2014

29th January: Snowed in. The Polar Vortex that has hit so much of the US brings weather that Karl has never experienced back in Australia. He's in great hands at the IJGA though as they take all precautions to keep the students safe during this crazy weather.

26th January: WIN. A characteristic come from behind effort saw Karl notch up a memorable win due to the 7-shot margin which he had to overhaul.

Karl's never-say-die attitude continues to be his biggest asset. A reflection on yesterday's Blog mentioned that the massive deficit after a "Horror" round with the putter yesterday was an opportunity for Karl to shine, and shine he did.

With such depressing weather it was easy for the players to become discouraged, so a big thanks to Coach Ross for being there to remind Karl that someone else believes in him as well. Coach Ross reinforced into Karl the belief that was needed to chip away at the deficit. Let's face it, would these kids rather be in a warm apartment playing on the XBox or out playing in a Polar Vertex? Hats off to all the players who did stay the journey.

Karl's Par round of 72 played in a relatively balmy 12 degrees was the best for the tournament across all age divisions. Scores were high due to incredibly cold temperatures caused by the current cold snap which has engulfed so much of the USA, with Saturday's scores being even worse due to strong winds.

Full scores are available here ,the official tournament report here, and video of the awards ceremony and interview with Karl here and 10 photos courtesy of the IJGT can be viewed on Picassa here.

My apologies for not having video of Karl actually playing these past 6 months, as I've been back in Australia much longer than expected.

25th January: Brutal conditions with wind gusts of around 50kph and a chilly maximum of just 7 degrees Celsius (after having dropped below freezing overnight) took a toll on the entire field at the Carolina Classic at Colleton River Plantation. The maginificent layout is mostly exposed to the elements, so a few big numbers marred the scorecards of most of the competitors, with a few players withdrawing before the turn. 

Karl was amongst those players who had a hole that he'd rather forget, racking up another snowman. These have become all-too-frequent on Karl's scorecards lately. His new coach is onto it however, so hopefully they'll soon be a thing of the past. That snowman, along with a double and a bunch of bogeys sees Karl sitting 7 shots behind the leader in either 3rd or 4th place.

Tomorrow however, is a new day. Every challenge presents an opportunity to shine.

The Leaderboard can be viewed here.

24th January: The "Big freeze" on America's east coast continues, with Saturday's starting time for the IJGT's "Carolina Classic" at Pete Dye's Colleton River Plantation being pushed back closer to midday due to sub-zero temperatures.

It's worth noting that the cold temperatures of late effect scoring in various ways. Aside from players simply trying to "feel" the club with their hands, the cold air also effects the performance of the ball, seeing ball "travel" dramatically reduced and the course playing significantly longer as a result.

Scores will be available here.

23rd January: The Pete Dye masterpiece, Colleton River Plantation is this week's stop for the IJGT tour. Karl will be competing in the 14 Years Boys and playing from 6183 Yards, typcial of the yardage generally used throughout the US for Junior golf in this age.

This amazing course was used for most of the filming of the Robert Redford movie "The Legend of Bagger Vance", as well as being the host for next year's 2015 US Junior Amateur

To get an idea of the course, their website has some great links which you can view the course hole-by-hole, as well as an information video for the Plantation itself. Those links are;

• Hole-by-Hole, click here
• General course video, click here

19th January: Win. Karl responded to the challenge of coming back from a poor 1st round and worked his way back into contention with a disciplined even Par final round to force his way into a Play-Off. On the first extra hole, the 450 yard par 5 1st at Copperhead, Karl took the Matchplay approach, going for the hole in 2 shots instead of playing it in 3 as he did in regulation play each day and where he had made Birdie each time.

He had a mud-ball, so lected to play a 3-wood from 210 yards which had to be hit high and with a hint of a fade so as to sit softly whilst still clearing the protective front and side bunkers. He pulled the shot off and was left with 15 feet for Eagle which he then converted.

It should be noted that Karl played the first 27 holes without a caddy and finally had fellow IJGA player Brandon hop on his bag for the last 9 holes after Brandon had concluded his own round. It's a lonely game out there by yourself, so having a caddy helps to reinforce your game plan and your self belief. Thanks Brandon.

The scores on Day 2 were lower across the board due to the dramatic change in weather between the 1st & 2nd rounds. The 1st round was bitterly cold and windy, whereas the 2nd round saw the players basking in a sunny 65 degrees (19 degrees Celsius).

A big thanks to new coach Ross and Head Coach Kevin Smeltz at the IJGA for the different approach they've been using with Karl this year so far.

Big thanks also to Paul and Brandon for taking Karl down to the tournament, as whilst I'm stuck in Australia Karl relies on others to get him everywhere. 

Final scores can be found here, with more photos to be added as they come in.

18th January: Cold, windy conditions at Copperhead Course, where the 12-years boys and 13-14 years boys were playing today bludgeoned the players into submission, with unusually high scores. Karl had a pretty average day by his standards with a 7-over 79 to sit 3 shots off the pace. Despite showing that Birdies are out there with 4 of them on his scorecard, too many double bogies cost him dearly. 

Does not having someone on the bag to discuss smarter options contribute in a tournament like this where caddies are allowed? IMO, without doubt, but it's also an opportunity to take responsibility for decisions made and in the process become a better player.

Tomorrow's forecast is for a much warmer day which will hopefully be conducive to better scoring for all the players.

You can check all the latest scores here.

18th January: Karl joins a full field of over 300 players at Innisbrook Resort in Florida for the US Kids Golf "Regional Series" event this weekend.

US Kids "Regional" tournaments are 1 step down from the world championships, so always contain numerous current world champions.

Keep up with Karl's scores in the 12 years boys flight via the US Kids Golf website or by simply clicking here.

14th January: We've now updated Karl's "What's in my bag" page which you'll see listed on the pages menu above, or you can simply click here.

10th January 2014: Florida bound. Karl is all set to compete in his first US Kids Golf "Regional event", The Copperhead Classic down in Tampa, Florida next week, January 18 & 19. Although having won 2 US Kids World Championships, Karl has never before competed in a regional event. With Florida being the warmest state in the US at this time of year, it's a good opportunity to see where his game is at mid-year.

1st January 2014: Karl and myself wish a Happy New Year to all juniors and their parents. 

 

2013

31st December: Karl's round by the numbers. We get a lot of emails from juniors asking how to put a round together, so from time to time we'll publish Karl's own post-round report card which he does for himself after each round in important tournaments. It helps any player, but particularly juniors see what parts of their game are working, and where it is that you're dropping shots more often.

To see Karl's own report card of his 1st round at the 66th Donald Ross Junior Championships from Saturday, click here.

From that report card, Karl was able to identify where and why things happened. He was able to see that he dropped 5 shots in the first 8 holes he played. The sub-freezing morning and the inability to warm up properly due to the range being over-crowded due to the shotgun start helped Karl understand where those poor holes came from.

He was also able to identify that he played the last 10 holes in 2-under, because by then he himself had warmed up, as did the conditions. 

The most important observation however, was that despite starting poorly, Karl was determined to get his round back on track. With his age group not allowing a caddy, that realisation that he can come back strong after a poor starts was a big positive to take from the round. In fact, at the Junior Worlds back in July Karl started poorly in the first round, going to 3-over after just 4 holes before reminding himself that there were still 50 holes to play in the tournament. He played the balance of that first round with 4 Birdies to record a 1-under round.

The moral of the story, never give up. 

29th December: Torrential overnight rain which persisted all morning forced the final round of the 66th Donald Ross Junior Championship to be cancelled, resulting in the placings being determined by the 1st round. 

As such, Karl received his first ever AJGA Performance Stars (2 of them) for finishing Top 10 in the 12-14's in the field of 76 players in that age group.

Here's some trivia: 

1.Karl didn't get a start in the tournament until 15-minutes before Tee-off due to having been on the cancellation list. 

2. Due to the morning Shotgun start and the driving range being 4-deep with players waiting to warm-up and the Chipping area closed due to frost, many players didn't get a warm-up. With the temperature having dropped below freezing overnight, that made for (quite literally) a cold start. Karl started from the 10th and with not having gotten the chance to have warmed up, was 5-over after 8 holes before kicking into gear, splitting the fairway hole after hole and playing the final 10 holes in 2-under.

3. This was Karl's only tournament for the Christmas break.

Thanks so much to our good friends in Pinehurst for hosting Karl this past week and seeing him have a wonderful Christmas with their families.

28th December:  Karl sits in a Tie for 8th place after the 1st round of the 66th Donald Ross Junior Championship at Pinehurst. There are 76 players in the 12-14 Boys division, with only older boys which include another world champion aove him on the leaderboard.

Tomorrow's forecast to be very wet, so after today sunny day we could see vastly different scores come in tomorrow.

To keep up to date with the scores, click here.

13th December: Black Friday the 13th- that's for sure! Karl's underging hot & cold therapy on his elbow following the most innocuous of accidents, knocking it after waking up suddenly on the school bus the morning after a big Christmas celebration. He'll be pulling out all stops to be ready for his final IJGT event of the year at the legendary Pete Dye/Jack Nicklaus masterpiece at Harbour Town, Hilton Head Island. Thumbs up for frozen peas!

The Sunday round will feature a Live Broadcast of one of the iconic holes. Further details will be available soon.

11th December: The latest IJGT player rankings have Karl still sharing the top of the 14 Years & Under rankings alongside Pennsylvanian Joe Parrini with Japanese prodigy Takafumi Shimoji in hot pursuit. Click here to view those latest rankings.

3rd December: The Awards Ceremony from the TPC Sawgrass tournament is now uploaded. Click here to view it.

Karl's next tournament is in 2 week's time at another PGA Tour stop and Pete Dye masterpiece in Harbour Town at Hilton Head Island, just a few minutes from Karl's training facility at the IJGA.

2nd December: Lucky Karl. So far this season on the IJGT (International Junior Golf Tour) Karl's either already played on or is about to play on the following courses with their Golf Digest "Americas Greatest Public Courses" rankings alongside;

• Sea Island Resort (36)
• TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course (9)
• Harbor Town, Hilton Head (18)
• Kiawah Island Ocean Course (4)

In the past couple of seasons he's also played on the following;

• Pinehurst # 2 (7)
• Pine Needles (47)
• Pinehurst # 8 (57)

Add to that having played the following courses on Golf Digest's Top 100 Courses Outside the US;

• Kingston Heath, Melbourne (9)
• Victoria Golf Club, Melbourne (58)
• Metropolitan Golf Club, Melbourne (61)
• Lake Karrinyup, Perth (86)

Karl appreciates that he's fortunate to get to play on these courses.

1st December: WIN.

Despite breaking his Driver before the tournament, Karl wins the 14 & Under Division of the IJGT's Thanksgiving Day Classic at TPC Sawgrass which was highlighted by a lip-out for Ace on the signature 17th Island Hole.

In his acceptance speech Karl said “I felt confident, but I didn’t want to get arrogant because I knew some of the players had the ability to catch up… I just wanted to shoot a score that would at least have a chance to win.”

Interestingly, the Girls winner Rei Nakatani used to play with Karl in Jack Newton Junior Golf tournaments in Sydney. Hats off to what Jack Newton has done for junior golf back in Australia.

The full post-tournament report can be viewed here.

30th November:  Karl heads into the 3rd and Final Round of the IJGT's Thanksgiving Day Classic at TPC Sawgrass with a 1-shot lead in the 14 & Under Boys. Strong winds and cold weather have made scoring difficult, but it's all about getting the win.

29th November: Karl appears in the December issue of Golf Australia magazine. The link is here.

20th November: Karl's dream to play at TPC Sawgrass is about to come true. He's now in the field for the IJGT's Thanksgiving Day Classic. The tournament actually comprises of 3 rounds over the 3 days of the Thanksgiving Day Weekend, with Days 1 & 2 played on the Valley Course and the Final Day on Pete Dye's iconic Stadium Course. 

Karl's age divison of 14 & Under will play from the Men's White Tees, whereas the 15-19's will play from the Tips.

To all those who keep asking, we're sorry for the lack of tournament video lately as I'm currently back in Melbourne for a little while. Karl's in great hands at the IJGA, just like the other 150-odd golf and tennis juniors who live & study there.

19th November: Karl's finger's are crossed that he can get a late entry into the field of the IJGT event at TPC Sawgrass to be held over the upcoming Thanksgiving Holiday weekend and playing both the courses. It's such an iconic course that he's dreamed of playing on and of following in the footsteps of so many of the game's modern greats.

Karl was this week's IJGA Student Spotlight. To view the article, click here.

13th November: Video of the Awards Ceremony from Karl's win on the weekend can be viewed here.

Karl will now be having 3 weeks off before (hopefully) playing in the IJGT event at TPC Sawgrass at month's end. 

10th November:  WIN. Karl wins in succesive weeks, this time at the IJGT's Major Championship at Palmetto Hall, a George Fazio design located on Hilton Head Island.

A disciplined 1st round conducted in gusty winds saw Karl head into the 2nd round with a healthy 4-shot lead. However, a distatrous 5th hole where his wayward drive refused to come down from a tree brought Japanese prodigy Takafumi back into the game. The 2 players eventually went to a Play-off which Karl prevailed in after a flop shop from beside a tree left him with a 2 inch tap-in for Par and the title. The 2 boys are so evenly matched that each week sees them with a battle on their hands.

The IJGT's own post round summary can be read here and the final scores here.

3rd November: WIN. Karl wins the IJGT Island Open on the Arthur Hills course at Palmetto Hall Plantation Club on Hilton Head Island by 8 strokes. 

A windy autumn day on a course which, with its narrow fairways and abundant water hazards is designed to be played in typically calm conditions, saw scores throughout the field blow-out from the first day's scores. Karl's front 9 was a struggle and he went out in 42, but he dug deep on the inward 9 with 8 pars and a lone double to finish the day 8-over and win his 3rd IJGT title amongst strong competition.

Karl would like to thank his coach Shawn at the IJGA on the work they've been doing lately and also Molly from the IJGT for running another smooth tournament.

Full scores are available here and the tournament wrap-up from the IJGT is here.

19th October:  Karl is off to another good start in the 14 Years Boys at this weekend's IJGT Georgia Open at the Greg Norman designed Savannah Quarters. Karl's 1-over 73 puts him 2 ahead of Japanese sensation Takafumi Shimoji. The Par 3's again proved to be Karl's strength, playing them in 1-under for the round including Birdie on the Island Green 15th.  

Full scores can be found here.

18th October: This weekend sees the South-East division of the International Junior Golf Tour swing to the Greg Norman designed Savannah Quarters Golf Course in the state of Georgia. Karl has been hard at practice this week with coach Shawn and Head Coach Kevin Smeltz and hopes to back up on a good result last weekend.Full scores can be found here;

Key to a good result will be Karl's putting and course management, both of which he's been spending extra time with of late, with Coach Shawn emphasizing the times when to go at a Pin and when not to.  In an otherwise flawless display, Karl only made one major error of judgement last weekend in going too hard at his Drive on on Day 2 at the reachable Par 5 14th and seeing him take what was a very good Par instead of the previous day's 2-Putt Birdie after his Drive on Day 2 went swimming. 

17th October:  The latest Geoff Ogilvy Rankings were released a week ago with Karl still managing to maintain 2nd position in the Boys Under 14 Stroke Averages for Victoria, Australia comprising his tournament results prior to leaving to study in the USA. Hopefully Karl will get back to Melbourne during his USA school Christmas holidays to play in some of the January tournaments down in Melbourne.

Melbourne, Geoff Ogilvy ranking Junior Events are played from off the Championship Tees irrespective of the age group, which is why Under 14's is the youngest age division offered due to the difficulty for the majority of juniors younger than (say) 12. As such, the Under 14, under 16 and Open division all play from roughly 6600-7000 yards, depending on how long the respective course's Championship Tees are.

The Geoff Ogilvy rankings list the Stroke averages for all players under the age of 18 in Victoria, Australia. The most recent averages can be viewed here. Karl currently sits in 18th place Overall and 2nd in the Under 14's. He turned 12 years of age in August.

14th October: Win. Karl records his 2nd win of the IJGT season with a 2-round, 2-over Par total of 146. Full scores can be viewed here and the post-round interviews here.

Our primary motivation for sending Karl to the IJGA was the fact that they were the only Golf Academy with a Sports Psycologist on staff. In fact, they now have 2 of the best "Mental Trainers" as they prefer to be referred to who are there to help the players become better at either Golf or Tennis by helping those players conquer their demons.

Karl has always been prone to getting angry after a bad shot since he was a mere 5 years of age. I wondered whether many of the PGA players had similar issues as juniors and quickly discovered that an overwhelming number of them did, including Rickie Fowler, Tiger Woods, Bobby Jones, Keegan Bradley, Geoff Ogilvy, and the list just goes on. They all needed to manage their anger better and obviously did, which is why they're where they are now. However, there are countless top juniors who never make it all the way because their anger gets in their way. Irrespective of his accomplishments to date, I certainly didn't want Karl to become another statistic, so when the IJGA asked if I'd be interested in Karl joining their program, I jumped at the opportunity. In recent weeks Karl has been working with the Head Mental Coach, Matt Cuccaro, so we''ll see whether today's round will give Karl an opportunity to utlize the work they've been doing together so far...

After a stunning 2-under Par opening Round, Karl started with Bogey on the 1st and then a quadruple bogey on the 3rd. This was going to test the work he's been doing with Head Mental Coach Matt Cuccaro, as a quad will normally destroy most players. To his credit he bounced back on the next hole for a string of 8 consecutive Pars. Although he then bogeyed the 12th to go 6-over for the round, Karl bounced back immediately with Birdie on the 13th and then another on the 15th to return a 4-over Par 76 to add to his 1st round 2-under 70 and record a resounding win on this challenging Tom Fazio masterpiece.

13th October: A tournament-low 2-Under opening round 70 on the Tom Fazio designed Quarry Course sees Karl leading the IJGT's Florida Junior at  Black Diamond Ranch, rated by Golf Digest as #143 on their list of America's top courses.

After (by his own lofty standards) a somewhat lacklustre performance 2 weeks ago, Karl went out with a point to prove to himself, as well as to his coaches Shawn and Kevin at the IJGA and reminded everyone of what he's capable of.

               Karl playing a Fairway Wood during Round 1 of the Florida Junior.

With having already created a 14-shot lead, Karl will need to be challenging himself tomorrow if he is to play back-to-back solid rounds. Although a stunningly beautiful course to look at, the scores which came in with all the age groups show just how brutal this Tom Fazio course can be if the player leaves the fairway and ends up down in amongst the old limestone quarry.

