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My name is Corey Walker, and I'm on a mission to figure out how to improve the way that we learn and get better at golf. I've been able to travel all over the world talking to the leaders in the industry from instructors, to researchers, to Golfers themselves learning how they're getting better at golf
and what that means for you. There are certain structures routines and habits that are keys to developing high levels of skill and performance at any task and maybe you have picked some of these out during our series when we've been sitting down with two or prose. We've heard all kinds of different environments and practice structures that have
helped or prose succeed. By the way, we have another episode with Scott. Stallings coming out next week and that how to be a tour pro series, don't miss that. That. But today, we're going to look at that in a more Global or national scale. We're sitting down with two coaches in the Gulf, Australia system to learn about how their coaching Junior golfers and their results and stories. They've seen coming through this
golf Australia program. The two most high-profile players us suppose that have come through this program and very much through this process, whether it be with myself or whether it be with Richie Smith, it catches up, And through the gulf Australia program in general or become Smith and the men's side of the game, am injili, who, you know, she's up to World, she's up to world number on a mum to in the work Rolex rankings now, and she is just a great example of someone
who took all of this on board really owned it. And decided to apply it worked incredibly hard with these kind of structures and and her results have just been phenomenal. In this episode, we are going to dive into all the details. Al's of that structure and the concepts that have gotten results. We have two guests today with it which have to really unique and different roles in the development process. Our first guest we have heard from him before. This is Nick. Randall, my name's Nick.
Randall. I am a strength and conditioning coach. I'm the owner of golf fitpro and I've been lucky enough to be involved with golf and the physical side of golf from the last seven or eight years. Working with anyone from your average Club golf, Two Juniors as young as 10 and 11 through 20 3 to 12, players, and Cameron Smith. Who I've worked with for the entire duration, about seven or eight years. Our second guest fills, the other end of that Spectrum.
As the golf instructor, not emerge Applause. I'm originally from New Zealand, moved over to the Gold Coast back in 2012. I'm now director of instruction here at KTB sport. Golf Academy whereby, we are focused on developing athletes. Anywhere from five years old, all the way out to our players. We currently have approximately 130 players inside of our Junior Academy, enter. Then the mini tours and professional tours around the
world. Alongside that I'm also involved with the the gulf Australian National program as well. So, one of the high performance coaches, the coaches at state level without Queensland State teams and state junior, squads and developing players through the state system. System enter into their National events. Alright, let's talk about structure and get a bit of understanding of how golf is trillion. Works starting out with how they get on the team.
How did yunior go about getting on this national team? The way our state system works is essentially we have tournaments that are running throughout the year and from those tournaments, the state level tournaments with the national tournaments players will then be selected. And into State Squad, which would typically consist of
around about 40 athletes. And that there's generally between the age groups of 14 14, 15 to 17 years old eligible for the junior State team and I guess inside of those Squad we then go into Squad trainings on monthly basis has whereby the state coaches myself and three other coaches, essentially, run sessions. In Zen. And from there encompassing then ongoing tournaments that Squad.
Then basically gets reduced down until estate team is is announced and and then all of the states around Australia come together to have an interstate series which is the largest store. I guess the Pinnacle of state level golf here in Australia. So the goals for the kids is essentially to make that make that team but inside of the process, obviously. A lot of them, the younger ones are going to be inside of that system for some years.
So it's our objective as coaches to help develop those skills along with their home coaches and provide, I guess a platform for them to keep continuing development. One of the things that happens along this way is that golfers train and compete as a team, they create these teams whether it's by State or region or whatever might be in that atmosphere that environment has some real advantages.
Putting the players into teams or into squads or groups, is I think is an underutilized skill with, with coaching in the sense where by very rarely do we are we able to get the players competing outside of normal competition and tourneys? So being able to observe the players from their body language from their self talk, how they deal with adversity, what decisions they go through. Decision making processes that go through when we set up skills challenges for them.
