Want to find out more about PGA Qualifications, but missed our most recent open day?
Well, you’re in luck! If you’d like to watch it back, you can do so here: https://bit.ly/4aPRDPG
Or, if you’d like to attend our next in person open day, click here 👉 https://bit.ly/3PNukxJ
okay good morning everyone than you for
taking the time to join us today um I
hope you can see the presentation on the
on the
screen uh the focus of this presentation
is going to be on our part-time courses
but if anyone has any questions about
the full-time course in particular the
agms course we can get in touch with you
afterwards so my name is Simon Hubb I’m
head of the training program um you’re
going to meet some colleagues today um
and uh thank you for uh giving up your
time to to join us also
so give you a little bit of a um an idea
of the
schedule um we will send out a link to
the
presentation uh so um
we will um provide that afterwards the
main purpose of today is for you to meet
the the subject leaders I’ll provide an
overview of the program there will be an
opportunity to ask questions you should
have a
Q&A um uh an icon where you can ask
questions and if you submit them we’ll
then look at them a little bit later in
the presentation
please remember though it’s not
appropriate for us answer questions that
would relate directly to your
application or or
um an application that you wish to make
so if you’ve been going through the
process of putting an application
together that will be through Tracy
mland um we can follow up afterwards
with tracing
so just you a little bit of background
to PGA education um education has been
in existence since the early
1960s um it then became compulsory for
people to go through some form of
education and the PGA then developed its
own diploma Award in 2002
the amms program was introduced and that
is awarded by the University of
Birmingham that’s a fulltime full honors
degree and in 2004 we introduced the
foundation degree program again awarded
by the University of Birmingham in 2016
and to take advantage mainly of the
funding opportunities in Scotland we
introduced the diphe which is awarded by
the University of the high islands and
Islands in
Scotland
so have around between 900 to a th000
students on the program and around UH 60
students on our agms program so that’s a
little bit of an introduction to the to
the academic offering that the PJ has
and what I’m going to do is now to hand
over to
for the sports science modules a brief
explanation of
them morning all can someone just give
me a little thumbs up and if we can see
my screen and hear me all
right can hear you
Lois see the screen okay um it’s my
presentation that I can see so let me
stop sharing mine
yeah got yours on there perfect so
thanks for the introduction Simon uh my
name is Lis Clark I’m module lead the
programs here in sports science and what
the what we’re going to do for the next
sort of 10 minutes or so I won’t harp on
about Sport Science for the whole
presentation um is lead you through what
my module sort of entails over that
three years and some of you may be
thinking a sport Science does that
really sound like that interests me um
but hopefully by the end of this short
presentation you’ll have a little bit of
a better insight into what sport Science
is and how we apply that to golf so to
give you a quick start when we look at
what sport Science is is we have this
lovely graphic here which entails all of
the roles which sport Science can happen
so this solves us two purposes tells you
a little bit about the depth and width
of sport Science but it also gives you a
role and an idea of the roles which are
available in the sports science Industry
and of those are also available to golf
pros as well so we have uh people like
sports psychologists we have sports
nutritionists physios biomechanists
which is my background physiologists and
then finally strength conditioning
coaches and we’ve really seen a bit of a
lift in the growth of sports science in
golf and how these roles look so on the
left of your screen you’ll see Rob
Hopkinson uh who’s one of our PJ
Shooters he’s also a PJ member and he’s
a Physio and strength conditioning
trainer on tour we’ve also seen the role
of the golf coach develop and some
people become biomechanists and we have
Chris KO as a good example of that
working with tiger and then finally on
the right some of you may have noticed
Julie recently more in the media circles
um due to her work with people like
Windam Clark um but she’s an applied
psychologist so typically people think
of sports science as someone with a lab
coat on in a lab with a bun and burner
um but what in essence is is all these
different faceted and multiple
opportunities available to you now to
give you a little bit of an idea on what
this looks like in a golf setting and
especially from an education setting is
in year one we cover warm-ups so I just
want you to have a quick 10 15 seconds
to think about what your typical warm-up
looks like before you play Go
and once you’ve had a little thought
about what your warmup looks like I want
to also think about maybe some of the
warm-ups which you see at your golf club
from varying handicaps or first person I
think of is my dad a lot my dad’s warmup
typically involves getting to the first
tea one minute before the tea time um my
warmup looks a little bit differently
but what we typically hear when you
don’t understand the value of warmup is
maybe some bit hitting of balls on the
driving range or in a net a little bit
of putting some poor static stretching
and then tee off and Away you go now
what we know from the research is that
static stretching isn’t the most
beneficial to us whereas Dynamics are so
static stretching typically involves
holding a joint in a position for an
extended period of time and it decreases
strength for up to 60 Minutes post
stretch and that reduces power and it’s
been proven to reduce clubbed speed ball
speed cess of strike carry distance and
then drive distance as well whereas
Dynamic stretching involves working a
joint through a range of movement can be
used to physically assess the GOL for as
well and it can significantly increase
power and it’s also been proven to
increase clubbed speed ball speed carry
distance and drive distance so when we
give you this information and when we
teach you this this is part of your year
one residentials it you can use it to
one inform your own game which is always
a win but also to inform your client
game and people at your club and we’ll
come on to a little bit about how people
are doing this in the real world so
takeaway message early on Dynamics over
Statics a bit for your own game there in
year two we then go on to Junior
development and start to look at things
such as fundamental movement skills and
Sport skills looking at the stages of
development juniors go through and also
what to do as a coach so this is where
we really work closely alongside the
coaching module to figure out what’s the
best way to tackle coaching Juniors it’s
something which assistants tend to get
passed on to early on in their journey
and it’s important to understand that
they’re not just mini adults they are
very different and they have very
different needs especially from a
anatomy and physiology
perspective in year two we look a little
bit further into the psychological
