Slovenia’s Uroš Gregorič Wins Leading European Award for Golf Development3 min read

Vice President and Head of Education of the PGA of Slovenia, Uroš Gregorič, has received the President’s Award for Golf Development from the Confederation of Professional Golf at the Association’s Gala Awards supported by Rolex.

The President’s Award for Golf Development acknowledges the work of an individual or specific project that has excelled in developing golf. Gregorič’s efforts in ensuring Slovenian Professionals are expertly trained and are developing the sport effectively, along with his own golf development activities as a coach for the Slovenian and Serbian national teams and at his own academy, exemplify this.

Thanks to the work of Gregorič, the PGA of Slovenia’s Professional education programme gained ‘PGA Coach’ level status in the Confederation of Professional Golf’s European Education Level System (EELS) that is used to mark the required programme standards in Member Country PGAs.

The PGA of Slovenia is the first emerging country of its size to achieve this recognition and, with the key input of Gregorič, have created a sustainable programme that will continue to advance in the coming years, whilst also providing a fantastic example to other emerging countries about what is achievable and how.

For More Information On All of 2016’s Award Winners Visit http://eur.pe/2016AnnualCongress

“Thank you for the great recognition,” said Gregorič after receiving the award at Gloria Hotels & Resorts in Turkey. “It has been great achieving the award, the goals of the PGA of Slovenia, and getting recognised for the development in our country.

“The knowledge of our Professionals will move the PGA, and golf, forward. I do a lot of education for myself, but I also want to deliver it to the other pros who do not travel that much and do not have the opportunity to go abroad…I think that the better the system, the better the coaches and the better the players.”

Gregorič was appointed as Head of Education of the Golf Association of Slovenia in 2005 and latterly Head of Education for the PGA of Slovenia. Since then has been primarily responsible for substantial advancements made in the sport’s education.

“We’ve been working for quite some time to get this [EELS] recognition and I am very proud of all of the tutors who have done a great job at putting the programmes together,” Gregorič added.

Before Gregorič’s appointment as Head of Education, the existing systems in place had fairly simplistic guidelines and lacked depth. However, by 2006, the education system had been extended to a thorough three-level program, designed by Gregorič, and was recognised for the first time by the Slovenian Ministry of Sports and Education.

He was rewarded for his efforts in developing the education system and was made Vice President of the PGA of Slovenia in 2013 and later on named Head of Education specifically for the PGA. There he has made it his priority to further improve the education of the PGA members and ensure the game continues to grow in the country.

“In the future, I am going to stay involved in education definitely and we might extend the programme to the top level hopefully in the near future – I haven’t told that to Boris [Kosuta, President of the PGA of Slovenia] yet! But I want to improve players in Slovenia so we have male and female players on the European and PGA Tours; that’s our goal.”

Gregorič‘s interests lie not only in the administrative arena as well – as a player he was a Slovenian amateur team member, then turning Professional in 2004, and as a coach he founded the ‘Golf Academy Diners Club Ljubljana’ and has worked as Head Coach for the Slovenian national team and is also an advisor to the Serbian national teams.