Plainville

Hartford

Air New Zealand Open Champion                                                                          CTGolfTips.com

West Australian PGA Champion                                                                         Titleist #1 Ball in Golf

Victorian Open Champion (Canada)                                                              First Tee of Connecticut

Connecticut & Maine Open Champion                                                             TrueBack.com

Former Australian and PGA Tour Player                                                       BlackMagicWedge.com

Colandro Golf Update & Tip (June 2008)

June starts the hot weather and golf is a big thing with the Traveler’s Championship (PGA Tour) at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell (June 19-22).  Whether you go out to see the Pro’s or play yourself, be careful of the sun.  Use some sunscreen and a hat or visor, along with staying well hydrated.  If you do drink alcohol, then still drink some water with it.  When you get outside, remember the sun’s U.V. rays get through even if it is cloudy, so be prepared prior to going outside.

We are keeping busy at Brown’s Driving Range in Windsor, CT.  Every Saturday in June we are conducting Junior Clinics 10:00 – 11:00 a.m. for any child 5-15 years old and both myself and Teaching Pro, Dick Frechette, will instruct.  My schedule is getting very busy with Golf Lessons, Golf Clinics, Client Golf Days and Competing in various golf tournaments.  Still selling the BlackMagicWedge and using it myself, in the New England Senior Open I hit a 52° BlackMagicWedge to 2 inches from 85 yards out so it really does work.  You can demo the BlackMagicWedge at Brown’s Driving Range throughout the summer, along with purchasing it through Colandro Golf.

Utilizing the Whole Body Vibrating Machine and it is helping me get through this busy golf season.  The machine which is used by many Olympic, NBA, NFL athletes, and creates a change in the way your body vibrates, therefore, heals many ailments throughout the body.  It can be purchased through contacting InTheZoneTech.com or Colandro Golf.  Still using my TrueBack Stretching Device along with keeping well stretched at all times.  Taking my Monavie on a daily basis and it is keeping me alert and energized throughout the day.  Monavie is a fruit drink that consists of 19 different fruits with 50 percent being the high antioxidant Acai berry from the Amazon. 
Contact Colandro Golf if interested in purchasing Monavie.

As the Honorary Chairman of the Circle of Mercy Golf Outing on June 16, I will be performing both on and off the course for all the patrons of this event.  The event serves the Mercy Community Health in the Northeast region and provides assistance for the Greater Hartford community for more than 125 years.  Still writing for CTGolfTips.com and will be covering the Traveler’s Championship July 19^th – 22^nd, check out our weekly trivia quiz and win tickets to the Traveler’s Championship.

12 Robin Lane, Cromwell, CT 06416 • (860)575-7481 • (860)635-7795 • ColandroGolf@sbcglobal.net     

            In 1981, after a summer of 4-spot qualifiers and state opens in New England, I decided to try the Australian PGA Tour.  To get there it took money, so I sold shares in myself to raise my expenses to get there and travel.  It was a ten week tour, seven events in Australia and three events in New Zealand.  I raised about $6,000.00 and off I went.  My first trip over the Big Pond (Pacific Ocean) was a long one that started in New York City, then to Los Angeles (6 hours), 6 ½ hours later, we landed in Hawaii, then a 2 hour layover.  It was the long haul to Sydney, Australia (14 hours).

            You go over the dateline so you skip a day and arrive 2 days later in the a.m.  Then it was through customs and that took an hour more.  I then had to go to the domestic terminal and catch a flight up to Brisbane in the state of Queensland.  We got our luggage and then we waited to get picked up, 3 hours, to catch a ride out to a new island resort, Kooralbyn Golf and Tennis, in the hills of Queensland.  We finally got to the resort.  I and three other pros checked into a nice villa on the course.  It was dark and we all were jet-lagged out, so we all just bombed out on the nearest bed.  The bright Queensland sunshine woke us up and to our amazement, we looked outside and all over the golf course were a pack of 6 foot Red kangaroos.  The Red whroos are the feisty type; however, if you did not get too close to one, then they wouldn’t go after you.  By 9:00 a.m. they left the fairways and greens and went in to the shade of some Eucalyptus trees, not to be seen again till sunset.  Kooralbyn Golf Resort was well out away from Brisbane and very new, so there still were a lot of whroos around.  Not many other courses throughout Australia had kangaroos in the wild, so Kooralbyn was quite unique.  The course was a good test of golf and I played well, going into the last day I was up in the top ten.