aspects I’m sure a lot of you will
understand there’s a big mental
component to the game of golf as well
one of these components is
self-determination theory of which we
have three key pillars the first one is
autonomy so we’d like to give choice to
the player or to our client competence
so making them feel good uh not making
the skill too difficult and then finally
relatedness and it’s really important
that we form relationships
with who we are working
with and then finally in year three we
give you a nice intro into OnCourse
nutrition and again give you some really
practical tips on how you can go about
implementing this one for your own game
and two for the clients that you have as
well and what we do uh really nice
recommendation is how we use our scorec
card to our advantage So in theory
you’re going to look at your scorec card
every hole so if we Circle certain holes
um like the fifth hole for example here
we can undertake a little snack like an
energy ball and on on the 10th again a
nice reminder to have um some sort of
wrap which has a bit of carbs and a
little bit of protein and then finally
on the 15th uh banana and some of you
will think 15 that’s quite late to eat
but you still have a little bit of your
round to go it’s important to maintain
that performance rather than see a
performance drop off so there’s a bit of
a intro into how we use some Sport
Science disciplines and how we integrate
them into the golf world now I wanted to
finish on what we traditionally hear
from students every single year and some
of these are real quotes some of them
have been pulled together and the first
one is it helps coaching interventions
and mainly for increasing speed so in
sport Science we talk a lot about
increasing clubbed speed we know Club at
speed really links well to money earn on
PJ tour also links really well to
Strokes gained in the amateur game so if
you can find speed great and we do a lot
of work around how we use Sports Science
principles to increase speed some of
that could be through shm conditioning
some of that could be through nutrition
increasing power there and some of it
could be through biomechanics and
applying technique like in coaching
interventions the other one that we also
get is it increases uh income revenue
streams and this is by typically by
clinics so I had a student this year who
said they’ve recently introduced a
clinic on warm-ups and visualization so
two topics that we’ve covered on the
program and it was a really good way to
earn uh Revenue during the winter months
so they’d switch to in the winter
offering more clinics then in the summer
when the busy period tends to happen
going back to onetoone session so
offering clinics on some of the topics
which we are teaching and getting the
message across to more people again and
different way to find a revenue
stream and then finally the big one is
help my own performance one of the
things I really like about sports
science and how I got into the industry
was I really wanted to improve my own
game um so if those of you still want to
play a lot and hopefully want to
progress with your playing still there’s
lots of opportunities in sports science
to understand more about your own game
and use yourself almost as a trial
before you then go back and give that
advice to clients
that’s all for me today I said I’d keep
it short and sweet we’re just at the 10
minute Mark um I’ll hand you over to the
next module lead who will get you away
from the boring World of Sport Science
and into something maybe a little bit
more
interesting is that you DC if so just
pop yourself off mute and then you are
ready to roll that would be good
wouldn’t it as well as the the video so
good morning everybody uh hopefully you
can now see my golf coaching screen uh
I’m sure some of my colleagues give me a
thumbs up thank you uh so it’s it’s my
pleasure to to welcome you to this uh
this online meeting today as well so my
name is David KLU I’m a PJ qualified
professional and I’m also the head of
coaching and sports science here at the
PGA so I’m going to take you through uh
some slides and give you a little bit of
an introduction to the golf coaching
modules which do fit hand in glove with
uh Le’s Sports science modules across
the three years but also there’s an
awful lot of uh Crossover with Equipment
Technology you’ll hear later on and and
also Richard’s modules in business uh
it’s fair to say that coaching golf is
something that pretty much every PJ
professional does uh our research
suggests that around about 90% of our
members are doing some level of coaching
each month and probably around 30% of
them are earning their primary income
from coaching and for some that will be
uh working at the Grassroots level
introducing children and adults uh to to
the game of golf for others it will be
working within that Club Space uh
keeping Juniors adults within the within
the game so retaining their their
participation and hopefully increasing
their enjoyment of the game but also we
have PJ members who who are working very
much at the top end of the world class
end of the game uh so those of you who
are Avid viewers of golf will recognize
Rory mroy and and Matthew Fitzpatrick
but the two PJ professionals I’m drawing
your attention to here is uh Mike Walker
at the bottom who’s the uh coach to M
Fitzpatrick and Rory B Michael Bon who’s
Rory mooy’s coach who are both PJ
Professionals of a number of years now
and who have the uh opportunity to not
only impact uh
their those two players careers but also
others uh and interestingly even this
last couple of weeks where the golfing
world has been focused on Augusta uh PJ
professionals haven’t managed to win the
the US Masters in in in any any recent
times however PJ Master professional
Phil Kenyan was the putting coach to
Masters champion Scotty schiffler and in
the weeks leading up to the US Masters
where they played the Augusta National
Women’s National amate Championships lty
W has been coached and was caded by PJ
fellow professional Steve Robinson so
again you have PJ members who’ve gone
through the training program that you
will be going through uh working and
developing their skills and abilities
who are working right at the top end of
the amateur and professional game the
women’s uh and the men’s game as
well but sort of back to the to the the
majority who will be working with uh
participants up and down the up and down
the country and across the world we are
seeing from the research that’s carried
out into coaching that great coaches not
only help people get into Sport and golf
obviously being one of those but if if
we can get you to a stage where you are
able to deliver great coaching you will
have a significant impact on people’s
enjoyment and the more likely to stay in
the game stay involved and as a result
of that given that we are the
professional golfers association there’s
a likely benefit to you as a as a
professional with regards to the
financial Returns on that so what we
hope is that through the training
program you will be able to take people
from from a coaching perspective from
the driving range to the golf course and
to becoming a a a frequent player as
quickly as possible and that’s important
for a couple of reasons it’s important
because as I say as a as a PJ
professional the the main aim will be