Full scores are available by either going to Karl's Tournaments page or by clicking here.

Thought destroyed, we recently located the original footage of Karl's first world title from back in 2009 and have re-edited that 7-years-division win at the US Kids Worlds in High Definition. Click here to view part 1 of the 2-part video.

2nd August: Karl is sitting in 2nd place in the 11 years Boys with the final round of the 2013 US Kids Worlds tomorrow. Rounds of 69 and 67 have Karl sitting 1 back from the leader. The Leaderboard can be viewed here.

29th July: Just 3 sleeps to go before Karl Tees Off in the 2013 US Kids Golf World Championships in Pinehurst. In regards to the 12 & Under age divisions it is almost impossible to separate the Callaway Junior Worlds and the Us Kids Worlds in terms of prestige.  The Callaways has been going for more than 35 years and saw the likes of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Lorena Ochoa and and a plethora more players who now call the PGA & LPGA their employers come through their ranks. The US Kids is much younger, just 16 years old, but has already seen the likes of young phenoms such as Lexi Thompson come through their championships as winners.

Like Lexi Thompson, Karl has already chalked up 2 wins here to add to his 1 win at the Callaway Junior Worlds, where a win evaded her enormous talent. Unlike the PGA Tour where players have around 40 opportunities a year to chalk up a win, there are only the 2 chances in kids golf, so getting all your ducks in a row in that week can have a certain degree of luck. However, as Tiger and Lorena Ochoa showed as Juniors, you can make yourself luckier if you both have the talent and put in the effort.

As for Karl this year, his game is looking very good. He's been scoring anywhere between square and 3-under in his practice rounds, but in previous years he's always saved his best golf for the tournament itself, so there's no telling what will happen. What he does have in his favour this year is (for the first time ever in 5 campaigns) Tee'ing off in the morning. In previous year's he's been unable to complete his opening round due to Pinehurst's seasonal weather interruptions, so more than likely he'll manage to get through the first round this year without interruption and get a good night's sleep before Round 2.

Again, a big thanks to all of you who have helped Karl to get here.

19th July: The Junior Worlds is done & dusted for this year with Karl finishing in a Tie for 14th and the leading 11-year-old in the field. The winner was 12-year-old Mason Nome from Texas and congratulations go out to him and his Dad for a marvellous performance.

The final round saw Karl turn around his Driver form and hit every fairway for perhaps the first time in the past few years, giving him enormous confidence heading into the upcoming US Kids Worlds due to that being in his exact age division. Laser like short irons saw him putting for Birdie on the vast majority of holes all tournament, so to convert only 8 of those over the 3 rounds cost him dearly. Yes, the Greens were Poa Greens which had all the players scratching their heads and the wind was causing a lot of second-guessing by all concerned, but Karl became exasperated at not converting a lot more of those Birdie opportunities. A pleasing statistic was a complete avoidance of any Double Bogies for the tournament.

Every aspect of the game for any player can be suspect at times, and when that occurs, the better players need to work on correcting that part of their game, something which Karl will do over the next 10 days heading into the US Kids Worlds. Overall though, a very pleasing result, particularly in achieving his goal of being the leading 11-year-old.

The full leaderboard is available here.

19th July: Round 2 of the Junior Worlds is in the books with Karl making a move up the leaderboard to a Tie for 8th. The afternoon wind has seen most afternoon players shoot quite a few shots over their morning round from the day from the 1st day and vice versa. Karl shot 2 shots more than yesterday with a 1-over Par 73, but actually worked his way up the Leaderboard by 2 places.

Karl's goal here is to finish Top 10 and that is realistic if he can manage to straighten out a somewhat wayward Driver that has been his trusted ally for so long.Fortunately his short game has come to his aid time and time again, but it'd be preferable to be putting for more Birdies rather than for Par.

Video from the 1st Round is now up on TouTube and can be viewed here.

To view the Leaderboard and see Karl's scores, click here.

18th July: The first round of the Junior Worlds is now complete with Karl sitting Tied 10th after a 1-under 71. A few short misses early in the round which saw Karl sitting at 3-over tested his resolve, but he came storming back with 4 Birdies to complete a satisfying day of golf. Full scores can be found here.

15th July: Tomorrow's the big day. 11-year-old Karl tees off mid-morning in the 1st round of the 2013 Callaway Junior Worlds in the 11-12 years age division. We can't under-estimate how much of a disadvantage being an 11 year-old is in this age division. That single year less of both physical and mental development compared to what the 12-yearold's have is extraordinarily disadvantageous. As an indication, a few days ago Karl played the same course where he won last year's 9-10 years division. He was driving 20 yards further and using at least 2 clubs less into all the Par 3's,  all in the space of just 12-months!

This year's favorites are 12-year-old's Ricky Castillo and Ye Wocheng. Despite coming 1st & 2nd two years ago in the 9-10 years division, last year they finished 27th and 39th respectively in their first attempt at the 11-12 age division. Even Rory McIlroy finished 36th as an 11-year-old after having placed 8th the previous year as a 10 year-old in the 9-10 years division. Rory did however, manage to finish 3rd when he came back the next year as a 12-year-old.

So, although Karl's goal is to finish in the top-10 this year, that in itself would be a remarkable achievement considering previous results by those players competing in their "Underclassman" year.

11th July: A very good result for Karl at the San Diego Junior Masters. He competed in the 13-14 years division rather than his appropriate age division for reasons which I listed a few days ago. Our goal was Karl to finish Top 20 in a field comprising the vast majority of the world's best 14-year-olds and he finished 21st, so a very pleasing result.

Karl was paired on Day 2 with Thailand's 14-year-old Ekkarat Leksuwan who stands around 6 feet tall, is built like a Grid Iron player, who drove many of the 300 plus Par 4's and who amassed the tournament's best tally of 12 Birdies over the 2 days against Karl's 8 Birdies (which sat at #5 on the Birdie count) from the 100-strong field. (Any College scouts out there need to take a real close look at this kid, as he's got all the goods.)

Despite that, Karl only finished 3-shots behind him for the tournament, proving to himself that although length off the Tee is a huge advantage, the game is won and lost on the Putting Green.

Again, Karl wasn't aiming to feature in this tournament, but rather to get to know the course better under tournament pressure ahead of next week's Junior Worlds. To recap, Karl's goal for the Junior Worlds this year is Top-10, and he's on schedule to do that.

We'll have the video of both rounds up within the next day or so. The full leaderboard can be viewed here.

8th July: The 1st round of the San Diego Junior Masters is now done with Karl sitting 7 strokes off the lead and Tied 32nd in a field of a hundred 13-14 year-olds and 650 players in total.

Tee to Green was top notch today which saw Karl was putting for Birdie on 12 holes but only managing to convert 3 of those, so we'll have to get that sorted out before next week's Junior Worlds.

Karl's goal for this event was top 20, so hopefully he can manage to convert a few more Birdie Putts and move up the field a few spots in tomorrow's final round. Full scores can be found here.

7th July: Karl's now played the tournament course at Oak Glenn twice and is finding it to his liking. This year is different from others for Karl in that he now needs to leave Driver in the bag on quite a few of the Par 4's so as to leave himself far enough out to be hitting a full wedge into front Pins.

We lengthened his Fairway woods this week and they are both going as expected.

The San Diego Junior Masters starts tomorrow with Karl off in the first group.

2nd July: We've booked Karl into the San Diego Junior Masters, but not into his 11-12 Years division. There's 2 reasons why we've gone down this path;

1. The 13-14 Division is played 3 days earlier than the 11-12's, giving Karl 6 days to recover before the Junior Worlds instead of just 3 days, and;
2. The course used for the 13-14 Boys is the same course and yardages as for the Junior Worlds, whereas the 11-12's course was elsewhere. Getting the chance to play at the course that he'll play in the Junior Worlds and under tournament conditions is too big a factor to ignore. A few other players in the 11-12's have also done the same.

The San Diego Junior Masters has almost 650 players in the field, so it'll give Karl the best opportunity to see how he handles the same course and yardages as he'll play in the Callaway Junior Worlds after resting for 6 days. He'll be paired with a fellow Melbourne junior, so it'll be a bit like the pairings they had with all the Australian players at the Masters proper.

The dates for the San Diego Junior Masters are the 8th & 9th of July.

1st July: The countdown is on! Just 15 days before the Junior Worlds Tees off at San Diego on the US west coast.

We're based on the east coast however, just a 4-hour drive drive from the home of the US Kids World Championships, Pinehurst. We drove up this weekend to check out the 11-year-old boy's designated course, Talamore Resort. The course is in stunning condition with pure Greens, yet bogies await everywhere for missed fairways and fairway traps that require the Driver to be left in the bag on numerous Par 4's. Architect Rees Jones' vision is going to see smart, accurate golf win this year's tournament. Getting an 11-year-old to leave his driver in the bag and use 5-iron & wedge into a short Par 4 is a challenge, but every golf tournament is won by a combination of good form, good decisions and a lot of luck.

28th June: As mentioned above, we have now raised the costs for the Junior Worlds at San Diego and fly there next Thursday, July 4. We can't thank everyone enough.

The 2nd of the 2 biggest Junior tournaments in the world will be held at Pinehurst from August 1-3, so we now need to start getting that 2nd part of the campaign organised, particularly flights, ground transport, accommodation and practice round fees. To help out, just go to the link above at Karl's campaign fund-raising link.

20th June: Karl's enjoying being at the Academy and training. It beats the heck out of a Melbourne Winter. We managed to secure cheap flights to San Diego today and have also found accommodation, so now we just need to cover the cost of the car rental and the return flight, plus of course, the training and practice round fees. Check out the Fundraising button located above and try to help Karl defend his title.

13th June: Well, we managed to get to the USA, albeit with half of the budget Karl needs to properly prepare to defend his titles. When we left Melbourne most of our friends were of the opinion after the Channel 7 story that an "Anonymous donor" had covered the balance of the tour, but that caller ended up being a hoax. So, although Karl has enough to get to the Junior Worlds a day before it starts, he won't be able to do the practice rounds required to get to know the course properly. If anyone can help to get him a week earlier to ensure that he knows the course properly, we'd love to hear from you on our email pauls@westnet.com.au.

We arrived into LAX yesterday withe the original plan to prepare in San Diego like we did last year, but as mentioned, that plan was quashed so we decided instead to prepare over on the east coast where we could manage the budget. When choosing flights the price varies considerably depending on whether you choose a direct  flight which may have 1 or 2 extra stops along the way. At less than half the normal price that's the option we had to choose today. That flight was supposed to go from Los Angles to South Carolina via Chicago. Only catch was, that Chicago airport was shut down to to a ferocious storm so our captain did an about turn and took us to the safety of Kansas, albeit without any sign of Dorothy.

When we did eventually get to Chicago our connecting flight to South Carolina had left, and being past midnight, all the passengers are sleeping on camp beds in the waiting lounges. Mmm, so cosy. Shame the guy next to us snores.

We'll keep you all up-to-speed with this campaign as we go.

6th June: We're 25% of the way towards the target for Karl's 2013 World Championships campaign. However, we're still a long way away from what we need to give Karl a decent preparation. The "Donate" button is located just above, give it a try.

29th May:  A big thanks to Channel 7 who did a story on Karl's fundraising campaign on Saturday.

Why would someone contact the station after that Saturday news story and say that they've got $5,000 for Karl's world championships campaign, then sit back and watch Channel 7 tell Melbourne the next day that Karl's funding is successful, only to then tell Channel 7 on Monday morning that they actually don't have the money?

The generous people of Melbourne (Australia's sporting capital), are under the impression that Karl's fundraising is a done deal when in fact it's far from it.

24th May (supplement): Thanks Australia. The comments on the story of Golf Australia's refusal to assist Karl defend his world title are coming in thick & fast. Here's the full six so far from the Comments section of The Herald Sun's Leader Newspaper;

24th May: The Australian newspaper also comes on-board Karl's campaign for funding from Golf Australia. To summarize the situation, Golf Australia's new policy sees Karl get zero funding to defend his 3rd world junior title whilst focusing their funding on a team of just 4 players in the 15-17 years age group. Other countries in our region including South Africa and China are sending extensive teams covering most age groups. Coincidentally, those countries have dominated the championships in recent years.

Read the full story here.

23rd May: The Herald newspapers are leading the push to get Golf Australia to deviate from it's new policy and assist Karl in his campaign to bring Australia another World junior title and hopefully his 4th. The story is available here.

18th May: Saturday's Club competition from the Mens Blues Tees measuring 6763 yards from the Mens Blue Tees saw Karl shoot a 6-over round and finish in the money again for A Grade.

After having gone through a complete school week without being able to practice, Karl's round got off to a surprisingly great start with a chip-in Birdie from 40 yards out on the 1st Hole. The cold Antarctic air however saw the ball traveling significantly less than usual, so although not necessarily showing it on the scorecard, it was a very solid round.

Sunday's weather is supposedly going to be 1 degree warmer, so we'll see how that round goes.

13-16th May: Freezing weather and gusty winds have set in over Melbourne all this week with snow falling in the ranges ahead of a fast approaching Winter. Not able to feel his fingers on the clubs within a few minutes at the range this has made training impossible, so hangin' at his friends house has replaced golf this week. Hopefully he can get a session in on Friday afternoon ahead of Saturday's club round.

This is the time of the year when the cold weather and bitterly cold winds see scores shoot outwards and handicaps do likewise. Just have to accept it.

12th May: With the ladies Red Tees being similar yardage to the upcoming Junior Worlds and US Kids Worlds, Karl played a social round from those Tees instead of joining in on the member's competition. Wow, what a difference between 7200 yards and 5800 yards! With the wind at a reasonable 15-20 mph as the afternoon progressed, Karl was able to attack more than often with less club coming in. An early double bogey was cancelled out by an Eagle and 4 Birdies for a 4-Under Par round which included only 31 shots on the (harder) back 9.

5th May: Today's Sunday members competition was played from the White Tees for a change, so with the competition yardage being a relatively short 6300 yards and with only around 10-15mph of wind on the Lake holes, Karl was able to reach all of the Par 4's in regulation. 4 Birdies helped towards a solid 3-over 75.

4th May: The Monthly Medal round saw the club members on the Greg Norman layout at Sanctuary Lakes playing from the Championship Tees measuring a touch under 7200 yards. That's very close to what they play on the PGA Tour, so with a bit of wind and with the official course rating at this yardage being 75, this round was always going to be a challenge for an 11-year-old. However, a sharp short game which saw Karl need just 24 Putts for the round led to a 5-over round of 80.

So, just how much difference does it make playing from the Championships Tees? This week's PGA Tour event at Quail Hollow measures 7443 yards, whilst the European Tour's Volvo China Open is measuring 7378 yards. Both of those courses are presented in immaculate condition with significant differences;

1. Each Bunker has consistent tour grade sand, not a mixture of soft, form, rock-hard, etc.
2. Each Green is conditioned perfectly- no pot-holes or crevices to have to Putt over on those Greens.

3rd May: We've managed to Upload a series of Monthly Highlights videos which can be viewed as follows;

• January Highlights here
• February Highlights here
• April Highlights here

29th April: A couple of good rounds in the club member's competitions over the 4-day holiday weekend saw Karl get his Putting back to where he'd like it to be.

Saturday's round was played in Atrocious 40-45mph winds which tested Karl's patience, but his resolve saw him shoot an 8-Over round which put him in 10th place in the 40-strong "A" Grade division. That score may not seem so flash, but Karl is based on a Greg Norman designed links course which despite a yardage of just 6700 yards, keeps even the best player's scores to a modest number even in perfect conditions. However, with little to no trees it offers no protection at all when the winds blow (which is 9 days out of 10). We've already loaded video highlights of that round here.

Sunday's winds were back to a typical 15mph for this coastal town. Karl brought it lower again with a 6-over round which Tied for 2nd in "A" Grade. Playing with a (recently) ex European Tour player was good for Karl, as he responds best when pushed hard by better players. Video highlights of that round will be online later today here.

23rd April: Karl's putting is on the improve after a recent drop in putting stats saw him shooting around the 79-83 range since returning from a month off competitive play. A new grip on the Putter for Sunday's Member's competition saw him shoot 6-over Par in strong winds that made club selection a challenge for the entire field. When the ball starts oscillating on the Putting Green, wind affect on Putts also becomes a factor.

The wind makes listening to the original video quite a challenge, so we've got 2 versions uploaded- one where we've adjusted the audio and put a music track in it's place, and also the original.

22nd April: We've renovated the Video Gallery page on this website and have cataloged the videos from recent to the very beginning. Check it out and please let us know if you have any suggestions on ways you feel this website can improve.

15th April: The 2013 Geoff Ogilvy Junior Averages are now available, being the Victorian junior's equivalent of the Vardon Trophy for the year's scoring averages, with Karl sitting in 2nd position on the Under 14 Boys and 10th in the Overall Juniors. Results here.

12th April: Win. Karl shoots a 77 to win his 3rd Under 14 years Gross event of the year, the 2013 Kilmore Junior Open. His round featured 8 "up & downs" which supported a lot of mis-clubbing into the Green due to a current growth spurt which he is under-going.

Every junior faces these periods where their body dynamics change at an unusually high rate, but Karl has also come back after a few week's off which has made the changes even more pronounced. As a result he had to rely heavily on his short game to scramble his way around a lot over the 4 Easter holiday tournaments which he played.

We uploaded video of the round which can be viewed here.

This result was pleasing, as Karl had struggled with his yardages these Easter holidays after his return to playing after those few weeks off, shooting rounds of 82, 83 & 82 from the 3 previous tournaments he played from the Mens Championship (Blue) or Standard (White) Tees.

We've uploaded video of another of those tournaments, the Rossdale Junior Open, as well as play from last Saturday's Member's competition from his club.

26th March: China's 12-year-old Wocheng Ye qualifies for the 2013 Volvo China Open, breaking all previous age records. Karl has played against Wocheng (who's a year older than Karl) a few times in the USA, where he has competed as part of the HSBC Chinese Junior

10th March: We uploaded new video of Karl practising his longer sticks last week featuring Slow Motion views of each shot. That video can be viewed here

6th March: Karl snags the front page of the Leader Newspaper celebrating his 2nd successive Leader Junior Sportstar of the Year Award and mentions the urgency of needing to raise the aifares for this years Junior World Championships where he is the defending champion.

Article here

1st March: Karl wins the regional section of the Leader Newspaper Junior Sports Star of the Year Awards for 2012 again and gets pipped at the post in also again winning the Overall Junior Sports Star Award by Australia's #1 junior tennis player.

