In swimming and track & field, the satisfaction of achieving a PB is clear as we watch an athlete see their time or distance. For most of the field, the final position in which they finish is to a large extent of secondary importance, as this is dependent on how others perform, whereas their own performance is certainly one of the factors that is within their control.

We have just completed the 2014 Coaches Circle meeting, where we heard from Olympian Michael Maier that times between first and second in downhill skiing are getting closer together, meaning that split seconds can have a dramatic effect. Seniors Tour regular, Paul Eales talked about helping young elite players, to understand that an improvement of a half shot per year on stroke average over a ten years period will see them move upwards through the rankings.

As we sit here and read this it seems obvious, but in our daily lives we need to do more than achieve some marginal gain, right? Wrong, if we can gain a few improvements then we gain momentum, which in turn helps motivates and encourages us.

With the theme of this issue of IGPN being that of “development / improvement” it is quite easy to list a string of numbers, which may or may not have any relevance to the reader.

Yes we have more trainees going through our Initial Professional Education programme. Yes we are making significant gains in many of the countries we are supporting in the Golf Development work that we deliver on behalf of The Ryder Cup European Development Trust and also The R&A. We can even point to new countries who working towards educational recognition. But in reality there are some professionals who are having a tough time and feel that the changes in our profession are leaving them behind.

It is common to see people stuck and unable to move. The magnitude of the perceived problem frequently results in inactivity and this can become demotivating. A process of reflection can allow us to get the issue into perspective and so move on. By critically looking at the issue we are able to break the whole into manageable chunks and then make a decision as to what should be done next. It is this decision that is critical to the pursuit of your “Personal Best”. One more practice session nearer to getting the swing on track, one more happy customer, one less junk food dinner, one less kilo on the scales and so it goes.

A friend of mine is facing a difficult time at work due to the recent departure of his boss. Uncertainty is natural at this time. Questions such as, ‘what will the new boss want?’, ‘Will they want to keep my contract or will they let me go?’ It would be very common for my friend to feel stress because of the changing landscape, but instead he has gained a sense of purpose, has a new spring in his step and seems to be energised. He is looking forward and taking steps to improve his current skill set. He is making marginal gains everyday and so it is only a matter of time before he hits a new Personal Best.

It is said most people spend more time thinking about where they are going on holiday than their career. For those golf professionals who really want to succeed you need to think what your ultimate career goal is in order to satisfy all the things you want to achieve. Having worked with hundreds of PGA Members every one of them has different goals.

Some want a top club professional job, some want to be the best coach, some want to work abroad, some want to turn to club management and become a General Manager. So its is important to research and understand what steps are needed to get to your individual career goal.

Networking and marketing yourself to the right people is one of the most powerful tools in getting you to the next stage. For example I knew my career goal was to be a General Manager at one of the top clubs in the world. I started writing to Dick Kopplin the leading headhunter in the USA in 1998.

At first I never got a reply as he didn’t know me and at the time I was living and working in Dubai. When I moved to St Andrews in I attended the CMAA World conference presenting the Opening Education Address to 1,800 people in 2004. This was the first time I met Dick.

In 2005 I invited Dick to speak at a conference that I promoted which he accepted. In 2006 he got me the interview for the position of CEO at Loch Lomond that resulted in me being successful in fulfilling my career goal. It had taken me 8 years but the work I did along the way helped me pave the way to getting me what I had set out to do some 15 years before.

Improving your own PR is also vitally important, most golf professionals I know are confident in presenting themselves due to the hours coaching their students and retailing to their customers. Think about putting yourself forward to speak at conferences, writing articles for magazines or websites. This will grow your brand and attract potential employers as the more often your name and picture appear the more chance you have of being reminded to or meeting owners, CEO’s, headhunters etc.

For golf professionals I think Linkedin is a must to help promote themselves and open up career opportunities. LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 120 million members and growing rapidly. LinkedIn connects you to your trusted contacts and helps you exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals giving  you the keys to controlling your online identity.

You should Google yourself? You never know what may come up. LinkedIn profiles rise to the top of search results, letting you control the first impression people get when searching for you on line. You should know how to best set up your account and by having the right CV would help your Linkedin profile. Whether you’re looking for a career opportunity, winning new clients or building your professional reputation, LinkedIn can if used properly connect you to jobs, sales leads and ideal business partners.

So please remember that Networking can be very helpful to your career its just not a buzz word it actually works. Develop a network of friendly people who share information to help each other. I believe it is best known as a strategy for opening the hidden job market. Since 80% of jobs are not advertised, it is essential that you develop friendly relationships with people who can tip you off to job openings — perhaps even introduce you to the person who is doing the hiring. There is some truth in, “It’s not what you know, but who you know.”

