautifully hand crafted leather book beads add a certain something to your reading pleasure.

So, if you have a book lover in your life and your looking for the ideal gift, try book beads.

New Online Junior Golf Store

2006-10-25T20:24:00.000Z

Well, its been a while since I last posted on the blog. Although not because I havn't had anything to say, just that I have not had the time. Anyway, I received an email from Paul Brown who recently launched a new Junior Golf Shop. I had a quick look at the site and they seem to stock a reasonable range of clubs and accessories. All the items in the store are chosen by Chris Wood, who is the resident PGA at Crondon Park Golf Academy in Essex and also provides some useful tips on the site.

Good luck Paul and the team

www.golfexperience.com

2006-03-12T13:00:00.000Z

The guys at golf experience contacted me last week and we had a great chat about their online handicap system and how they can add their considerable weight to my campaign to promote Junior Golf in the UK.

What they have come up with exceeded my expectations as they have decided to offer FREE membership to all juniors that register through junior golf world or a selected number of academies across the UK.

The idea is that you update the system and then give access to you results to your coach. He can check how your doing and tailor make your lessons to combat any problems. I mentioned it to Adrian Hill at Portal Golf Academy and he liked the idea, although as he pointed out, you have to trust the juniors to put the right information into the system. I suppose in the end you’re only cheating yourself so its always best to be honest.

I am currently putting together a page on the site to promote the idea, so check back again soon.

Update via email

2006-02-12T13:55:00.000Z

It seems I can update my blog via email, which is obviously going to mean I have absolutely no excuse for not updating it regularly. Not sure if that's good news or bad, anyway, I have had several emails recently from people looking to open shops online selling apparel and equipment specifically for Juniors. This is great news and where possible I will had a link on this site.

On the subject of linking, MSN and Yahoo will in the very near future be following Googles lead and making link popularity a major part of their ranking process. I will be adding a section on the site on this subject over the next few days, and I will add a link to this post when its published.

New Competitions

2006-02-12T07:19:00.000Z

After quite a long break recently, over Christmas and the start of a new job, I've updated the site recently. In partucular, The British Heart foundation has released details of its 2006 Chapmionship, and I have two other events for the juniors on the events page

I also found a great page on the golf digest web site which listed the top 100 celebrity golfers in the world. It makes for some intersting reading, I reckon the Quaid brothers have way too much time on their hands, and I can't believe that our very own James Bond is tied 86 with handicap of 36.

Junior Golf Newsletter

2005-12-21T22:05:00.000Z

As a supposed expert in Internet marketing one statistic that has always stuck in my mind is that, on average, it takes, the average web surfer 7 visits to a site before the pluck up the courage to buy anything.

Yes I did say seven!!

So, whilst it would be lovely to sell everybody something the first time they visit the site, its faintly optimistic. At best you would like them to leave some contact details so that you can contact them in future in order to entice them back to your site a further 6 times.

And once you've collected contact details its important that what you send them is relevant and geared to what they are intersted in.

So how do you do that I hear you ask. Well, personally, constructing content rich, highly targetted email marketing messages was not my speciality, no really. However, with a little help from Constant Contact I'm now very much the expert.

Have a look yourself, there's even a free trial.

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Golf Monthly - Regional Course Rankings

2005-12-21T12:39:00.000Z

Golf monthly magazine is looking to create a regionalised list of golf courses ranked by local players under specified criteria. Whilst I applaud the idea, I am again disappointed to see that the junior golfer has again been excluded from being a panelist.

You can view the criteria for both panelist and ranking on the Regional Course Rankings page but in a nutshell you have to be 18, hold an 18 handicap, and have played for more than two years.

Well, I say, if you can't join them, beat them. I propose to begin a list of golf courses of my own. To be on the list each course must have a junior golf academy, regular coaching, and actively promote junior golf at thier club.

So if your club meets the criteria let me know

British Heart Foundation Junior Golf Championship

2005-12-19T15:14:00.000Z

The British Heart Foundation has been hosting its Junior Golf Championship since 1994 and its attracted over 35,000 juniors so far. Teams of three compete in various preliminary rounds and then a regional final all vying to win one of the 21 team spots in the Grand Final, which last year was held at the Belfy.

Its a fabulous event that has raised over £1.5 million since 1994 and has also attracted a great deal of support from the R & A and Ryder Cup player and current European Order of Merit Winner, Colin Montgomerie.

If you want to get a team together this year you will need to download the brochuse from the BHF web site.

And if you do enter drop me a line and let me know how you did.

Other Great Junior Golf Events

The HSBC Wee Wonders Open Golf Championships - Now at the Grand Final stage for 2005 you can register for the 2006 event early next year. Visit the web site for more details

The Daily Telegraph Marriott Golf Roots programme has already introduced more than 45,000 inner city children to golf, and plans are already in pace for 2006. If you'd like to take part or even volunteer to help they would love to hear from you. Just visit their website

Weekend in Scotland

2005-12-19T13:38:00.000Z

The annual Christmas trip to see the In-Laws gave me an opportunity to nip to one of the most beautiful golf courses in the country. Turnberry Ailsa course is regarded as one one the most challenging in the world and is host to the 138th Open Championship in 2009.

While I was there it popped into the Golf Academy to take a look at the new range of Moxie Junior Golf Clubs from Ping. At Prices that start from £170 for a half set they not for the first set of golf clubs you'd buy for your buddy Tiger. However, Ping have wasted non of their experience and technology in designing their new range designed for golfer between 8 and 12 years of age.

The Titanium driver and Stainless Steele irons are both lightwieght and forgiving offering a steep launch curve and long carry, and would not look out of place on any gofl course. However, as I said before, as long as Slazenger, and Maxfli are offering 75% of the quality for 30% of the price, Ping are going to struggle.

