Matt Nicolle’s nickname is “The English Enforcer,” and for very good reason. The no.1 ranked LDET player and defending tour champion delivered an unbelievable performance in 2017, earning 4 wins and another 4 top-3 finishes in his first full season on the tour (playing 8 of 9 events).
So what’s better than perfect? LDET fans may soon find out.
“I’m looking to continue my run into 2018,” Nicolle says. “I’m feeling good about the season and have a lot of events over a short period, so [I] can get into a groove.”
The 27-year-old Brute Golf athlete didn’t spend the offseason basking in glory, instead he’s approaching his LDET career with a veteran mentality. “I’ve been preparing through specific training and practice for a while now,” Nicolle says. “Lots of dynamic work and building strength, and building speed through overspeed training.” He works on his swing and equipment indoors while coaching and club fitting in central London as a PGA pro. “Dialing in my numbers, equipment and swing is an ongoing process which continues throughout the season.”
Nicolle grew up on the 9-by-5-mile UK island of Jersey, population of under 100,000. After playing football and cricket, his attention turned to golf “quite quickly.”
“Growing up in Jersey I played a links style golf course and got to a good level fast, competing as an amateur and then turning professional at 20,” Nicolle says. He’s also competed in UK South, East Regional Tours, Euro Pro Tour and French PGA events, and excited to have an organizational roll with the American Golf Championships in his home country later this year.
Now, The English Enforcer is focusing on long drive, and has his eyes on a number of LDET events in particular this season including the tour’s debut in Russia and The Nations Cup. “[LDET] is building every year and will be spectacular this season … hopefully culminating in another trip to the World Championships which is always phenomenonal,” he says.
But he also knows topping last season’s performance won’t be easy.
“I had a few good battles with Vincent Palm, Bry Roberts, Timo Petrasch and Seb Forslov last season and expect these guys to show some quality hitting this season,” Nicolle says. “Maurice Allen will return to the tour as well. Being a two-time tour champion, he knows how to win!”
Nicolle’s title defense is just one of many aspects fans can look forward to heading into the 2018 season, but he takes time to note an even more exciting big picture. “Golf is getting back to a level of growing participation,” he says. “The game is getting younger and more attractive to people looking to take up the game. Long Drive can play a huge part in this; it’s growing rapidly already and new tours have been setup globally which is fantastic for the profile of the game as a whole.”
Follow Matt Nicolle on Instagram and Twitter @mattnicollegolf, online at mattnicollegolf.com, and his battle drive for drive against other LDET players starting April 7th at the France Championships at Hotel Golf Château de Chailly.
Starting back in 2011, I had the the pleasure of working with Tiger Wood’s former swing coach, Hank Haney. Hank is big on ball flight and controlling your biggest miss. However, more than anything, I learned the importance of keeping statistics and letting those numbers tell you where you can and should improve.
We’ve all seen or clicked on those hokey pokey articles promising to shave strokes off your game; let’s be honest, we all want to shoot lower scores, but not all of us are going to. In my time coaching under Hank’s tutelage I became privy to his not-so-secret recipe for lower scores, and cutting the number of strokes down fast.
I’ll let you determine if you have what it takes.
Eliminate Penalty Shots
Eliminate 2 Chips
Eliminate 3 Putts
Get easier chips “up and down”
Miss in easier spots
Hit more greens
Hit it closer to the hole
Get hard ones up and in
Hit par 5’s in two
Easier said than done, right!?
Of course it is. But completing the entire list isn’t the point — start at the top and work your way down.
Everyone and their mom knows golf is difficult, and let’s not act like getting better is any easier, am I right?
In a recent PGA Tour podcast Brendan Steele, a PGA Tour player who already has one win in the 2018 season, says Phil Mickelson gave him a bit of advice that changed the trajectory of his career when he was a rookie. The advice was simple: Focus heavily on ONE aspect of your game each season and dedicate yourself to that specific aspect, be it putting, driving, fades, bunker shots, etc.
Essentially, we have a lifetime to practice, play and improve our games. Focusing on the way you practice, and what you practice, will have a major effect on your scores. So, rather than taking a broader approach to improving your game, narrow your vision to something like, “In 2018, I’m going to dedicate myself to finally getting rid of my slice.”
Again, sounds great, but what’s the reality of you actually following through with that statement? For most golfers it’s simply a wish, but for the golfers who take a different approach to how they practice, it’s a realistic goal. Don’t play victim to your slice. Fix it over time and with a plan, or live with it.
