How to Choose an Expert Golf Coach Who Will Coach Your Child To Reach Their Full Golf Potential

One of the juniors who attended our high performance junior camp

It may seem like a simple task to choose a golf coach as most golf courses both private and public have golf professionals who give golf lessons and most are PGA or LPGA accredited. But are all golf coaches the same? 

The simple answer is a big NO!






There are many questions you need to ask before you can make a decision on which golf coach you are going to entrust your child's golfing future to.

You are not going through the selection process of finding just a golf swing coach (of which there are many) as it is much more involved than that. The golf coach/instructor you choose will need to have many skill sets that can keep developing your son or daughter's skills both on and also off the golf course.

There are literally thousands of golf coaches, and especially younger golf coaches out there who would love to dazzle you with hi-tech gadgetry and vocabulary as the only way to teach and develop young golfers. 

As these hi-tech gadgets and vocabulary do have a place in golf instruction, however they unfortunately can and often do create a "teaching environment" instead of a "learning environment" which is what is required to stimulate the learning and acquisition of golf swing techniques.

So if you are serious about developing the full potential of your child especially between the ages of 11 years to 15 years old, then the golf coach/instructor you choose must have a reasonable depth of knowledge and experience to guide them along a relatively seamless Long-Term Player Development Pathway.

So below are the requirements that we suggest the coach you select should have in order for him/her to develop young junior golfers into elite golfers. 

Otherwise at some point they will have to hand your child over to another more experienced and successful elite level golf coach who can fulfill their potential.

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"There are literally thousands of golf coaches, and especially younger golf coaches out there who would love to dazzle you with hi-tech gadgetry and vocabulary as the only way to teach and develop young golfers."

Michael Sim became the number one ranked amateur in the world

1. An established and successful track record of players he/she has coached who have excelled at state, national and international levels.
2. Does he possess a reputation as a great communicator, motivator, mentor, club-fitter?  
3. Is he/she able to put in place game management, mental conditioning, fitness, nutrition and health at the appropriate times and set benchmarks to measure the students progress?
4. Are they a "system" rather than "method" coach. The difference being that a "system" coach can apply a swing technique that would fit the golfer while the "method" coach makes the golfer fit to a rigid model swing. 

Most method coaches especially the younger inexperienced ones teach a swing that is normally the "flavor of the month" and don't have a complete understanding of the method themselves.

The coach must be able to develop the students all round golf game and to do this they must have in place a training regime for the long and short games that is measurable and designed for improvement.

There are some fine golf coaches who do an extraordinary job at introducing the game to juniors from ages 5 years old to 10 years old. 

But like Rudy Duran,Tiger Woods coach from the age of 4 years old, Rudy didn't have the expertise or experience to take a junior golfer like Tiger Woods all the way to world class (Top 100 World Golf Rankings) so he handed him over to someone who could take him all the way to the PGA tour. 

That job was given to Butch Harmon.

The coach you are seeking will have the capacity to blend his experience of coaching golfers with the science of coaching to provide your child with a strong foundation both technically and mentally to help them reach their full potential.

So do the research, ask other parents for their feedback and referrals and make an appointment to meet with the different coaches and ask the right questions.

 And most importantly of all, observe if your child connects with and has a great rapport with the coach.


David Milne and Lawrie Montague - Pro Tour Golf College
Your Success on Tour is Our Business

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