Online Coaching

With all of the "fun" things that have been going on in 2020 golf coaches everywhere have had to be adaptable and work out ways to offer coaching services to their clients. Online coaching has been a way for coaches to stay engaged with their clients and offer advice on swings and practice routines. All of the proactive coaches that I know have these systems in place already and moved quickly to expand their offerings for their students.

There are a number of different options out there for online coaching and I am interested in what your experiences are with online coaching. If you are a golfer, have you had an online lesson? Have you sent a swing in for analysis? Did it help? What was your experience like? I would love to hear what you liked about it or what you didn't like about it.

Also, if you are a coach, what are you offering in the online space for your clients? What has the engagement been like? Are you keeping your students or even gaining new ones? I would love to hear from you about your experiences in these crazy times.

Personally, I have set up a Fiverr gig for swing analysis and Skype calls. I use the GASP Lab system to analyse the swings sent to me and it is a great product. I am also currently looking at a couple of different options for online coaching. I am in a little different space at the moment as I am not coaching full time but, if I was, I would be offering different options for my students.

I am always open to contact from my students and we can work together to come up with the best possible solution to keep their golf improving.

Let me know in the comments what your experiences have been or hit me up on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram with your comments.

Until next time,

Brent

New Podcast - Coaching Uncovered

One new project that I have launched this year is a podcast. I have started publishing a podcast about coaching called Coaching Uncovered. It is a podcast that I want to be about coaches talking about coaching. I want the podcast to be informal and conversational and I am having lots of fun recording the episodes.

You can find the podcast feed on the right-hand side of this blog or on the Podbean website by clicking here. You can also find it at the usual podcast places by searching for the title.

So far I have had an exercise physiologist that works with golfers and is doing his Ph.D., a couple of great Aussie golf coaches and some great friends from overseas' All of these people have been great with sharing their thoughts and expertise and they have been great conversations. I am ramping up the recording at the moment so there will be new episodes out shortly.

As you can see by the picture above, I am portable with my recording equipment and I have a great website where I can record online and get good quality audio. I am still learning how to edit audio but I am enjoying the fairly steep learning curve! I am sure the audio quality will get better and better as I go along.

I am aiming to have some non-golf coaches on the show as well and I think it will be great to hear how they go about coaching in their sports and how it is similar and different to golf coaching. Who would you like to hear from? I would love to know who I should get in touch with for the show.

I would love for you to subscribe to the podcast and give the social media accounts a follow. You can find the Coaching Uncovered social accounts at Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Have a listen and let me know what you think!

Until next time,

Brent

Back in 2020

Well hasn't 2020 been fun and games so far! Lots of strange things happening and no real end in sight at the moment. Hopefully, people keep doing the right things and we get back to some kind of normal sooner rather than later.

I just wanted to let you know that I will be posting my thoughts and ideas, here again, moving forwards. I want to share my ideas on golf and coaching and hopefully help you with your game or just give you some entertainment as we go along.

I will have some news about a podcast I have started up recently along with some other things on social media that I will be kick-starting again.

I would love to hear from you so let me know what has been going on for you in the comments or you can get me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Let's have some fun with your golf and get a good conversation going.

Until next time,

Brent

2018 Update

Again, I have been very slack in posting on this blog so I thought I would update you on what has been happening in my career and give you a little sneak peek of what I will be writing about in the coming weeks.

For the past 12 months, I have been helping to manage the Australian PGA Trainee Program as the Training Manager has been on maternity leave and taking care of her new baby boy. This has meant that I have been nice and busy with work and haven't had much time to do anything else. This has been a challenging but rewarding time in my career but I am glad that things are now starting to move back towards normal.

This week, after a little reshuffle of the PGA Education team, my new role is that of Continuing Education Coordinator. This position will allow me to build, develop and work in and on the PGA's ACE Program. I will be able to develop more online modules for the PGA Members to have access to, I will be able to be more involved in the PGA's ACE face to face training sessions and I will be able to further develop the webinar program that I helped begin last year. If you are a PGA Member reading this, please keep your eye on the ACE page of MyPGA for new modules, webinars etc.

As well as doing this work on the ACE Program I will be writing more and researching more. So what sort of topics will be coming up on my blog? I am going to be writing about more coaching specific topics that will align more with the research I will be doing to start to move towards a Ph.D. I will also be writing about practice advice and tips for golfers looking to improve their games and scores. These posts will be published on a very regular basis so make sure you check back often.

I am also part of Team MFG which is a team of skilled professionals put together by US PGA Member Mike Fay and you can find lots of great information from Team MFG by clicking here.

Make sure you follow me on Twitter, Facebook to keep up to date with my latest news and information.

Until next time,

Brent

Do Coaches Talk to Much?

As a golf coach who is always interested in developing my understanding of the swing and coaching techniques I am always researching and developing new ways to do the things that I do during a golf coaching session. This curiosity is what led me to undertake my post graduate university studies and is what drives me to continue to learn and develop as a coach.
One thing that I have always believed as a coach is communication is extremely important part of the coaching process. There is no point having lots of knowledge about the golf swing and coaching if you can’t get that information across to your student. How we communicate in a golf lesson can make a lesson great or awful.