Since the start of this series of articles on helping Professionals with the very best career advice in sport we are pleased to report that we are now working with a large number of PGA members currently 10 professionals a week are becoming clients helping them to have a better chance to improve their careers and networking opportunities which Club Inc can provide.

Upgrades to its iPad and Android apps to improve usability and add new features will also be available shortly, as part of a wider initiative to meet the needs of today`s travellers for information at their fingertips.

The new website, accessible under www.staralliance.com, adopts bold visual design throughout as well as mobile-friendly navigational principles that allow it to be accessed easily on any size of screen. Its information and content is targeted to the audience of Alliance travellers, who regularly fly on more than one of the Alliance’s 28 member airlines.

“We have responded to the fact that more and more customers want to have the latest information at their fingertips, wherever they are,” said Star Alliance’s Vice President for Customer Experience and Information Technology Justin Erbacci. “The new site allows us to bring more tailored information to Alliance customers, so extending and complementing the information offered by each of our member airline’s own web presence.”

The website is a one-stop shop for access to information about the whole of the Star Alliance network, the benefits offered to its frequent flyers, and about Star Alliance products for both leisure and business travel. In many cases, the site offers links to a member airline website for deeper research.

Selecting “flight search” allows the visitor to scan the schedules of all 28 member airlines, serving over 1,300 airports worldwide, to find connections that best meet their travel needs. Once the right connection has been identified, a link is offered to the relevant airline website for booking.

The home page also offers a link to “flight status” – offering up to the minute information on the status of over 18,500 daily flights worldwide.

Customers who are travelling in First Class or Business Class, or those who have earned Star Alliance Gold status, can search a database of over 1,000 lounges globally. The site also offers basic information on destination airports, with more details, including Star Alliance specific maps, available for the Alliance’s biggest hubs.

At appropriate moments during a site visit, the visitor is prompted to share location details and other information that allows site personalisation, particularly when the customer is at an airport and travelling on the same day. Holders of Gold and Silver Star Alliance status are “recognised” with an enhanced visual experience.

The upgraded iPad app will enhance the original “globe” design on its homepage so that a swipe now opens an airport search feature. Once any of the 1,330 airports on the Star Alliance network is entered, the destination is plotted on the globe and supporting information displayed, such as weather, Star Alliance member airlines that fly there and other airport details.

New “info cards” on the home page contain App tips and current news while the Network screen now includes Star Alliance statistics and interactive capabilities that open up member airline information when you tap on the airline`s logo.

In the Android app, the section on the benefits offered to holders of Star Alliance Gold and Silver status has been completely redesigned to offer a cleaner and crisper interface, with a more user friendly display and interaction. Both new versions will be available for download shortly.

The new website and app upgrades are among a series of projects on the Star Alliance roadmap that will improve and modernise the travel experience, aimed particularly at regular Alliance travellers. This includes initiatives such as Gold Track, which offers access to a priority security lane for member airline customers holding Star Alliance Gold status or flying in First Class or Business Class. Gold Track is currently available at around 70 airports worldwide and new destinations will be added steadily in coming months.

As the Association celebrates a quarter of a century at the forefront of the Professional game in Europe, the brand new offices were opened by Confederation of Professional Golf Honorary President, Pierre Bechmann, and Chairman, Sandy Jones, in front of key individuals from across the Association’s history, current Board Directors and members of the Education Committee, along with friends from various other pan-European golfing bodies.

Confederation of Professional Golf Chairman, Sandy Jones, has been an instrumental figure in the Confederation of Professional Golf across its history and marked the occasion as a very proud moment:  “I think the opening of the office after 25 years reflects how much progress we’ve made – when [the Association] started there was no real structure…but there was a great idea.  The great idea was that we needed to embrace all of Europe…the Confederation of Professional Golf was a vehicle that allowed that to happen.

“I always say the history bit is only the foundation upon which you build the future – well last night I talked about the 25 years of history and that’s the foundation stone for us to move forward.  This building will become iconic as the headquarters of the Confederation of Professional Golf so it’s a very proud moment.”

The Association’s Honorary President, Pierre Bechmann, added: “I think [the new office] strengthens the Association’s identity…and the fact that the Confederation of Professional Golf is a family, close to others in the great family of golf…I think it is truly great.

