Dear CaddiePlayer,
Greetings from PGA Catalunya Resort, a course 80 km north of Barcelona, home of this week’s #SpanishOpen. After travelling to Dubai, Malayasia and China - where I focused on CaddiePlayer’s Emiliano Grillo - I am back in Europe for the summer.
Before walking the last 4 km from Caldes de Malavella to the PGA Catalunya (I could not find a taxi nor a bus), I landed in Zurich for the opening tournament of the LetAccess Tour where I caddied for CaddiePlayer Swiss rookie Eva-Maria Moehwald. Gams Werdenberg course was tricky as the Swiss law prohibits the mowing of rough grass until June 15 so the rough was very high! However, it was a good test for the players and keeping the ball in play was very important. LetAccess Tour also helped me realise how Ladies Golf is now getting stronger as I witnessed several young grils driving past 250 yds, mothers and fathers caddying, managing, driving and basically doing everything they can to support their promising protégées. At this early stage, the support of parents is essential in shaping future champions!
On my way to Barcelona I stoped over in Dijon, the city once home to the Dukes of Burgundy from the early 11th until the late 15th centuries. Dijon was a place of tremendous wealth and power, one of the great European centres of art, learning and science. 50 km from Dijon is one of my favorite places: Golf & Hotel Chateau de Chailly. Chateau de Chailly harks back to my memories of the early 90´s when, as a club Pro, I hosted a "Golf Clinic" with a mixture of "Wine Testing". While we were there we visited, thanks to my father’s past as a ski teacher back in the 50's, one of his best clients which happened to be the Family "Comte of de Nicolay", related to the "Guerlain Parfume" and "Moet & Chandon". The city Savigny les Beaune became my second home; I have harvested there several times and I can recommend anyone to harvest once in their lifetime. For two weeks it’s all about grapes... selecting, cutting, testing, talking and at last celebrating meeting people you will never have crossed before. Chateau de Chailly is all about this and the golf. If you love golf, castles, good food, and spectacular nature then Chailly sur Armancon is your place.
But for now lets go back to this blog title "Innovate or Die"!? Is golf dying? According to the National Golf Foundation (NGF), the sport has lost five million players in the United States in the past decade and 20 percent of the 25 million golfers now active in the country are likely to quit in the next few years. So what is "Innovation or Die" and how it help do to bring back those golfers? "Innovate or Die" is the new marketing campaign from Callaway - Odyssey that is making the buzz this week in the Spanish Open a European Tour event.
To further my research I google "Innovate or Die" and found to my surprise that this "Marketing" "Innovation" already has its own website promoting another sport – Cycling. Is Cycling also losing cyclists? I don’t think so! As I read further online, I found what I was looking for: > "Companies should know that survival today requires more than treading water, and that many of the companies that were once great are now gone or on their way out largely because they stopped innovating" more about this subject here.
As a golf is my job, my business and my company, I understand and know for a fact that I too need to Innovate, "Innovate not to Die" (because this is only God’s Will) but Innovate to Evolve because at the end of the day Evolution is what Human Kind is about.
CaddiePlayer is one of my Innovations so now I will State to you: "CaddiePlayer or Die" ;-)
Until the next blog....
Stephane Barras Innovater currently at the Spanish Open trying to Innovate someone...