Melbourne is Australia's epicenter for sports and home to most of Australia's sports stars, so a great little effort by Karl. A big thanks to Leader Newspapers for not taking Karl's achievement of winning his 3rd World title for granted.

Video here.

27th February: Karl played in the Flinders Pro Am in aid of Charity today. The strong winds from an impending storm coming straight off the adjacent ocean made for challenging conditions, but the hospitality provided by The Flinders Golf Club more than made up for it. Another successful Flinders Pro Am in the books. Video here.

23rd February: Here's a question we received from Karl's YouTube Channel a few days ago and which we receive quite often, so we'll publish the question and it's answer onto the "Q & A" Page where you can also see loads of other questions asked by parents & players. Here's the question from this week;

Q. Karl, how did you get into the game of golf? Did your dad start you off? Does your dad play? I am interested to hear how you started.

A. Click Here

19th February: 2nd Place in the Under 14 Years division of the 2013 Victorian Junior Open with a 7-over 79 and 17th Overall in the Field of 85 Boys and  under the age of 18 years. Played from 6650 Yards and with a Slope Rating of 72.4, Karl's 79 stacked up pretty well on a course which is this week hosting The Victorian Open and where the Greens have been prepared accordingly.

The highlight of Karl's round was a Hole-out for Eagle on the 510 Yard Par 5 Second Hole. The short highlights package can be viewed here and the full Highlights package can be seen here.

It's one of those situations where the players were mostly taking on the course for the first time and walked away knowing where they could save at least 3 or 4 shots the next time, but that's Golf.

12th February: Karl played 5 practice holes after school. He'll usually play 2 balls when he practices, and on Tuesday he racked up the "Daily Double", making Birdie with both balls on on a Par 3. Not saying that it rare,but it is fun, and this time we managed to get it on video which you can see here. He also "holed out" with a 6-iron 2nd shot to a Par 4, but that one we didn't get on video. (The video guy is too old, too slow and so unprofessional. Lol).

10th February: Win. Karl wins the Under 14 years Gross and finishes 2nd Overall Gross in the 2013 Central Victorian Junior Classic from the Championships Tees on the 6250 yard Neangar Park Golf Club.

An ugly 6-over Par front Nine which saw his Putter betraying him left Karl with a massive task to catch up with the leaders for both the Under 14 and Overall titles. With his putter being nice again giving him Birdies on the 10th & 11th holes he was back in the game and fought back to win the Boys Under 14 Gross title on Countback from good mate Cam and fell just 2 shots short of winning the Overall title. Another good day after 3-weeks off.

Full results are here and we should have Video available within a day or so...

9th February: Karl shoots a rock-solid 3-Over 74 off 6250 yards in the 1st round of the 2013 Central Victorian Junior Classic to share both the Under 14 Years as well as the Over-all lead heading into the final round tomorrow. Victoria's very best under 21 players are on state and national duty, but with plenty of low markers in the field, it'll take a good player to win.

8th February: New low Handicap of 2.4.

After 3 weeks off from competition due to a combination of player management and budgetary restrictions, Karl's looking forward to the Central Victorian Junior Masters this weekend. 18 holes on Saturday afternoon, followed by another 18 on Sunday morning. Karl will be competing in the Boys Under 14 years.

31st January: Another change of address this week and still having an extended break from tournaments. Karl started back training yesterday and by today had ironed out a few wrinkles. Some people have written in asking why Karl has frequent breaks of a few weeks. I figure that if it's good enough for the PGA Tour players and the Australian cricketers to rest frequently, then it's good enough for a kid. It's not so much the physical side of things, but getting mentally charged up for big tournaments isn't something which any player can do week in & week out. Karl's next big one in the Under 14 years age category is on February 17, so that's what we're targeting for.

25th January: Win. Karl plays in the Stuart Appleby Junior Golf's quarterly Victorian Under 16 Classic, which is the junior Pitch'n'Putt championships here. Karl shot a 1-over 55 to win the Gross in the Boys Under 12 division. It's a good, fun morning, but as always a high degree of skill is required to shoot a low score due to the postage stamp size greens which place a premium on club selection and accuracy. Some of the previous winners are now amongst Australia's top ranked Amateurs.

21st January: Aside from pitching practic, Karl's not played in 3 days. His cricket bowling action has seen his right shoulder come up a bit sore, so he'll be limited to practicing just his short game for the next week or so.

Overall, playing other sports is good for the muscles which aren't used in golf. Maybe Karl just needs to not play cricket without that particular action which has caused the injury, so we'll work on his bowling action.

In response to so many requests to show Karl doing his short game drills, we've uploaded his short practice session from yesterday. Click here to view.

18th January: The Riversdale Junior Open saw Karl shoot one of his best rounds ever. Home of one of Australia's top Amateur events, the club decided this year to set the junior event for the boys tournament to the same Championship Tees as for all those world ranked "plus" handicap players in order to see the Boys aged under the age of 18 play to their best.

The club also rolled and cut the greens to championship pace and placed quite a few of the Pins in very tough positions. Karl welcomed the challenge and although unfamiliar with playing from the Back tees, carded a 2-over Par 74 on a course rating (slope) of 72.

The Junior Open is a Stableford event, so although Karl amassed 37 points, he was still quite a few shots off winning the overall event of 140-odd players with varying handicaps. However, he did secure the "Nearest-the-Pin" with a 5-iron to within 10 feet on the 156 yard 14th hole and making Birdie.

Karl's official Mens handicap dropped to 2.5 after this round. As for the video, my hard-drive crashed and we lost some outstanding shots, but there'll be plenty more of those to come.

17th January: 50,771 views on Karl's YouTube Channel this past 30 days. Well done everyone.

15th January: Karl has a disappointing day with the putter in his round of 81 on Australia's # 1 course, Kingston Heath in their annual Junior Open. Following in the footsteps of Tiger Woods who won there in 2009, Karl's slope-adjusted round of 8-over was nevertheless, a great experience.

We managed to get some good footage on video, and have mixed that up with a few uncharacterictic missed putts to show that everyone has an "off" day every now and then.

To view the video, click here

13th January: New Handicap of 2.9 following a good series of rounds including a 2-over 74 today in the members competition at Riversdale, where Karl is a Cadet Junior.

11th January: Win. Karl posts his 1st win in the Boy under 14 years Gross in a strong field of 165 players at the annual Southern Junior Classic.

Playing a shade under 7000 yards and having a course rating of 73, Karl's 1st Round score of 75 eventually prevailed after the 2nd round was cancelled (whilst they were on their 3rd hole) due to extreme weather conditions. Up against Melbourne's best players under the age of 14, this result ranks right up there amongst Karl's very best.

Full results are available here, whilst video of the 1st round is available here.

10th January: 3-over 75 in the 1st Round of the Southern Junior Classic sees Karl narrowly leading the Boys Under 14 year and sitting Tied 4th Overall in a 135- strong field. Results can be viewed here.

9th January: We've finally got Round 2 of last week's Victorian Junior Masters on Karl's YouTube page. Just click here to view it.

8th January: New Men's handicap of 3.3. An Even Par round of 72 in the member's competition at Riversdale sees Karl's handicap drop to a new low.

We also uploaded a 60-second preview of Karl's rounds from yesterday's 36-hole tourney at The Commonwealth Golf Club here.

7th January: Rounds of 80 & 80 at the annual J. Edgar Trophy junior tournament at Australia's 16th ranked course, The Commonwealth. The course length was 7000 yards with Par of 73, so it was a very long, (but good) day.

Last year Karl shot rounds of 86 & 87 at the same tournament.

4th January: 10-over 82 today in what ended up being declared the Final Round of the 2013 Victorian Junior Masters due to what were deemed "Extreme weather conditions" which saw  the temperature soar to 105 degrees Fahrenheit and the 4th Round cancelled as a result. The heat was on, but the 45mph wind gusts made club selection a challenge and saw balls oscillating on the putting green.

Karl's buddy Cameron John won the Boys Under 14 Gross with a solid 5-over Final Round. At time of writing we think that Karl finished 2nd in that Under 14 Gross and Tied for 22nd Overall in a field of 150-odd of Australia's top Boys aged 18 & Under.Full results are available here, but there is an error, as the player who shows as 2nd place in the Boys Under 14 was filed in error. Karl finished 2nd in the Under 14 Boys.

3rd January: 2-Over 74 in Round 2 this morning off 6687 Yards, with Putting on the morning greens was much easier. I was happy with my round but still missed too many Birdie Putts on the low-side.

The Driving Range there only has room for about 8 players at a time, so with around 200 players in attendance we opted to warm-up at my home club at 5.45am before driving to the tournament for my 7.30 Tee Time. With a 7.30 Shotgun start tomorrow morning it'll need to repeated, as the Driving Range there will be bedlam.

We won't know until the end of 18 holes tomorrow morning whether we'll be allowed to play the final18 holes in the afternoon tomorrow, as temperatures are forecast to bel over 105 degrees Fahrenheit which could see the event shortened to just 54 holes. We'll have to wait & see.

The link to the scores is available here. It's a bit confusing as the Leaderboard simply lists every player rather than breaking the age groups down. As of the completion of the morning groups I was leading the Overall Nett and giving the Under 14's Gross a good shake.

2nd January: 5-over 77 in the 1st round of the 2013 Victorian Junior Masters has me sitting 2 shots behind my buddie Cam in the Under 14's and 16th Overall in a field of 132 boys from all over Australia plus a few players from the USA & New Zealand under the age of 18. The full leaderboard is here, and the Press release from Day 1 is here.

1st January, 2013: Happy New Year everybody.

Back down to a new low handicap of 5.4 after a 3-over 75 in today's Member's comp. This is the first time I can say that I'm playing off 5.

To celebrate with friends we've uploaded a fun, light-hearted video showing the apparent similarities of my double hip action and Rory's. It's just a bit of fun, but if more juniors can dream bigger by seeing a fellow junior mimicking the World #1, then it's good for Junior Golf. The link is here.

2012

31st December: 1-over 73 today in the Monday Member's comp ths morning off 6000 yards. That'll do nicely.

Later in the cooler part of the day I played 11 holes at Waverley, the course for The Victorian Junior Masters starting on Wednesday. Adam Scott, Jason Day, Aaron Baddeley & Mark Leishman all did well at this event as Juniors.

It's amazing how the holes get shorter as I get taller, as today I was reaching 440-yards with Driver + 3-wood, whereas last time I needed an extra shot to get there. Anyway, this time around I'm hoping to make the Cut and challenge the big boys in the Under 14 division. I'll need to shoot in the 70's each round on challenging Greens just to let them know that this little 11-year-old is there, as there are teams and great players that have flown in from various countries including the USA and England.

Daily results will be available here.

30th December: Here are some fascinating YouTube Channel statistics that show how strong the support for Junior Golf is;

• Golf Australia's Channel:     13,799 views & 27 Subscribers
• Australian PGA's Channel:  21,511 views & 34 Subscribers
• Golf Victoria's Channel:         3,067 views & 7 Subscribers
  
• USGA's Channel:             509,019 views & 132 Subscribers
• Koala Karl's Channel:       246,201 views & 466 Subscribers
• Ethan Chung's Channel:   407,076 views & 527 Subscribers

The last 2 Channels are run as a hobby by 11yo boys (and good buddies) at a cost of around $15 per month.

29th December: I've been getting "match fit"  for next week's Victorian Junior Masters by playing in the member's competitions at my club every day. After 5 successive scores in the 70's (Yardage of 6446 yards), I seem to be on target. With temperatures forecast to exceed 100 degrees, match fitness will be paramount.

It's the biggest tourney on our junior calendar for the year with the youngest age division being Under 14's. Last year I had rounds of 81 & 82 after the initial 2 rounds, and although I won the Under 14's Nett for the first 2 rounds, my 6th place in the Under 14's Gross didn't make the Cut for the 36-hole Final Day.

My goal next week is to make that Cut this time and not make it too easy for the bigger 13-year-old boys. Being only 11-years now, 2014 and 2015 should be my best chances for the Under 14 title.

29th December: 24,540 views of my YouTube Channel this month. Let me know if there are any videos in particular that you'd like us to film. Yesterday we had a request to video me practicing, which we'll try to do. I'm not big with practice, preferring to play holes instead, but will do some once I've had my Saturday doses of  "Victorious" and "I Carly". Oh, and after I've finished building a "Transformer", the pieces of which are scattered across the floor.

26th December: New Men's Handicap of 5.5, but there's a my Personal Best to come off within the next few rounds, so it'll go back out perhaps half a point unless I shoot low again.

20th December: New Mens Handicap of 5.9 following Monday's tournament.

18th December: An invaluable lesson learnt.

Date: 17th December, 2012
Event: The Steve Allan Junior Open
Where: The Berwick Montuna Golf Club
Yardage: Mens Tees = 5600 yards, Championship Tees = ?
Par: 69
Karl's division: "A" Grade (handicaps of less than 10)
Age Division: Under 18 years
Karl's Score: 73
Winning Score: 68
Karl's result: DQ'd

After 4 hours on course and having had one of his best competition rounds, a hungry Karl hurriedly signed and handed in his card immediately after the round so as to get into his burger, fries & coke, something he never gets at home.

On his Marker's card he only bothered to check that his actual total of 73 matched his recorded total of 73 instead of diligently going through each and every hole to ensure that the scores per hole matched the sum of the individual hole scores recorded by them both. Had Karl checked each hole off, he would have discovered that although his own and his Marker's totals matched as a 73, that the actual hole scores by his Marker only added up to 72.

When we saw a 72 go up against his name on the Leaderboard we immediately brought it to the attention of the Scorers, as it should have been 1 shot more, a 73. However, because Karl had already signed off on his score he was quite rightfully DQ'd and spent an hour inconsolably crying.

It was a good lesson learned here rather than at a World Championships, as what many younger players don't realise is that the total is irrelevant to the Scorers. The key record is that each hole matches up to the total score.

Even though the Scorers at The World Championships and at PGA events make the players sit down and check hole by hole so as to avoid this happening, kids still need to take more care checking their scorecard thoroughly, as under the current rules, official scorers have no choice but to DQ for scorecard errors such as;
1. Not putting the date down
2. Failing to sign
3. Any hole being wrongly recorded, irrespective of whether the actual total was correct

Many a Tour player has inadvertently made the same mistake, including Padraig Harrington, Paul Azinger, Graham Marsh, Nick Price, Sir Nick Faldo. Just this year Australia's Stacey Keating signed for an incorrect card which would otherwise have seen her Win the Women's British Open had she not been DQ'd.

A valuable lesson learned young builds a stronger player for later.

Highlights of Karl's can be viewed here.

16th December:  Kids clubs- do longer shafts help my kid hit further? We've gone to great lengths to ensure that Karl has always played with clubs which are correctly fitted. Some viewers even ask us why Karl's Driver and Irons seem shorter compared to many players his age. A new video by US Kids Golf helps to emphasize the importance of why. Click here to view that video.

14th December: Have you ever checked out our Q & A page? This weeks question we picked to respond to was "Are Karl's Clubs shortened, and if so, by how much?" For the answer, click here

8th December: We've now uploaded video from last Sunday's Stuart Appleby Junior Golf's "Signature Event" which was held at the Jack Nicklaus designed "St Johns" course at Melbourne's The Heritage Country Club.

Karl won the Under 12 Years Boys Gross division for the 2nd year running.

Click here to view.

6th December: New Video of Karl playing in Monday's annual Spring Valley Junior Open is available at Karl's YouTube page. There are 2 versions of the video;

1. With Annotations, but no music, click here
   
2. With music, but no annotations, click here
   

3rd December:  Win. Karl competed in the 36-hole Spring Valley Golf Club's Junior Open's 13 Years & Under Gross division, shooting Rounds of 82 & 75 from the Championship Tees which measured 6161 Meters (6737 yards) amongst a Field of around 65 players.

This was a big win for Karl due to him not currently having anywhere to practice this past 6 weeks.

2nd December: Win. Karl wins the annual Stuart Appleby Junior Golf's "Signature Tournament" under 12 years division for the 2nd successive year on the Jack Nicklaus designed "St Johns" course at Melbourne's "The Heritage" Golf Club with a Field of around 140 players. Scores here

There are only the 2 Under 12 year's tourney's for the year in Melbourne, with Karl winning both of them- the Victorian Primary Schools Championships in September, then this event today.

1st December: Here come the Korean men. Following the remarkable success of South Korea's women, the Korean Men are now taking on from where the likes of KJ Choi and YE Yang began, with more of the new generation of Korean men set to get their PGA Tour cards for next season.

After 3 rounds of the PGA Q-School in La Quinta, California, South Korea's Si Woo Kim carded a 71 to fall to 31st place. Kim, at 17 years, 5 months and 6 days on Monday, would be the youngest player ever to reach the PGA TOUR via q-school.

Why have we posted this? The dedication to practice shown by the Koreans is remarkable and needs to be respected. It's no coincidence that their Men and Women are achieving so much success at what we would regard as an early age. It's worth noting too, that the Korean Men are obliged to undertake 21-months of National Military Service which no doubt interrupts their golfing dreams and explains why their women have been disproportionately represented in golf.

29 November: 110 degrees Fahrenheit in town yesterday was the hottest November day here in over 100 years. Was Karl going near a course in that heat an option? No way, but practicing indoors in a golf simulation centre with over 90 courses to choose from was.

27 November: Karl's looking forward to playing a few holes tomorrow, 2 weeks since he last played. He did have a much-needed session at the weekly kids clinic at Sandringham under Head Coach Jonathan Porter yesterday though.

26 November: We uploaded some really cool video of Ian Poulter's swing alongside Karl's. There's nothing more than a slight resemblance, but it's worth having a look at here.

23rd November: Lot's of people write in and to us asking various things which I generally have answers readily available to in our "Q & A" page on this website.

One of the most common questions is about how much Karl trains, so let's answer that one today;

It depends on the time of the year as to how much Karl plays or trains. The Melbourne Summer season's first tourney is in 10 days time. Today is Friday and Karl last picked up a club on Monday. Prior to that it was the Wednesday when he played at The Australian Masters Pro Am. That is not much and in fact is too little, but we've had other priorities these past few weeks, so playing golf has taken a back-seat at the moment.

Typically though, and weather permitting, we'll try to get down to do some sort of training 5 afternoons a week. That may only consist of putting or short game, but 2 or 3 times a week we'd like to get Karl out playing some holes on the course.