The two-day event included a celebratory dinner at the Belfry Hotel in which the past 25 years were remembered and key figures from the Association’s history and representatives from other golfing bodies were presented with limited edition anniversary PING Scottsdale TR Anser 2 putters in recognition of their commitment to, and relationships with, the Confederation of Professional Golf.

The official ribbon-cutting ceremony followed 18-holes of golf on the historic four-time Ryder Cup host course, The Brabazon, that was resplendent in the Autumnal sunshine and in perfect condition.

“It’s been an absolutely fantastic couple of days…I guess in many ways the Confederation of Professional Golf comes of age with its 25th Anniversary,” said Confederation of Professional Golf Chief Executive, Ian Randell.  “We’ve been absolutely blessed here today, we’ve had a great time and great food last night, the golf course here at The Belfry, obviously home to four Ryder Cups, was in superb condition, and even better the sun shone on an October day in middle-England.  Best of all we’ve had great company from both inside and outside of the Association so it’s been very fitting way to mark this Anniversary and celebrate the opening of our new headquarters.”

Following the hugely successful Business Club at the Wentworth Club in May, the office opening is the second in a series of events celebrating the Association’s 25th Anniversary year that will culminate with a key celebration week at the 2015 Annual Congress at Turkey’s Gloria Hotels & Resorts in December.

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For more information about the Confederation of Professional Golf visit cpg.golf follow @PGAsofEurope on Twitter, or like the Confederation of Professional Golf Facebook Page.

Dr. Hemmings has provided a discounted rate for PGA Professionals that are members of Confederation of Professional Golf Member Countries that enables them to get a substantial discount on the fully online programme that is available in English, German/Deutsche and Spanish/Español.

Information on the Programme, as well as the discount code for PGA Members, can be found by downloading the PDF Information document using the button below.

Download Information Document (PDF – 0.4MB)

For more information contact Dr Brian Hemmings at brian@golfmind.co.uk

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For those of you old enough, can you remember when most people said that the earth was flat? ‘Flat-Earthers’ believed that the World was nothing like a spherical body and had varying theories about a wheel like shape surrounded by water.  These theories were once believed to be iron-clad, but were then disproven over time.

In the same vein I am sure that many PGA Professionals can cast their mind back to the turn of the millennium and think about the ball flight laws at that time.  If you were coaching in the year 2000, what was your coaching philosophy just those 15 years ago?

If you are developing as a coach, then I guarantee that you will think about some parts of coaching, technique, preparation or the use of technology very differently than you did even five years ago.

To think that nothing changes and everything is the same is naive.  Equipment changes, the playing conditions change and even the players’ mind-sets are very different than they were even just five years ago.

Based on that, making predictions for how coaching will change and the influence of technology anything further than five years in the future is pure crystal ball-gazing.  That said, I offer the following observations that could come into play:

• The relationship between the coach and student will become more reliant on facilitating learning rather than teaching.
• It will not be possible to quarantine a student from information or influence from other sources. The coach of the future will become a trusted advisor, a sounding board to validate or correct the student’s current thinking.
• Progress of the student is not linear.  Successful coaches will recognise that on the road to the student’s goals there will be detours, roadblocks and potholes to be negotiated.
• There is not a starting and finishing line.  Students will engage with the game on their own terms.  Some will start with the long game, some with short game and others with putting.  Many people will resist being fed into one end of a system and asked to progress through a series of pre-defined lessons.
• Coaches will return to teaching people rather than teaching golf swings.
• There is a huge disconnect between where a new student learns to swing the club and where they play the game.  The range cannot replicate the course and as such it is imperative that the new student gets to the course as soon as is practically possible.
• There is an over-reliance on data capture devices, such as, video, force plates, ball launch monitors, 3D analysis systems.  That is not to say that technology is not good because when used properly it really is.  Many of these technological aids are tremendous, but it is only the operators that tend to love them.  Such equipment should be used more as a way to capture data, make a thorough diagnosis, prepare an intervention and assess progress, not used as a gimmick in untrained hands.
• Finally, coaches will start to realise that the market for coaches to elite players is very small and that the big and more lucrative markets are with new and average players.  In most golf playing countries less than 10% of the population, and sometimes even significantly less, play so the untapped 90%+ offer a great opportunity.

To conclude I have no desire to be educated, no inclination to be taught and yet I have an insatiable appetite to learn.  Ask me if I want to be educated or taught how to play the saxophone and my answer is no.  Ask me if I want to learn how to play the saxophone and my response is a resounding yes.  For that, I will need an expert coach.

This article originally featured in International Golf Pro News. Visit the IGPN Page to find out more and subscribe for free.