What do you mean its Christmas next week?

2005-12-16T11:10:00.000Z

Well Christmas is just round the corner, and if you're anything like me you haven't bought anything, yet. Living in an all girl household (apart from me of course) its almost impossible not to feel like a martian most of time, but Christmas is especially difficult. That's why giving the girls a hobby was an absolute godsend, as whilst mummy spent all year filling pillow cases full of presents all for under a fiver, all I had to do was buy one decent present and make sure it was one they especially wanted.

Unfortuantely, what they both especially want for Christmas this year is a Nintendog, and being last minute dot dad I left it till exactly 3 weeeks after the last one in the country got sold before I started looking. I haven't received those type of looks from shop assistants since I stopped buying meals for 1 at 24hr Asda's.

For her birthday in October I bought the oldest a Slazenger half set with a stand bag, that went down a storm, and so the little one has to have something from Santa Golf range for Christmas all their will be hell to pay. I've just had a thought, I know both my girls are pretty savvy on the internet, and although they're no Matt Cutts, it wouldn't take them long to find this site.

So with that in mind I'm off to WHSmith to buy them both the full set of english and maths revision notes. They'll be thrilled.

66% of Online Shoppers Still Fear Misuse of Personal Information

2005-12-15T18:43:00.000Z

Here’s a thing, did you know that, in a recent survey, 49% of shoppers cited credit card fraud as the reason they don’t buy on the Internet. That’s a whopper of a stat but I couldn’t help thinking that as the internet only accounts for about 9% of overall consumer spending, its not particularly surprising. 39% also said identity theft, 39% said spam and 30% said spyware.

Overall, I think that’s really encouraging. No really, think about it? That mean's people are aware of credit card fraud and theft on the Internet, and even know about spam and spyware. So, what they were actually saying is ‘sort yourselves out and we’ll buy’. Only 35% of people cited that they preferred the touch and feel of bricks and mortar retailers.

So, what can we do to ensure that our customers feel safe buying from us? Well, having a privacy statement and a privacy seal helps. 75% of responders said they felt more comfortable using a site that did. By the way if you’re going to have a privacy statement, make sure it’s displayed prominently on you site, not hidden away, and don’t copy one from someone else’s site. For one thing, most of it won’t be relevant and it will probably be full of jargon.
Some sites that I’ve visited didn’t even have a contact us page that included a name, address and telephone number. Also, you must have a returns policy? And not one that limits people to an unreasonable length of time to return unwanted items. The longest queue at Marks and Spencer’s is the returns queue and although it might sound bad, that’s great news for M&S. It means people feel comfortable that they can buy merchandise even if they’re not sure its absolutely right. And if it’s important to a high street retailer, it imperative for anyone hoping to retail over the Internet.

Thanks for all your responses

2005-12-15T17:51:00.000Z

When I first decided to start Junior Golf World, I was working in the industry as an Internet marketing consultant so it wasn't dificult to find the time to build the site and start the ball rolling. But then in October of 2004 I decided to leave my employment and start full time on my own. Now most people going into business on the own would have a business plan, a strategy and a chunk of money in the bank. Well I had two out of three and no matter how hard I squeezed the bank account I couldn't generate sufficient cash to launch the site and keep my growing family in chocolate spread sandwiches, let alone shoes.

Not one for letting something as trivial as having no money stop me live out my dream I was still all set to go boldly, when out of the blue I received an offer to go back to the rat race. Now when I say rat race I don't mean the wonderful and inspiring world of internet marketing that had captured my attention some four years previous. Oh, no, the offer was from the Motor Trade, an industry that I'd fallen into after school and one that I'd invested 17 long hard years into.

The decision was far from easy but the offer was generous and the thought of paying off all those debts and putting a little nest egg aside for Junior Golf World put paid to any weak arguments in favour of marching headlong into self employment.

And so the site was mothballed, put aside for the foreseable future as I got used to long hours, working weekends, watching my golf game go the dogs.

Well, not any more. As of January 1st we are back in business, and more determined than ever to fulfil my dream of creating an e-business I can be proud of. So thanks for all your emails over the last year and here's to a fantastic 2006.

Time to raise the tempo

2005-09-19T00:05:00.000Z

OK, its been some time since I first posted this new site, and I have to admit that I have not had any time to work on the site during the last year, having taken a new job just after launching the site.

However, even without any major updates to the site I am really pleased with some of the listings I am getting on the major search engines. So, its now time to start really promoting the site, and that's were I need your help.

If your reading this you have found it through typing Junior Golf into one of the major search engines, and so your either a junior golfer yourself, a mum or dad of a budding junior golfer, or your involved in the sport in some other way. Whoever you are I'd like to here from you, and I'm particularly interested if you have information on any of the following areas:

1. Junior Golf Events
2. Junior Golf Clubs
3. Junior Golf Equipment

My plan is still to create a site were Junior Golfers can keep abreast of everything thats happening in the sport, so keep your email coming and thanks for all your support.

The first post

2004-08-19T17:48:00.000Z

And hopefully not the last. This blog is to act as a portal to the young and aspiring Tiger Woods of this world to the team putting together the junior golf world web site. When I say young I suppose I mean anyone under 16 who iether has a junior membership at a golf club or would like to.

The site will include news, tips, games, events, links to other great junior golf sites, and access to just about everything your heart desires from clubs to gloves. Soon those days will be gone when granny asks what you want for christmas and you spend hours trying to explain where she might find that one piece of vital golf equipment that will once a for all propel you into the history books. All you'll have to do is point her to your junior golf world "wish list" and we will do the rest.

In the meantime, don't forget to sign up for our newsletter or how else are we going to let you know when it all goes live.