Golf

 From St. Johns County:

Program is part of PGA Free Lesson Month
 
Elkton, FL – (May 14, 2008) – PGA Professionals Wes Tucker and Tom Stecker of St. Johns Golf Club in Elkton, Florida, will offer free 10-minute golf lessons on Saturday, May 17 from 9:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. as part of PGA Free Lesson Month. To participate in a free golf lesson, amateur golfers must call 209-0350 to schedule a lesson.
 
“PGA Free Lesson Month is a great opportunity for local non-golfers to come out and get introduced to the game of golf, or for existing golfers to focus on any area they want to improve,” said Wes Tucker, Director of Golf at St. Johns Golf Club. “We welcome all those who would like to participate and encourage them to bring a friend or family member and come out and have some fun, regardless of skill level.”
 
Throughout the month of May, PGA Professionals across the County will offer free 10-minute lessons to help golfers of all levels improve their game. More than 7,500 PGA Professionals are expected to participate this year. The free lessons will utilize V1 Golf video analysis software. The program is a joint partnership of the PGA of America, Golf Digest, Golf For Women, Golf World and The Golf Channel, with Nike Golf as the official sponsor.
 
For more information, contact St. Johns Golf Club Director Wes Tucker at 209-0350.

Several Jaguar players will participate in a shootout - a golf shootout - at the King and Bear in World Golf Village Tuesday. The event will benefit the St. Johns County Council on Aging.

The shootout begins at 2:00 p.m. and one player will be eliminated after each hole. Rashean Mathis, Josh Scobee, Drayton Florence, Adam Podlesh, Cleo Lemon, Derek Landri, Joe Zelenka and Brad Meester are scheduled to participate along with former Jaguar Bryan Barker and former Florida Gator and NFL quarterback Shane Matthews.

The public is invited to attend. Public parking and trolley service is available at the Laterra Links, 100 Laterra Links Circle.

If you're headed out to The Players Championship, let us know. Do you have any specific plans to volunteer, follow the same players every day or are you simply headed out there like you do every year? If you do plan to make it out to Sawgrass during the tournament, let us know why...we're curious!

Junior Golf is growing in St. Johns County!  THE Golf Academy at South Hampton is now enrolling students for its After-School Golf Clinics...Starting April 16th at 3:30 and April 18th at 3:30.  Each class will meet once a week for 6 weeks!  The classes will last one hour and are for kids ages 6-14!  If you wish to learn more please visit our website: www.the-golfacademy.com or call (904) 287-7650!

Golf is a great game for kids to learn because golf teaches kids values that other sports don't!  Like Honesty, Sportsmanship, Integrity, Confidence and responsibility!  Plus golf is a game they can play for the rest of their lives!  

Being that we all live in North Florida I wonder, do people rather play golf or watch golf on TV. Being a golf instructor you would think I'd much rather play golf than watch on TV. For the most part I would rather play golf except when Tiger Woods is playing!

This week Tiger Woods will be playing in the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill.  Tiger has played in two events on the PGA Tour this year and has won both, he is the leader of the FedEx Cup and if that wasn't enough he is the best player to EVER play the game!

We are watching history and as a golf nut I would much rather watch Tiger play golf than play golf myself!  So I pose the question to you:

Most of my Blogs I will talk about golf and the latest news in golf and will look forward to comments back on the subject.  This week I want to talk about the Honda Classic.  Even though the tournament is held in March it sure felt like Christmas for Ernie Els.  Ernie has not won on the PGA Tour since 2004.  Yeah that is right The Big Easy, who gets his nickname by how smooth he swings the golf club, hasn’t won in over four years! As a golf instructor I couldn’t imagine someone with all that talent not being able to win at the highest level.  It goes to show it takes more than talent it takes mental power to win out on tour.  Or you just need the final group to fall apart and give you the tournament just like what happened this past Sunday! MARK CALCAVECCHIA and Luke Donald both gave an early Christmas present to Ernie Els.  Both players started the day at 6 under par and the winning score was 6 under.  There were double bogies flying all over the place and Ernie was able to play pretty solid and post a score of 6 under.  Then we waited and watched, Mark double bogie the 15th hole after what looked to be a great bunker shot, but the ball kept rolling and rolling until it finally came to rest on the other side of the green in the water hazard!  Oops, that is never good for the old scorecard.  So he goes on to double bogie the hole and basically could not get anything going the last few holes.  It was good to see Ernie Els win and it was nice to see a golf course playing tough these days.  Most of the time if you are not 5 or 6 under par you don’t make the cut and play on the weekends!    This week on Tour is the PODS Classic in Tampa and a friend of mine Santiago Cavanagh is playing in the tournament on a sponsor’s exemption.  Santiago works with the kids at The First Tee of St. Johns County where I used to work!  Hopefully he will play well to make the cut and play on the weekend.  The week after that he is playing at Bay Hill.  Until next time keep the ball in the fairway!

I am very excited to be writing my first ever blog.  Let me introduce myself I am Elliott LaVercombe Head Teaching Professional for THE Golf Academy!  I am writing this to tell my story of how I got into golf and why golf is such a great game!

I started my passion for the game of golf when I was twelve, even though at the time I had no idea how many doors the game of golf would open for me.  I just enjoyed playing.  My grandfather introduced me to the game of golf during my summer vacations in Grand Haven, MI.  At the time soccer was still my sport and living in Colorado there wasn't much time during the year to practice golf!  Since no one in my immediate family played and since it was still an expensive game to play I stuck with Soccer until my parents moved me to St. Augustine, FL when I was a sophomore in High School.  I was fifteen and very excited about the opportunity to play more golf!  By this time I had three summers of golf with grandpa and I was getting better!