In a successful business, qualified and experience coaches are hired to train the company's staff to be efficient and effective in all areas. Some companies engage coaches for leadership, team building and office conflict management training to attain maximum productivity of their staff. Many executives in the service industries seeks coaching on how to project personal image and branding, speak professionally to their level of profession, how to do a convincing presentation and close a sale, etc.

All successful and great athletes, from Olympic gold medallists to legendary sporting teams are surrounded by the qualified and experienced coaches and mentors for skill acquisition as their primary powerhouse. They also have physical trainers, sport medicine doctors, psychologist and scientists to bring their athletic peak performance in the shortest time.

Many parents also send their children to life-coaches for enrichment programmes to acquire skills and technique to enhance their academic results in school and to facilitate their future adulthood success.

In Singapore schools today, golf is one of the co-curriculum activities and the students are introduced to golf by means of qualified and experienced coaches. In fact, Singapore Sport Council wants to start students correctly from the first lesson for any sport. The main intention is to start the sport off with a positive environment, safety in golf, correct skill acquisition, challenges and sportsmanship. The coach is also a role model to impart discipline, character, attitude, personality and leadership skills.

The Benefit of Starting Golf with a Certified and Experience Coach

  The Teaching Role of a Coach 

The golf swing is an extremely physical endeavour. The learning and mastering of the golf swing is teamwork of the student and the coach. It is not like learning an academic subject in school where the teacher provides all the information needed for knowledge, progress, and prepares you for examination.

The coach is to teach you to start off with the right foundation - physically and mentally. For example when learning the golf swing, students need to know the importance of how to stand correctly in a golf athletic posture which is called “Address Position”. Knowing and understanding the correct arms, hands and fingers position on how to hold your golf club, the correct golf ball placement in front of the golfer. This is the pre-requisite to make a efficient golf swing. I call this the “PPP” for your golf swing. PPP refers to Posture,  Position of the arms, hands and fingers on the golf clubs and Placement of the golf ball in front of you.

After learning the “PPP” you will progress to learn and understand your body movement pattern for an efficient golf swing. That is to know how each part of the body should turn and rotate to facilitate the golf club swinging action to hit the golf ball. The coach will teach you with repeated demonstrations on how to swing the golf club and hit the golf ball efficiently, utilising the arms and hands. This is your acquisition of fine motor skill in sport science application. When accomplished, you will learn the gross motor skill of the golf swing which requires your full body movement in perfect co-ordination to swing the golf club and hit your golf ball to the ultimate distance within your athletic ability. You will be fascinated by your learning progress to propel the golf ball flying to your target utilizing the golf club.

The coaching instructions, explanations and demonstrations are reinforced with key elements for you to remember and also for your self-check during practice when your coach is not available. Some of my students like to write notes during lessons.

  The Dynamic Role of a Coach 

The dynamic role of golf coach is the most important part of your golf learning.

To assist students’ accelerated learning by:

1. Creating a positive learning environment thereby helping students in a step by step methodology for the golf swing skill acquisition.

2. Setting achievable and specific goals for students during each lesson.

3. Demonstrating the golf swing action in an educational way for students to benefit in their visual learning style.

4. Providing hands-on assistance for students to benefit in their kinaesthetically learning style.

5. Providing word, names and mnemonics of the golf swing action for students to benefit in their auditory learning style.

6. Introducing athletic drills and exercises to improve a golfer’s body flexibility for the golf swing.

To ensure students achieve golf swing technique by:

1. Observing and supervising the students doing the correct golf swing body movements and actions.

2. Detecting the student's golf swing action errors and provide instant corrections.

3. Monitoring students’ accomplishments and progress during the lessons.

4. Introducing the importance of sport science knowledge such as, bio-mechanics, physical preparation and development of skills, projectiles (ball) flight laws, nutrition, exercises and drills related to skill improvement performances.

5. Teaching the mental elements of process goal such as confidence, decision making, visualisation, concentration, self-talk and pre-routine activities.

6. Utilising of training aids and technology tools like computer and analysis software when required to show finite details of the student golf swing action.

To enhance players’ success in golf game by:

1. Teaching students When and How to practise? The importance of warm-up for practice and game.

2. Teaching students game strategies and planning to challenge the golf course design.

3. Teaching the effect of inner human performance factors such as primary and secondary motivation, expectation, stress, anxiety, feedback and arousal during game performance.

4. Teaching the environment factors such as weather, noise and competitor’s behaviour affecting game outcome.

5. Knowing the safety and the prevention of injuries during practice and game.

6. Knowing the sportsmanship and most importantly value of the game.

The golf coach has numerous tasks to perform. The major responsibility is to provide the solutions for students’ accelerated learning and game improvement. The greatest asset of an effective and efficiency golf coach is the possession of different coaching philosophies and styles to meet a student's goal. Secondary learning sources includes books and videos. However, they can’t see and provide you with feedback.

The benefits of having a certified and experienced golf coach coupled with total teaching passion can easily augment your golf aspiration. My paramount coaching commitment is to impart the essential golf knowledge to students from my continuously research of athlete behaviours and sport science in the field of golf learning and game improvement. Thus, this will help students to learn easier and faster, enjoying the fun of the game with high self esteem.

Why does world class professional golfer for instance Tiger Woods with multi-million dollars prize winning money still engaged a coach for continuous performance enhancement? Having a coach to guide you is no longer a luxury; it is a necessity. What about you?

Philip Ang
Asian Golf Centre
Certified & Licensed USGTF Master Golf Teaching Professional - USA
GCA Winner International Clubmaker of the Year - USA
Certified Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP™) Practitioner - USA
Certified Time Line Therapy™ Practitioner - USA

“A good coach will make a golfer see what they can become
rather than what they are.” From Philip Ang