Ernie’s Latest News

18 Nov

It gives me a real sense of pride to start this report with news that The Els Club Teluk Datai in Malaysia has been voted the ‘World’s Best New Course’ at the inaugural World Golf Awards.

It is part of the World Travel Awards – known as The Oscars of the travel industry – which celebrates and rewards excellence in golf tourism, world class courses and golf destinations. To receive this kind of recognition so quickly is hugely gratifying for the entire Ernie Els Design team and everyone at The Els Club Teluk Datai. We knew we were on to something very special as soon as we viewed this site and, sure enough, it’s creating quite a stir now that the course is officially open for play. It is, without doubt, the most spectacular golf course setting that we have had the pleasure of working on and we believe the finished golf course does justice to – and sympathetically complements – this amazing landscape (below).

Els Club Teluk Datai Gallery11

After getting back from the WGC – HSBC Champions in China we spent a few days relaxing at home in Florida before flying over to London for a long weekend at Wentworth. This is a lovely time of the year in England, especially around the Wentworth Estate where all the beautiful colours of autumn are on full display. The highlight of this particular visit was meeting up with the Springboks rugby team during their autumn international tour. It’s always a pleasure to spend time with the guys and as you can imagine it was a real honour to be asked to hand out those iconic green-and-gold jerseys during a pre-match training session at Twickenham before the England game (pictured top). You certainly don’t want to be the person to jinx your favourite team’s chances so it was fantastic – and a bit of a relief – to return the next day and watch ‘our’ boys beat England on their home turf. Maybe they’ll ask me again now! The Springboks are wonderful sporting ambassadors for our country and it’s going to be a lot of fun cheering them on in the Rugby World Cup next year and against Wales this coming weekend.

Anyway, we then had some meetings in London before we jumped on the plane to Dubai for the season-ending DP World Tour Championship. Dubai has a special place in my heart and, although my game wasn’t quite firing on all cylinders, it’s always a fantastic tournament with a very strong field. Congrats to Henrik Stenson on a wonderful title defence. As you’ll have seen, my regular caddie Colin Byrne wasn’t available so Ricci Roberts was on the bag again (pictured below). So I guess that must be our sixth or seventh comeback! No seriously, it was fun to have him by my side again. He’s like a brother to me and we’ve experienced a lot of great times together, a lot of wins over the years.

DP World Tour Championship EE and Ricci

I’ll write again soon with a more detailed update and then fill you in on what’s happening between now and the end of this year, which includes an appearance in the Thailand Golf Championship at Amata Spring Country Club. That’ll be an interesting week and I really like the decision to incorporate the Open Qualifying Series. The Thailand Golf Championship has developed a reputation for bringing the finest players from Asia together with those from overseas, so it makes perfect sense that the Open Qualifying Series should be a part of the tournament. Having the spots available for St Andrews definitely adds another exciting dimension to the tournament and a lot of the guys will be gunning for them. To play in the Open Championship is the ultimate.

In the meantime, follow me on Twitter @TheBig_Easy

Bye for now.

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