Swiss PGA Further Education
10.10.2018
Russell Warner/Head Further Education
The Swiss PGA autumn education season kicked off with 25 professionals attending a day looking at two of the most important sectors in the Swiss Golf scene, our lady and senior golfers. Hosted by our education partner Golf Park Migros, Otelfingen was once again a fantastic venue to dive into the theory and application of coaching these two key golfing groups.
Golf coaching is traditionally seen as changing golf swings to improve performance, but the Swiss PGA are keen to show that to increase participation and ensure the future of the game, the golfers Psychological and Social needs also need to be taken care of.
The Bio-Psycho-Social framework is relatively new in sport and Ian Peek, MSc and Advanced Fellow of the PGA (GB&I) introduced the framework to delegates, sharing some of his learnings from his time with the University of Birmingham. Ian’s afternoon session applied the theory in practice and showed how successful seniors programmes within golf clubs need to understand the golfer themselves and what they are looking from the game. Research suggests golfers are interested not only in score and personal improvement but also the other benefits they gain from their golfing experience such as relationships, health benefits and belonging to something. Swiss PGA Professionals were challenged to look at their own offerings within the clubs and see how they compare to this framework and come up with strategies going forward. It will be great to see some new senior golfer initiatives that develop from the day.
Accompanying Ian, was another University of Birmingham scholar Alastair Spink, who is the creator of love.golf. The projects purpose is to engage lady golfers within the game whilst challenging many of the typical gender issues associated with the sport. Alastair shared his research that has uncovered the barriers that younger ladies have had when entering the sport; be it time, attitudes within existing clubs and undesirable coaching experiences. Love.golf is a collaboration between Alastair and Syngenta, a global agricultural company who are supporting Alastair to get the research into main stream golf and to ensure ladies have an engaging experience that meets with modern expectations. His second presentation looked deeper into how an alternative introduction into golf has been key in getting ladies motivating in playing more golf. Our PGA coaches were again challenged to look at their own practice and see how they can be improved based on these important findings.
We are looking forward to see how our Swiss PGA Professionals take this information and apply it in their own clubs to grow the game.
