At the risk of making this appear to be a recruiting campaign for the golf industry, I would point out here that each national PGA has its own training programme while the PGAs of Europe has an experienced Education Committee whose function is to act in a consultancy, advisory and supportive capacity. Explaining precisely how it all works would require an article all of its own, but suffice it to say that the Education Committee is totally European as can be seen by its make-up, i.e., Leif Ohlsson (Sweden) chairman, Filippo Barbe (Italy), Jonathan Mannie (Austria), Kyle Phillpots (GB & I), Martin Westphal (Germany), Jim Van Heuven van Staereling (Holland), Tony Bennett (Portugal), and Nicky Lumb (GB&I). Leif Ohlsson – who is not a PGA pro – is a distinguished educationalist at the famous Bosön Institute, dedicated to sporting excellence in Stockholm, where Sweden’s Olympic athletes prepare.
Members of the sporting public who simply enjoy watching the major golf tournaments on TV must marvel at the procession of newcomers whose names arrive on leaderboards around the world, of whom they had previously never heard yet who seem to have golf swings to rival the established superstars. Not only that, but many are from countries not previously known for their involvement in the sport.
Another admirable quality is that golfers dress smartly, conduct themselves courteously, often act as their own referee or umpire, accept the judgment of authority and uphold the finer traditions of their sport. How very old fashioned! Not like that in certain other high-profile sports, is it…?
The reason for this wholly desirable state of affairs, I submit, is that the amateur federations who find the young talent and advance it to professional level, helped by professional coaches, and then the PGAs who provide the training programmes and the various Tours, have a burgeoning philosophy of “working together”.
It can be summed up in one allembracing word: ‘education’. As someone who has been fortunate enough to provide a media service within professional golf for a number of years, one of the many uplifting features of the sport, for me, has been the number of engaging individuals and golf pros whose horizons are wider than simply teeing up a golf ball and blasting it down the fairway.
Some have excelled at more than one activity. There’s a Swedish club pro, Eddy Eriksson, who was an Olympic ice hockey player before switching sports. Yet to me, Eddy’s greatest quality is that whenever you see him in a group of people, everyone is laughing… he has that sort of personality. Tom Selmer, from Norway, was an international footballer and then national coach before taking up golf comparatively late in life. And then there’s David Clare…
David, originally from Chesire in the UK, is the Director of Golf at Kemer Golf & Country Club, Istanbul, Turkey. In his younger days he earned his card to play on the European Tour and was preparing for the career of his dreams, playing among the best in the business. During a break, while practising on the range for his big chance in life, he spilled a cup of scorching coffee down his leg….and never felt a thing. David had tumours on his spinal chord. They were non-malignant, mercifully, but during their removal damage was caused which left him without the proper use of one leg and a very distinct limp. No more golf? You’re joking… six months later he started playing again and won some lesser tournaments, but he’s now making a magnificent job of furthering golf in Turkey where, along with sponsors Beko and Conrad international, he hosts the PGAs of Europe International Proam each year.
There’s Ted Hagelborg of Sweden who carries out two very different jobs. For part of the week he flies Boeing 737’s as an airline pilot and then he sheds his pilot uniform, dons his golf gear, and becomes a PGA-qualified coach. Mike Waldron is a high-flier, too, though not those huge passenger jets for him. He flies an exact-replica World War 1 SE5, from the era of the Red Baron, but not only that, he built it himself in-between giving golf lessons! Does any professional sport attract more ‘rounded’ and worldly characters than golf? I doubt it. So why is this? The answer has to be that word again… here is a profession that offers its practitioners more and more education. And with that education comes an old world virtue: respect.
