Supporting junior golf coaches – Golf Foundation

Participation Coaching Podcast

A bit of a different episode – this time, the focus is not on a coach, but an organisation that supports coaches. Many, many topics covered. This episode will be of particular interest to golf coaches based in Great Britain – but still should be very useful to coaches, coach educators and golf developers worldwide.

How to bring, teach and retain children in golf

My guest – Paul Aitkens, Regional Development Officer at the Golf Foundation (@PaulTheGolfPro, @GolfRootsHQ, Golf-Foundation.org).

Some pros don’t see children back at the golf club after school promotion… are the sessions that they’d run, are they actually enganging, fun, enjoyable, meeting that young person’s needs? Was the follow-up marketing any good?

The Golf Foundation is an organisation with a sole aim to develop junior golf in Great Britain. They do A LOT to allow more children to experience and fall in love with the game, both on a national level as well as locally through the work of the Regional Development Officers such as Paul Aitkens.

We discuss a number of topics related to the Foundation and effective junior coaching in general:

• What’s Golf Foundation and what are Regional Development Officers’ jobs
• How to develop junior pathways (in three stages: start, learn, stay)
• Services, products, programmes and solutions that GF provides for coaches (as well as specific tips and thoughts), such as:
  • Box of Tricks
  • Junior Action Plan
  • TriGolf and StreetGolf equipment
  • Funding for coaches
  • Junior Golf Passport
  • Workshops
  • Girls Golf Rocks
• Ideas on how to grow a junior programme and retain children in the golf club
• Effective school coaching
• Playing, social and skill development opportunities that coaches can provide for kids
• Effective marketing and the importance of key decision makers
• What makes a successful junior coach

Listen to the episode

Listen to the episode below or in your favourite podcast app (I recommend Overcast).

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Listen to the interview on YouTube: