Golf lessons at university for youngsters
North Berwick Golf Club, one of the first clubs to come on board with the junior national programme, clubgolf, in 2004, has discovered a unique way to keep its players developing through the winter by coaching them in the indoor Golf Academy at Edinburgh's Heriot-Watt University.
Club pro, Martin Huish, has been teaching the children clubgolf Stage 3 for the past two seasons and was determined to keep them improving in the winter months.
"If you have any significant changes, such as swing and technical changes, the winter is the time to do it when there's less competitive golf to be playing in," he said.
"Then during summer it's more about course management and fine tuning.
"In the winter you can do tuition outdoors or in a driving range, however, you are at the beck and call of the weather.
"We were desperately looking for something we could put in place in North Berwick but there were no indoor facilities in East Lothian that could be used on a regular basis."
Chipping
Whilst a sports hall might suffice it's not ideal and the Heriot Watt facility provided the perfect solution.
The Golf Academy, opened in 2007 as the only indoor academy in Scotland, has five driving bays, two chipping zones, an adjustable height bunker and two practice greens.
"It's set up all the time, all the mats are sand filled so the ball reacts more like a green on them and it has two high quality greens for putting on," said Martin.
The 12 week course, for 13 of the club's Stage 3 players, concludes in April.
Developed
Martin was assisted by volunteer coach Rick Foulner, who is in the final stages of becoming a Level 2 coach and is being mentored by Martin.
With the season about to begin both coaches were looking forward to seeing how much the juniors had developed as a result of the indoor training.
"There are two girls on the course that just wouldn't be playing golf through the winter," said Martin.
"They would have gone away at the end of last season and not re-appeared until April.
"Now all the children have got a good run at the start of the season so it will be interesting to see what results we get compared to last season."
Martin plans to monitor the children's improvements with a view to repeating the indoor coaching next winter.
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Wednesday 23 May 2012
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