How Europe is Teaching the Coaches in Chile
The golfing ‘missionaries’, funded by The R&A and selected by The PGAs of Europe, continue to take the game to parts of the world where other organizations don’t reach… and, to prove it, the latest favourable report has arrived from Chile.
Among the visitors to the TCC in Malmö, was Walter Lund Head Pro at the Club de GolfMapocho, Santiago. He was in Sweden on a transatlantic trip from the Chilean capital of Santiago and is pictured with the Golf Development Consultant, Jean-Etienne Lafitte.
Since The R&A received Chile’s appeal for help to start a properly constructed teaching and coaching regime, the former Education Committee chairman has made four visits to the under-developed golfing outpost in South America where Walter has been a prime mover in kick-starting a comprehensive programme.
As Walter explained to Working Together, before The R&A and The PGAs of Europe answered their call for assistance, Chile’s hunger for golf was growing but fully-trained PGA professionals were urgently needed to cater for it. While new courses were starting to appear there were no qualified teachers, no one with the necessary knowledge and experience to begin an education process for the PGA of Chile to train its own coaches.
Existing players or caddies were teaching new players, a classic case of golf starting off on the wrong foot. “We needed to have a beginning,” said Walter. “We needed people with more knowledge about swing technique to teach the players correctly.”
Happily the basics of an education programme are now in place and Walter’s long trip to Sweden, in search of expert teaching and coaching knowledge, was part of this process.
Mapocho is the first new 18-hole public golf courses to be built as the state offers the sport to the masses as an alternative to the all consuming attraction of football.
“It does seem strange to have to come all this way to obtain knowledge,” he confessed.
“We receive nothing from the United States… but Europe is very helpful to us.”
Once again the surplus revenue accrued by The R&A from its Open Championship is growing the game worldwide… with a little help from The PGAs of Europe.
