Top PGA professionals provide unprecedented support to development coaches

Some of the PGA’s leading teaching professionals, including Jamie Gough, Ben Fouchee and Vaughn Tucker, are getting behind an initiative to provide additional support to coaches from the SA Golf Development Board (SAGDB). These professionals have been appointed to act as mentors to the board’s development coaches and support their training of aspiring young golfers.

“SAGDB coaches are responsible for taking the game to children at schools in previously disadvantaged areas,” explains the PGA’s director of education and SAGDB board member, Dennis Bruyns. “In order to make the game sustainable for these children, they need to be taught correctly. Therefore it is important that the PGA gives all the support and encouragement it can to the SAGDB coaches so that they can become more skilled.”

The mentoring programme has been established through appointing a qualified PGA teaching professional in each of the SAGDB’s operational areas. These professionals will be mentors for the SAGDB coaches in their region and will conduct regular workshops for ongoing formal training.

All of the coaches contracted to the SAGDB come from the underprivileged communities in which they teach. This is therefore a chance for them to have access to a level of training that would otherwise be out of reach for them, and forms a vital part of the SAGDB’s broad vision to grow a culture of golf in areas that have had limited access to the game.

“The SAGDB coaches will also be able to seek advice and assistance from their mentor when and where required,” Bruyns explains. “This will also allow the SAGDB coaches to
build up practical hours that will count towards their advancement as a coach and this could eventually result in them becoming fully qualified PGA coaches.”

The mentoring programme is an extension of the National Training Programme which the SAGDB ran over the past two years to enhance the skill of its coaches. Having gained a thorough background, the coaches will now be provided with ongoing support to ensure that they continue to improve their knowledge.

SAGDB managing executive Ken Viljoen says that the mentoring programme will be a crucial part of the development programme’s efforts to raise standards.

“Over time, we have identified a need to improve the practical coaching skills of our development coaches,” he says. “So this is an opportunity for the PGA professionals to pass on their knowledge and experience to our coaches, who will in turn pass what they learn on to the children in our programmes.”

 Viljoen believes that it’s particularly exciting that the two golfing bodies are working so closely together to the benefit of the national game as a whole.

“Together with the, we PGA recognised the need to give our coaches the chance to develop their skills to a new level,” he says. “I would particularly like to thank Dennis Bruyns for his vision and insight that have made this project possible.”

The professionals appointed by the PGA are recognised as some of the top golf coaches in the country. Their experience and knowledge will therefore be invaluable to coaches for whom formal training would otherwise be unattainable.

Gough has been appointed to mentor the coaches in the Western Cape, while Martin Briede will assist in Gauteng. Michelle de Vries, who has already had a long and influential relationship with the SAGDB, will mentor coaches in the Border area.

The other PGA teaching professionals appointed as mentors are Tucker in the Southern Cape, Fouchee in Boland, Graeme van der Nest in Eastern Province and John Dickson in KwaZulu-Natal.

As the recognised body responsible for growing the game nationally, the SAGDB receives support from all of South Africa’s official golfing bodies. These bodies are all represented on the SAGDB’s board of directors and assist in guiding its objectives.

The PGA is playing a particularly crucial role in supporting the board’s aims through its technical support. Not only has it assisted in drawing up the SAGDB’s national coaching programme, but it has now embarked on this initiative to provide much needed assistance to the board’s development coaches.

Bruyns believes that the results the PGA is looking for through establishing this programme are simple: “Better coaches – better players.”