Free Books To Celebrate Read An eBook Week

Celebrate Read An eBook Week with 50% off all my full-length books at Smashwords.com. Enjoy any (or all!) of my novels and Dynamic Manager books by using this coupon code when you check out: REW50. Hurry, the sale ends March 10!

Heart Of Diamonds: a novel of scandal, love, and death in the Congo

Hunting Elf, a doggone Christmas story

The Dynamic Manager's Guide To Advertising: How To Grow Your Business With Ads That Work
The Dynamic Manager’s Guide To Marketing: How To Create And Nurture Your Best Customers
The Dynamic Manager’s Guide To Marketing & Advertising: How To Grow Sales And Boost Your Profits (includes both advertising and marketing books)

The Dynamic Manager’s Guide To Sales Techniques: How To Create New Prospects And Make More Sales
The Dynamic Manager's Guide To More Sales: How To Nurture Customers And Grow Your Business
The Dynamic Manager's Guide To Creative Selling: How To Make More Sales And Build A Super Sales Career (includes both sales books)

The Dynamic Manager’s Guide To Practical Management: How To Manage Money, People, And Yourself To Increase Your Company’s Profits

As a special bonus, Blind Curve, my collection of short stories, is available this week for free! Just use coupon code REW100.

Check out the thousands of other titles available with big savings at Smashwords.com through March 10. You'll find eBooks for all reading devices--Kindle, Nook, iPad, and others.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Wales - Home of the 2010 Ryder Cup - Part 3 of 3

No golf trip to Wales or anywhere else in the UK would be complete without at least a sampling of links courses, which to me represent the heart and soul of the game. Royal Porthcawl is as good as links golf gets. How good? Tiger Woods and the rest of the American team went down in defeat there in the 1995 Walker Cup matches. Maybe they were distracted by the views of the sea which you get on every single hole, or the knee-deep rough, or the persistent wind that is as important to the success of every shot as your stance, grip, and swing. Royal Porthcawl has hole after excellent hole, with the 466-yard 15th and 430-yard 16th (both par fours) standing out as prime examples of where sand, grass, elevation, and wind come into play. Both require long tee shots downhill to landing areas constricted by impossible cross bunkers. The second shots are blind and uphill to small greens wearing pot bunker necklaces. One hole plays downwind, the other back into it. These are just a few of the reasons Golf Magazine added Royal Porthcawl to its list of Top 100 Course in the World.

The place to stay when tackling Royal Porthcawl is the Great House at Laleston, which was originally given to the Earl of Leicester by Elizabeth I to use as a hunting lodge (although he’s rumored to have frequently cavorted there with the neighborhood milk maids as well). The restored inn is about fifteen minutes away from the golf course, but the food alone is worth the drive. My fillet (sic) of Welsh beef was fork-tender and perfectly charred with a red center, and the grilled mushrooms and tomatoes were a fabulous touch.

As much as I admired the Twenty Ten Course and enjoyed the struggle to break par at Royal Porthcawl (I wasn’t even close), my favorite round came at Tenby Golf Club, the oldest organized golf club in Wales. Today’s Tenby is a fascinating seaside course full of quirky challenges like the fourth hole, a 436-yard tester where both your drive and second shot must be aimed over striped marker poles because the landing areas are completely hidden. If either ball is stuck off-line, hit a provisional—Tenby’s fairways are the narrowest I’ve ever seen, measuring twenty yards or less in most places (less than the usual U.S. Open width!) and the rough hasn’t been cut since about 1875, when official records show the Tenby town court proceedings were adjourned so the mayor and magistrates could get in a round before returning to the affairs of state.

Not far from Tenby is St. Brides Hotel and Spa, sited on a hillside high above the beach at Carmarthen Bay in Saundersfoot. Even if you are foolish enough to forego a massage after your round, don’t miss the bubbling spa pool overlooking the bay, the sensation chamber where you choose tropical rain, cold mist, or gush showers, the sauna, or the two steam rooms—one aromatic, one with salt water. The Cliff Restaurant was exceptional, too. I went for Whole Black Bream with Garlic Butter and Spinach, one of many dishes prepared almost exclusively with fresh local ingredients. For some fun after dark, take a short walk to the many raucous pubs lining the beach below the hotel.