for you to earn your living from uh the
golf industry and so the more people you
can bring into the game the more
customers you can have who keep playing
the game day in day out the more you’re
likely you are to have uh knock on
impacts into Club sales and equipment
sales and the opportunity to potentially
uh go on golf organized golfing holidays
as are many of our members in uh Europe
will do but it will increase the amount
of activity at a golf facility and that
is also a really valuable asset to any
manager or owner of a golf facility be
that in the UK or or abroad so we are
very much focused on providing you as
Lewis has already highlighted skills and
abilities that mean that you can go away
and earn a living as a PJ professional
and you can also help golf golf club
Owners Golf Club managers uh thrive at
the facilities where you
work so what do we teach what’s what’s
some of the syllabus that we that we we
look
at for many people I think when they
come to to start training training in
education with the PGA they we’re going
to teach you about a golf swing a
mythical PGA golf swing that will you
can teach to everybody and anybody uh
and it will help them play better
gol the reality is even at the very top
level with the most talented players
people can get the job done with very
different looking motions based around
the way in which they’ve been brought up
their physical characteristics the
environmental characteristics they that
they encounter as they develop their
swings and so you have players now
obviously in the latter stages of their
careers like Jim furick on the right and
Matt coocher on the left who you
wouldn’t necessarily say our
textbook uh but who have enough common
denomination
that they are able to win around the
world and amount uh a huge amount of
winnings through their
career and the reason why they’re so
good is that is at the Cornerstone of
what we will uh Endeavor to teach you
about as you come through the training
program and that is they can control the
club through impact and as a result of
that improve or control the golf ball
and on its flight and so one of our
leading Master professionals is Mr John
Jacobs who’s sadly no longer with us but
is probably seen as one of the key
figures of the golf coaching industry
over the last 50 to 60 years and he’s
but he he said in many books that the
sole purpose of the golf swing is to
create a correct impact and how that is
done so the technique employed it is is
not as important as long as you can
repeat it and as long as you can uh
produce the ball fight that you want for
any given
shot so the science the sports science
that Lewis has talked about is combined
with golf science so and physics of of
impact what is it that happens at the
moment of contact that is going to
influence the trajectory the distance
the direction and the curvature of the
golf Bol regardless of the shot at hand
and you’ll learn about that you’ll learn
about why these very I different ball
flights some some meant some not meant
uh by by golfers occur and that will put
you in a very powerful position to be
able to work with as many different
levels of golfer as you possibly can be
that those who are being introduced to
the game at Grassroots level or those at
the very top of the game that we’ve
highlighted
already alongside that we’ll teach you a
lot more about what it is you need to
coach so we’ll look at the technical and
tactical elements of the game as
uh leis has already highlighted that
crossover between coaching and sports
science will help us address physical
the mental lifestyle and as you’ll hear
from shortly Philips side of the uh the
syllabus the equipment side of the game
at at its heart golf is about us as
coaches working with each individual and
so understanding who your coaching is
equally as important as the technical
tactical piece the impact factor piece
or the physical and mental and so
understanding the individual is going to
be again another key part of the
syllabus alongside once you understand
who you have in front of you and you
have a good grasp of what it is you can
need to do to help them then how you
coach will also be vitally important and
again we’ll work through a numerous
methodologies that will help you uh
address the wants and needs of a wide
range of
individuals that will be done across the
three years of the foundation degree or
the diploma uh if you in the in Scotland
but also alongside this you will also go
through two coaching qualifications so
the asq level one activities coach and a
level two uh coaching qualification
which you must also pass uh to become a
PGA member this gives you an opportunity
with typically within your
regions to experience uh shoter days
with our PGA members who are experts in
delivering coach education and get
feedback on your own uh delivery as as
you work through the program level one
being uh started in in year one and
level two started in year two and
overall what we’re really looking for is
as you develop and as you get exposed to
more coaching your your key question the
key question I was always using as a
coach when I was asking an individual is
how can I help and typically quite a few
of the people who will be you’ll be
faced with will come and they’ll bring a
problem typically a ballf flight problem
and rather than just one solution being
focused in and around the technique
that’s being employed because of the
syllabus that we provide you have a
range of go-to areas that you can start
to consider in how you help that player
and many of those will be interl but
ultimately the the the direction of
travel is that you as a coach have a
range of solutions that you can apply to
an individual as opposed to just one and
so in closing as we look into your
future and hopefully you will become uh
a PGA traine in the very near future we
don’t know whether or not you’re going
to how much coaching you’re going to do
but we do believe that you will be able
to become the CEO of the facility where
you work and that’s not the top top boss
who’s doing the management that’s the
chief engagement officer somebody who
using their coaching and sports science
skills alongside the other skills that
you’ll be listening to today will be
able to inspire people to take up the
game engage them so that they feel like
they are a golfer and then convert and
retain that business not only for
yourself as an individual trying to earn
a living within the golf profession but
as I’ve already highlighted someone
who’s seen as a really valuable part of
the uh the organization at a driving
range a private members golf club or a
resort or any other area or facility
where PJ professionals will be uh seing
coaching on a daily basis so good luck
with whatever you decide to do hopefully
I’m sure coaching will be a part of that
and now I’m G to pass it across to
Phillip thanks my screen I’ll just bring
line up
yeah you see that okay
yep you got there got you there perfect
morning everybody thanks for taking some
uh some time out to come and speak with
us my name is Philip Dy and I am a
lecturer and I deal with the the custom
fit and Equipment Technology
modules like David and Richard and Simon
I am a PGA member and after graduating
from the course I decided to specialize
on custom fitting and Equipment
Technology which I did for a couple of
years both here in the UK and uh and for