The intensity of the training amps up when Karl's about to start both the Australian Summer and the Junior Worlds which are held 6-months apart. It's imperative that any sportsperson feels confident in their own preparation, and playing holes out on the course will usually show which facets of their game the player needs to spend more time on.

To clarify what the Junior's need to be working on, it's important that they spend time on the following, with the Putting being the most important;

• Putting - it's where 40% of your score is going to come from.
  
• Chipping- It's great to be able to give yourself a chance of still making Par from near the Green
  
• Approach Shots- These are from 50-100 Yards out and are probably your Irons or Hybrids, depending on your age
• Driver- This Bad Boy can be your friend or your enemy, so learn to hit it straight.
• Hybrids- Most juniors use Hybrids rather than a typical 4, 5 or 6 Iron
  
• Fairway Woods- Not the priority at a young age, but you'll need to feel confident with them sooner or later
  
• Bunkers- not a high priority until you're getting serious about your golf. We wouldn't let Karl practice out of the bunker until the last year or so, because it can out a big load on young wrists.



3rd October: Mmm, not a very good day today. Weather was great, course is good, just played poorly.  Really, absolutely, definately needed to have been hitting more than just the one small bucket of balls a handful of times on the range for the past 6 weeks to have been competitive.

Still sitting in 4th place in the 12 Years Boys, but that's the only good news for now. Hopefully we'll have a better update tomorrow.

2nd October: Day 1 of the 4 Day Srixon International Jub Junior started today with Karl shooting an 11-over 83 to be sitting in 4th position in the 12 Years & Under Boys division. Karl's playing partners Chris & Weiliang both played great golf to lead with 75 & 74 respectively.

At 6169 Meters ( 6747 Yards), the course is being played from the same Mens Tees for all Boys age groups.

The scoreboard is available here.

28th September: The SAJG Club Teams qualifier at Riversdale Golf Club was held under constant rain and some early lightning which saw the start times pushed back a little. After 9 holes the event was shortened to just that, a decision which came as relief to all concerned. After those 9 holes Karl was +2 in the handicapped Par format, which if we took away the handicap equated to 2 shots over the card. In the trying conditions it was a solid effort with all facets of Karl's game appearing on target for a good tourney next week in Sydney.

The day wasn't a total disaster though, as the French Fries put on by the club afterwards put a smile back on the player's faces.

27th September: Karl is the Net Winner & 2nd in the Gross in the 12 & Under at the Stuart Appleby Junior Golf's Victorian U16 Junior Golf Classic with a 1-over 55 on the Par 3 layout, bettering his own previous Personal Best there by 2 shots. It's a good test of the player's short game, with postage stamp size greens making accuracy and shot length critical in compiling a good score.

Great to see some strong competitors coming through, as the better the competition, the better the players will have to perform, and that's good for the state of junior golf here. Results here.

25th September: Round 2 of the Victoria Junior Champs was played at Heidleberg GC in beautiful weather. Karl fell a couple short of progressing to the MatchPlay round of the championships with an 86, but all in all it was a good day.

Probably need to focus on taking a liitle punishment when missing the fairway rather than relying on the Miracle Shot and racking up a much bigger number. However, that'll come with age.

Last year Karl shot 95 & 102 in these championships, so 85 & 86 is much better.

24th September: Round 1 of the Victorian Junior Championships is done, with Round 2 tomorrow. Karl wasn't alone in struggling with the fierce winds which dogged most of the players today. However, he hung in to post a respectable 85 which sees him sitting in 5th position in the Boys Under 14 years. The top 4 players after the 1st & 2nd Rounds go through to the Matchplay rounds later in the week.

20th September: Karl is withdrawn from the Victorian Primary Schools Team to compete in the National Finals in November. Karl was reminded in no uncertain terms that golf is still a sport for the priviledged after we discovered that each player chosen to represent Victoria needed to come up with between $1300-$1800 for the child alone to represent the Victorian Team in Sydney, exclusive of accomodation costs and without the parent/s going. The parents weren't allowed to reduce that cost by making the flight bookings ourselves, yet we could have booked the same fares for half of what we'd been asked to pay. Team uniforms alone were costing around $700.

18th September: ABC TV Kid's program "The 3 Factor" air a story on Karl which they recorded back in May prior to his latest World Championships success. The story can be viewed online at ABC3's YouTube page by clicking here.

17th September: Charity Day. Karl Gives Back, helping out at a charity event by challenging the 90-odd players to hit their Tee Shots closer than his on the Par 3 15th Hole at the Commonwealth Golf Club, one of Melbourne's famed "Sandbelt Courses", the design of which was inspired by the famed course architect Alistair McKenzie.

Being a Charity Day the Tees were brought forward 15 Yards from the designated 160 Yard (146 Meter) Tee Markers. I'll upload some video later, but irrespective, it was a fundraiser for the recipients of the day, the youth of Melbourne.

For the record, depending on the wind Karl was hitting between 6 & 5 iron into the green, followed then by the 4 players in the group. He was beaten by 6 players during the day out of the 90-odd competitors. More importantly though, it was money raised for a good cause.

10th September: Today saw Karl have an official day of school despite being out playing. It was the Final of the 2012 Victorian Primary Schools Championships played at Kooringal Golf Club. As it was a Primary School event, it counted as a day at school. Perfect!

110 kids from around Victoria out of some 2000 who had played in qualifying events made it to this Final round. It says a lot of the healthy state of golf here to see so many kids getting out and competing. Anyway, back to the wrap-up.

Karl was fortunate in a way to be paired up with the powerhouse of Primary school golf here, 12yo Christian Chierego, who was Driving 215 meter (240 yard) Par 4's with ease. It forced Karl to have to play his best just to ultimately outscore him by a single stroke with a 4-under 68 that included just the one Bogey for the round and to win the Championship.

I had made reference last month about the "luck of the draw" and how, over a season or career, it all averages out. Last month the draw worked against Karl in the US Kids Worlds, but yesterday it worked in Karl's favour, as without being paired up against Christian he probably would have taken things a little easier and not been pushed to have to shoot such a low score.

Anyway, well done to Karl, but also to Christian for such a great round which was played in the best spirit. The boys have come up against a few times now and have the utmost of respect for each other's games. A photo of the Victorian Team that was selected based on the results is available here, with the full results here.

9th September: The Victorian qualifier for the 2012 Aaron Baddeley International Junior Championship saw the cream of the state's best young golfers aged from as young as 11 through to 18 rock-up to Croydon Golf Club at Yering Meadows in Melbourne's Yarra Valley.

Considering the amount of rain that Melbourne has had lately the course was in remarkably good condition. Yes, it was playing long due to the damp fairways, but the true greens gave all the players a good chance to convert if they got on in regulation.

Karl competed in the Boys 14 Years division and shot a 9-over 81 to tie for 3rd in the Gross and miss out on 2nd in the Nett after a countback. Considering he put 2 balls in the water, it was a pretty decent round. His driving was good (aside from one he hit into one of the numerous lakes) and his short game impeccable, and it was only probably his tactics that let him down on one hole where he went too long and found the fairway creek which really "cost" him. Overall, a good day. Full results here.

1st September: Spring has sprung. Melbourne turned on a delightful day for the first day of Spring. It's about time too, as it was the wettest winter in some 17 years which caused major grief to all the greenkeepers at the courses here.

Karl played the last of his laid-back rounds today with a 9-hole round with juniors around his age at Waverley GC. They've got a good little concept going there, having shortened holes for the kids so that they all get the opportunity of making the odd Par or Birdie. Karl started off with a 4-putt double bogey and a bogey before waking up and posting 3 Birdies to end up with an even Par round. It wasn't pretty, but it's hard for him to get back into things after the wonderful time he had over in the US.

This coming Sunday sees Karl's first taste of serious golf for the season. We may have to pack a calculator to help keep track of the score.

27th August: The first taste of the impending Spring golf season saw Karl playing in a qualifier for the Final of the Victorian Primary Schools Championships. Mmmm, a bit rusy after 2 weeks of no practice and certainly nothing to brag about, but after a few holes the mishits got closer to the fairway and all was OK, with a couple of Birdies seeing him shoot a 3-over 39 on a shortened course to record the day's low score and go through to the Final next week.

23rd August: Back home in Melbourne and back to reality. Karl misses his buddies in the US that he spent so much time with, as well as all the guys who make competing so much fun. Huge thanks to all of you guys, including (and in no particular order) Bob B, Susan, Dick, Mark & Maggie, Sam & Des, Bobby, Robbie M, Dick B, Kim & Judy, Yoshi, Steve & Nancy, Wedenesday & Carlos, Suzanne & Carson, the guy from Los Lagos, Terry S, and the list goes on, but we appreciate all your support and can't wait to see you all again next year.

9th August: Karl plays a round at the legendary Pinehurst #2 course, home of the upcoming 2014 US Open. To play off the same course as some of the game's legends was a real buzz for Karl.

8th August: Day 2 of the Tin Whistles/First Tee event on the Gary Player designed 5925 Yard "Holly" course at Pinewild Country Club sees Karl shoot a 77 to back-up his first round 75 and finish 2nd in the Boys 14 Years division. This was a wind-down tourney for Karl that he has played in almost each year after the US Kids Worlds. Congratulations to the Tin Whistles for another well-run event and also to Nash Neptune for the way he played so well in shooting 73 to take the title.

The final results are available here.

7th August: Playing in the Tin Whistles/First Tee Tour event at the stunning Pinewild Country Club in Pinehurst, Karl enters Day 2 leading the Boys 14 years Gross by 2 strokes after shooting a 75 on the off the White Tees of 6234 Yards on their "Magnolia" course. The weather's looking awful for today, so let's hope the players can get today's round completed. Draw & scores are here.

5th August: Final result- Tied 6th.

Karl finished the 2012 US Kids Worlds in a Tie for 6th Place, with a very deserving Michael Thorbjornsen from the USA taking the title by 1 stroke ahead of South Africa's Martin Vorster.

Karl's had rounds of 71, 75 & 72 for the tournament after having to Tee off in the afternoon draw which was subjected to having to take 2 days to play their first round and to then play their 2nd rounds a few hours later on Day 2. The leaders came from those players who played the morning rounds on Days 1 & 2. However, that's part of golf and Karl played the best he could with the hand he was dealt. He's drawn afternoon rounds each year, so maybe we'll have to check that out a little, as Pinehurst is prone to afternoon storms which have resulted in chaos for the afternoon players in each of the past few years, making morning draws a valued commodity.

The full scorecard is available here.

Given the delays incurred as a result of the wild thunderstorms which plagued the area on Day 1 and which flowed through to Day 2, the organisers and volunteers did a marvellous job in getting the event completed on time. Sport can sometimes have an element of luck, but over a series of tournaments and over numerous seasons, unlucky draws tend to even out with lucky ones too, so that's just golf. Ultimately, I was pleased to see Karl put together 3 solid rounds given the circumstances of this particular tournament.

The season itself has been a very successful and rewarding one, with 2 titles, a 3rd and a 6th, so Karl now looks forward to playing with his budddies down in Melbourne in the Australian Spring season commencing in just a few weeks.

Many thanks to everyone, including all of our friends in San Diego, Las Vegas and Pinehurst.

4th August: 3rd and Final round starts today. We've been incomunicado these past 3 days due to not having internet.

Round 1 started 2 hours late due to Thunderstorms with Karl in the penultimate group. After 3 holes and sitting at 1-under, the field had a 3-hour break due to further thunderstorms. Karl's first hole back was a delicate Par 3, but as the rules stipulate, there is no warm-up during weather delays and Karl's Tee-Shot went straight over the flag and disappeared into thick greenside rough just 1-yard off the green and 6 steps from the flag. He racked up a double bogey on that hole, but then quickly got his game back to Birdie holes 17, 18 & 1 before Bad Light brought play for the day to an abrupt halt on the Tee on Hole 2 (another Par 3).

Whilst the early starters from Day 1 had finished their rounds on Day 1, the boys who hadn't managed to finish their rounds managed a little sleep before rocking up for a 7am Re-Start to complete anywhere between 1 and 8 holes remaining in that 1st round. Karl had 8 holes to go and despite the stop-starts and the day-old greens which made converting Birdie Putts extremely difficult, Karl managed to put together a 1-under 71 for Round.

A few hours later he was back at the course beginning Round 2 in stifling afternoon heat with the same playing partners as Round 1 due to the field not being able to be reset due to the weather delays. This meant that the players who got the smooth greens and cooler condiions in Round 1 also got the same conditions in Round 2 and also had a good night's sleep.

A mentally and physically tired Karl battled on throughout the day, making multiple errors which were out of character to record a 3-over 75.

As such,Karl starts the final round today 9 strokes behind the leader; Realistically, Karl's shooting for a place on the podium and that would be a proud achievement given the circumstances. Scores can be seen here.

31st July: Pinehurst's local newspaper, "The Pilot" did a good story on Karl for this week's edition, Read the story here.

29th July: Just 4 more days before the 2012 US Kids Worlds.Karl's been playing a round each day with the top players. One of the great things about golf is that these kids can be so fiercely competitive with each other on the course, yet as soon as they're off the final hole they head for the games room and shoot some pool together.

Karl's shooting some good scores and hasn't peaked due to a lack of range time. We've been patiently waiting for the heat wave to end, and now that it has,we can fine tune a few things over these coming days.

26 July: Karl's spending his mornings practising for next week's US Kids Worlds here in Pinehurst. The local hospitality here is always a feature of why we come back every year. The 10 Years Boys will once again be played at Little River Resort which is in magnificent condition this year.

Pinehurst Golf Club did an interview with Karl yesterday and that story can be seen here.

19th July: Tied 3rd. Karl shoots a 3rd consecutive Par round to finish in a Tie for 3rd place at the Taylormade World Masters of Junior Golf. After coming from the faster greens at The Callaway Junior Worlds course in San Diego, Karl saw countless Birdie Putts come up agonizingly short on the coarse greens here. His tee-to-Green was solid all week, but it simply came down to not sinking enough Birdie Putts. Full credit to Joseph and Jackson for taking 1st & 2nd places. Results here.

The result is actually not a bad one for Karl, as following the San Diego Junior Masters and the Callaway Junior Worlds, the 3rd (and final) of this year's "Majors" for 10-year-old's, the US Kids World Championshipsis will be played in Pinehurst in 2 weeks, so this finish here will hopefully fire him up for that Championship where he is the defending Champion.

18th July: After 2 of the 3 rounds of the Taylormade World Masters of Junior Golf here in the desert in Las Vegas, Karl shares the lead with 2 other players. The scoreboard can be viewed here. The best of the best in his age group are here, so it's a good opportunity to gauge how his game is on the longer course.

They even get rain & hail here despite this being the middle of summer, as an evening deluge 2 nights ago saw hail the size of golf balls rain down and creating flash flooding throughout Las Vegas.

We've been taking it extremely easy in the training department after Karl's big win at the Callaway Junior Worlds last week, but we'll head down to PGA Tour course the TPC Las Vegas to hone Karl's approach shots prior to tomorrow's final round, as he's been hitting all his approach shots slightly to the right. 30-minutes with the training sticks will fix that up, as he simply needs to remedy his swing track a little.

15th July: This week we're in Las Vegas for the Taylormade World Masters of Junior Golf. We had originally been scheduled to play at the Odyssey Junior Worlds at Palm Springs.

13th July: For the diehard golfers, I have uploaded a new 18-minute video with 58 of the 59 strokes Karl played to win this years Callaway Junior Worlds 2 daya ago. Click here to view that on YouTube. I'll put together a Highlights package within the next day or so and advise when that's available. I've also got a small sample of photos, so just click on these links here to view.

• Celebration after last Putt. click here
• Trophy presentation. click here
• Group photo. click here
• Video of Winning Putt and Greenside celebration. click here

A few people have asked why the scores are so low. This tournament uses a shorter course of only 4000-odd yards as opposed to the other kids worlds championships which use around 5200 yards played from the Ladies Tees at this particular age. As such, the course used for the Callaway Junior is only a Par of 62 because of its short length, being 10 Par 3's and 8 Par 4's, yet we see only 1 or 2 players managing to break even Par for the tournament due to most of the Par 3's being quite long. The Course scorecard for this tournament is here. The Official Course Rating is 58.9 (say 59) which Karl shot on 2 of the 3 rounds. So although the course is short, the Par rating is still set so that the eventual winner should end up shooting just under Par. In this instance, Karl ended with a total score of 4-under Par.

The course used for the Callaway Junior Worlds 9-10 Boys in San Diego however ensures that the players have their short game in top working order, as when Karl played in it last year as a 9-year-old, he failed to get up & down each time and ended up shooting 8-over for the 3 days to place 13th.

When they competed at age 10 in this same tournament, Rory McIlroy finished 8th and Rickie Fowler finished 33rd. Just like they probably discovered, Karl realised that to win he'd need to hone his short game skills, so prior to this year's championship we found a short course in San Jose which had similar grass on its greens, the Santa Theresa Golf Club, and Karl focused entirely on his irons and wedges there before we headed down to San Diego for the Junior Worlds. A big thank you to the juniors and staff up at Santa Theresa for making Karl feel so welcome up there.

12th July: Karl Wins the Callaway Junior Worlds with a final round 3-under 59 to win by 3 shots.

Karl dedicated his win to friend and fellow playing partner, CanadianDavid Hu. David, whom Karl beat by a single stroke at last year's US Kids World Championships was in the running with 4 holes to play when he got in the way of a practice swing which almost took his head off. It would appear that he suffered a fractured cheekbone at the very minimum. Karl was terribly upset and almost bogeyed that hole whilst playingit out in tears after a brilliant drive which had left him just a few yards short of the green on the Par 4 measuing 255 yards.

After a 20-minute delay whilst he received medical attention, to everyone's amazement David rejoined his playing group and played the final 4 holes with a badly swollen face before leaving for the hospital immediately upon signing off on his score. I myself couldn't stopmy owntears when David initially rejoined play. It's one of the bravest things I've seen on a sporting field and he gained enormous respect amongst his peers for the sheercourage he showed.

Upon David rejoining the group, Karl immediately felt a little better and fired up his own after-burners,making Birdie onthe next,then leaving himself with tap-in Pars on the final 2 holes to secure his 3rd World Title. The full scorcard is available here.

We leave for Las Vegas in 2 days to compete in the Taylormade World Masters of Junior Golf tournament before heading to Pinehurst where Karl be trying to defend his World title which he won there last year.

Get well soon David.

