Do you have a structure for your coaching?
Would you want to visit a doctor who has no structure in finding the root cause of the pain you have? How about a music teaching with no order in your development? Or even a car mechanic trying to find out why there is a burning smell while you are driving?
Having a structure empowers you as a coach to make informed decisions, prioritizing what's most important. Many can help golfers occasionally, but can you consistently do it lesson after lesson without a structure? Some successful coaches believe they can, relying on their instincts, but we believe that even these coaches, upon closer examination, follow a structure.
It's just that after years of practice, it becomes second nature, much like many things in life. The structure also gives you something to fall back on when things are not going well. It happens, and we can lose confidence in our coaching as you can in playing. Often, the answer is to fall back to your structure, get back to basics, and form returns, just like playing!
So what is our GLE structure?
11 Ball flights
11 Impact Factors
11 Links
It just so happens if you educate yourself on the 11 ball flights, the key 11 impact factors that influence the ball flight, and the 11 links of the swing developed by David Leadbetter you will have all you need to develop a structure to your coaching that has been tried and tested for over 40 years, and it’s not that difficult.
11 Ball Fights
The ball flight is what allows us to set a goal for the lesson.
Where is the ball starting? What is the curvature? How is the trajectory? Does the player have sufficient ball speed?
These are some questions we can ask ourselves based on what the ball is doing and what the player would like the ball to do differently. In studying a player's ball flight pattern, we can now understand what the club was doing through impact (Impact Factors) and, most importantly, what we need it to do differently to produce the desired shot, putting a smile on our student's faces!
11 Impact Factors
Now that we know what impact factors we need to adjust to see improvement, we use our 11 links to find the earliest cause of the issue. The rule is simple: We look for the simplest aspect we can change to achieve the desired result.
Many coaches fall into the trap of changing a movement because it looks out of position or incorrect, but if it is not directly related to the impact factors that need to change, players can often get worse, or, in the best case, they will need multiple things to work on see any improvement in the ball flight.
11 Links
We do not believe anyone becomes "too good" not to have structure, structure allows us to deliver high-quality lessons consistently, and it is the foundation of any GLE-certified coach.
Structure can also come in the form of values. Coaching values that you constantly remind yourself of and judge yourself against at the end of each day on the lesson tee!
