My three word summary; humbling, insightful and perspective.
Overall, the first of a three year Professional Golf Studies course was a humbling one for me. As I embarked on my new ‘journey’, I felt like I knew a lot about golf – I know how to play, what else is there? Half way into the introduction day, I figured out there’s a lot more to it!
The academic side of the course is broken up into four modules;
1) Your Workplace
2) Key Industry Skills
3) Sports science
4) Golf coaching
The workplace module explores the business side of a golf facility; from great customer service to stabilising a profitable revenue stream. Key industry skills looks at equipment; how to build, fit and adjust golf clubs for a player. Sports science delves into the many aspects of the human body; from the golfer’s skeletal system to their psychology. Finally, golf coaching investigates a player’s ball flight; from what causes a ball to move in a certain way to the best ways to implement swing changes with a player.
Until I started this course, I didn’t realise I was so ignorant as a player. I only ever had to think about one point of view; my own. This mentality seems to be in stark contrast with the attitude a successful PGA Professional uses in their coaching. It seems that becoming a coach or a person who works in the golf industry needs a more ‘selfless’ perspective than that of a player. Neither outlook is better or worse than one another, just different. It’s this shift in perspective that made this course a little tricky but also exciting for me.
The four in-depth modules seem to reflect this need for a more rounded awareness. In order to translate relevant and useful information simply, an individual must consider or have an understanding of multiple viewpoints. This also seems to be true when effective communication is in question.
Therefore, I believe the most important common denominator between the modules is people. Golfers are people first, and without people, and an acknowledgement about the different ways in which they operate, it would be difficult to give a successful golf lesson.
I find that students on this course are prompted to understand the person/player first, then search for the most useful piece of information for that particular person. Coaches and students on this course are constantly asked the question – “What is the most useful piece of information to share here?”. After all, it’s easy to blurt out the most ”interesting” piece of information from the coaches perspective, in the interest of sounding knowledgeable.
However, it’s a much more difficult thing to listen and choose the most relevant piece of information to share with the person in front of you – I think this is the more artistic aspect of the course. It’s almost like a PGA Professional has read the entire book and is charged with the task of picking out the most applicable sentence to share with the person/player and their context.
I’m only a third of the way through this book, but it has gripped me from the very first page. I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to study something I have always had a great interest in, and to be able to put some of my new found knowledge into practice, is even more gratifying. Bring on year two!