And from my point of view trying to make the trainings as uncomfortable as possible. So finding the players currency what makes the what puts them under pressure. So, for some players that might be playing for five dollars for some, it might be physical for others. It might be singing in front of the group, but we got to find that currency for the player, and make them feel a little uncomfortable. So we can actually see how they
deal with with the situations. Is that would closely simulate that of tournament golf. So the more we can get them training in that environment, we see, then the transition, then out into the tournament, the tournament realm of being a lot more, they can deal with those pressures. They can deal with that environment with a lot more. I guess I wouldn't say he's but, but definitely be comfortable in
being uncomfortable. So, each state has their own program, most of the states Now operate under under the one, golf system Cordy, which is, which is the national program and it has several tiers to it. So we have Tier 1 through 2 tier 4, Tier 1 being the rookie program which is consists of players. Typically out onto a, the likes of minzhi, Cameron Etc, who are already out there there as
professionals. And then we have the tier 2, 3 & 4, Or which is the at the state level whereby, the squads are, I guess then progressively from Ted to a limited number of players, get all of the service providers train with a high frequency it down to the tier 4, which was the earlier program. I spoke about with the junior squads. So and then all have a sliding scale of funding with inside of
the national program. Yeah, it's basically all government-funded And each state has a set of coaches strength coach Physio and then they'll have their own selection criteria, but it's fairly mirrored in each state. And we're constantly working towards trying to trying to improve this, improve the service provision.
Each state, we don't have a huge amount of money, so often, you know, these coaches are very good coaches in their own, right and have successful businesses, and they are often taking a bit of a pay cut to come and do state work-based work. But it's Incredibly rewarding to be part of the system that focuses on athlete development. All right, so we have these different squads created. Now, let's talk about the kind of coaching in the work that is going on a day-to-day basis.
Now, coaching is so diverse, right? So, when the players with us and a one-on-one environment down at the Academy, that's a great opportunity to work on on movement patterns and technical skills.
But when it comes time to taking teams or players away to tourneys, essentially, where we're managing all of the, the controllable, Act is basically how they travel, how they prepare for the day, how they prepare for the week, gets the emotional management of the ups and downs that come with tournament golf and trying to get the team to all work collectively together to produce the best results.
So from a coaching perspective went on the road with players, it's more of the human skill development rather than I guess the the golf skill development even though you know we provide those Services when the play is Leslie asked us whether it be post around or post tournament to provide feedback. But so, yes, at the human skill, development of the players is huge for us when an eternal week when it comes to a training
environment. When we have the biggest squads, whether it be 40 athletes at a time or and when the squad's reduced to ten twelve athletes that's done what still more competitive sessions. So when the players will together, we use that time to get the players competing. Against each other from a skills skills point of view.
I think that's probably one of the things that's underutilized and golf coaching is actually when we have more than one player with us at one time, it's a great opportunity to actually provide a bit of that competitive atmosphere, and, and, and build some resiliency within the athletes. An important thing to note there and Richard touch on this is that when you go away for tournaments, it's and this builds into the whole ethos of God first, raelia the kpis for Australia. I forgot.
Australia. A top 100 players in the world in the Pro ranks in, really. It's about trying to develop the athletes and the gulf is in our squads to that level. And they're not going to get into the top 100 age 16. In 17 playing an amateur tournaments.
And so it's not necessarily a results-focused program, it's much more about development than a when we go away we sometimes get kicked back from some of the athletes because we're really trying to promote that they do. What we consider is best practice with regards to warm-ups cooldowns, preparation nutrition, and that might actually be quite a long way, from what the athlete actually perceives is best for their current level of performance. And, and so, it's always a
really interesting. Yeah, when you get what's best practice as far as golf Australia, and golf Queensland, consider it and then what the athlete needs for a short-term performance. And so, managing that is, is a real skill, I think. And it's something that that we try and work hard to make sure we get that balance, right? And getting the players to reflect on that post on and because it is a big part of that.
So, part of their reporting process back and my reporting process back up being the players to actually take ownership. Above those of those elements that Nick just pointed out. Definitely is a big part of what's necessary for their for their development and that that self awareness and building that, I guess that accountability on that on their behalf that, you know, don't just throw technique under the bus, when you play poorly.
You know what other factors actually might have come into it, whether it be hey, you slept, or how you prepared the day before, or what food? You ate on the golf course, whatever it may be. So trying to take tape, trying to take an all-of-the-above. I guess that. Yeah, those holistic factors outside of just technique of just golf swing. We have, we have a quite a small player base here in Australia. We don't have, we don't have
millions of kids to draw upon. And so we feel as though we need to try and do the best job possible of developing these athletes. The considering we don't have that many of them. We can't just churn and burn, and put them in a competitive environment, and just pick out the ones that do the best. Let's say that you wanted to train like a golf Australia. Yeah. Junior write a day in the life or a week in the life of that person. What would it take?