11th July: The second round at the Callaway Junior Worlds is in the books. Karl had a good day from Tee to Green, but an awful day with the Putter which led to a 2-over round and sitting 2 shots from the Lead. As his Dad and Coach I could see from 25 yards away that he was closing his putter, but this is supposed to be strictly a no-caddie/no assistance tournament where we're not allowed to speak with or assist the players, so I couldn't tell Karl that a simple technical flaw was costing him a fewshots in the 2nd round.

Karl however, is a fighter, so don't count him out just yet. Full scores here.

July 10th (Evening): The 1st Round is over with Karl in the lead by a stroke in the 2012 Callaway Junior Worlds. Karl played in the 2nd last group for the day, Teeing off at 11.56 and copping the hottest time of the day which (oddly) saw the wind in their face for all but 2 or 3 holes, making for very tough scoring conditions. However, Karl played solid golf and shot a 3-Under round. Scores here.

His putting was the best I've seen in a long time after he reverted back this past week to the conventional putting grip. Karl only missed one putt from inside of 8 feet for the round, enabling him to scramble Par on more than one occasion.

It's only Day 1 of 3 Days of play, so there is a long way to go. All we can do is see Karl try his best, and from what I watched today, he was doing just that.

Many thanks go out to the volunteers who monitored Karl's group and to those countless others who help make these events possible.



7th July: With just 3 days before the Callaway Junior Worlds, Karl played Welk Resort, the course where the 9-10 Years Boys will play. Karl joined 2 fellow competitors and after yesteray's epic San Diego Junior Masters final day, started out slowly with a Double Bogey and a Bogey before kicking into gear and racking up 6 Birides and an Eagle for a 5-Under round which included 5 consecutive Birdies from holes 7 to 11.

6th July: San Diego Junior Masters win after the 3rd Play-Off hole. Karl recorded a 1-under round in regulation to finish 7-under and won after making Birdie on the 3rd extra hole. This tournament is the annual lead-up to the Callaway Junior Worlds and with a field of 460 players from around the world, is a good form indicator. Full results here.

Karl's putting has turned around and he's sinking a lot more Birdies this week. With 3 days to get ready for the Callaway Junior Worlds, it's all systems go now. Karl will be flying the Aussie flag and trying his best. Video of the Trophy Presentation is available here.

5th July: Round 1 of the 2012 San Diego Junior Masters is completed with Karl shooting a Personal Best round of 6-Under 66 to take a 3-shot lead heading into Day 2. In addition to shooting his best score, Karl's round was bogey-free. Full tournament results are available here.

1st July: The San Diego Junior Masters will be played at Carlton Oaks GC, so Karl had his one & only practice round there yesterday in preparation for Thursday's 1st Round. .

We uploaded some video of yesterday's round which you can view here.

30th June: Karl played a practice round at Welk Resort and we uploaded some "Front-on" video from directly infront of his swing which you can view here.

28th June: Back on track. Following a lacklustre performance at a short-course tournament at the start of the week, Karl has bounced back nicely during practice rounds at The Junior World's designated 10-year-old's course Welk Resort these past 3 days. He's played with 2 of California's finest 10-year-old players and scored 2 to 3 shots under Par each round from what we'd assume would be the longer yardages which the course will have in play during the Junior Worlds.

Karl's swing had been going "inside out" last week, so we focused this week on getting his swing on a straighter path by using alignment sticks. They've worked a treat and he's now hitting the ball straighter again.

Last year's weakness had been his recovery, so we've spent a lot of time on that aspect and it's paying dividends.

Tomorrow's focus will be putting, as although he's getting away withslowly developing glitchat the moment, if it's going to stand up for a full tournament then it needs a little tweaking back to what it normally is.

26th June: 8th place. Karl played in a 2 day, 36-hole event in San Diego, finishing 8th in a field of 24 players in his age group. There's no getting around the fact that he wasn't mentally "in the groove" which saw him shoot a few strokes more than we would have expected. The courses played over the 2 days were excellent opportunities to focus on his short game, but he was out-played by some of San Diego's finest young players on the shorter "Executive" style courses, and congratulations go out to them for playing so well.

After yesterday's 1st round Karl and his buddy headed out in the late of the day to play on what we're here for, the Junior World's course for their age division. The course is in much better condition than it was last year and the greens appear to be running much more true, resulting in Karl breaking Par by quite a few strokes and driving 2 of the Par 4's which last year he was coming up 30-50 yards short of. We'll play that course again tomorrow with a couple of his buddies.

21st June: Win. In Karl's first Junior tournament sinceApril 13,he played in the Santa Theresa Junior Golf Club's "Summer Stretch" event. With 25 players competing on the front 9 of the main course, Karl competed in the "Advanced" flight that measured 2987 yards. Although starting a little nervous after such a big break between tournaments with a Bogeyon the first,Karl fought back hard to post 2 Birdies and another Bogey to shoot an even Par 36 and win by 3 strokes. Some good signs, as it was the first time he'd been able to play the course with the greens running faster than normal. Scorecard here.

Karl also played the Par 3 course in the morning from the back Teesin an unofficial round with one of the staff there and shot a 4-under 23 with 4 Birdies and no Bogeys. The greens had been cut lower than normal due to some expected cooler weather, so they were very closeto what he can expect at Wek Resort for the Junior Worlds in 3 weeks time. The holes varied from 82 to 136 yards in length.

13th June: US Open time. Karl spent the early part of the day at the US Open's last practice day. Wow, the course is hilly. If the players don't do a knee in, the caddies will. The course is spectacular and I wouldn't be surprised if the winner battles to break even par.

Karl caught up with a couple of his junior golf buddies and finished the day with a casual round with one of them at a nearby course which overlooks The Golden Gate Bridge.

12th June: When in Rome... Being just an hour away from the links at Pebble Beach, Karl fulfilled a goal of playing one the courses he's played on his XBox Kinect Tiger Woods PGA game, the Poppy Hills Golf Course at Pebble Beach. The course is eerily similar to the course being used for this year's US Open The Olympic Clubin San Francisco. The features of the majesticCypress Pines, the hilly terrain, fairways sloping away from doglegs and small greens were all there. It was definately a lot different to playing on Melbourne's classical Sandbelt courses, but also a lot different from (for example) that has almost anything else that has relatively flat fairways.

Afterwards, Karl visited most of the other Pebble Beach courses including Spyglass Hill, Spanish Bay and of course Pebble Beach itself whereKarl walked many of the most famous holes including the 18th andpointed out to mehowthe likes ofJack Nicklaus, TigerWoods and Graham McDowell hadwon there. Great day.

11th June: New video upload of Karl practising his Par 3's. Click here to view.

10th June: We uploaded new video of Karl at the Practice Range. Clickhere to view.

8th June: We're in San Jose aclimatising and getting in some practice. Found a great ex PGA clubfitter here ( Mr Kim from "K & J Golf") who did a great job on Karl's Hybrids. Next week we're at the US Open and then head down to San Diego to do some practice rounds on this years Callaway Junior World's course.

25th May: The Moorabbin Leader newspaperruns a story in support of Karl's 2012 World Championships campaign. Story Here.

12th May: It's been a good day for Karl. Afterappearing inan article in Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper, he also managed to secure his 2nd Ace, albeit at the local Pitch'n'Putt and only from 55 yards. However, his first Ace at age 7 was a "genuine" Ace, scored at the 2009 Callaway Junior World Championships on a Par 3 of 109 Yards with a full 7-iron.

12th May: Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper do a story on Karl. The Online version of that is available for view here.

11th May: Karl shoots a new Personal Best of 73 "off-the-stick"in the member's competiton at Yarra Yarra Golf Club and wins the day's competition with 42 Stableford points. The course rating for the day was 73, seeing Karl (not only) shoot even par for the first time, but also smash his previous best round by 5 shots.His handicapalso dropped down to 6.1. Score here

29th April: Karl played at his former Home Club, Southern GC and scored 35 Stableford points from the Mens White Tees,ie: the normal Men's competiton Tees. The Yardage from the White Tees is only6557 Yards.

Afterwards, Karl (both) supported his club-mates and watched a few of Australia's best Amateurs playing Club Pennants. Australia's (and in particular Melbourne's) Club Pennants is the world's finest Amateur club competition, with Australia's and a couple of the UK's top Amateur golfers in action on some of the world's best courses for 10-weeks every year. Karl's Home Club actually had both Stuart Appleby and Robert Allenby in it's Pennants Team before they turned Professional.

28th April: New handicap of 6.5 after postinga score of 1- down in the Par format at Yarra Yarra's Saturday competition played from off the Men's Blue Tees. The Blue Tees are our "Back" Men's Tees in Australia, making the ACR (Australian Course Rating) 1-shotharder at Par of 73 instead of Par 72.

25th April: New handicap 6.8 after a solid and consistentpast monthof competition. Note, only competition rounds are calculated towards Karl's handicap.

17th April: Charity tournament. Australian charity Very Special Kids (which supports families of children with life threatening illnesses) had a fundraising day at the famed Kingston Heath Golf Club. Karl has benefitted from support in the past to get him to the World Championships and hopes to get support again this year, and although he isn't in any position to provide money to any charities, Karl tries to give back whenever possible by using his reputation. When asked whether he could help out this very worthwhile charity, the answer was a big Yes. Photos here , here and here

Karl's contribution involved being the Pro on the "Beat the Pro" Par 3 measuring 141 Meters (155 yards), where players would try to get closer to the hole than him with their Tee Shot. A handful of the 88 players managed to get closer, and they went in the draw for a prize. Karl's efforts raised $800 towards a total of $71,000 on the day. If you are able to support the Very Special Kids Charity, click here

For the record, Karl used a 5-wood to start with in the cold early morning, then as conditions warmed up, he switched to his 7-Wood.

15th April: Win. Change of pace. With this Sunday being the last day of the Easter school holidays which blessed us with the best weather ever, Karl and our friends convinced me to partner him in the Father & Son (and Mum's & Daughter's) tournament at the Mulgrave Pitch'n'Putt.

I shared Karl's shortened clubs and tried my hardest not to hamper him whilst we did battle with his friends and their Parents. Karl posted the best Gross by a couple of shots from his buddy Charlie, whilst our combined score of 2-over for Karl and 6-over for myself came through as the low Gross.

13th April: Win. For only the 2nd time, Karl competed in a one-day 36-hole event, the South Gippsland Junior Classic. It was played at the 5710 Meter (6244 Yard) Par 70 Lang Lang Golf Club layout and was presented in magnificent condition on a sunny Autumn day, making play a pleasure. There was no age divisions for the day. Rather, there was the oft-used format of Handicap divisions which saw Karl on his handicap of 7 competing in the "A" division.

Karl's Tee-to-Green was perhaps the best I've seen, and both his Putting and Bunker work exceptional, seeing him get 4 of 6 Sand Saves and holding a better-than-average number of putts on the Poa Greens which baffled both Karl and rest of the field.
Aside from Winning Best Nett, Karl also finished 3rd Overall in the Gross with rounds of 77 & 76. It was a Benchmark performance in Karl's fledgling career, as the vast majority of the field fell by the wayside in the 2nd round, whilst he battled his own demons and outscored his 1st Round with a Birdie on the last hole.

Scores here and Video of the first 9 Holes of Karl's round before the battery ran low here.
12th April: Win. Karl wins the Easter school holidays edition of the Victorian Under 16 years Pitch'n"Putt championships. Karl won both his Under 12's age group and the Overall Gross, shooting a 57 on the Par 54 layout comprising relatively short holes on postage stamp size greens which penalised any shots which didn't it the greens on the right spot.
Full results here and photos here & here.

4th April: Win. Karl played in the 9-hole Stuart Appleby Junior Golf event held at Cheltenham Golf Club and played in the Boys Under 14 Age Division. Cheltenham Golf Course adjoins the famous Victoria Golf Club, but is a Public access course.
With a Par of 35 and played off a combination of Men's, Women's and shorterned Tees, Karl shot even Par to shoot the lowest score of the day and win his age division. The good news for golf here is that one of the 9-year-old boys shot a 36 to win the boys Under 10 years division, so hat's off to Ashley and Dayle at Stuart Appleby Junior Golf for their efforts in growing junior golf here.
Full scores here

3rd April: 10-over 82. The holiday's first junior tournament was played at Cranbourne Golf Club. The course conditioning was absolutely perfect, allowing top-notch shots to be played from off the fairways, and for putts to hold their line on the greens.

Karl competed in the youngest age group, the 14 years boys. He shot an 82 and although his putter didn't run as hot as he'd have liked, he did only need 30 putts and his ball striking was the best I've seen. Karl missed just 2 fairways and made 3 of 5 sand-saves.

After being just 2-over after 6 holes, the wind got up and made club selections for a constantly-growing junior difficult, resulting in a few mis-clubs which cost him dearly. However, it was a good opportunity to learn about playing under windy conditions and hopefully he'll take something away from it. Results here

1st April: 12 over 84. Had the good fortune to play in the member's competition at Australia's #1 course, Kingston Heath. Karl shot an 84 and would anticipate doing a bit better the next time after getting to know the layout and the greens a little.

19th March: With no tournament play until the Easter holidays, Karl's taking his foot off the pedal and doing more off the course than on, having a sleepover this past weekend and playing cricket with his school-mates.

The focus here is on Pennants golf at the moment, but only those talented few junior players on or near a scratch handicap get to play in the elite Colts (23 years & Under) Pennants competiton, whilst the other 99% of juniors age 6-18 who could be playing some form of junior competiton are left out. It's a golden opportunity for our golf bodies to take advantage of the impetus which the once-in-a-generation summer of golf here (The Presidents Cup, JB Were Masters, etc) saw kids driven into a golfing frenzy and start playing the game, only to now find themselves left wondering what to do next.

12th March: 2nd Gross Under 14's. Today saw the 3rd and Final round of the 2012 Macedon Ranges Junior Open played at Lancefield Golf Club, a country course located a hour from Melbourne.

The tournament was a lesson to some of the players of how not every course has the budget of anAugusta National or Royal Melbourne. In fact, the 3 courses the juniors played this weekend were all run on a 100% volunteer basis, from the greenkeepers through to the barman. However, what these courses lack in 5-star facilties, they make up for with their collective passion for the game, so whereas a few of the boys were initially surprised at seeing the occasional weed on a fairway or small greens, it taught them all a valuable lesson is adapting to the course.

I forgot to mention that each day's play saw the respective clubs conduct a "Secret 9" comprising of 9 holes which (of course) the players weren't aware of. In keeping with the relaxed nature of the tournament it's somewhat of a fun award which Karl won on the opening day. We uploaded video here.

The final wrap-up saw Karl fall 7 shots short over the 3 days in his 14 & Under division to finish 2nd in the Gross. However, at just 10 years of age, he's got time on his side and learnt valuable lessons over the 3 days.

11th March. 75 & 80 It's a Long-Weekend here in Melbourne, so Karl's been competing in the 3-Day Macedon Ranges Junior Tournament, held on 3 seperate courses over 3 days around 90-minutes from our place.

He started the 1st Day yesterday with an opening round of a 9-over 75 on the very hilly Par 66 Woodend Golf Course, then backed that up today with an 8-over 80 on the flatter Romsey Golf Course. Today was the first time that Karl had played on a country course where some of the holes share part of the same fairway but have seperate Tee Boxes and Greens. On one of the holes he inadvertently played towards the wrong green, then had to play a wedge from one fairway to the next to the correct green, taking a double bogey on the hole. It also happened to a playing partner, but that's golf. We should have studied the course better.

As with all tournaments here in Melbourne, the players and parents all get along well. It's just an absolute pleasure to see the friendships that develop amongst the kids.

Tomorrow's the final round which sees an early start, so we'll see what happens.

6th March: Awards success. The 2011 Leader Sports Star Awards were held last night at Melbourne's Etihad Stadium. It was a great evening that also saw a few of Karl's other golf buddies nominated and also win various awards amongst the cyclists, gymnasts, footy players and various other athletes who they were all up against.

Karl won the Awards for Junior Sports Star in the Southern Region (Melbourne and southwards), and was also fortunate in winning the big award for the night, the Overall Junior Sports Star Award.

Thanks go to both Leader Newspapers for running these awards for so many years, and also to Sportsmart for Sponsoring the Awards. The prizes provide enormous support for these young sportspeople to help offset some of the costs of equipment, training fees, tournament costs, etc.

Karl'd never stepped foot into either the MCG or Etihad Stadiums, so finally getting to check out such a huge stadium was another tick off the bucket-list. I've uploaded 2 photos from last night to view both here and here and have uploaded the video here.

4th March: Trivial fact: With the sudden Passing this week of "The Monkees" lead singer Davy Jones, I was surprised to discover that he shared his birhday with fellow band-member from "The Monkees" Mike Nesmith, and also Tiger Woods.

With just the one junior tournament being available in Melbourne between January 28th and March 3rd, Karl's already had a lengthy break and is currently having another 2-week break. During this latest break he's getting his iron shafts changed by Mizuno to a Senior Flex.

With just 16-weeks to go after next week 'til the Junior Worlds, Karl will begin to gradually build up his training so as to peak his game for then.

27th February: New handicap 7.4

26th February: The Central Victorian Junior Masters was held this weekend at Neangar Park Golf Club in Bendigo. All the boy's age divisions of U14, U16, U18 & U21 played from the Mens competition tees, measuring 5685 Meters (6217 Yards) with a Par of 71.

It was Karl's first tourney after quite a few week's break. He'd attended Jonathan Porter's weekly kids clinic at Sandringham Driving Range on Monday last week where Jonathan corrected a flat take-away, so we worked on that last week.

Karl started the tourney with an opening round of 87, but after a hearty home-cooked breakfast of bacon & farm-fresh eggs by our host, Karl came out firing on Day 2 with a Personal Best of 76 to finish Gross 5th in the Boys U14's. The full results are available here.

A big thanks to Stephen and his folks Sandy and Peter for billeting at the Woodend Hilton for the weekend.

22nd February: No news to speak of, as there have been no junior events for a month despite it being summer, so Karl's wound his practice right back and has been playing cricket and baseball. However, Karl did go on a school camp all of last week, so had a great time with that.

With his next junior tournament this weekend being a 36-hole event, I'd expect that after such a long lay-off that Karl's biggest challenge to be to play to his handicap.

7th February: Karl appeared on Triple M's "Hot Breakfast" with Eddie McGuire. The 65 second interview can be heard here.

6th February: Karl appears in Melbourne's Sun Herald newspaper. Article here.

6th February: Karl played in the Flinders Golf Club's Pro Am located on the picturesque Mornington Peninsula.

The course was stunning, making play a pleasure.However, the main reason for the day was to help raise funds for the charity "Very Special Kids" which helps terminally ill children. Anyone wanting to help these kids can go to the website here.