            On Sunday, I was paired with Australian Golf Legend “Ted Ball”, and he was very talkative and interesting to play with.  One thing he said, “If you could start your round without making a big number, especially on the last round of an event, then your round becomes a lot easier to shoot a low score.”  There definitely is something to that but sometimes things happen and I have found that if you stay focused, no matter how you start, you can post a good score.

            I finished in the top 20 that week at the Queensland Open, to make my first check (2 for 1).  The next step was back down to New South Wales (Sydney) to play the New South Wales PGA at Penrith just west of Sydney.  To keep my expenses down, I stayed in a dormitory type building with twenty other professionals.  We shared a couple bathrooms and shower rooms, along with only one T.V. room with three stations (no cable).  There was a lot of comradery amongst all the pros and a nice way to get to know how people are and how they live in Australia.  That week I played some great golf and finished in the top ten and a four-figured check, not bad for 1981 in Australia.

            After the event, I met up with a couple of pros, Ian Stanly and Mike Ferguson.  Ian liked to have a drink or two and Mike, Payne Stewart’s brother-in-law, had a thirst for a drop as well.  I was told not to drink with an Aussie, but after two checks in a row, I figured why not.  So I joined Ian and Mike and had a few.  We then went to Parrammatta, a big city on the way back to Sydney.  It was a Sunday night, so we ended up at some service club that was open and sat down and had a few Touhey beers (the mainstay of beer in New South Wales).  We were feeling pretty good and they told me if you want a woman, you have to say this:  “G-day, how ya going? – Good around here isn’t it? – How about a root?”  Now, I didn’t really know what I was saying, so I just went over to the barmaid and said it.  Well, after I said “How about a root?”, she punched me right in the face and I fell down.  Ian and Mike were laughing so hard they fell off their chairs.  I learned what “root” meant very quickly and in an abrupt way.  That was a tough day but I survived and made some good friend in Ian and Mike.

The next week was the Aussie PGA at Royal Melbourne and the pro, Bruce Green, got me a place to stay with a member right on the course.  Royal Melbourne is in the sand belt area, about 20 miles outside of Melbourne and Royal Melbourne Country Club is the number 6^th course in the world.  The sand belt has some dozen or more championship layouts in a 10 mile radius on a patch of sandy soil very similar to the Pinehurst area in North Carolina.  The member’s name was Max and he was a solicitor (lawyer) in Melbourne that had played competition tennis but fell in love with golf.  It was good to stay right at the course, and I helped Max a little with his golf game.  I did make the cut and that fall (or spring) I made 9 out of 10 cuts and began to see that I could make a living playing golf.

After returning to Hartford for Christmas, I got six shareholders to reinvest their money in me to go back to Australia and also compete in Asia in 1982.  So there I was again, flying across the big pond (Pacific) to play this great game.  We started in Tasmania, a small island state south of Victoria and at the time (1982), the only place to legally gamble at a casino.  The town of Hobart had a casino and it was always busy.  Today there are casinos in every major capital city in Australia because the Aussies love a part!

I made the cut and then went up to Melbourne for the Victorian Open and Aussie Masters.  I had a top ten at the Victorian Open at Metropolitan Country Club on the sand belt and the next week, right next door, were the Masters at Huntingdale.  I played really good the first 2 rounds, and after 10 holes on Saturday, I took the lead but a storm front came in and blew about 50 m.p.h., and I made 6 bogies coming in to fall back.  I did finish in the top 20 and made a good check.  The major Australasian PGA Tour usually ended in late February or early March.  Anyone who stayed in Aussie back then would play in many regional pro-ams throughout the country.  It was quite far to compete in some unique places outside of the major cities.  One place was up on the Murray River, north of Melbourne, some 200 miles.  There are many well-kept golf courses on the Murray River from Mildara to Albury-Wodinga.

I won many pro-ams and met some great people there.  Some had a winter home on the river and spent spring, summer an fall back in Melbourne.  Another attraction was the slot machines just across the river in New South Wales.  In the 80’s, slot machines were not legal in Victoria, also, there were no casinos in Melbourne, so bus loads of people would flock up the river area to enjoy the sunshine and take a chance at the pokies (slot machines).

