This is my first blog post in this new website.

First of all I would like to thank Erik that proposed me to co-work at this website as "reporter" from Italy and with my personal blog, where I'll try to place some interesting posts and comments about different aspects of minigolf in Italy or related to Italy in any kind of way.

As first post I would like to talk about the situation of our National Elìte Team.

In the title I ask myself if this 2009 can represent a "new deal" for our Elìte Team.

Before and after World Championships 2007 in Canegrate there had been some troubles both between staff and players, and also some financial troubles for the Federation that came out from that Championship with bigger costs than expected and didn't have the chance to organize an Elìte national team for the year 2008.

In 2009 we have a new staff, a new program that seemed to start quite well last weekend at the first meeting on the indoor course in Vedano al Lambro (near Monza). We had two interesting days with some special tests (the course was completely modified to force players make some particular shots - spin shots, control speed shot and so on), and some small team tournaments and pair tournaments to develop the Team spirit.

Next appointment for our Elìte Team will be the team-golf tournament in Sirnach, where we'll go with some pairs to have a test on an indoor eternite course (like it will be in Odense) and to continue work on the team spirit.

Our main goal will be to play the EC in Predazzo to get the best possible result. In 2009 we will take part at WC in Odense probably with no big chances of good results (felt is always hard for us Italians, nowadays we still don't have a real felt course here to practice on) but with the goal to create a good team looking for Predazzo 2010.

Actually we are also lucky to have a bunch of very good young (junior) players that have already been included in the Elìte Team program. That is very good in my opinion, because these guys will be the Elìte Team of the future and it's good for them to start working with other players from Elìte selection.

That's all for the moment, see you at my next blog post! (I will upload a picture of the meeting in Vedano as soon as I get it)