4th February:The Monthly Medal at Karl's clubsaw him Teeing off from the full Championship Tees,thereby seeing him needing much more club on all holes, and not being able to reach many of the holes in regulation.

With the added length Karl typicallyl hasn't got any hope of playing to his handicap in Monthly Medal rounds and usually shoots in the mid-high 80's. However,Karl embraces a challenge and today's round of 83 washis best Monthly Medal round to date.

With no tournaments at all until the end of the month, Karl will take a laid-back approach for the next week or so.

30th January: Karl shoots 78 "off-the-stick" for 37 Stableford points in Monday's club competition at Southern Golf Club. With an ACR (Australian Course Rating) of 73, that equated to a 5-over Par round, equaling his own Personal Best. I was only there for the "Back-Nine", but with increasingly strong winds of up to 45mph that saw limbs falling off the trees around us, his ball control into the wind was possibly the best that I've seen from him.

Also, we've uploaded video from Karl playing the tournament at The Metropolitan Golf Club on the 23rd of January. To view that, click here

27th January: With school commencing for the year next week the Gross & Nett winners of this summer's events all played off in the "Summer Series Final" at the Croydon Golf Club in perfect summer weather. Unlike the event at Metropolitan last week, this time we checked that we had Karl's clubs in the car before we left home at 5.30 in the morning for the hour drive to the course.

Karl competed in the Under 14 division and played solid golf for an 84. Although not at his best after such an early start, Karl missed just the one fairway, whilst unfortunately his fairway woods let him down again for the 2nd week straight. However, his short game was solid enough to see him record a respectable score. A year ago he was signing for much higher scores when things weren't going perfectly, so what's become evident lately is that he's able to avoid having a bad score even when his game isn't firing on all cylinders.

The amazingly consistent 13-year-old Ryan Ruffels left the entire field in his wake with a 2-under Par 70 to scoop the prizes, whilst Karl finished 4th out of the 15 players in his division. Full results can be viewed here.

Karl will now have a break from tournaments for a month to sort out his fairway woods in preparation for the Colts (Under 21) Pennants season which begins in March.

23rd January: Karl shoots 83 in a Stuart Appleby Junior Golf "Regional Series" event at Melbourne's Metropolitan Golf Club.

This was Karl's 2nd event at "The Metro", and we aren't alone in being blown-away by the beauty and design of the course. Back in 1930 the legendary Walter Hagen wrote "Metropolitan is by far the finest course I have played in Australia", and in 2001, PGA Commissioner Tim Finchen commented " I don't recall being at one of our events in the last few years where every player in the field is just ecstatic about the golf course.Metropolitan has enhanced its reputation as one of the worlds great golf courses".

A comedy of errors saw us arrive at The Metropolitan without Karl's clubs, so we managed to go back to get his clubs and be back with just minutes before Karl's Tee Time. As such, he missed out on a warm-up, but it was a good opportunity to see how he'd go without having had one.

As with other Melbourne Sandbelt courses such as the Presidents Cup course, Royal Melbourne, the greens are rock-hard and as fast as glass. Numerous shots which were landed on the front of the green rolled over the back, particularly on the Par 3's. Add to that the protection which the bunkering gives the greens and you soon realise that only high trajectory shots will have any chance of holding the greens, making it tough for Karl to play to his handicap on this course. That meant that to play to his handicap Karl's putting and bunker play would have had to be spot-on, and they were, getting up & down most of the time.

He did however, prove that he's still a young kid who "goes for broke" on every shot by recording a "10" on one of the Par-5's to blemish what would have otherwise been a magnificent round and settle for an 83. That's all part of the learning process, and what Karl's got in his favour is his age and the fact that every mistake is something he can learn from.

I have video highlights uploaded here. Full results here.

20th January: Karl played in the annual Riversdale Junior Open which (unusually) was conducted in a Stableford format. I say unusual, but feel that many more Under-14 tournaments could take a leaf out of their book and use the Stableford format to negate the "one bad hole" that most juniors have. 

The course was presented in magnificent condition and was the best-run junior tournament that we've attended in a long time, leaving no doubt as to why it's regarded as one of the very best courses in Melbourne. Riversdale is a very hilly course, so Karl's physical size compared to the other 18 players in the Under-14 age division made more difference than it normally would. He hit 100% of fairways and his fairway woods worked well. However, he under-estimated the "break" on the Santa Anna greens and uncharastically missed 2 extremely short putts to shoot a 9-over 81. With no "wipes" on his card though, he posted 34 Stableford points to finish a solid 3rd.

It's easy to forget that he is a mere 10-years of age, so as he matures he'll better interpret various types of greens. Full results here.

18th January: Karl played with Elvis (yes, he really did)in his club's weekly Wednesday competition in thisweek's formatof "Par". I'm usually a critic of this format for how it doesn't reward players as much as Stableford does on good holes and had never before seen the upside of it. However, today I did. Karl'd had a very late night last night at a sleepover at a mate's place and only got to the club just minutes before his Tee-time still wearing yesterday's shirt, complete with icecream stains on it.

Needless to say I got a phone call at homeafter he'd played just 3 holes to come down and join him and frankly, the format probably saw him hand in a better card than he would have otherwise had.At the turnhe was an awful "5-down",but found something from deep within to go aroundthe Par 36 back half in just 37 shotsto return a "Par" score of "2-down". I think he learnt something from today's round that he can use in a future round.

16th January: Fresh upload here of Karl winning the Under 14-years Nett in the 2012 Victorian Junior Masters.

15th January: Although being a roundfrom last month, we finally uploaded video of Karl from a weekly member's competition at his home club. He had started "dipping" in his swing this past fortnight, so his swing actually wasn't 100% in the past 2 tournaments this January, so this video here is actually a better example of a good swing for kids.

14th January:We've uploaded video of Karl's play in the Stuart Appleby Junior Golf's "Signature Tournament" here. There are some good examples of his Driving and Sand-Saves.

13th January: New Mens playing handicap of 7 after getting down to 6.8 after a few weeks of solid golf during this summer holiday tournament season.

Karl's hitting the ball a long way and getting to various Par 4's in just 2 shots where he previously wasn't able to. Oddly though, his short game has been a bit off this past fortnight, but we'll get that fixed up soon enough.

More than anything else this season, he's enjoyed catching up with some old mates from interstate who have come to Melbourne for the tournament season. That can make it hard to focus during a round at times when they're busy telling jokes to each other, but hey, he's 10-year's-old and is having a great time.

I've uploaded a couple of photos from this week from both Thursday and Friday (today).

7th January:Karl played in his club's Saturday Members competition, shooting 81 off the stick and dropping his handicap to 6.8 in the process. I only watched Karl play the last hole and a half, but it was obvious that he was striking, shaping and puttingthe ball with enormous confidence.

His playing group advised me thatKarl almost got his 2nd career Ace whenhis Tee Shot hitthe flag on the Par 3 12th and settled next to it. He scored hissole Ace to date at the 2009 Callaway Junior World Championships.

6th January: Karl played in the long-awaited Under-12 division of the Stuart Appleby Golf Foundation's Signature tournament at the Jack Nicklaus designed Heritage Golf Club. It attracted a field of 134 of Melbourne's best juniors aged between 10 and 17 years. Karl's score of 81 from the White Tees (in between the Ladies and Men's Tournament Tees)ona Par 72saw him win by 3 shots. He'd been awaiting this tournament for many months due to it being the only opportunity in the year to compete against players closer to his age.

His fairway shots let him down a bit today, but (as it so often does) his putter saved his bacon on numerous occasions.

As an added bonus Karl also grabbed the "Nearest-the-Pin" on the 163-meter (179 yard) 11th hole. With a headwind worth at least 2-clubs and water both short and right of the Green, Karl hit a controlled Driver to within 6-feet, then dropped the Birdie Putt.

It's been a good week for Karl with today's result backing up his winning the Nett in the Under 14's at the Victorian Junior Masters just 2 days before.

Despite the 2 wins this week, from a Parent's perspective I was most impressed with how all the boys have so much fun with each other after the round. It's easy to forget that at the end of the day, golf is still a game. Well done also to Ashley and Dayle from the Stuart Appleby Junior Foundation for having had to work tirelessly toreschedule this event from December when it was rained out.

5th January: Karl wins the Victorian Junior Masters Under 14 Nett. With 25 players competing in the Under 14 age division on handicaps ranging from Plus 1 to 18, Karl was the Nett Winner in the Under 14's age division.

The tournament was a stringent test of Karl's course management, as well as his mindset. Prone to being extremely tough on himself, Karl overcame the occasional bad shot or 3-Putt to post 2 consistent rounds and win by a single stroke. The Greens proved extremely tricky for all the players with 3-Putts causing heartache to everyone. The 1st Day was played in 105 degree temperatures and strong winds, whilst the 2nd day was also hot, yet with even stronger winds. Karl's ability to shape his Drives either way to counter the wind, as well his Sand-Save ratio were his biggest assets.

Bearing in mind that Karl finished with a better Gross result than some players in the Open division who play of +1 handicaps, it goes to show just how tough a test the course was and why it's taken players like Jason Day and Aaron Baddely to win it in the past. Although I caddied for Karl in this event due to it being the hilliest course on tour here, it was Karl himself who made all decisons relating to club selections. The only input I had as his caddy was in discussing the Green reads with him on those few occasions when he had trouble interpreting the speed and turn. However, as he proved with shooting a Career Best 5-over in yesterday's club competition without a caddy, he's prefectly capable of getting the Green reads right most of the time. That ability to play without a caddy will put him in good stead to Win this years Callaway Junior Worlds in July over in San Diego. He'll be playing in the no-caddy 9-10 years division again this year, but after having finished 13th last year, he'll give the title a serious shake this year. Rory McIlroy's first attempt at this age group saw him finish 38th, whilst the following year at age 10 he finished 5th. Karl's good mate since they first played together in the 2008 World's, Japan's Kota Murakami (pictured here to the right with Karl in 2009 ) practices 10 times more than Karl does and has the best short game in the world for his age, so it could likely end up being a tussle between Karl, Kota and another couple of regular performers for the title.

Another good mate Ryan Ruffels (who at just 13 years of age is playing off Plus 1) won the Under 14 Gross by a big margin and we hope that Ryan goes all-the-way in the 13-14 Years age division at this year's Junior Worlds.

Karl has been attending weekly Junior Clinics at the Sandringham Driving Range here in Melbourne these past few months where Head Coach Jonathan Porter has helped Karl obtain better balance with his swing, so with Karl having hit almost every fairway in regulation despite such strong winds, our thanks go out to Jonathan.

5th January: Down to 7.8!!! After narrowly missing the final cut at the Victorian Junior Masters, Karl had today free and decided to play in the member's Thursday competition at his home club. According to Karl's playing partners (I stayed home to watch the cricket), he played wonderful golf enroute to recording his new "Personal Best" with a 5-over 78, slashing his handicap down to 7.9 in the process.

January is summer holiday golf season in Australia, so tomorrow sees Karl Tee-it-up at the Stuart Appleby Golf Foundation's "Signature" Tournament on the Jack Nicklaus-designed "St Johns Course" at The Heritage Golf Club here in Melbourne. It's Karl's only realistic opportunity of winning the Gross in a tournament here due to this particular one having a 12 & Under age division.

4th January:2nd Round of the Victorian Junior Masters. To quote the tournament organisers;

"The annual Victorian Junior Masters will again attract the leading players from around Australia and Internationally in 2012. A field of 174 under 18's will tee up for the event which will commence at Waverley Golf Club on Tuesday 3 January 2012.

The event is considered Australia's leading junior golf tournament with past competitors including Adam Scott who finished in the top 5 in each of the four years he competed from the age of 15 along with winners including Aaron Baddeley in 1998, prior to winning 2 Australian Open titles, and Jason Day in 2005 who at the time was the World Junior Amateur Champion."

The 2nd day's play was played in strong, gusty winds which saw the leading players record up to 10-shots more than their first day's score. Karl's task was to stay on the fairway, and he did just that to post an impressive 82, just 1 shot more than day 1 and which saw him shoot up the leaderboard. which you can view here.

There are 169 players in the event, with a Cut-line of Top 60 plus ties. Karl was competing in the Under 14 section, so was competing with players in his age division with handicaps as good as +1, being 10 shots better than his handicap of 9. As yet we aren't sure how his age division results will be calculated, but at the cut point, Karl had missed the cut by 3 strokes and was 1-shot over his handicap.

3rd January: 1st Round of the Victorian Junior Masters featuring players from The US, England and all over Australia is in the bag with Karl competing in the 14 years age division and having a solid 81 on the Par 72 layout. Karl plays in today's afternoon field and is hoping for a similar effort today so as to make the Cut. Previous winners and players of this tournament include Adam Scott, Aaron Baddely, Jason Day, Marc Leishman and Michael Sim just to mention a few. I'll have video within a day or so.

1st January: Happy New Year to all of Karl's Friends and Supporters!

It's so hot here Downunder that tomorrow's competiton has been cancelled due to apredicted maximimum temperature of 103 degrees.

January is summer school holiday time in Australia, so Karl has been playing in the member's competitions at his home club every day this past 10 days soas to prepare for the upcoming junior tournament season which gets underway this Tuesday with the Victorian Junior Masters.In the 8 competition rounds he's played since breaking from school before Christmas, Karl's shot between 80 and 86 "off-the-stick" at Southern Golf Club which has an Australian Course Rating of 73 off the normal Men's Tees.

His round of 80 today was achieved whilst playing with 2 of our state's best Amateurs who play off +4 & +5 respectively.A 100% Sand-Save record from 5 bunkers helpedKarl's cause, as did his putting. Karl's only3-putt was on the the final green which resulted from an unfavourable bounce on his approach from 150 yards out which left him with a 60-foot putt.

His steady play has brought his Men's Handicap down to 8.7,becoming his new lowest handicap.

2011

27th December: With a raft of summer holiday tournaments starting next week, Karl's been honing his game by playing in club competitions as much as possible since starting school holidays this past Friday, scoring a consistent 10-13 over in each of those past 4 rounds. That's still left Karl with time for playdates, sleepovers and honing his Ripstick skills, and we've uploaded video of Karl's Ripsticking from yesterday here.

15th December: Karl had a great day playing in the Australian Masters Pro Am yesterday.See the video here.

Mizuno and also the tournament organiser's IMG organised a meeting with fellow Mizuno and IMG player Luke Donald, and Luke also later caught up with Karl on the putting green prior to the Pro Am. Needless to say, Karl was quite chuffed about meeting Luke.

Karl also caught up with and once again challenged Australian Footy legend Sam Newman to a contest, this time on the putting green. Unlike their match back in August, this time around the honours were shared. Sam got to keep his newest Lamborghini and Karl didn't have to hand over the keys to our 1996 Mitsubishi Magna.

For the Pro Am Karl joined Professional Mathew Giles, US Amateur Byron Meth and 13-year-old Australian team-mate Ryan Ruffels in the 4BBB format. Being on the bag for Karl was a joy, as I got to watch amazing golf by our group playing on "The Victoria" course which sits alongside the Royal Melbourne course which was used for the President's Cup and which also has greens which resemble a glass table-top. It also was co-designed by the legendary Alistair McKenzie. McKenzie designed some of the world's best courses including Augusta National, as well as the best of Melbourne's famed "Sandbelt" courses.

With 28 weeks until the 2012 Junior World's, Karl's been focusing on his swing of late, in particular of getting good weight transfer. The results are noticeable, and as we get closer to next July he'll also work on his short game a little more. Having said that though, despite us not being able to even see Karl down in most of the bunkers from the putting surface, Karl got up every time and his Sand Save ratio was awesome.

We have a few photos of Karl with Luke Donald which can be seen on Karl's Photos page here.

Karl was very grateful to both IMG and Mizuno for the opportunity yesterday. Playing in these events gives players like Karl and Ryan enormous opportunities to gain confidence from rubbing shoulders with the world's best and to pick up the odd tip. The course length isn't an issue as the juniors in Australia play from the Men's Tees anyway, but to play on one of the country's best courses, well... Karl's very grateful.

3rd December, 2011. The final round of this season's Junior Pennants was played against Huntingdale Golf Club at Southern Golf Club. Karl came against power-hitting 16-year-old Will Qoro. The match went down to the last hole, but Will's length off the Tee ultimately proved too much for Karl. Index 1 hole at Southern is a 413 Meter (455 Yard) Par 4. Karl & Will played from the back tees into a strong wind and astonishingly, Will got there in 2 shots, leaving us all with open mouths as we struggled to believe what we'd just seen. Karl (on the other hand) needed 4 hits to get there. Will undoubtedly has a bright future in golf, and we were awe-struck at how he played a Tiger-like "Stinger" Fairway wood.

Credit to little Karl for hanging in to the last hole too, as he Drove well, had his short game turned on, and but for having frequently pushed his Fairway Woods out to the right rough could have seen a different result. Karl will fix that this week, as it's only started happening this weekend and won't be hard to fix.

I'll upload video of their match within the day or so. In the meantime, here's a photo of Southern's Junior Pennant's team.

November 24: Karl did 2 radio interviews this morning. The candid interview with Radio New Zealand National's Jim Mora gives some interesting insights into Karl's goals. Click here to listen to that interview.

November 23: Karl played in the Pro Am at the Australian PGA Championships at the Hyatt Regency course in Coolum, Queensland. The weather was as great as it always is in Coolum which provided for a fun day out on the course where Karl competed in the 4BBB format.

Although Karl will have spent just 2 days at the event so as to still get in a few days at school this week, he realised his dream of rubbing shoulders with some of his idols, including warming up on the driving range alongside Bubba Watson, with British Open winner Darren Clarke just a few bays along. Darren proved his heart is as big as people say, spending time to chat with and encourage Karl.

Staying at the resort enabled Karl to also stop and chat with his biggest supporter Greg Norman. He may be a superstar, but Greg always takes the time to encourage others and better still he remembers people, just as he did with Karl as they'd met previously at a press conference in Sydney last year.

Australia's top golfers are a hugely supportive mob and Stuart Appleby, Geoff Ogilvy and Aaron Baddeley all gave their time to chat with and encourage Karl in his journey. All those guys give generously to charities and Stuart Appleby in particular supports his own Stuart Appleby Junior Golf Foundation in Melbourne, where Karl plays and receives enormous support.

Last but not least, every junior golfer's "coolest player" Rickie Fowler bumped into Karl in the resort's village. Upon asking Karl if he was here to watch the golf, Rickie was taken aback when Karl replied that he was actually here to play. Rickie definately is "California Cool", and Karl left mesmerised.