a couple of years abroad as well before
coming back about seven years ago now to
to take up this position and uh and lead
on all the modules to do with with golf
equipment and um and custom fitting and
and like David and and uh and Lewis I’m
just going to give you a really quick
Whistle Stop tour of what you can expect
on on the
program um in the um
in the first year we have a we have a
key industry skills module where we’ll
introduce uh a range of different ideas
and Concepts that are going to be
helpful across all sorts of different
roles and uh experiences that you’ll
have on the training program but also
working in the golf
industry um and and I think that’s
really important that you get this kind
of broad range of of skills and where
possible
um because you’ll be working in the golf
industry as well we’ll try and make as
much of the information relevant to
you now and and where you are at in the
program so that you can take the
information that you learn and start to
apply that um straight away there’s also
a lot of crossover as you’ve heard
already from Lewis and DC about um how
the information that we cover is linked
to all of the different modules and we
do work together behind the scenes to
make sure that we that we Del liely
create these links and we make them
obvious for you so that if you’re
learning something in sports science you
can see the value when it comes to
custom fitting and you can see maybe the
value of some of the golf coaching
aspects and how they might play an
important role in in running an
effective
business uh so in year one um the first
thing that we’ll we’ll do Straight Out
of the gates is we’ll start to introduce
the custom fitting process it’s quite
surprising to me actually and there was
a there was a recent conversation that
we had with one of the leaders from um
from foremost golf who was saying that
there’s still a surprisingly large
amount of opportunity to to enhance the
custom fitting elements of people’s
businesses at the moment and that’s
really interesting to me at least as the
module lead because I’m I’m involved in
this space all the time um and custom
fitting has been around for a very very
long time certainly longer than I’ve
been around and yet um there’s still
plenty of opportunities to to leverage
that in your own business
so we’ll start to introduce the the
actual fitting process and we’ll give
you a rough idea of the kind of steps
that you’ll need to take when conducting
and fitting in your own business and
talk about the importance of custom
fitting as it relates to player
performance and a lot of that
information you’ll be able to apply to
your own games as well when you start to
evaluate your own
equipment the other thing that we’ll do
in the um in the first year is talk
about the rules of
golf sometimes considered a bit of a a
dry subject area but actually when you
get into the detail a lot of um very
exciting opportunities become available
to you as you progress with um with your
knowledge of the rules we have a lot of
internal members of Staff who are
qualified rules officials that have
worked on several of the major
championships and and competitions like
the ride
cover but the main reason that it’s
introduced in the um in the first year
is twofold first of all you’ll be
expected to play tournaments while
you’re on the program and therefore it’s
important to have a good understanding
of the rules because as you start to
play professionally for money you don’t
want to be uh losing out from from a
lack of knowledge in that space and also
within your the business that you work
quite often the PGA professional is
going to be the go-to person when it
comes to uh members asking questions
about the rules whether that’s something
that’s happened on the on the course
something to do with equipment or
whether it’s something to do with
setting up the course for perhaps the
club championships or an open day where
you might want to um look at core setup
in a little bit more detail the final
thing that we’ll do in the in the first
year is introduce you to some club
building so we’ll show you how to build
irons from scratch from component parts
and that helps with your understanding
of the different specifications that can
be altered and some of those that um
that can’t and also leads into some of
the assessment that you’ll have in the
second
year so in the second year we continue
with the club building and you will do
an exam during one of your residentials
which if you haven’t heard about then um
then we can obviously talk about in a
bit more detail later so you’ll do a
club build assessment which forms part
of your
[Music]
um PGA
qualification and what we’ll also start
to do is bro the range of um clubs that
we talk about so in the first year it’s
primarily iron clubs but in the second
year we start to bring in different
types of equipment so drivers wedges
hybrids Fairway woods and also a little
bit about the ball as well um that’s at
the moment particularly an interesting
subject and I think over the next couple
of years as we as we build up to this
potential roll back I think a better
understanding of the um of the rules
that govern the the golf ball and some
of the technical specifications that
govern how a golf ball performs are
going to be um very useful to you when
it comes to um a retail environment as
we figure out what we’re going to do
when we potentially reduce the the
distance the ball can
travel and then in the third year we
really start to get to a point where
we’re taking all of this knowledge and
information that we learn in the first
and second year and we start to think
about how we can apply that to improve
performance for other people so we start
to think about okay if somebody comes to
us like David said with with a ballf
flight issue is that a an issue with the
golf swing or is that something that can
be altered with equipment and there’s
lots of different things that we can do
there’s lots of options that are
available to to us I’m sure you’re aware
there a very wide range of golf
equipment that’s available on the market
and trying to uh filter through all that
to provide a product that’s going to
help somebody genuinely get better can
be quite difficult and in addition to
that we’re also going going to introduce
a lot more uh data analysis again as
you’ll be aware technology is playing an
increasingly important role in how we
evaluate performance there’s lots of
tools out there launch
monitors uh performance tracking Dev
devices that churn out an awful lot of
numerical data and it’s very important
that you understand what to do with that
data and how to evaluate it as that
becomes more and more an expectation
from players and customers in the in the
golf industry so that that’s you know
very briefly what you what you’ll be up
to on the uh on the three modules across
the three years on the Equipment
Technology side and obviously if you’ve
got any questions uh at the end of the
presentation that follows from Richard
then I’m more than happy to uh to
address them and you can always throw
them in the chat function as
well hello everyone my name is Rich
tallboys I’m the lecturer for business
and management hopefully you can hear me
and see my screen
okay um so what we’re going to do is uh
I as mentioned by some of my colleagues
