There was no tournament for me last week, but I kept myself busy at home in the gym and also enjoyed a few rounds of golf here in Florida.
Undoubtedly the highlight of the week, and one of the highlights of the year, was being voted Golf Course Designer of 2015 at the World Golf Awards in Portugal, an accolade I’m very proud to receive. I have always had a keen interest in the design of holes and courses since the start of my playing career and when the opportunities arose to get involved in the business it was something I jumped at. I have been lucky to work with some great people in the industry and initially set-up my design business with Nicklaus Design. Since 2005 we have been designing courses purely with our own team and we have worked with great clients and their projects. This award had a very strong list of nominees, which makes it all the more special and I want to thank everyone who voted for me.
Awards such as this are also a big pat on the back for everyone at Ernie Els Design. We have a great team of talented, dedicated people in our company and we’re passionate about what we do. It’s all about quality for us. The golf courses that we create are a legacy to the game of golf and it’s important to get it absolutely right. I hear it was a great evening and we had further good news, as The Els Club Teluk Datai was voted best golf course in Asia. You may recall that at the inaugural World Golf Awards in 2014 The Els Club Teluk Datai was also voted Best New Golf Course in the World, a great honour for us.
This week is another highlight of the year with the Els for Autism Golf Challenge 2015 Grand Finale taking place. As regular readers of my online blog will know, this is always a very special occasion with an amazing itinerary; an Autism conference as well as lots of fun events on and off the golf course. This year we also have a guest appearance by the multi-GRAMMY award winning band Train and we are all looking forward to hosting our new extended family of golfers, fundraisers, partners and sponsors. For Liezl and myself it is our way of showing how much we appreciate their collective efforts throughout this year’s Golf Challenge, a year where we exceeded our initial $2.5 million fundraising target for the year. Incredible!
Anyway, we’ll have a full report and photos from Las Vegas in next week’s report, which we hope will both interest you and inspire you to take part in future events.
Congratulations finally to Russell Knox on winning the WGC – HSBC Champions in Shanghai for his first win on Tour. Russell is a great guy and was gracious to support our Els for Autism pro-am in NY earlier this summer, coincidentally winning it! That keeps the record going for players having great results after playing in and winning our pro-ams!
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