One of the best parts about a golf trip to Wales is that getting there is easy. We flew into Bristol on a direct flight from Newark and were registering at Celtic Manor less than an hour after our plane landed. Alternatively, Cardiff has an international airport, but is also only a couple of hours by train from London’s Heathrow. If you need a jet-lag break before golf or a place to decompress even further before heading home, try St. David’s Hotel and Spa in Cardiff. Sweeping views of the docks and the Bristol Channel as well as easy access to the revived waterfront shopping and dining district are just a couple of the luxuries in the ten-year-old high-rise masterpiece.

Dave Donelson, author of The Dynamic Manager's Guide To Advertising: How To Grow Your Business With Ads That Work
> a how-to book for business owners and managers.

Wales - Home of the 2010 Ryder Cup - Part 2 of 3

There is more to golf at Celtic Manor than just the Twenty Ten Course. The Robert Trent Jones, Jr.-designed Roman Road Course has enough elevation change and highly contoured greens to challenge the best players. At 6,515 yards, it’s long enough, too. The Montgomery Course is a 6,371-yard par 69 layout that features punitive pot bunkers and a few other delights added by designer Colin Montgomery, who happens to be the captain of the European Ryder Cup team this year.

Dining at Celtic Manor is as adventuresome as the golf. The top spot is The Crown, where the prix fixe menu features seared scallops, curried sweetbreads, and cauliflower panna cotta among the many options and amuse bouches are served before every course. For less formal dinners, the Olive Tree has a sumptuous buffet of contemporary European cuisine each evening and the Rafters in the Twenty Ten Clubhouse presents dishes based on local Welsh ingredients. The Lodge Brasserie overlooks the 18th green on the Roman Road Course and the Patio at the Manor House has a relaxed setting and traditional Italian fare.

You have a wide range of places for drinks, too, led by Merlins Bar in the Resort Hotel with its comfortable sofas, snooker table, and terrace overlooking the rooftop gardens. That’s the place for afternoon tea, too, if you prefer something a little more civilized for your after-round libation. The Manor House has the Cellar Bar, a plasma-screen-filled sports bar, as well as the Lounge Bar with its historic theme décor.

Need to un-kink after your round? Head for the Forum Health Club in the Resort Hotel with its 34-station gym, 20-meter pool, whirlpool, saunas, steam rooms, and luxurious marble changing rooms. For the ultimate in un-kinking (or a place of refuge for the non-golfers in the group), the Forum Spa offers the latest in therapies including massages and facials, hydrotherapy, and manicures and pedicures. For total indulgence, try the Rasul Mud Ritual, a 45-minute exfoliating experience. There’s another full gym and spa in the Lodge, too.

If your game needs a little tune up (or a complete makeover), take advantage of the Celtic Manor Golf Academy. Its staff of teaching professionals gives lessons in state-of-the art swing studios, practice greens, and short play areas, then let you practice what you learned in the 28-bay two-tier driving range.

When you want a break from golf, take advantage of the 1400 acres of parkland surrounding the resort for a hiking or mountain biking adventure. The concierge will also help you schedule a half- or full-day of clay pigeon shooting, salmon fishing in the River Wye or fly fishing on the River Usk. Horseback riding is available, too.

Dave Donelson, author of The Dynamic Manager's Guide To Advertising: How To Grow Your Business With Ads That Work
> a how-to book for business owners and managers.

Wales - Home of the 2010 Ryder Cup - Part 1 of 3

Rampant red dragons will join birdies and eagles in golfers’ dreams this year as the Ryder Cup Matches make their debut in Wales, an enchanted land where it is easy to imagine fire-breathing lizards (the country’s symbol) flying down the fairways of some of the finest golf courses in the world. I swear I saw a dragon or two when I played the Twenty Ten Course at Celtic Manor, the site of this fall’s biennial competition between America’s and Europe’s top golfers.