I’m also a PJ professional so I’ve been
through the program myself um worked in
a variety of roles in the golf industry
and prior to that had a a career in
finance so have a good understanding of
the the business World
um so these are the four main roots that
people go into when they are
um completed their program
um obviously there are a lot of other
roles out there but these are four of
the popular ones um I think it’s safe to
say that all of them require
understanding of business in order to be
successful so what we Tred to do is give
you the Knowledge and Skills um no
matter what you do once you’ve qualified
uh whether running a pro shop managing a
team of people or playing or coaching
fulltime to be
successful so what does the business
aspect of the training program cover uh
so in year one um these uh module topics
are called something different if you’re
doing the d h program in Scotland but
it’s the same um sort of content so
we’re looking at basic workplace skills
so HT soft and hard skills time
management selling
networking customer service plays a big
role in this um and there’s also an
emphasis on personal branding and social
media during the residential you to get
the opportunity to create a short video
which you can use on social media if you
want um and then moving into year two we
look more at The Wider perspective of
business so look at the macro and micro
economy um customer engagement and
relationships managing staff and
motivation plays a big role in the year
um and there’s some more management
style topics such as Recruitment and
selection and then finally moving into
the last year uh we delve into business
finance so we’re looking at sources of
Finance Financial recording budgeting
and forecasting um and most importantly
analyzing business
performance we also have uh the topic of
Taxation included in there which helps
you uh with your job roles um and and
how you can work out what tax you’re
owed and over the three years as it says
on the screen business accounts for 60
credits of the course that’s 25% of the
program so throughout the years we we
try and give you an understanding of
theories and
practical understandings of the golf
industry but also help you know build
and improve on those skills that you
need to be successful whilst you’re
doing the training and helping the
facility that you’re working
at just going to give you a few facts
and figures to get you thinking about
the business world that you may be
moving into um it is there’s a couple of
questions but don’t worry there’s no
testing on this um in well recently the
PJ in conjunction with ipsos um recently
completed the golf for all research
program um so just have a few seconds to
think about how many adults in Great
Britain and Ireland currently engage
with golf that’s either played a form of
golf or or you know or watched it or or
just engaged with
it so those are the numbers have a thing
think of
um basically you know the research found
that um 22.4 million people in Great
Britain and Ireland have engaged in Gulf
so what do that actually mean so in
terms of numbers 4.9 million play on
course within a vast uh percentage of
the the remainder playing Adventure Golf
25% solely use a driving range 16% just
use a pitch and Putt course and 9% play
simulator golf so indoors so there’s
quite a difference in in in the way golf
is engaged with um it’s not solely on
course but there’s a huge Market here
for us to to
investigate the second question and and
probably the main reason why people get
into sort of the golf business um making
money it’s the the the founding of all
businesses so what percentage of regular
golfers intend to spend more money on
golf Rel purchases over the next 12
months just have a little think about
what that could be so here are your
options if you guessed 55% you’d be
absolutely correct um so well done if
you’ve got that right on top of that
figure um over 30% of occasional golfers
we’re going to spend more and around
133% of infrequent golfers were also
determined to spend more money on golf
so hopefully that’s just giving you a
really brief overview of of how large
the golf industry is um and that’s just
gold uh Great Britain and Ireland not
including you know the rest of the
world so thank you for listening to me
um let just hand you back over to Simon
[Music]
thanks rck that’s okay and thanks for
everyone else for their contribution so
I’m going to give you a little bit more
of an overview of of of the program
starting with the delivery of the
program as I’ve mentioned we work with
our education Partners the University of
Birmingham and the University of the
Highlands and Islands um university of
Birmingham we work with them for the
foundation course course and the agms
course that’s the full degree course uh
University of the Highlands and Islands
the diphe course and the um ba course
that they run themselves at
doruk so for the foundation and the
diphe course essentially they are
distance learning courses uh the content
is delivered through an online learning
platform called
canvas the assess are committed online
there are some practical assessments um
as as you possibly heard from when
Philip was speaking and when David was
talking our trainees come to us on um
for for the
residentials
and the content that we provide at the
residentials they come for one week of
the year uh in each of the three years
of the program the delived by PGA and
prepared by the the umga lecturers who
listen what we try and do to focus
everything on
the uh on on the Practical aspects so
parts of the course that we can’t
deliver online so they’re they’re good
experiences when people come to the come
to the the residential sessions we also
have a mentor program The MENTOR program
assists the trainees as they’re
progressing through the
course so if you think about the roles
of a PGA professional the the normal
ones that spring to mind are either the
club professional or the assistant Pro
and what we would like to get over to
you is that there
are lots of different roles that that
PGA members
fulfill and hopefully this is reassuring
if we’ve got any parents that are
watching that um you know a career
engulf can really be a
c so if you are interested in the
program then you would need to be
thinking about what course you would
like to um take part
in really it needs to be a decision as
to whether you want to study full-time
at University and if that’s the case
then it would be the the amms course
again um we’re we’re focusing on our
part courses um if you want more
information on this we can provide it to
you um the AG full-time course this
would be Del Ed at the University of
Birmingham and also at the PGA Training
Academy so you would be a full-time on
campus
student if you’re looking at the
Foundation program or the diphe diphe
essentially if you’re based in Scotland
um what we what we do is create a course
that is designed to have a combination
of work at a golf facility and and you
studying um you would be working at a
gol facility with a PJ professional and
they would be acting as your training
professional so um that’s that’s how we
we work it because we like to think that
we provide the theory and then that
theory is put into practice at the
traine place of
work
initial education program prog the um
the academic part of it is a three-year