What would your day look like? Let's get to it. We run sessions where by essentially let's say for example is the squad session. They'll maybe do two hours training with myself whereby we can be working on the golf skills in any capacity then they're going to be going and working in the in the gym with the SMC coach whether it be near
core. Ashley one of our SMC trainers here and there To be working on Mobility, flexibility strength, depending on what phased are in during the year and what tournaments they have coming up. So they've got programs relative to what events they have Vaughn. And then testing every eight to ten weeks as well, just to monitor, where they're at. And, and to re-evaluate programs from there on in from the age group of five years up in the Junior Academy, they're going to
be spending. At least 50 percent of their time on movement and coordination skills examples of throwing balls catching moving in different directions. Jumping plyometric based activity. Bringing their movement skills up.
So basically their body IQ is accelerated and and then from there, then their ability to take on the information regarding the golf skills is actually from a coaching point of view, as as much, much, much more attainable, just by having have In those movement, skills locked in. Some of the biggest things that stand out to me. Here is this? Look at holistic development,
right? It's something that's so important and we've talked so much about but golf skills, athletic skills, physical skills, mental skills, and it's not just a look at golf swing technique getting good. At golf. Does not just mean, working on your golf, swing on the driving range at this point, you know, through all of our conversations. What I hope that is abundantly clear in that there needs to be a holistic approach towards Improvement as an athlete as a
person. And I want to quickly look, you know, diving in here at some of the tools and the tack that are is being used along this journey because there are a lot of different, you know, things available at this point. What are the things that Nick and Richard are using, you know, with their people on a regular basis We're big, big fan of testing. So we definitely use trackman with with every testing procedure.
And then from a day-to-day point of view, in terms of the squad's, with every player, they use a gravity fit T Pro. So we give them one of those at the start of every term for every player and that's one of our non-negotiables. They turn up with at the squad session. Early they go, they've got a program they run with gravity fit with the T Pro warm-up. So That's one of the cool things about about the culture of our program is the kids.
Now, just turn up straight away, put their T Prime on get into their great posture work on their movement skills. So by the time we actually get the warm-up underway that are already very self, aware of what they need to do, outside of that, we use balance, lab science, emotion, gasps cave, s3d and you know, A bunch of other training AIDS from its
time. But yeah, I guess track, man, and and gravity fit would be two of my best tools that we use as well as that and then obviously is the Players. Develop the 3D analysis neck. I think last time I asked you, you had a couple things. I feel like I've asked you this question before. Yes. And my favorite equipment that I will use outside of outside of a gym environment, which is, you know, the normal barbells dumbbells, kettlebells resistance bands, Etc.
I like players to travel with pieces of equipment. I like him to travel with the foam roller. Rumble, roller is my favorite, a spiky ball. There's a both for self massage and self-release. Being able to manage the quality of your soft tissue on the road.
I got both of those after our last interview, they're sitting about, hopefully getting some goodies sad, that they are obviously I think everybody knows I'm a big fan of gravity fit and been involved with the company for a number of years. Huge fan of what they do we've actually got a new exciting product coming out soon which is The active G, the active G suit, which is a wearable technology that incorporates all of the Gravity fit stuff into into something you can wear, but
we'll save that for another day. And then, the other big thing is, I use a, an accelerometer called a push Band by made, by train with push, which is basically a way of objectively measuring how fast someone's moving in various different movements, which is, which has been absolutely invaluable. Change the way I Change the way I run sessions can, for example has his own. So I only see cam once every six weeks, I travel over to states to spend a week with him.
And so in those five weeks when I'm at home and he's in the u.s. doing his training, he wears his Push band, he tracks, but that tracks, his movement in the gym and it gives me gives me a readout of how fast he's moving. How much load is moving, what is power output is for his gym session? So I can, I can keep on his case and making sure he's lifting The right loads of the write speeds. So the other thing I have my
office is the gravity fit stuff. So I throw it on, I work in my office sitting in a chair or on one of those exercise balls and then I throw the gravity fit on for some reason it feels like super good just being an incorrect posture. Like why does it feel so good? That's hopefully, doesn't sound salesy or anything like that. I apologize in advance to people but like I am actually curious I like why does that feel good? And why is that helpful for for me to like throw it on?
After a couple hours of working? Interesting question it. I think it's difficult to know exactly why you're feeling feeling good, but I think that we I see I hear similar sentiments from other people and I feel it for myself as well. I think it's because it's our natural. It's a natural position is the position that we are designed to
be in with an upright spine. And with those neutral curves, especially that kind of Niche or thoracic and certain cervical curve in our upper spine in our neck. And then the shoulders set back against that kind of neutral spine position, that's what were designed to be in. We're not designed to be hunched over a computer and so, getting back into a posture that we naturally designed to be. And I think is that is responsible for feeling good.