So where do you begin? To start, go through the list above (1-9) and realistically count how many strokes you could save in each of these categories. Let the numbers decide where you’ll see the biggest return. (Hint: The gold lies in numbers 1-4.)
Could this be the year you become a short game phenom? Write down your biggest goal of the year and put it on the fridge, office desk, or even stamp it on your forehead!
Before I close, I want to highlight no.7 in the list above, “hit it closer to the hole.” Because everyone likes and wants to hit it close to the hole (duh).
Believe it or not, the PGA tour average is roughly 38 feet from the hole. The best players average mid 20’s, in feet that is. Jordan Speith averaged 35 feet recently at Pebble Beach! Sure, they stick shots in there close frequently, but not as often as you would think. Golf is hard, remember? Before you worry about this stat, I highly encourage you to focus on the six of them that are listed prior.
Leighton Smith is the 2017 PGA Player Development Award winner for the Colorado PGA and runs his own teaching and coaching business, Leighton Smith Golf, in Colorado Springs, CO. His approach to golf instruction brings unique dynamic similar to what you’d find in a PGA Tour player entourage. His program, The TRIBE, is the ultimate resource for players looking to get to the next level. Join the TRIBE today, and enjoy clinics, and more fun social events for golfers in the area. Follow him on Instagram (@Leighton_Smith_Golf), Facebook (LeightonSmithGolf), and subscribe to his YouTube channel.
The 2018 LDET season tees off in France, April 7th-8th. (Photo: courtesy LDET)
We’re mere weeks away from witnessing the raw power of European bombers with the start of the 2018 Long Drivers European Tour. There’s no shortage of storylines to follow this season, including the tour’s debut in Russia, the first-ever Nations Cup competition, 8-of-9 new host venues, and, of course, a bully list of long ball hitters.
Defending champ Matt Nicolle, who won four events and four top-three finishes in the eight events he competed in last year, will have his hands full with the 2018 field. 2nd-ranked LDET player Vincent Palm of Germany stands ready to take the crown, as is his fellow countryman and fan favorite Timo Petrasch, currently ranked no.5 on the tour. And the two-time tour champion known for his Ric Flair “whoo!” and intoxicating energy, Maurice Allen from the US, will make his return to the tour as well.
The 2018 season tees off with the France Championship at the Hotel Golf Château de Chailly, April 7th – 8th. Three weeks later the players head to Steenhoven Golf Club in Belgium for the Belgium Championship April 20th-21st. And Swedish bomber Sebastian Forslöf will have the home course advantage at the Sweden Championship at Täby Golf Klub May 4th-5th.
PeterHof Golf Club near St. Petersberg, Russia, hosts the tour for the first time ever on June 2nd-3rd. PeterHof Golf Manager Inar Kuramshin and his team are looking forward to the event, which will include a pro am alongside “the most exciting show in golf.”
Here’s a preview of the venue:
Hungry will be the only familiar stop on the tour’s 2018 circuit, hosting its third long drive event July 13th-14th at Zala Springs Golf Resort. The July stretch ends with the Germany Championship at Müncherner Golf Club in Munich, hometown of “The German Bomber” Timo Petrasch.
“Having a LDET tournament in my city is great,” Petrasch says in a tour release. “I want to bring a lot of people and create an amazing atmosphere.”
The tour returns to Italy once again August 26th-27th at Terre Dei Consoli near Rome before the debut of one of this season’s marquee events — the Nations Cup. International teams will compete for glory at the Château de Taulane in La Martre, France, September 21st-22nd, in a first-of-its-kind event.
The season culminates with the Masters Cup in November, at a location yet to be determined as of this writing.
Stay tuned to CGB in the weeks leading up to the France Championship for exclusive player interviews, 2018 LDET power rankings, and more throughout the rest of the 2018 LDET season.
“We have players from around the world competing — from Europe and the US, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, South Africa, and more,” LDET CEO Xavier Eusebio says. “This year the level will be higher and tougher for all the competitors, so winning won’t be easy for anyone!”
Creativity. It’s everything when starting a brand. That original idea that separates yours from the pack. You see an opportunity in the market. Something is missing and you know you can fill that gap. Instead of waiting for someone else to take the initiative, you start to create. All of a sudden, that idea is a reality. A rather innovative one at that.
This is the story of Daniel Erdman. A guy from the Great White North who is most certainly a creative. And with this mindset, he has taken the boring old golf towel and turned it into an art with his up-and-coming brand, Uther.