program quite often the trainees will
then have between the three those those
three years of study plus an additional
fourth year to get anything else that
they need to to get done to then be able
to apply for
membership as I’ve said it’s uh on the
job um at a go facility with the online
learning
platform and the assess ments are a
mixture of
written assignments written exams um and
practical
assessments so the entry
criteria over
18 and have a minimum of four
gcss handicap the upper limit
for males is six and for females is
eight excuse me and um you would need to
provide a playing history for the last
12 months so that we can see that you
you’re playing regularly and playing in
tournaments you would need to have a
suitable
workplace um and as I’ve mentioned
already you would need to have a a uh
PGA professional there who would be
acting as your training professional you
would also need at the start of the
course to have a um a DBS so a
disclosure for someone that’s going to
start the course in in uh 1 of October
of this year they would complete the
hopefully the foundation or the dip H
course in July
2027 which means that they would be
graduating as a p member in April
2028 there was a question that someone
asked about um uh uh about do they need
they were looking at making a career
choice and do they need to um be in work
yes you do need
to hopefully I’ll explain the reasons
why that is the case
I’ve mentioned already about the
disclosure the other thing that you
would need to have is um a safeguarding
and protecting children of course this
is done at the start of the year and uh
it must be maintained
throughout you as David mentioned we’ll
also do the uh level one course that’s
normally done during year one and then
the level two course starts in in year
two and then will be completed in year
three we also require our train need to
have a first aid
certificate because of the environment
that they are working in and people need
to play a minimum of 21 PG recognized
tournament rounds um there is additional
playing criteria for people that come on
at the upper handicap limit but that is
something that Tracy provides to you in
the information that’s sent out once you
register your interest and then um
subsequently make an
application so there is support
available um from ourselves at the PGA
and also from the two universities that
includes learning support um learning
support isn’t granted automatically so
students must apply for it we obviously
have the subject leads who you’ve met
today uh we have a team of
mentors we have uh extensive study
skills
resources we
provide um assessment webinars for each
of the assignments and the exams and
it’s also then possible to get
additional feedback on any of the
assessments that you
take so everything is structured to try
and help you
as best as best we can to help you do
the best that you
can on the screen now you can see
current syllabus on the left in the blue
is year one the green is uh is year two
and then we have um on the right the
year three modules in the
yellow if you are watching from Scotland
there are some different module titles
but essentially
the uh the the modules the content is
the and the assessments are all the
same so what we’re trying to do is to
provide an overview and give give people
uh a good
start in the industry then it’s possible
for people to specialize that can be
through either further education or
through CPD so we’re looking to give
people a good ground in the industry um
we’re not saying that people will come
out as experts but they will come out
with with that good grounding and then
further study and experience will then
um lead to people becoming an
expert what we try and do is to make the
assessments as relevant and applied to
you so quite often there’ll be case
studies um there will be um scenar
arios all around uh uh around different
situations within the industry and
around your work placement
C if you just look at those modules that
are on the screen you can see that there
are four core module areas um so the one
at the top there the te industry skills
that was one of Philips modules you’ll
then see that in year two there’s uh
Equipment Technology and applied custom
fitting and then in year three Advanced
custom fitting and Equipment Technology
that follows a similar theme with all of
the sub areas so our four core subject
areas uh will feature throughout the
three
years I’ll just give you a brief
timeline now what you would expect um to
if you started the course in October of
this year
so if you apply and you are accepted um
you would you would receive two offers
one would
be um offer and then you would have an
unconditional offer once someone’s been
given the unconditional offer that is
that means they’re on the
course um we expect all of our trainees
to do um a diversity and inclusion
course it’s an online
course our Academic Year as we’ve
mentioned starts on the 1st of October
each
year what you would then have is usually
in the middle of October some of the
induction
sessions and then November and into
December is when the year one students
come to the PJ National Training Academy
for their year one
residential December is when the first
assignment submission takes place and uh
as David mentioned with the level one
course that normally starts to take
place from December January
time uh there there is an online
assessment rules of golf exam that
normally takes place in the January
there would be the other subject areas
where you have to submit assignments and
then normally end of April is when we
have our exam week all of our students
will be getting ready for the exam week
that takes place next
week the results the end of year results
would normally
be towards mid end of June so that would
be June of next year when you would find
out whether you
progressed we’ve mentioned the
residentials and the residentials they
take at the National Training Academy
um there’s one each each year of study
and what we try and do is is provide
practical content that we deliver online
um you would stay at the on site at the
Wy trainy stay in the pods if you’re
familiar with the with the belfrey setup
they take their meals together it’s a
great learning environment for students
uh it’s also real opportunity for people
to uh to to meet other people to meet
their peers and hopefully to make new
friends so
a that is effectively first two years
of Al do to offer once those two courses
have been completed the facility to
continue studying to be able to get
either a degree or an honors degree um
if if you are based in in Scotland uh
through uhi or if you’ve taken the
foundation degree program to continue
studying for an honors degree through
Birmingham so these these two
opportunities um make it unique that you
can go through the pro and then come out
with an honors degree particularly with
the academic requirement that is
necessary at the
start um what we’ll do is give you more
information about the degree
opportunities once you uh have started
on the course but it’s it’s worth
knowing and again perhaps for parents to
know that um that um people can come on
to the program and they can get a a full
degree
hopefully that will be used within the
golf industry but it’s it’s obviously
something that uh if people do decide to
move on to a different uh industry they
