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Junior golf Podcast

Going from 4 to 80 kids in 18 months – Phil Akers

Phil is a Senior PGA Coach and the Director of Junior Golf at the Belfry, a well-known Ryder Cup golf resort, and home to the PGA of GB&I and the PGAs of Europe.

Phil created and developed FUEL Golf (Future Elite Golf) junior programme at Oulton Hall Golf Academy – growing the programme to over 150 juniors.

In 2016, Phil joined The Belfry with a task to develop and grow their junior offering. In 18 months he went from 4 juniors in the academy to over 80 attending sessions every week.

Here it is – a new series of podcast interviews with expert junior golf coaches from around the world. Let’s get talking about effective junior golf coaching! In the interviews we’ll try to answer questions such as:

  • What makes some programmes successful?
  • What guests are they doing differently to other coaches?
  • How did they grow their programmes?
  • How can coaches recreate their success and change the tide of plummetting junior participation numbers?

I’m very excited to share the first episode of this series :)

Growing a junior academy at a new venue

My guest – Phil Akers (@PhilAkersGolf).

The hard job wasn’t getting kids good at golf, but keeping them involved in the game for 20-odd years that we need them to get to that [Tour] standard.

Phil is a Senior PGA Coach and the Director of Junior Golf at the Belfry, a well-known Ryder Cup golf resort, and home to the PGA of GB&I and the PGAs of Europe.

Phil created and developed FUEL Golf (Future Elite Golf) junior programme at Oulton Hall Golf Academy – growing the programme to over 150 juniors.

In 2016, Phil joined The Belfry with a task to develop and grow their junior offering. In 18 months he went from 4 juniors in the academy to over 80 attending sessions every week.

In the conversation we discuss:

  • His Person-Athlete-Golfer philosophy
  • How he went from 4 to 80 juniors at a new venue, including specific strategies he followed during the first weeks of launching the programme
  • Structure of his programme and some of the iterations he went through
  • How to get parents involved in their children’s golf journeys
  • Credit and reward system he uses (including how it’s being used to develop the “Person” first)
  • What one of his junior sessions might look like
  • What sort of progression system and additional resources he’s using on a daily basis, such as a Parents’ Handbook and a Welcome Pack

Listen to the episode

Listen to the episode below or in your favourite podcast app (I recommend Overcast).

If you are reading this in an email, access the player and all the links on the website.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 43:37 — 35.1MB) | Embed

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You can also listen to the interview on YouTube:

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