Karl could have met more of the players, but our room had the Nickelodean channel and as we don't have Foxtel at home, Karl spent the remainder of the day watching Sponge Bob Squarepants, swimming in the pool and playing Ping Pong.

November 17: November 23.Presidents Cup week. The Americans are in our town to take on everyone else except for the Europeans. Karl spent the Tuesday and Wednesday practice days getting to watch the players up close and will spend the weekend joining in the excitement of The Presidents Cup.

Karl's also pumped up for his upcoming Pro Am appearancesat both The Australian PGA next week and the following JB Were Australian Masters, so is training with more purpose and hitting the ball great.

November 14: Round 2 of the Club Championships took place with Karl shooting another 87 on a ACR (Course rating) of 74, seeing him finish 3 shots over his handicap. He finished 11th out of a field of 190 Men members in the Overall Club Championships which was played off scratch, and 2nd in the Club's Junior Championships. which was played of handicap. Great effort by Karl, particularly as he again played without a caddy. Playing without a caddy is going to make him very hard to beat in next year's Callaway Junior Worlds, as his age division in played without Caddies, seeing some otherwise good performing players struggle without having a caddy to assist with club selections and other options. Karl actually finished T13th in those championships this year as a 9yo with next year still to play in that 9-10 yearsdivision.When Rory McIlroy played that same 9-10 age division, hefinished 8th as a 10yo. Rickie Fowler finished 59th and 33rd in the 2 years that he competed in that 9-10 years division.

November 13: Round 1 of the club's junior championships was played today, with the final round tomorrow. It was played off the Championship Tees and Pin positions, so with the ACR rated as 74, Karl's target score was 85. He finished with an 87 so he was 3 shots over his handicap for the day. Sloppy double bogey start and finish holes didn't help, but measuring 6,849 yards and not using a caddy, it was a very good effort by the little guy.

This weekend is his club's annual junior (Under 21) championships. Although having next to no chance of winning the Gross event unless a few of Melbourne's finest young players at his club come down with a mystery illness, Karl hopes to contend in the Nett section. It'll be played off the Championship Tees though, so Karl's relatively short length compared to the big boys will be an issue unless he fires up his short game. Good luck Karl.

November 10: Karl was invited for a quick 1-day trip up from Melbourne to Sydney on Wednesday this week to promote the new Xbox Kinect Season Two. Channel 7's early morning Sunrise show did a feature on his visit and that can be viewed here. I leave Karl alone with journalists so that he can feel free to speak in his own words. On this occasion he had told the journalist (Edwina) that he couldn't really turn Pro until he is 18, so I'll need to remind Karl of his promise to finish University (College in the US) before making any decisions like that. There's a lot of childhood and learning to fit in between now and then.

Whilst there, the tournament staff looked after Karl well, so thanks so much for that. He also got a quick look up close at most of the top players including Greg Norman, Tiger, Geoff Ogilvy, Bubba Watson, Nick Watney, Adam Scott, Matt Kuchar and Jason Day. Bubba really is as spontaneous and crazy as he's reputed to be. Karl also caught up with some of the people who have supported him including footy icon Sam Newman.

November 7: Australian Open week. Tiger's back in form, so the golfing world is rapt.The sky above our housewas abuzz with TV helicopters this morning due to Tiger giving a corporate golf clinic at the nearby Capitol Golf Club, a mere 2 miles away in readiness for his upcoming Australian Open and Presidents Cup appearances.

Karl played Junior Pennants yesterday and had a lesson in the importance of course management and Matchplay strategy, going down 4 & 2 to his 15-year-old opponent. Both players played exceptional golf and his opponent fully deserved the Win, but some of the lessons which Karl hopefully learnt were;

• Make your opponent Win a hole, don't give it up on a hole until his ball is in the hole.
• Bogey can still halve a hole sometimes. Aiming to Halve a holeafter a poor Tee Shot is smarter than trying a high-risk miracle shot in an effort to still win the hole.
• Remember that Pennants golf is a team game and that your own result can be the difference between our team winning and losing.
• Never leave a Putt for a Halve short of the hole.
• Hide your disppointment after a poor shot. Matchplay is all in the mind.
• It's a good idea to use a Caddie.

Karl's only 10-years-old, so despite having a Men's handicap of just 9.5, his decision-making is lacking sometimes. That will improve with age, as his opponents are oftentwice his size andDriving 80 yards further than him, and yet Karl was the longest Driver witin his age group at the World Championships this year.

November 6th:Karl doesn't avoid any particular junior competitions or courses, or fail to hand in bad cards in an effort to protect his handicap. We all know it goes on, but that's just not Karl's style. Saturday was the Monthly Medal at Southern which Karl could have chosen not to play if he wanted to protect his handicap because the round was played off it's full 6263 meters ( 6849 yards) Championship Tees with the Flags placed in the championship positions, making the course a formidable challenge for scratch players, let alone Karl. As a comparison, the Presidents Cup course just 5 minutes from our course will be played off 6,397 meters. He needed 3 shots to get to the Par 4's and 4 shots to reach the Par 5's from the back Tees, so although not a perfect round, Karl actually did quite well for the day to shoot a 91. If every facet of his game had been 100%, an 85 would have been his best possible score, but Putts lipped out instead of falling in. That's golf!

October 30: The 2012 Junior Pennants gets under way in extremely wet & windy conditions with Karl registering a 4 & 3 Win at the magnificent Metropolitan Golf Club, one of Australia's Top-10 courses and rated as having amongst the best fairways in the world.

Karl hadn't played any competitive golf for over a month and it showed, with him starting off badly and losing the opening 2 holes to his 15yo opponent who was off a 4 handicap to Karl's 10. However, after that shakey start Karl fought back strongly with solid Driving and Fairway woods and an outstanding short game that saw him getting up & down from unlikely situations.

The windy conditions probably favoured Karl, as although Karl's drives were 100 yards shorter than his opponent's, Karl's shorter length meant that he was less subject to being affected by the strong wind. Karl's strategy was to accept that he'd get beaten up on the holes where his opponent stayed on the fairway, but that if he took advantage of the occasions where his opponent did leave the fairway, that his short game would take care of the rest.

October 25:The "R & A" and the USGA move with the times.

The revised Rules of Golf which come into affect in 2012 bring in a raft of sensible changes, including;

• The player not being penalised when their ball moves at address
• Amateurs being allowed to receive greater assisstance from outside sources, including assisstance withcertain living expenses for players who's golf would otherwise be disadvantaged

This 2nd point directly affects kids like Karl, as his golf has been greatly affected by his socio- economic situation. Potential Supporters have been reticent in providing support due to being worried at jeapordizing Karl's Amateur status, so this change will open doors to players who weren't necessarily" born with a sliver spoon in their mouth" and may possibly see golf's next Superstar come from a most unlikely source.

October 17: It's been hard for Karl to get motivated since returning from the high of winning the world championships in The US due to the total absence of any 18-hole competitions against kids his age. Australian junior golf does a stellar job in providing opportunities both for kids to get started in golf and also in the older 18-hole tournaments where there are age divisions for Under 14, Under 16, etc. However, there's a gap that currently exists between the two formats where talented kids in the 8-12 years range who have excelled at the starting level have limited opportunities to push their games to any significant level. There are only a few kids that fall into this category, but Australia is falling behind our neighbouring countries in terms of performance in the youngest age divisions. The LPGA is now seeing Asian golfers dominate ladies golf and this dominance can be traced back to the support of junior golf right from the younger age divisions. With the growth of golf in Asia, the traditional golf powerhouses including The USA and Europe need to take a good look at how the Asian golf associations are recognizing that tomorrow's Major Champions are already playing golf at an early age, just as Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Rickie Fowler, Phil Mickelson, Lorena Ochoa and Yani Tseng did.

Anyway, back to Karl. He's been starting to get back into practice this past few weeks, focusing on playing 9-holes every couple of days with me in the cool of the evening and coupling that with work on his wedges, in particular his Lob Wedge.With our club's driving range being in a poor state, Karl has been hitting off the matts at a local driving range twice a week to try to keep his long game at a manageable level.

Right now though he's having 5 days off with having spent this past weekend having a sleepover and the first part of this week participating in his first school camp. Karl's been excited about his first school camp and has had his bag packed for the past week in anticipation. From Thursday it'll be back to business as he starts to build back up to a normal practice routine ahead of the Junior Pennants season commencing at month's end, as well as the Stuart Appleby Signature Tournament next month where he'll compete in the 12 & Under division. It's the only 18-hole tournament for the year where Karl can compete in such a young age division, with most tournaments having 14 & under as the youngest age division.

October 1st: Been taking it easy both tournament and practice-wise since we got back to Australia in early August so that Karl can recharge his batteries before the Junior Pennants season starts in late October, spending more time kicking the football and at the cricket nets than playing golf. Melbourne had the wettest September in over 50 years, so Karl has spent way too much time indoors on the X-Box. We're looking forward to less wind & rain for the 2nd week of school holidays so we can get some fishing in and play a few 9-hole competitions and a Pitch'n'Putt tournament in these next 10 days before school goes back.

August 18: Karl appears on Ch 9's "Footy Show". The show's Sam Newman had challenged Karl to a round of golf the previous day, and is was hilarious.

August 16: Karl appears on the Front Page of Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper promoting the JB Were Australian Masters. Full story on this page.

In addition to being his 10th Birthday today, Karl appears on Ch 7's "today Tonight" evening current affairs TV show. Click here to view.

August 15: Management group and owners of the Australian Masters tournament IMG announce that Karl is the #1 Ticket holder for the upcoming 2011 JB Were Australian Masters. See Press.

August 12:Our returnback from Pinehurst took a couple of days, so I apologise for being out of contact for that period of time as I didn't have access to internet.Wehadthe 9-hour drive from Pinehurst to Florida including an overnight in Jacksonville, then the 4 1/2 flight to Los Angelesfollowed by an 8-hour layover, finishing with a 14 1/2 hour flight to Melbourne.Little Karl wasexhausted andslept for 12-hours last night. He starts school again today though, as he needs to catch up after missing 2 weeks.

Once again, thanks to the members at Southern Golf Club for supporting Karl's campaign. So many of the thousands who have viewed Karl's stories have applauded Karl's achievements, and it's great to see that most everyone realises that he is still just a 9-year-old who also plays other team sports and still has sleepovers with his mates but who also just happens to be good at golf. However, onesource had suggested that Karl is a spoilt little rich kid who gets all the breaks. That couldn't be further from the truth as he actually comes from a disadvantaged sole parent background and lives in government emergency housing whilst we await a permanent subsidised rental. We live in hope that our 1996 Magna doesn't break down each time we drive it. It was this financial circumstance that saw him miss out on defending that world title last year, so getting the backing for him to belatedly defend that title this year and see him do it was remarkable and shows how generousand non-judgmental that 99% of Melbourne sports fans are.

August 9: We've just driven 7 hours from Pinehurst down to Jacksonville, Florida so as to catch our flight from Orlando to LAXto Melbourneand will arrive into Melbourne at 7.55am on the 11th (that's Thursday, right?).

August 6 6pm:

"Karl Vilips of Australia capped off a remarkable comeback to claim the Boys 9 division in exciting fashion on Pinehurst No. 8. Vilips began the day three strokes behind the lead, but did all in his power to come out on top, carding a final-round 5-under-par 67 to come out on top by a single stroke. He recorded a birdie on No. 18 to edge David Hu of Canada by the slimmest of margins. Hu did all he could to catch Vilips, as he birdied Nos. 17 and 18, but still came up one stroke shy at 5-under-par 211."

As it now stands after 2 rounds, Karl is sitting outright 3rd, 3 shots behind the leader and with 4 shots separating himself and 4th. The winner after the final round (which should hopefully get finished this evening)will mostlikely come from one of theleading bunch of3 players, so Karl is in with a real good shot at his 2nd title here. We need today's final round to be completed, otherwise the positions after Round 2 will be final.

August 5: Weather saw the 2nd roundremain incompletefor the final 5 groups, with Karl sitting at 2-under for the round with a 9' par putt remaining on the 16th Green when the siren sounded to halt play for the final time at 8pm. Karl played pure golf to be 3-under for the first 7 1/2 holes before play was halted due to approaching thunderstorms. It bucketed down for a few hours before play was able to recommence, but it became hard work for the players thereafter. Karl bogeyed the 11th and answered immediately with a tap-in Birdie 3 on the following hole. Karl's been duck-hooking his Fairway Woods this pastfortnight and did so again whilst "playing safe" with a 5-wood on the 14th today off the Tee. Those 2 fairway woods have cost Karl at least 5 shots this tournament as every shot he's played with them have gone badly left. I'd assumed that it was Karl causing the problem so had him working to counteract it, but closer inspection showed that both his 3 & 5 R9 fairway woods have been altered to a "draw" setting. They'd always been set to Neutral for the past year since he's had them, so heaven knows how, why or when they were altered. As his Caddie and father I should havelooked more into this issueprior to now, so I feel responsible for Karl's left misses this past fortnight. To be sitting where he is in the tournament right now with the disadvantage he's unknowingly had with those woods is testament to how gutsy the little fella is.

Failing light and heavy rain set in as Karl putted for Birdie again on the 16th, but with himbattling toread the green speed due to the lack of light, he uncharacteristically ran his putt 9' past the hole. The Horn sounded as that Birdie putt left his putter, leaving Karl to (hopefully)make that putt and complete the final 2 holes of his 2nd round at 7am in the morning before returning at 1.10pm for the 3rd & final round.

It appears that Karl is 2-shots off the lead and sitting either 2nd or 3rd as it stands right now.

August 4: The completion of Round 1 sees Karl shooting a 1-over par 73 and sitting 2-shots behind the leaders. Karl's roundcontained a combination oflong driving that was complimented by numerous short irons that peppered the flagsitck and netted him2 Birdies on the front 9 to go to the turn 1-under the card. The 100 degree heat tested the player's concentration including Karl's. The par 5 11th hole saw his round take a hiccup with a triple bogey 8. True to form, Karl came back with 2 further Birdies and a bogey after that to finish what was an otherwise superb display of shot-making and putting.

Considering that uncharacteristic 8, Karl could well go a few shots lower in tomorrow's round. He Tees of after lunchwith a 40% chance of thunderstorms. The Leaderboard can be seenhere.

August1: With Pinehurst # 8 unavailable for play today, Karl played the host course for the his age division for next year, the Little River Golf Club. The yardage was 400 yards longer than what he'll play at Pinehurst #8, yet he still managed a 1-under round of 71 that saw him reach almost every green in regulation. His new Driver is pummeling the ball longer than he's ever hit,resulting in less club coming into the green. He had 4 Birdies today and left so many tantalisingly closethat shavedthe cup, so hopefully those Birdie putts are saving themselves for the Worlds starting this Thursday.

July 26 & 27th: Karl competed in a local 2-day 36-hole junior event at the Donald Ross designed Mid-Pines Golf Course in Pinehurst held by the Tin Whistles First Tee Sandhills. Karl's division was 13 years & under and caddy-free, played off 5454 Yards the 1st Round and 4921 Yards the 2nd round. Karl shot rounds of 79 & 75 to finish 2 strokes behind 12yo winner Drew Viney-Sinsley and a shot ahead of 10yo local and world #7 Chris Eagle Kim. Scores here.

July 19: Karl finishes Tied 5th at the FCG World Championships at PGA West in California.

July 14:Karl finishes Tied 13th at the Callaway Junior World Championships.

June 28: Karl appears in the upcoming July edition of the Golf Victoria Magazine.

June 23: Karl joins hostsMichael Christian and Tony Jones live in the studio at Melbourne's specialty sports radio station, Radio Sports National.

June 16: Karl appears in Australian Golf Digest

May 27: Golf Victoria feature Karl'sin theirOnline Newsand Full Story here.

May 17: Golf Australia feature Karl in their Online magazine under Latest News. Click here to view the article. May 14: Karl appears in Melbourne's "The Age" newspaper. Click here to view.

May 12: Karl named "Player of the Month" by Stuart Appleby Junior Golf for the month of April.

April 30. Shoots a 9-over 81 in the members Saturday competition at Southern Golf Club to back up his record round from the previous week.

April 25. New Personal Best with a round of 80 to finishRunner-up (after c/b)at Southern olf Club's ANZAC Day competition. 8-over becomes Karl's best round to date on a full Par 72 course in competition. Unfortunately the greens had just been cored, so Karl actually missed a few short putts which he'd usually make.

April 21. Gross Winner, Under 10 division of the April Holidays round of the Victorian Under 16 Pitch'n'Putt Championships. Misses out on the overall win by 1 shot.

April 19. Gross Winner of the Croydon Golf Club's Under-16 years Pump Shootout on a modified 9-hole stroke event with a brilliant even Par 36.

April 15. Runner-up, Kilmore Memorial Junior Open Under 14's Gross with an 84 on the Par 70 course.

April 13. Gross Winner, Amstel Golf Club's Pump Shootout on a modified 9-hole stroke with a score of 39.

April 12, 2011.Runner-up (after c/b) in the "B" Handicap divisionat the 2011 Huntingale Junior Open with an 87 on the Par 72 for 35 Stableford Points. Click here for results and here for full scores.

April 11, 2011. Gross Winner ofthe 10 & Under section of the Stuart Appleby Golf Foundation's Rookie Event at Oakleigh Golf Course.

February 11, 2011. Karl wraps up his first season of Junior Interclub Pennants with7wins and 1 loss. His youngest opponent was 12 years old and his oldest was 17 years of age.

January 21:Karl equals his PB, shooting a 9-over 81 at his home course whilst playing with hisSponsors and a Touring Professional from the Mens Tees. Sanctuary Cove Golf Course measures 7105 yards from the Men's Tees.

2010

December 24 - January 11. No golf for Karl ashis Dad is hospitalised with Vertigo over Christmas and whilstall tournaments are cancelled due to Queensland'stragic floods.

December 15: 9 Year old Karl misses the cut of Australia's 2010 "Greg Norman Junior Classic" in the 13 Years & Under division by a single stroke with rounds of 88, 88 & 83 off the Mens Competition Tees at the Coolangatta Tweed Heads Golf Club. For full results, click herePreviouscompetitors of this event include Adam Scott, Geoff Ogilvy, Jason Day, Michael Sim, Karrie Webb,& Katherine Hull. New Handicap: 14.4.

November 28: With the Junior Pennants season just a week away and theyear's biggest junior tournaments the following week, Karl is peaking his game after a month of taking things pretty easy (practise-wise). ClickHERE to view some hot shots from thatdays practice round.