One of my faults as a coach when I first started giving lessons was giving too much information during a lesson. I would feel like I had to talk for the entire time to give my student “value for money”. This led to a lot of students becoming overwhelmed during my lessons and leaving more confused.

After spending time watching other coaches give lessons and reading more about communication I started to realise that a golfer can’t take on very much new information at any one time. I started to reduce the amount of new changes I gave to a student and I started to see their ball flight improve during the lesson. I would give two or three points only per lesson and I had a lot happier customers.

Over the years, I have spent a lot of time on the Ted website watching some amazing videos. If you haven’t checked out this site, I would encourage you to take a look by clicking here. On this site, I came across the video below. Take a few minutes and watch it.

Accountability

I posted in my last entry about starting my PhD and I have posted on my Facebook page and Twitter account about this same topic. The idea I had behind this was the fact that the more places I told people about my goal, they more likely I was to be accountable to myself in achieving this goal. It also got me thinking about accountability and how I could use it in my coaching and how my students could use it in their practice and their game.

As a coach, I have always prided myself on being accountable for my actions, doing what I said I was going to do and helping my students improve their skills in the best manner possible. That being said, there have been times that I have not followed through on promises and I am always trying to improve my skills in this area. As a coach, you should have systems in place that allow you to connect with your students regularly so show your commitment to them and to help them achieve success.

It is also important that your students are accountable for their own improvement and that they understand their role in their golf game. I have had students in the past that have blamed me completely for their lack of progress and not taken any responsibility for their own practice and improvement. Obviously, it is a team effort and both player and coach play a role in achieving the best possible outcomes.

So this leads to the question; how do we become more accountable?

From a coaching perspective, I think it is quite a simple task to be accountable to your students. The following points outline some strategies you can use as a coach.

• Be available: Be available to talk with your students to reinforce the message you are trying to get across. The more often they hear you communicate the things you want them to do the more chance you have of having them do it.
• Have systems: Setting up communication systems that send out emails, SMS's etc are a great way to show your students that you are there for them and want them to come back and improve.
• Give 100%: I know this sounds obvious but it is important that you give each of your students the best possible lesson every time they step onto your coaching tee. "Going through the motions" during a lesson is unprofessional and will not help your students improve

These are just a few simple ideas for coaches and I would love to hear your ideas in the comments.

For golfers to be accountable they need to be aware of their role in the improvement process from the start. I think it is important that they are aware that they need to practice the skills taught during the lesson and provide feedback to the coach on what is working and what is not working in their game. If you make these points clear early in the coaching relationship you will have a better chance of success.

Here are a few ideas for golfers to help them be more accountable.

• Keep a practice log: Recording how much and what type of practice you complete each week is a great way to monitor your training and make yourself more accountable. If you need to send your report to your coach or report on it during your next lesson you are much more likely to complete some proper practice between coaching sessions. You can find an example of a practice log I use with my students by clicking here.
• Follow instructions: If your coach asks you to practice a drill a certain number of times a day or hit a certain number of balls before your next lesson, make sure you do it! Coaches prescribe practice for a reason and that reason is to help you improve.
• Report in: Chat with your coach. Give them a call or send them an email letting them know how your training is going. I love hearing from my students and it helps keep us both motivated to improve.

These are just a few simple ideas and I would love to hear your suggestions in the comments below.

Until next time,

Brent

Brent Davis Update

Seeing as it has been such a long time since I have posted on this blog I thought I would spend a little time updating you all on what is happening in my career since the last time I was active on this blog.

Basically, I have been working for the PGA of Australia in the Academy department working across all the education programs the PGA offers. I have been involved in the Trainee program, the ACE program (full Member continuing education) and the Community Instructor program which is a joint venture between the PGA of Australia and Golf Australia. I help develop content for these programs, present at face to face training schools for the Trainees, assist with compliance and administration on the Registered Training Organisation (RTO) and maintain and administrate the PGA’s online learning platform. This has been a bit of a change to my normal working day as I spend a lot more time at a desk working on a computer these days!

I am also coaching on a part-time basis out of the PGA Centre for Learning and Performance based at the Sandhurst Golf Club in the South-Eastern suburbs of Melbourne. This is a state of the art facility with access to some of the latest coaching technology such as Trackman, SAM PuttLab, SAM BalanceLab and K-Vest. You can look at some pictures of the facility and read about the technology available by going to my website here.

As well as working in these two roles I will be attempting to expand on my tertiary qualifications by starting a PhD. This will be a little bit of an unusual pathway as my Masters was completed by coursework rather than research. This means that I have to enrol in a Masters research program and hopefully transfer to the PhD program at a later date. I am interested in researching the influence that playing ability in a sport has on the coaching ability in that sport and I think my study will take me down some interesting paths. I am also keen to research coach education as this will help me improve the programs within the PGA.

Social media is also a lot bigger since I last posted and you can follow/like my profiles on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram by clicking on the links.

Well, that about does it for my update and I am looking forward to posting more interesting content on a regular basis.

Until next time,

Brent