When I hopped across the pond for a look at the course where Tiger Woods and the rest of the American team will defend their title, I discovered an easily-accessible golf paradise any golf traveler should add to their must-play list. Wales has pretty much played fourth fiddle to Scotland, Ireland, and England as a premiere golf destination, but that time is over. Golf in Wales is affordable, the clubs are friendly and accommodating, the courses are challenging, varied, and seldom crowded. There are some fascinating places to stay and the food was fabulous. What more could you want from a golf destination?

But if you’re going, hurry before the word gets out. The Ryder Cup will bring Wales into the golf world spotlight, which was the reason Sir Terry Matthews built the Twenty Ten Course at his Celtic Manor Resort in Newport, just a few minutes from the capital of Cardiff. The course was designed expressly to host the event and promises to provide a stern test for the teams and great vistas for the spectators. The Usk River valley shapes the experience. It serves as a wind tunnel for the sea breezes sweeping up the Bristol Channel and brings water into play on nine of the eighteen holes. Add fairways without a single level lie, rough so thick and high you can’t see your shoes (much less your ball), and you have a world-class golf challenge.

The 2010 Course at Celtic Manor, site of the Ryder Cup

The course has plenty of length, too, measuring 7,493 yards for par 71. The bunkering was designed with today’s big hitters in mind, so no one is going to bomb and gouge their way around the course. Fortunately, multiple tees not only give us hackers a chance to enjoy the track, but also gives the set-up committee options to make several of the par four holes drive-able, although pin-point accuracy and some luck with the wind will be required to take advantage. The sharp right dogleg 377-yard fifteenth hole will be particularly interesting because there is a small gap high in the trees allowing a 270-yard tee-shot straight at the green for the most intrepid players.

The three finishing holes rank with the best championship venues in the world. They all play directly into the prevailing wind and are further complicated by tough bunkers and heart-stopping elevation changes. The16th is a 508-yard par four with a narrow fairway guarded by bunkers on either side. A tee shot even slightly right will end up rolling over a steep embankment. The 17th is an uphill par three measuring 211 yards to a long, narrow green protected by bunkers deep enough to hide a herd of Welsh cattle along the entire front right side.

The finishing hole is a classic risk-and-reward par five. At 613 yards and playing only slightly downhill, it will given even the longest bomber a second shot to think about if he hasn’t closed his match out before he gets there. Even if he carries the bunkers on the left by flying his drive 331 yards, he’ll be left with a downhill lie to a green fronted by a pond that stretches across the entire fairway. The green is elevated, too, with a steep shaved bank that will send any short shot back into the water. My favorite feature of the hole is a big old gnarly oak behind the green that’s probably been there since before the colonies stuck their finger in King George’s eye.

Dave Donelson, author of The Dynamic Manager's Guide To Advertising: How To Grow Your Business With Ads That Work
> a how-to book for business owners and managers.

Golf Buddy Trip Destination - Whistling Straits

Enchanted by the TV coverage of the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits? Consider it as a destination for a buddy trip.

First you fly to Milwaukee. Milwaukee? You bet. The land of polka fests and cheeseheads also happens to be the home of the Midwest’s only AAA Five-Diamond resort and the site of the 2010 PGA Championship at Whistling Straits. When they played it there in 2004, you may recall, Vijay Singh won his third career major. The Straits course, which opened in 1998, is two miles of rugged Lake Michigan shoreline sculpted into brutal, windswept links by golf architecture’s bad boy Pete Dye.