November 22: Ch 10's "The Pro Shop" features a story on Karl.The show's crewwere actually up on the Gold Coast in September doing a story on courses up here when we met the crew on the 1st Tee atKarl's home club.

November 14: Karl appeared on Ch 9 's "Weekend Today" Masters Special where Airlie Walsh interviewed him. Clickhere for the link.

November 10: Karl met his idol Tiger Woods down at the Australian Masters in Melbourne for a very private one-on-one where they just "hung out" for a short while.Tiger was incredibly gracious with his time and treatedKarl as "one of the guy's". A big thank you to those who made it happen for the little fella.

October 28: Karl's takin' things easy for the next few weeks as the Queensland junior season grinds to a halt until the inter-club Pennants series starts later next month.

October 17: Winner, 2010 Ian Baker-Finch/AustraliaZoo Classic, Queensland, Australia. Under 10 Years Gross Winner. Karl's 88 was also the best Gross score in the Under 12's.

September 29:Karl was invited to play in the Wednesday Men's Comp at Surfers Paradise Golf Club and came in with 38 Stableford points Birdieing the Par 4 First hole got him off to great 4-point head start. His Gross score of 85 sees his Handicap drop to 14.6.

September 28: Winner. Karl shoots 39 Gross in Australia's PGA run Pump Golf Shootout held on the FrontNine of the Redland Bay Golf Club's 2909 Meter (3181 Yards) Par 36 layout. Hisscorecard included four successive "3's" on it.With his win hequalified to get into a draw for the national grand prize.

September 20: Winner. Karl shoots 83 on the Par 70South Course at Nudgee Golf Club to win the 13 Years & Under Grossof the"Jack Downs Junior Classic". Measuring 5667 Meters (6197 Yards), and played in persistent rain. The course has numerous water hazards that claimed 2 of Karl's balls. New Handicap TBA.

September 12: Karl's continued strong performances see his Men's Handicap drop to a new low of 15.8. He's struggling a little with consistency with playing against the 13 years & Under players, but is looking for to next year's introduction of an 11 & Under age group here in Queensland.

August 9: Winner. Karl wins the B-Grade Handicap Division of the Toogoolawah Junior Open. Shoots 81 Gross to win the 14-23 Handicap division on the Par 71, 6,327 Yard layout.

August 3:Karl has had to withdraw from this year's World Championships due to insufficient funding. We wish the kids over at Pinehurst all the best and look forward to catching up with you all at next year's championships.

July 18: Karl played in the Queensland Amateur Pitch'n'Putt Championships,finishing Runner-upin the Under 13 Gross. The tournament consisted of 18-holesper dayplayed over 2 days.The players were allowed only 3 clubs on holes varying from 30-70 meters in length, so it was a great test of the player's short games.

July 15: Karl appeared on Channel 9's Gold Coast News.

July 10: Karlhas reluctantly withdrawn from theCallaway JuniorWorld Championships due to start on July 13 due to a funding shortfall, but is still hopeful of being able todefend his US Kids World Championships title in 2 week's time. Anyone able to assist can contacthis Dad at pauls@westnet.com.auor on 0410646708.

July 1: Karl's Men's Handicap drops to a new personal best of 16.8 after 2solid rounds from the Men's Teesat the Titleist Winter Classic.

June 3: Karlwas invited to joinGreg Norman at a Press Conference for the upcoming Australian Open. The Shark had some words of wisdom regarding Karl's future in the game in an interview with Ch 10's Sports Tonightand Channel 9.

May 21: Karl appeared live On Air with Australia's#1radio Talkback Host Alan Jones.

May 11.Karl spoke via telephone withMelbourne talkback radio Host Steve Price and Jason Ackermanis.

May 8: Video Story on Karl in Sydney'sThe Daily Telegraph

April 27: Karl be appeared onChannel 9 news

April 26: Channel 9 News"Teaser" for the story on Karl

April 16: Karl's Australian Men's Handicap reduced to 17.2

April 11,2010: Karlappeared live in the studio ofChannel 9's Wide World of Sports on the Sunday morning of The 2010Masters golf tournament, April 11.

March 2010:Coaching. Aside from attending Sunday morning kid's golf clinics when he first started playing, Karl's always been coachedby his Dad. It's now about time that Karl hadsome Professional coaching here in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs. If you're a teaching pro who is passionate about junior golf and am enthusuiastic about helping Karl, we'd love to hear from you.

Feb 2010: Runner-Up (after playoff), 2010 Callaway FCG World Championships. We went toSan Diego in the USA in Februaryfor the 2010 Callaway FCG World Championships.

Following shooting a 3 over par on Day 1,Karlstarted the final round 3 strokes behind the leader, dual world champion Alexander Pak and a shot behind former world champ Brett Sodetz on Sunday.With some accurate driving and very good putting, Karlmanaged to bridge that gap with a bogey free round consisting of 3 birdies that also proved to be the tournament's lowest round.

After finishing Tiew for 1st after the qualifying rounds, they played in thelongest Playoff in the history of Future Champions Golf against Alexander Pak, wherebyKarl eventually got beaten by a birdie to his Par. There's bothofficial video from the final day available at the FCG World Championships official YouTube pagewhere Karl is featured 3 times. In case you can't recognise him without shorts on, he is wearing theblack trousers and Green Titleist cap. There's alsopersonal video shot by one of the parents showing Karl playing a few shots on the final round.

It was a great effort by Karl, as the winner will be in the next age group up for the mid-year tour, leaving Karl asone of thefavourites to contend for the Callaway Junior Worlds and to defend his US Kids World title in August.

You can view photos of Karl playing at that event at his Photobucket album.

1st September: After winning last week's opening round of the IJGT tour at Sea Island, Georgia in what was a relatively small field, Karl was going to be put to the real test at the season's first full field this weekend at Oldfield Country Club here at Hilton Head.

After starting on Day 1 with a 9-over 81, Karl sat down with me and we worked out what needed to be done to turn things around on Day 2. Karl made 3 big changes that made a huge difference;

1. He went back to his Cleveland Driver which has served him so loyally for the past 2 years and which saw him hit every fairway in today's 2nd round;
2. He switched back to his older Mizuno MP12 Sand Wedge which paid immediate dividends with a vital sand save at the 10th hole. Having less bounce on that wedge allows him to get up & down if he short-sides himself.
3. Karl used his push cart for the first time in 2 weeks. The result- a much faster swing speed due to his shoulders not being so tired which added 20 yards, plus a player with a lot more energy to use on his game.

As a result, Karl shot the day's low score for the Boys Overall, a 2-under 70 from the 6700 yard Black Tees. It was a really good turn-around by Karl and made us all very proud of the way he showed us once again just how capable he is at barely 12 years of going low on yardages which are set for 14-year-olds. Scores here. and video here.

12th August: We've uploaded the Final Round from the US Kids World Championships. Click here to view it.

9th August: For those who are interested in statistics, here are some from the US Kids Worlds 11-years boys division;

• Most Birdies;
• 17- Karl Vilips (2nd place)
• 16- Robin Tiger Williams (5th place)
• 15- Carson Levit (3rd place) & Xiangrui Bai (Tied 6th)
• 13- Michael Thorbjornsen (winner), Louis Dobbelaar (Tied 6th), Marcus Smith (Tied 6th) & David Hu (12th)
• 12- Connery Meyer (4th place)
• Most Eagles: 1 each by;
• Karl Vilips
• Michael Thorbjornsen
• Connery Meyer

What does this statistic tell us? It tells us that despite having less Birdies, that the winner managed to have less bogeys than the other leaders, which is the key to winning a tournament.

7th August: Day 1 video of Karl's 1st round at the US Kids Worlds is now up on his YouTube page. Clink here to view.

5th August: 2nd Place for Karl at this year's US Kids World Championships.

The Lead group which Karl was in were 3 & 4 shots ahead of the next group at the start of play. With the Pin positions tucked tight we assumed that as in most final rounds that nobody would shoot the lights out and that if Karl shot 1 or 2 under and beat his fellow players in his group that he'd win world title #4.

The other boys in his group started the day a shot ahead of Karl and by the completion of the 9th hole he had taken the lead in his threesome. However, somewhere around the 12th hole Karl had gotten word from the gallery that last year's champion Michael Thorbjornsen in the group ahead was shooting the lights out. At that stage Karl was a couple over Par yet leading his group by quite a few (they would eventually return cards of 77 & 76) so Karl put the pedal to the metal and Birdied holes 12, 15, 16 & 17 to try to catch up, but ultimately came up 2-shots short when he Bogied the last hole where he needed one more Birdie to force a Play-off.

Karl learned a lot from the round, as he had won this title in 2011 in the same fashion when he shot a surprising 5-under 67 to take those leaders by surprise. It was Karl's turn this year to be taken by surprise by an astonishing final round by a very deserving winner. We had targeted 10-under as the winning score and although Karl dropped a shot on the final round, he can be extremely proud of his result. 9-Under eventually claimed the titled this year.

In the 5 times that Karl has competed in these championships his results have been remarkably consistent and are as follows;

• Age 6:   7th out of 83 players
• Age 7:   1st out of 97 players
• Age 8:   DNP
• Age 9:   1st out of 139 players
• Age 10: 6th out of 149 players
• Age 11: 2nd out of 149 players

We'd like to express our thanks to the supporters back in Australia who helped Karl to compete in these championships. Our gratitude is enormous. We'd like to express our thanks to all of our friends in Pinehurst who are essentially Karl's pit-crew for the week, particularly our good friends, the Dutton family.

Last but not least, a huge congratulations to the US Kids Golf organization and to the countless volunteers who help make this the best 12 & Under golf tournament in the world.

31st December: Karl's round by the numbers. We get a lot of emails from juniors asking how to put a round together, so from time to time we'll publish Karl's own post-round report card which he does for himself after each round in important tournaments. It helps any player, but particularly juniors see what parts of their game are working, and where it is that you're dropping shots more often.

To see Karl's own report card of his 1st round at the 66th Donald Ross Junior Championships from Saturday, click here.

From that report card, Karl was able to identify where and why things happened. He was able to see that he dropped 5 shots in the first 8 holes he played. The sub-freezing morning and the inability to warm up properly due to the range being over-crowded due to the shotgun start helped Karl understand where those poor holes came from.

He was also able to identify that he played the last 10 holes in 2-under, because by then he himself had warmed up, as did the conditions. 

The most important observation however, was that despite starting poorly, Karl was determined to get his round back on track. With his age group not allowing a caddy, that realisation that he can come back strong after a poor starts was a big positive to take from the round. In fact, at the Junior Worlds back in July Karl started poorly in the first round, going to 3-over after just 4 holes before reminding himself that there were still 50 holes to play in the tournament. He played the balance of that first round with 4 Birdies to record a 1-under round.

The moral of the story, never give up. 

29th December: Torrential overnight rain which persisted all morning forced the final round of the 66th Donald Ross Junior Championship to be cancelled, resulting in the placings being determined by the 1st round. 

As such, Karl received his first ever AJGA Performance Stars (2 of them) for finishing Top 10 in the 12-14's in the field of 76 players in that age group.

Here's some trivia: 

1.Karl didn't get a start in the tournament until 15-minutes before Tee-off due to having been on the cancellation list. 

2. Due to the morning Shotgun start and the driving range being 4-deep with players waiting to warm-up and the Chipping area closed due to frost, many players didn't get a warm-up. With the temperature having dropped below freezing overnight, that made for (quite literally) a cold start. Karl started from the 10th and with not having gotten the chance to have warmed up, was 5-over after 8 holes before kicking into gear, splitting the fairway hole after hole and playing the final 10 holes in 2-under.

3. This was Karl's only tournament for the Christmas break.

Thanks so much to our good friends in Pinehurst for hosting Karl this past week and seeing him have a wonderful Christmas with their families.

28th December:  Karl sits in a Tie for 8th place after the 1st round of the 66th Donald Ross Junior Championship at Pinehurst. There are 76 players in the 12-14 Boys division, with only older boys which include another world champion aove him on the leaderboard.

Tomorrow's forecast to be very wet, so after today sunny day we could see vastly different scores come in tomorrow.

To keep up to date with the scores, click here.

13th December: Black Friday the 13th- that's for sure! Karl's underging hot & cold therapy on his elbow following the most innocuous of accidents, knocking it after waking up suddenly on the school bus the morning after a big Christmas celebration. He'll be pulling out all stops to be ready for his final IJGT event of the year at the legendary Pete Dye/Jack Nicklaus masterpiece at Harbour Town, Hilton Head Island. Thumbs up for frozen peas!

The Sunday round will feature a Live Broadcast of one of the iconic holes. Further details will be available soon.

11th December: The latest IJGT player rankings have Karl still sharing the top of the 14 Years & Under rankings alongside Pennsylvanian Joe Parrini with Japanese prodigy Takafumi Shimoji in hot pursuit. Click here to view those latest rankings.

3rd December: The Awards Ceremony from the TPC Sawgrass tournament is now uploaded. Click here to view it.

Karl's next tournament is in 2 week's time at another PGA Tour stop and Pete Dye masterpiece in Harbour Town at Hilton Head Island, just a few minutes from Karl's training facility at the IJGA.

2nd December: Lucky Karl. So far this season on the IJGT (International Junior Golf Tour) Karl's either already played on or is about to play on the following courses with their Golf Digest "Americas Greatest Public Courses" rankings alongside;

• Sea Island Resort (36)
• TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course (9)
• Harbor Town, Hilton Head (18)
• Kiawah Island Ocean Course (4)

In the past couple of seasons he's also played on the following;

• Pinehurst # 2 (7)
• Pine Needles (47)
• Pinehurst # 8 (57)

Add to that having played the following courses on Golf Digest's Top 100 Courses Outside the US;

• Kingston Heath, Melbourne (9)
• Victoria Golf Club, Melbourne (58)
• Metropolitan Golf Club, Melbourne (61)
• Lake Karrinyup, Perth (86)

Karl appreciates that he's fortunate to get to play on these courses.

1st December: WIN.

Despite breaking his Driver before the tournament, Karl wins the 14 & Under Division of the IJGT's Thanksgiving Day Classic at TPC Sawgrass which was highlighted by a lip-out for Ace on the signature 17th Island Hole.

In his acceptance speech Karl said “I felt confident, but I didn’t want to get arrogant because I knew some of the players had the ability to catch up… I just wanted to shoot a score that would at least have a chance to win.”

Interestingly, the Girls winner Rei Nakatani used to play with Karl in Jack Newton Junior Golf tournaments in Sydney. Hats off to what Jack Newton has done for junior golf back in Australia.

The full post-tournament report can be viewed here.

30th November:  Karl heads into the 3rd and Final Round of the IJGT's Thanksgiving Day Classic at TPC Sawgrass with a 1-shot lead in the 14 & Under Boys. Strong winds and cold weather have made scoring difficult, but it's all about getting the win.

29th November: Karl appears in the December issue of Golf Australia magazine. The link is here.

20th November: Karl's dream to play at TPC Sawgrass is about to come true. He's now in the field for the IJGT's Thanksgiving Day Classic. The tournament actually comprises of 3 rounds over the 3 days of the Thanksgiving Day Weekend, with Days 1 & 2 played on the Valley Course and the Final Day on Pete Dye's iconic Stadium Course. 

Karl's age divison of 14 & Under will play from the Men's White Tees, whereas the 15-19's will play from the Tips.

To all those who keep asking, we're sorry for the lack of tournament video lately as I'm currently back in Melbourne for a little while. Karl's in great hands at the IJGA, just like the other 150-odd golf and tennis juniors who live & study there.

19th November: Karl's finger's are crossed that he can get a late entry into the field of the IJGT event at TPC Sawgrass to be held over the upcoming Thanksgiving Holiday weekend and playing both the courses. It's such an iconic course that he's dreamed of playing on and of following in the footsteps of so many of the game's modern greats.

Karl was this week's IJGA Student Spotlight. To view the article, click here.

13th November: Video of the Awards Ceremony from Karl's win on the weekend can be viewed here.

Karl will now be having 3 weeks off before (hopefully) playing in the IJGT event at TPC Sawgrass at month's end. 

10th November:  WIN. Karl wins in succesive weeks, this time at the IJGT's Major Championship at Palmetto Hall, a George Fazio design located on Hilton Head Island.

A disciplined 1st round conducted in gusty winds saw Karl head into the 2nd round with a healthy 4-shot lead. However, a distatrous 5th hole where his wayward drive refused to come down from a tree brought Japanese prodigy Takafumi back into the game. The 2 players eventually went to a Play-off which Karl prevailed in after a flop shop from beside a tree left him with a 2 inch tap-in for Par and the title. The 2 boys are so evenly matched that each week sees them with a battle on their hands.

The IJGT's own post round summary can be read here and the final scores here.

3rd November: WIN. Karl wins the IJGT Island Open on the Arthur Hills course at Palmetto Hall Plantation Club on Hilton Head Island by 8 strokes. 

A windy autumn day on a course which, with its narrow fairways and abundant water hazards is designed to be played in typically calm conditions, saw scores throughout the field blow-out from the first day's scores. Karl's front 9 was a struggle and he went out in 42, but he dug deep on the inward 9 with 8 pars and a lone double to finish the day 8-over and win his 3rd IJGT title amongst strong competition.

Karl would like to thank his coach Shawn at the IJGA on the work they've been doing lately and also Molly from the IJGT for running another smooth tournament.

3rd November: WIN. Karl wins the IJGT Island Open on the Arthur Hills course at Palmetto Hall Plantation Club on Hilton Head Island by 8 strokes. 

A windy autumn day on a course which, with its narrow fairways and abundant water hazards is designed to be played in typically calm conditions, saw scores throughout the field blow-out from the first day's scores. Karl's front 9 was a struggle and he went out in 42, but he dug deep on the inward 9 with 8 pars and a lone double to finish the day 8-over and win his 3rd IJGT title amongst strong competition.

Karl would like to thank his coach Shawn at the IJGA on the work they've been doing lately and also Molly from the IJGT for running another smooth tournament.

3rd November: WIN. Karl wins the IJGT Island Open on the Arthur Hills course at Palmetto Hall Plantation Club on Hilton Head Island by 8 strokes. 

A windy autumn day on a course which, with its narrow fairways and abundant water hazards is designed to be played in typically calm conditions, saw scores throughout the field blow-out from the first day's scores. Karl's front 9 was a struggle and he went out in 42, but he dug deep on the inward 9 with 8 pars and a lone double to finish the day 8-over and win his 3rd IJGT title amongst strong competition.