And the golf towels are just the start. Uther seems poised to follow the path set forth by renowned brands of our generation. Begin with one product, master it, and expand. Bonobos started with pants. Mizzen + Main was created around an innovative dress shirt. MVMT was founded on the basis of an affordable, stylish watch. Uther brought their unique towels into the marketplace and have some exciting products dropping in 2018.
With great ambitions for his brand, it was a pleasure speaking with Dan about his entrepreneurial journey so far. Here is what he had to say:
Photo courtesy G&E Magazine
G&E:Tell us a little about your background?
Dan: I live in Canada so golfing up here is, of course, a lot more limited than in the US. One of my first jobs was working as a back-shop attendant at a local golf course, Thornhill Club. I then later worked at a predominantly female club, Ladies Golf Club of Toronto and finally a public course called Richmond Hill Golf Club. My experience juggling around those clubs gave me a great insight into what’s working and what’s missing at clubs.
When did you first start playing golf, and why did you pick up the game?
The stereotype is true, a ton of people play hockey in Canada and if it weren’t for hockey, I probably wouldn’t haven’t started playing golf so early on. It was a natural transition for me and my hockey buddies to play golf in the summer ounce the hockey season was over.
What made you want to start Uther?
Working in the back-shop, especially private clubs, I saw rows of bags which all looked the same and knew there had to be something that can make them fun and unique. Golf towels are a necessity for golfers so thought why not make them fun and blend art and function.
So how did you come up with the name Uther?
We’ve gotten a ton of people asking how we pronounce it whether “Oother”, “U-ther” or “other”, the latter is correct but we don’t mind any other way of saying it. We set out to be the “other” brand in the marketplace and create products no other companies are creating. We’re purposeful with all the products we create and each product must have a special feature that really stands apart from other products on the market or we just won’t produce it.
Have you engaged in any other entrepreneurial ventures prior to Uther?
Late November 2015 to the start of Uther around April 2016, I worked on a training aid that didn’t make it to market. We worked on about 4 prototypes and the minimum order quantity was greater than like 10,000 pieces so I reached the point where it was best to pursue the golf towel idea.
What doors have opened as a result of Uther?
Creating relationships with people around the world. For example, it’s offered the chance to collaborate with people in Australia, Sweden and Hungry, there’s not a lot of occupations that allow that.
What is your vision for yourself and your company in the future?
It would be great to have Uther be a top golf brand in the next 5 – 10 years.
What have you learned most from starting Uther?
Probably organization. Especially as your growing, you need to have system puts in place to keep running efficiently.
How does Uther engage with the community?
We’re most active on Instagram but you can catch us on all social media channels. We also have a newsletter to stay in touch with our customers. You can sign up at the bottom of our webpage on our site.
Rapid Fire Q&A Round
Who is your greatest inspiration?
Ben Francis, owner of Gymshark. What they’ve done in such a short period of time is inspirational.
What’s your favorite time of year to play a round? Time of day?
I’m a sucker for vacation golf. In terms of time of day, nothing beats being the first on the course right when the sun is rising.
If you could play 18 with anyone, who would it be?
If anyone throughout history it has to be Arnie.
Will there be any new product releases in the near future at Uther?
We have some new hats releasing the next couple weeks. We also have a new product that we’ve been working on the last year releasing mid-January. Stay tuned!
G&E Magazine is a digital publication dedicated to the world of golf and entrepreneurship, bringing to life the journeys of people who are taking their enthusiasm for golf and are turning it into their career in remarkable fashion. Follow G&E on Instagram (@gandemagazine), Facebook (gandemagazine), and Twitter (@gandemagazine).
2017 LDET Champion Matt Nicolle, England. (Photo: Courtesy Long Drivers European Tour)
Look, Ma, we made it!
Long Drivers European Tour has announced a new media partnership with CGB for the upcoming 2018 season, and to say we’re excited for the opportunity is understatement.
Here’s a quote from yours truly in a press release issued by LDET:
“We’re witnessing a rejuvenated energy in the game right now, and at the forefront of that are these exciting tour athletes and events and their ability to attract and connect with younger golfers,” ColoradoGolfBlog Co-Founder Craig Lemley says. “We’ve worked with athletes before, but to have a renown professional tour like LDET embrace what we’re doing on social media, and invite us to be a trusted media partner means a lot.”