At the same complex and just inland from the Straits Course, Dye built the deceivingly tranquil Irish Course, where the grassland and dunes are crossed by four meandering streams. There’s also a flock of Blackfaced sheep complete with bells, which makes for an other-worldly experience when they trot between the pot bunkers as you’re aiming your tee shot. Kohler also offers two slightly more conventional courses at nearby Blackwolf Run, also Pete Dye designs. All the courses—-and everything else in town—-are operated by Destination Kohler, a division of the well-known plumbing fixture company.

There are basically two places to stay in Kohler, a quaint, carefully manicured company town where stately elms line the streets and even the bricks in the old factories look scrupulously clean. The AAA Five-Diamond facility is the distinguished American Club, where every room features a Kohler whirlpool bath (it is a plumbing fixture company), down comforters, and memorabilia honoring famous Americans. Less posh but still comfortable is the Inn on Woodlake, a 121-room hotel overlooking an eleven-acre lake with private beach and its own putting green. The tiny village also offers ten places to dine, including the Whistling Straits Restaurant in the stone clubhouse overlooking Lake Michigan, which received the 2005 Wine Spectator's Award of Excellence.

Dave Donelson, author of The Dynamic Manager's Guide To Advertising: How To Grow Your Business With Ads That Work
> a how-to book for business owners and managers.

Heart Of Diamonds Travels Well

If you're looking for an exciting, compelling novel to accompany your travels, consider the second edition of Heart of Diamonds. The revised edition just came out.

Most significantly, perhaps, the new edition recognizes four organizations whose work helps the people of the Congo. A couple of these organizations are large, the other two are small, but the work they all do contributes to the well-being of the citizens of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

HEAL Africa

Women For Women International

Georges Malaika Foundation

Doctors Without Borders

The new edition of Heart of Diamonds is available from the publisher or Amazon.com. You can also find (or order it) from your favorite local bookseller. If in doubt, use the ISBN 9781449919924.

If you are a traveler who perfers e-Books? You can now put the new edition of Heart of Diamonds on your Kindle, Sony Reader, Stanza, Palm, or just about any other e-Book reader with just a couple of clicks.

Check your favorite online bookseller, or go to Smashwords.com for a comprehensive listing of available versions. For the Kindle edition, visit Amazon.com.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo.

The Lunacy Museum

One of the most unusual museums you'll ever visit is the Glore Psychiatric Museum in St. Joseph, Missouri. It's on the grounds of what was originally named "State Lunatic Asylum Number Two" when it was established in 1874. It's packed with full-sized replicas, interactive displays, artifacts and documents detailing how treatment of the mentally-ill--and others--evolved over the last 135 years.

The facility opened with 25 patients in 1974, then grew to over 3,000 at its peak in the 1950s as it expanded to provide treatment for tuberculosis patients, syphilitics, alcoholics, and patients with physical disabilities. The museum, located in a building on the original grounds that had once been used as the admitting ward and the clinic for hospital patients, not only details the history of treatment in this hospital but other mental health facilities from as early as the 16th century.

Exhibits almost guaranteed to give you pause include the tranquilizer chair, dousing tub, and an amazing array of objects swallowed over time by a singularly disturbed patient.

The Glore Psychiatric Museum is located at 3406 Frederick Avenue about one mile west of Interstate 29 in St. Joseph, Missouri.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo

Blue Monster Fun

Doral Golf Resort and Spa is an oasis of luxury in the South Florida sun for golfers and their families. Guest rooms and suites are in lodges arrayed near the main clubhouse, and the Spa at Doral can only be described as palatial.

There are loads of activities for the family, too, with Camp Doral offering everything from Arts & Crafts to Volleyball. It’s next to the Blue Lagoon, where the whole family can enjoy the beach-entry pool, 125-foot waterslide, and 20 poolside cabanas with amenities. There are eight restaurants on the property, ranging from the Java Zone coffee counter to Windows On The Green, which serves fresh seafood and American cuisine with South Florida and Caribbean accents. There’s also an unheralded but not to be missed sushi bar, too.