And then you can look at some of the other things that come with a forward and hunched posture where we've got compression of the vital organs. We squish our gut up against the stomach and our lungs and inhibits, how, how well you can breathe. The quotes of your breath, which has implications for the energy levels and all sorts of other
health factors. So basically sitting upright is what we're supposed to do. Being hunched over a computer isn't and gravity fit, I think just helps to promote the former over the latter. Alright, let's jump over to some of the training that we're going to talk about with Nick. Here's a very high level kind of bullet list. Postural control stability and mobility in the right areas are
absolutely non-negotiables. I think without those three things, then you're at risk of injury in this kind of strange, one-sided? Twisty-turny, crunchy sport that we play. Okay, so we have that list. Now, let's look at the important actions. What are some of the issues? Shoes that, you know, juniors are running into at this high level. And what can we do about it? Firstly, you need to look at with a young golfers coming in, especially if they're a good
player. And they've practiced quite a lot is that their bodies probably already showing signs of adapting to their golf swing, and it that golf swing is normally not all that efficient, or they'd found the way to hit it. Further step possibly can by hitting High loopy drawers and that often results in a It's a right-handed golfer that tight right size, their oblique sand, that lats are really tight, you'll see the right shoulder and presenting a lot lower than the left.
You might see a slightly hitched up, right? Hip as well and they'll have all sorts of compensations. So the first thing is is getting their posture back to a position that's relatively neutral and that takes them out of the danger zone for injury. That's absolute number one. Priority is a, can you stand up straight and can be set up to the ball and then athletic way from there, I look at trying to give them them as much exposure to different movements in the
gym as possible. And all of those movements will have a requirement to be done under with really good postural control. So we'll do all sorts of different variations of squats and lunges. Push movements, pull movements, bracing rotation and I'll try and give them as much exposure as I can. So it's different variations of movements in the first couple of
years. Then once they've got a really good Mastery of those different movements which basically lay the foundation for For strength and conditioning. We start to load them and so we start to load them with, with resistance bands, we start to use their body weight in different ways that adds more load. And that gradually starts to develop some strength on top of the good posture and movement control, they've got.
And then once they're mastering that and then we're talking, two, three, even four years at this point, you know, if I've seen an athlete first at the age of 12 are getting up to sort of 16 now, 15, 16, then we can look at Juicing barbells dumbbells. Kettlebells heavier load working on explosive power and really trying to develop their physical attributes to the point where we can increase clubhead speed but without compromising control and
control of posture. But the theme that runs right through that is is injury prevention. So, you know, we need to keep them healthy, we're not trying to develop a top-level golfer at the expense of their physical
health, in the long term. We know that obviously it's So, only a tiny percentage of players that will actually make it and so we've got responsibility to build or help, develop a robust individual and a robust human, that will be healthy and can enjoy the game for for the rest of their life. It's not, we're not trying to not trying to break these kids in in the interest of making them the best they can be uh 16. I think I should use cameras is the, as the example partly.
Because I've been heavily involved in his development and his journey and partly because he presents a really good example of a kid who first presented to me at the age of 15 and he was like he was like a coat hanger with skin draped over the top of it. Like it was and it was a twisted coat hanger as well. You know, that he exhibited all those issues that I told you about that tight right side that forward and low right shoulder really chronically tight.
Left up a trap and neck. He basically had very little, in the way of athletic development, or some very stable had big range of motion issues because of that lack of stability, and yeah, and he was in pain and discomfort a lot of the time. So we had to, we had to do a fair bit of work, just to get him back to a somewhat neutral position with regards to his posture. A lot of it was kind of pasta reach. Painting them. We use the use the gravity fit system heavily for that at the
start which was fantastic. Just basically gave him the Deep Muscle stimulus and the postural awareness to be able to basically be able to realize what was in neutral posture and how we can achieve it and what it felt like. And then we use that that gravity fit stuff throughout our gym sessions and incorporated into his practice as well. So that was from the ages of I would say 15 through 2017. Teen and cams development was relatively slow, because he was
pretty lazy. Whenever the kid, like it was, it was hard to get him to do stuff. I had to spend a lot of one-on-one time. We were lucky enough to be able to access some, some extra funding for to, for me to be able to do that, and he needed a lot of motivation and kind of someone standing over him at the start. He's better. So it was a lot of postural, Correction and Mobility range of motion, basic stability and control.
