CPG ANNUAL AWARDS SUPPORTED BY ROLEX

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Jiří Němeček has been named the 2026 recipient of the CPG John Jacobs Award for Teaching & Coaching, following his nomination by the PGA of Czech Republic. The award, created in 2011 in honour of one of the most pre-eminent coaches the game has known, recognises a coach who has excelled in developing players.

His coaching does not stop at the range. When two-time Ladies European Tour winner Jana Melichová returned to the tour last September after a year away, Němeček was not watching from the practice ground. He was carrying her bag.

It is the latest chapter in nearly three decades of developing players, from junior golf through his own academy to the national team and the professional game. In 2020, when Golf Digest went looking for the best coaches in the world outside the United States, Němeček was one of them, and one of only two Czechs on the list.

“I’m very thankful and grateful, and it is an honour to receive this award,” said Němeček on being presented the award at the CPG Festival of Golf as part of CPG’s Annual Awards Supported by Rolex. “When I joined the PGA of Czech Republic I was very proud to get in, and I’m very proud today to be a member of such a good PGA, and to be part of the CPG. It means a lot to me to be part of the greatest players, coaches and the staff behind them.”

Asked about his proudest achievement, he pointed to the Czech women now on the Ladies European Tour. “What they have already done, and what they will probably achieve in the future, is unbelievable,” he said. “Ten years ago you wouldn’t have believed that we would have so many players, girls or boys, on the highest level tour in Europe. I have known all of them since they were nine-year-old kids, so I’m very proud of them.”

In February he was appointed head coach of the newly formed Czech Pro Golf Team, built around four Czech women holding Ladies European Tour cards. He has been clear that the team model does not replace the individual one.

“An individual approach to every player remains essential, including preparation with their own coaches,” he said at the launch. “But without team infrastructure and expert support you cannot keep pace with the world’s best.”

It has been a good year for his own game as well. After fourteen seasons on the Czech Pro-Am Teaching Tour without an individual win, he won twice and took the overall title earlier this month – “Maybe in my case it’s a question of the older the better.”

For all the team structure now around him, he remains a one-to-one coach at heart. “It doesn’t matter if they are beginners or advanced players, but what suits me better is individual training, because I can move them on a little quicker than in a group,” he said.

His advice to young coaches starting out is simple. “Just love the sport,” he said. “When you love the sport, you live with the sport, and you do anything just to be better.”

With thanks to the CPG Annual Awards Partner, Rolex, and to Porto Carras Grand Resort, Domaine Porto Carras, Official Air Carrier of the Festival of Golf, AEGEAN Airlines, and Olga Karaververis.

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