can still take that degree with
them so just remember that if you’ve got
paperwork that needs to be submitted if
you started an application then that
would be um Tracy
mland um
Tracy deals with our
admissions you would need to look at
student finance if you intend accessing
funding You’ need to apply for that um
at the start of the
course the PGA subsidizes the course
fees for the level one and level two
courses but it doesn’t include um the
travel and accommodation expenses for
those courses it does that that is
included in the uh for the resident Cals
that people attend um we you’re required
to play in PGA tournament
rounds the entry fees and obviously the
travel expenses are not included in
those but obviously what we would hope
is that you would start playing and
earning um winning some money as
well so I’m not sure whether we’ve got
any more questions now so I’m going to
stop sharing the screen um did have some
questions that were sent through to
us and um Tracy had sent these over to
me um so a couple of
questions if I study the start studying
the
diphe uh and then move out of Scotland
um will will you need to um continue
studying the yes you can absolutely
continue your studies what you would
need to um what it would affect if you
move out of Scotland if you are a
resident in Scotland it would
potentially affect your funding so
instead of paying the the lower Scottish
fee if you move out of Scotland you
would pay the regular
fees but there’s certainly no issue with
you um continuing your
studies so that was that one there and I
believe that was also asked um I’m
guessing it’s the same person that asked
that question on the Q&A so the other
question that Tracy had sent to me was
um there was one um could you go through
the funding options
um and are student loans available for
people aged 30
plus um you can have funding whatever
age you are and funding is um it depends
on whether you’ve used any funding
previously so anyone can access um
funding we would
um were if you’ve not used funding
previously we would certainly suggest
that that’s something that you look at
doing
um as with a a normal university funding
loan you wouldn’t start paying that back
until you’ve um completed the course and
also depending on on your salary so that
that works in the same way as any other
any other um University
student and then the other part of of
that question was um what support is
there in terms of finding appropriate
work placements um if you go on to onto
the PGA
website you will be able to see through
either the there is a uh there is a page
for uh where Pros are looking for
training uh there is also the ability to
put what we would term as a job
Seekers uh
opportunity where that would go onto the
website and we have a recruitment team
as well that would try and match you
with um suitable placements within your
area so those are the couple of
questions that I’d had beforehand let me
just see where we are now um
so uh the cost the cost of the course
and the finance options that are
available I’ve sort of covered that um
the all of the costs are available on
the on the
PGA site um if I just go in I can just
um check the the latest fee information
for
you so
the foundation degree course fees for
2425 are 4 750 per
year uh that is for students based in
the UK and the Republic of
Ireland for international students the
fees are um
6750 per
year um there are individual fees for
diphe students who are resident in
Scotland um and uh those those fees bar
um but the um the the current fee in
Scotland is um
12250 in addition to that students in
Scotland need to pay um a PJ elements
fee each year and that for next year
will be um
1,237 per
year so I hope that’s answered the
question uh about the
finance um we’ve had a question that
says about the minimum number of hours
to work in
employment um ideally we say that
students should be working around 30
hours now we know that some some of our
trains will work more than that um some
um they don’t have the opportunity to
work that so what we would do is when
you’re making an application um we would
we would be able to advise you whether
your work placement is suitable or not
so um it’s it’s a slightly difficult one
to answer but we would we would um look
at your
circumstances uh as you are going
through the application
process so we’ve also had some
questions um how long does it take for
to apply for a grant normally it’s um
three to four weeks something like that
so there’s plenty of time to do
that
um you another question can you explain
about the PJ subsidy you mentioned uh so
this is for the uh the PJ subsidizes
course fees for the level one and level
two
courses and for the for the course fees
um the PGA also includes um the for
Foundation students the fees um the the
cost to attend the
residential uh is the P PAT test still
used no we haven’t used that for
around uh five six years years now
something like
that another so we have a
question
um I have only ever played competitions
at my home
club and do not have any competition
results to share aside from my rounds on
England Gulf is there requirements for
what I must have played before applying
so what we would expect is we expect a
12mon playing record and within that
playing record there should be a we
understand there’s going to be some
everyday um rounds played but um we
would also expect to see some U
tournament rounds from your home club uh
if someone is applying without any uh
without any tournament rounds and just
um day scores then um we would most
likely not accept
those uh
so is employment at a go facility
required yes it
is um I think we’ve covered that um
I work at a golf club with PGA
professionals is there anything that
could deem the club unsuitable for the
course uh the criteria is that there is
a PGA training professional on site and
the um the the the PJ professional um is
required to um work within the PGA
regulations to assist a training um so
there there shouldn’t be anything that
is
unsuitable deadline
date um for
application um closing date for
applications is 31st of
August going to give you a rest
assignment and get the one about
coaching okay David thank you yeah so
someone asked about I want to become a
coach mainly so is is there just the
coaching qualifications rather than the
whole thing uh no there isn’t so what
you would uh what we’d be able to do
here is uh you link into the PJ trading
program uh as we’ve hopefully all
articulated our our sections into into
intertwine quite heavily and so the
requirements of not only being good at
coaching but understanding how to run a
coaching business and how to work with
uh the golf clubs and the golf balls and
the technology around those is is all
designed to make you uh or equip you to
become a professional coach so if the
desire is to go down the coaching route
then the recommendation is and the
access is is through the foundation
degree program or through the agms
program because ultimately that’s going
to equip you best to be a professional
coach back to you C I think the rest of
them more your questions thank you David
thanks for covering that one um studying
uh alongside your work what we would
expect is around 10 hours of study per
week um this is an interesting question
do you have to have a job in golf prior
to applying or can you apply first to
