Junior golf development is again the topic hitting blogger today. Turning kids into athletes first through constructive junior development is giving them the greatest chance of being successful in the future. It should be interesting this weekend seeing the TPI screening results from a couple of my under 13 junior golfers and also that of a European Challenge Tour golfer. All of the sessions are taking place on Saturday and i am looking forward to seeing how the juniors are developing along their road to seeking elite level golf. Also to see how their results compare to somebody who is near the top in the game of golf.
The Challenge Tour player, Ben Evans, has just completed a full playing season. During this time it is difficult to maintain the physical training and exercise that can be carried out pre season. In and out of countries week after week barely getting everything out of a suitcase is not entirely conducive to training well for golf. The results of the screen will be interesting to put against the work that Ben is carrying out with his coach Jeremy Bennett. Maybe we will find a few things that will assist Ben in making his swing improve mechanically and also in the consistency of his movements. Ideal results would show that Ben will pass all the screens with flying colours, meaning we can send him on to a personal trainer and just work him harder and build upon his physical vocabulary.
With the juniors it will be slightly different. They are just in the age where things like flexibility, mobility and speed needs to be developed before they miss there chance. However i would expect their mobility to be very good. If anything i would expect their weaknesses to lie in their bigger muscle groups such as the glutes and core muscles. If we can improve on these and make their swings more stable then building a solid swing foundation will be a lot easier.
Having taken a look at one of the juniors briefly last week i was able to identify a very obvious early extension on the downswing. This would lead you to believe that there will be a difficulty to perform exercises such as a deep squat or rotations and the inability to separate lower and upper body. We will see what happens but the results will be interesting and will give me a good base to set some programmes for the juniors to work on improving their physical performance. As i have said with my previous blogs, the idea with the junior golfers is to turn them into athletes. If they can perform a full range of fundamental movements and sport specific skills then we are giving them the best chance to be successful in the future. By leaving this area untouched now we i would be seriously damaging their chances of success in the future.
I am looking forward to getting the results together to see where the golfers are at present. Maybe some interesting findings will lead to vast improvements in each of their golfing stories.
Keep posted to see how the results came out.
Daniel Gale
PGA Professional
Dan teaches at The James Andrews School of Golf in East Sussex
Check out his website at www.dangalegolf.com
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