There were pro-ams throughout Victoria in towns such as:  Sheparton, Bendigo, Ballarat, Geelong, Tarlson, Bairnsdale, Trafalgar, Cranbourne, and one of the biggest and best celebrity pro-ams was the Portsea Pro-Am on the Top of the Mornington Peninsula.  Back in the early 80’s, an American caddie and friend of mine, Lawrence Heraty, settled in Portsea.  After several years of caddying for Bob Shearer and Howard Clark, Lawrence took the job as manager of the old Portsea Golf Club and lived right at the clubhouse with his wife Donna.  Lawrence did it all from selling balls, clubs, food, greens tees, etc., and he ran most of their golf club events.  It was a very busy place in the summer but it died down in the fall and winter months.  The Pro-Am was always there but Lawrence got Fosters to sponsor it and got the date of January 2^nd (right after New Year’s).  Many Australian athletes and entertainers would come and play, which would draw many spectators to the Pro-Am, and I won the event on a couple of occasions.

One year I had just flown back to Aussie from a cold Christmas in Hartford and had a cold.  At that time, Lawrence and Donna had moved out of the residence at Portson and Donna opened up her own health food store.  I called in on her after a brief practice round to see if she could help me with some cold remedy.  She told me to come to her house at 7:00 p.m. and she would take care of me.  I didn’t know what she had in mind, but I showed up and she was having a Christmas party.  She cleared everyone off the sofa In the living room and she told me to lie down and relax.  Then she began to put her hands just above my skin, around me head and neck area.  She was applying “Reiki” on me and I didn’t even know.  “Reiki” is a process that Christ used when he was on earth doing his hands on healing of sick people.  Believe it or not, after the session, I went back to my room and slept for ten hours straight and felt great when I woke up.  I shot 67 to win the Pro-Am and was up till midnight singing with the band and celebrating.  Donna and Lawrence moved to the San Diego area in the USA, but I’ll always remember those wonderful times spent at the Portsea Golf Club with Donna and Lawrence Heraty.

Mike Colandro  Competitive Highlights & Accomplishments

·   Won 2 Hartford District Amateur Championships (1970 & 1975)     

·   Won New England Publinks Championship (1975)

·     Successfully qualified for PGA Tour 1979 (Pinehurst, N.C.)

·     Competed on Asian Tour, Canadian Tour & European Tour

·   16 year Veteran of the Australian PGA Tour

·   Finished in top 60 on the Order of Merit of the Australian Tour 13 years (Best Order of Merit finish 3^rd, 1987)

·   Won Air New Zealand Shell Open 1987 (Beat Worldclass Field)

·   West Australian PGA 1990 (Eagled last hole to win)

·   Shot 62 in Ballarat Pro-Am (Victoria, Australia) and 63 at Victorian PGA Championship (Victoria, Australia)

·   Made hole-in-one at Greg Norman Classic 1992 (The Lakes Country Club, Sydney, Australia (Was given Shot of the Week on ESPN)

·   Started business in Australia (1984) performing both Client Golf Days, Corporate Golf Outings, Golf Shows, Golf Promotions, etc.

·   Won 2 Connecticut Opens (1986 Hartford Golf Club) (1991 Brooklawn Country Club)

·   Won 2 Maine Opens and 1 Bangor (Maine) Open (shot 63 to win 1^st Maine Open Riverside Country Club, Portland, Maine)

·   Played 5 years on Canadian Tour, winning the Payless Victorian Open (1992)

·   Hosted, directed and wrote for T.V. Golf Show “Golforeveryone” 1997

·     Competed in British Open 1984 along with the 1986 and 1993 U.S. Opens, 1993 U.S. Open shot 67, 2^nd best score of Championship

·   Has instructed both on and off the course through private tuition, group lessons, golf clinics and playing lessons for over 30 years

·   Had golf contracts with Sounder Golf, Spalding, Titleist Golf, Northwestern Golf, Golf Gear International, Wilson Golf, Pro Select

·     Performed, organized, hosted and directed 2001 Rescue Relief Charity Celebrity Golf Classic (Las Vegas, Nevada)

·     Represented or Worked for:  Ford, BMW, Kemper Funds, GE, Sheraton Hotels, Toshiba, NEC, United Airlines, Salt River Project, Genworth Financial, Clothes Make the Man, Mikey’s Place Charity Golf

·     Performed and hosted 2005 Rock and Roll Golf Outing (Gillette Ridge Golf Club)

·   Became instructor for First Tee Program of Connecticut

·     Completing new book Almost an Aussie, about Mike’s 50 years in the world of golf

CLICK HERE to watch Mike win the Air New Zealand Open

CLICK HERE to watch Mike Colandro win the Payless Open

* First Tee Groups at Miner Hill Golf Club – 3:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.

First Tee Groups at Goodwin Golf Club – 4:00  p.m. – 5:30 p.m.

Tallwood Junior Camp – 8:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

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