see if you pass all the checks and then
start looking for a job so one of the
things that you would do is to put um
your registration of Interest into Tracy
that’s done through the PGA website and
then Tracy will be able to make initial
checks for
you and then if you if you meet the
criteria then you would be able to start
um you would be able to start the
application um and then if you need work
then we would um be able to help you as
I’ve mentioned before
okay is a tournament round considered as
a regional tournament or just a local
Club competition also does the
foundation course enable one to become a
PJ professional at the end or is the F
the degree needed okay so some good good
questions there um is a tournament round
is um when when I say that um tournament
rounds
are necessary as part of the course they
need to be played um so you need to play
21 recognized PGA tournament
rounds um so they would either be
Regional or um National PGA events um
once you start the course you we won’t
you you you can’t just play in local
Club competitions you can but you can’t
submit them as one of your 21 required
rounds for
us um at the end of the course um for
you to be able to apply for membership
to become a PJ professional obviously
you’ve got to complete the the either
the foundation or the diphe the level
one and two coaching courses you need to
have those other um elements that I’ve
mentioned during the presentation um you
don’t need to go on and do your um to to
complete the degree to become a PJ
professional so
um yeah hopefully
that’s can I just come in for that as
well yeah I think the the addition the
topup qualification is not needed to
move into membership but what we’re
finding is as we see golf moving and
becoming more popular in the Middle East
and the Far East it’s becoming a
requirement for a full honors degree to
have a Visa so for those individuals
wanting to work internationally it might
be something that’s certainly worth
considering but that’s at the end of the
program once you become a PJ
member thanks Paul um another question
we’ve got is how soon is a traine can
you begin taking on students I’m
guessing this is from a coaching
perspective so David do you w to come in
on that yeah sure so Sam you’ll when you
enter into your agreement with a
training professional start work and
then starts to you’re enrolled onto the
level one activities coach
qualification we are asking for the
training professional to supervise
initial contact between the trainee and
students uh so typically we find that
anybody coming into the industry is is
needs some support and guidance from the
training professional initially on how
to structure a lesson how to conduct
themselves and what and what to what to
teach so the training program is
providing some of that and the training
professional is providing some uh insitu
support and then it becomes a question
of the the uh Judgment of the training
professional as to how much uh a trainee
can take on uh whether that’s initially
just the odds Junior lesson group lesson
adult lesson uh supporting the the
training professional with the delivery
of sessions that they are leading each
each case will be different depending on
the experience that you have as as a
coach as much as a player and so I
wouldn’t expect you to be walking in and
in the first year have a full book of
lessons at your facility because that
that’s that’s typically unrealistic but
we would expect you to be uh in working
with your training professional on a
suitable workload for for coaching so
that you give the best experience you
can you can give as we sort of talked
about at the very start of my
lecture your role and the role of the
training professional very often is to
engage with participants and get them
into the game so we want those those
experiences to be as good as possible uh
and so the training program plus the
support of your training professional
hopefully provide you with the best
platform from which to to start uh
coaching and as you progress through the
the training program
I’m sure you if you’re if you’re good
and if you apply yourself to the program
then the amount of coaching you’ll be
able to do will increases the as the
years go
by thanks
David we’ve had a question about
handicap requirement um um there is so
so when you start the program um you
would be you would be um classed as a
professional so you wouldn’t have a
handicap as
such um there there isn’t a handicap
requirement when you apply for
membership however um depending on
whether you’ve come in at at a lower or
upper rate um then the if you come in at
the higher rate you do need to improve
your playing standard from your initial
application um and uh you would need to
play four rounds within four or better
of par for males or six or better um of
par for
females um we
have we have a question about the number
of rounds from your playing history uh
there isn’t a minimum number of
[Music]
rounds
however uh
um it would be something that um I I
think if if you send in your playing
history to Tracy and we have a query on
it then she would get back to you with
some more advice as to
what
um what you need to do over the
summer so
thanks for answering that last one
Paul um there aren’t any more questions
so we’ll just hold on uh for a moment or
so
um what I would suggest you
do
is go on to the PJ website
I’ll just share my screen
quickly so if you go on to the P
website um you
can then all the information all all of
the um things that we’ve been talking
about today and all of the requirements
on the site so it’s worth you um
spending some
time it’s worth spending some time on
there um so couple more questions have
come in so we’ll just answer those two
and then I think we can finish
um so we’ve had uh I heard the maximum
handicap was six that’s six for male
um but then he said higher handicaps
nearer six would need to do extra
playing rounds yeah I was sort of try
it’s it’s quite complicated so I was I
was trying to um um I’ll just I’ll just
go through and uh tell you what the
playing requirements are but this is
something that Tracy would send out to
you so all
trainees um whatever handicap they’ve
they’ve come on um would um need to play
21
recognized um PGA
events um before they can apply for
membership students that come on uh
start with males male trainees that come
on with a handicap of
4.5 up to
6.4 so between five and up to six
and for females that come on with a
handicap of
6.5 up to
8.4 in addition to the 21 rounds they
also have to demonstrate an improvement
in their play whilst they’re on the
course and before they can apply for
membership and they um have to play four
rounds ma um males have to play play
four rounds of four or better of part in
PJ events or females need to play four
rounds of six or
better to par in PGA recognized
tournaments so that is the playing those
those are the playing requirements for
you okay um we’ve got no more questions
so we’re going to uh finish the the
webinar now thank you you very much for
your time um particularly thanks
to um colleagues from um the the subject
leads for their time and for Paul
um Dr Paul wisman who is the director of
education for the PGA for joining
us so thank you very much
everyone if you have any more questions
um please get in contact with Tracy um
through our admissions email address
thank you