2017 LDET Champion Matt Nicolle (pictured above), who won four LDET events and earned four top-three finishes last year, looks to defend his title against players from all over Europe, the U.S., Dubai, Abu Dhabi, South Africa, and more. But the 2018 LDET season will also bring an exciting array of new storylines, including the tour’s first Nations Cup competition (Sept. 21-22 at the Château De Taulane) featuring international teams in a first-of-its-kind event, select pro-am competitions and special contests, and the tour’s debut in Russia (Russia Championship, June 2-3 at Peterhof Golf Club, St. Petersburg).
On top of all that, you have us to bring you the LDET news, event results, athlete interviews and more — as only we know how — beginning at the season-opening event April 7th and 8th (Hotel Golf Château de Chailly) throughout the 2018 season. (Follow us here and on Instagram @coloradogolfblog.)
With this year’s tour set to be better than ever, LDET Founder and CEO Xavier Eusebio sees promise in partnering with CGB for the sixth season of the tour. “For us to have CGB on board as official partner is really great,” Eusebio says in the release. “Social media is very important nowadays and we believe CGB will do an excellent job promoting the Tour worldwide.”
And we’re up for the challenge. As I note in the release, CGB couldn’t have asked for a better time to get involved with this tour.
You may be asking yourself, why would a European tour want to work with Colorado-golfblog? (We definitely thought the same thing for a moment there.) The answer is pretty simple: What started as ColoradoGolfBlog, between a couple friends in a frigid garage two years ago, has exploded into something we never could have imagined, and brought with it a global reach we never thought we would have.
We set out to change the game in the state we love as CGB — and we’re still going to — but along the way we’ve stumbled upon a chance to be a part of that change on an even bigger scale. And we’re damn sure not going to pass that up.
“It’s the archer not the arrow,” is a saying that may come to mind while taking the walk of shame into BFE to look for a lost ball. Everyone needs practice, but even with constant practice do you ever really know if you’re upping your consistant swing speed, improving your launch angle or generating spin? Outside of expensive TrackMan or indoor range sessions, your “what am I doing wrong?” question may forever be left unanswered.
OnCore wants those answers, and plans to get them from the source — the golf ball.
With what’s probably the most innovative leap in golf equipment, the cutting edge golf ball company plans to change the game (again) with the “GENiUS” smart golf ball. The GENiUS indigogo page details the ball’s impressive offerings, here’s an excerpt:
After each stroke, the GENiUS Ball will transmit data to your mobile device showing your location on the course, ball velocity, spin rate and spin axis, carry distance and roll, and even the distance from the green. You’ll see the information using a variety of formats and have the ability to share it to your social media accounts as well.
Real time stats aren’t new to the course with numerous apps, wearables, cart features and even smart clubs, but sourcing from a high performance golf ball has, as of yet, remained unattainable.
Yeah, we were thinking it too: how can something built to suffer blunt force trauma house something as delicate as a computer chip?
Perhaps the writing was on the wall with OnCore’s Cliber golf balls, which made waves with a hollow metal core. The GENiUS will take advantage of OnCore’s technology to protect the chip through multiple rounds and able to withstand more than 15K+ G-Force, according to the company.
(To answer what’s probably your second question: The GENiUS’s GPS feature will come in handy when you do lose it, so don’t worry about that.)
Introduced late summer 2017, the project, as of this writing, has raised $36,000, with a listed $30,000 goal, and plans to launch in 2018.
Real time stats are great on the course, but until now the information has always been closer to secondhand data, adding the challenge of deciphering it after the fact. Golf balls could offer a wealth of information if they could talk — after laughing at you, of course — and it’s about damn time they start talking.
We average golfers will continue to send balls into the sticks — some things will never change — but with a little help from OnCore’s forthcoming technology we can get the data to make sure it happens a little less often.
ColoradoGolfBlog, in some cases, receives a small commission when you purchase items from these links. CGB has endorsed all advertisers, products and services and advertising does not influence editorial decisions or content.
Matt Nicolle’s nickname is “The English Enforcer,” and for very good reason. The no.1 ranked LDET player and defending tour champion delivered an unbelievable performance in 2017, earning 4 wins and another 4 top-3 finishes in his first full season on the tour (playing 8 of 9 events).
Starting back in 2011, I had the the pleasure of working with Tiger Wood’s former swing coach, Hank Haney. Hank is big on ball flight and controlling your biggest miss. However, more than anything, I learned the importance of keeping statistics and letting those numbers tell you where you can and should improve. 
The tour returns to Italy once again August 26th-27th at 