And then, from there, we progressed in through, into into, loading them up with, with more traditional strength and conditioning movements. But that was all balanced on a schedule. That was pretty intense. Like, he was one of the best amateur players in the world and he was traveling all the time and we saw this, we saw this pattern where he would be at home, he'd get regular attention
is physical his key. Physical attributes would would improve then he travel slack off a little bit sitting on planes, playing a lot of golf and you'd see this regression. And then you come home and get better and then go away and regress. And so, that was our next challenge was okay, how we actually going to teach cam what he needs to be doing when he's on the road and get him to the point where he realizes how important it is.
And so again, I was lucky enough to access and funding where I could go out and spend time with them and try and enforce those those things. And like I mentioned before there was a bit of kick back, there was a few arguments of not, I want to do this, I'll feel sore tomorrow or I won't be able to play my best. Best and was all about trying to
educate him. That this was the right thing for him in the long term in order to avoid prevention of injury primarily and he gradually came around to that. And by the time he turned Pro, when he was 19 and then into his early years of a professional, he was actually doing a pretty good job with his maintenance. And we saw instead of progression regression progression regression.
We saw progression physical attributes when he was at home and then a maintenance of those attributes when he was away, and then another progression. We gradually saw him improve and get stronger, more powerful. And you saw that with this club head speed as well. When he first came out on Tori, was 45th in driving distance and now is around 70th, I believe, and still heading north. So it's been a long slow Journey with Cameron and it's been difficult at times for both him
and for people working with him. But he's gradually. Come to the realization physical preparations is Just so critical. One of the biggest things that you think about in June development is helping Juniors, make good progress and growth. But what Creeps in along the way is often regression. They get really good at a young age or at a particular age and then as they get older, they just seem to, you know, other kids go right past them.
Or they never have that same kind of skill that they had. And one of the reasons is that these physical things and Nick was talking about our never address with, or never dealt
with that. So, their body just can't cope with the Ends that they're being was being placed on it and Richard here is going to talk about why he sees this marriage of a fitness and training with golf instruction is so crucial to help mitigate some of these issues over the Juniors developing and growing off the back of what Nick was just
mentioning. As opposed to, you know, we see it. We've seen, I've seen this a lot over the, I guess the last 10 years, where by you see, these players come to you with age of 15, 16, with the these physical issues. Is that need to be I guess addressed with the likes of Nick.
That's where we've taken that that Forefront and and putting the education and place with not only the junior golfers, but also the parents right from that five years old or where they interact with that introduced into the game. So if we can create that ethos of we're trying to develop the kids physically from that, I guess that good quality structural point of view in terms of, Postural awareness, some strength and some stability and mobility in the right areas,
right? From that young age, we're getting a buy into whereby. When the kids are, then 1516. We're not, we're having less of these issues that have come up over the last five or ten years. So, working alongside Nick, or one of our other isn't see coach has the ability to, for the parents to now, see the benefit of that, there's massive.
And from a coaching point of view, it allows Allows us to get right into really high-quality work with the with the player and bang on. As Nick said as opposed to seeing progression regression. A lot of the time we're seeing that just to re-emphasize, we see the progression and getting them into even if they're just on their own, just maintaining what we've done. As long as they're not taking a step backwards physically, we're always going to be able to push
forward a whole lot quicker. So that's where I see the relationship with Nick and decency coaches is A is to accelerate that plays development by not regressing physically when we're not with them.
So using using tools, along lines of gravity fit is a great way, we put their one of those kits into every Juniors bag simply because when we're not with them, as a coach or a trainer, they have some self-awareness and some I guess himself coaching tools that they can maintain their physical work with while we're not with them. I'm so that works on possibly well. So much, good info here.
So many good unique, takeaways that we can go out and apply, whether you're a golfer or coach, or whoever you are, you know, into your training into your performance. Thank you to Richard. Thank you to Nick for coming on and sharing all this great information with all of us. If you are not a golf science lab inside our head, over golf science i.com slash insider. We have updated the resource page in there. So now all of our free
resources. We've A bunch of checklists and templates and some free video training series. There's a really good one from Greg, Carton on some mindfulness. And like mental game questions. He works with one degree to oppose that training and all that stuff. As you go sign up for The Insider thing, you get all these free things right away. It's pretty sick, Golf. And sub.com slash insider go check it out and we'll hope to see you next week.
Subscribe to the podcast. We'll be back next week with a new episode. This was posted and written by me. Corey Walker, can follow me on Twitter at Cordy Walker was edited mixed and produced by just hitting it published Productions. it published Productions.