There are five courses at the resort, but the must-play track is the Blue Monster. It reminds me of a mugger in a Brooks Brothers suit--it looks harmless but it will hurt you when you least expect it. The 7,288-yard (from the tips) home of numerous PGA Tour events looks benign on paper. From the blue tees, only four of the par fours are over 400 yards and the longest is 416. The 131 slope isn’t even particularly daunting, so you stand on the first tee expecting to put some good numbers on the scorecard.


The gem of the track is the 18th hole, which played to a PGA Tour-toughest 4.625 stroke average at the 2007 WGC-CA Championship. From the mortal tees, it’s only 414 yards! But when you play it into the wind, it’s more like 474—with water on your left all the way until it cuts almost all the way across the front of the green to drown any hope you may have had of getting home in two. Your trials and tribulations aren’t over when you finally make it to the green, either—Mark Calcavecchia putted right off it into the water last year. It makes you wonder how even Tiger Woods won here three years in a row (2005-2007).

Doral Golf Resort & Spa
Miami
(800) 713-6725
www.doralresort.com
Nearest airport: Miami (15 minutes)
Golf package: $594 includes room and breakfast, one round on the Blue Monster with forecaddie for one golfer, and other amenities. Also a one-hour introductory golf clinic at no additional charge.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo

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One-Island Golf

You know you’re at TPC Sawgrass when you look out your hotel room window and see the miniature island green in the lagoon. It’s not the real thing, but it might as well be, since you have just about as much chance of landing your ball there as you do on the real one at the Players Stadium Course, one of five courses at the Sawgrass Marriott Resort totaling 99 holes of fine golf in Ponte Vedre, Florida.

There are 18 holes on the Players Stadium Course, home of the Players Championship since 1982, but the 17th hole generates 99% of the excitement. It’s only 128 yards—the pros play about the same distance but from a slightly different angle—but the tee shot is like trying to land a ball on half of a tennis court. When the swirling winds come up, it’s more like trying to hit a ping pong table at the other end of a football field. Players lose 120,000 balls in the lake surrounding the green every year. Maybe that’s why it’s known as the most frightening hole in golf.

The Marriott Sawgrass Resort provides all the amenities a tired, hungry golfer could want. There are five restaurants on the property, including the Augustine Grille, where you can treat your homesick palate to a serving of Hudson Valley foie gras before tearing into a fine steak. The 25,000 square-foot spa is the place to go after your round for a soak in the whirlpool or the Sawgrass Grand Slam, which includes a hydro and color therapy bath, a deep cleansing and exfoliation, and, for the grand finale, a full body massage.

Sawgrass Marriott Resort & Spa
Ponte Vedre Beach
800-457-4653
www.sawgrassmarriott.com
Nearest airport: Jacksonville (35 minutes)
Golf package: $469 includes room and breakfast, one round on Players Stadium Course for one golfer, forecaddie and other amenities. Note, you must be a guest at the Resort to play the Players Stadium Course.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo

Fighting HIV/AIDS in Congo

The spread of HIV/AIDS is among the many deplorable effects of the continuous violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. While the country as a whole has an estimated adult HIV prevalence of 3.2%, UNAIDS reports that prevalence of the infection among women who have suffered sexual violence in areas of armed conflict may be as high as 20%.

The eastern provinces have seen an astounding number of terror rapes--one every half hour, 24 hours every day--with a corresponding rise in HIV/AIDS.

Children are affected, too, both by infections through mother-to-child transmission and the loss of a parent to the disease. According to UNAIDS, 120,000 children under the age of 15 are infected with HIV.

While Congolese government efforts to fight the epidemic are not inconsiderable and the US provided $10.6 million specifically for essential HIV/AIDS programs to the DRC through USAID in fiscal 2008, getting assistance to the war zones is all but impossible. Over 1,000,000 people are homeless as a direct result of the fighting in the region, further complicating the delivery of essential medical services of all types.

While there is little we as individuals can do to stop the violence in the DRC, we can help its victims. One organization I support is Women For Women International, a leading force in helping women and their families re-establish their lives.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo