Junior Golf Training Camp

In a little over a month we will be off to southern Sweden for our training camp. We are five golfclubs getting together bringing a total of 20 junior golfers. With the addition of 7 golf professionals, the student: teacher ratio will be about 3:1. The themes of the training camp are introduce proper practice, continue to develop a great short game and develop strategies to deal with situations on the course. Here is what we are going to do:

Day One
This day we will be arriving to the golf course. After a bite to eat, we will head out to the golf course. Each coach will be with a group taking notes on what happens. This day is basically reserved to get back into the swing of things. After the round, the coach will discuss with the players where their improvement areas lie.

Day Two
Wake up at 6am and begin with exercise. One tends to "wake up" better after training, plus this sets a positive tone for the day. After breakfast at the course, we will be starting our 4-hour training. This is divided up as the following:

* 30 minutes to teach the kids HOW to practice. What are the goals for each practice session and the methods to use when achieving these goals.
* 90 minutes for short game testing. We use the Charlie King / Rob Akins Red Zone Test. We did this last year and so many of the juniors will be able to accurately compare there progress.
* 60 minutes devoted to putting fundamentals.
* 60 minutes devoted to chipping / pitching fundamentals.

After a quick lunch, then it is out to the golf course. The coaches will be with every group and the theme will be pre-shot routine, after-shot routine. One the techniques that we use is to have the kids say outloud these routines. They talk pretty much the entire time. By saying things outloud, their brains can't think of anything else. We find this very effective and for some (who have no routines), this can be very difficult at first.

Day Three
Wake up at 6am and start with our focus on fitness. We introduce many of the concepts we have learned from TPI. Our aim is that the juniors see golf as a sport and will start training so.

After breakfast, we will be starting on the golf course. Our goal today is to show the juniors what the difference is between their games and the PGA / LPGA tour. One coach will always be half a hole ahead putting Traffic Cones down where a typical tour player would hit it. Then our aim is to see how far off from that target our juniors are. This is an Elite Junior camp so many of the juniors have a dream to play on tour. This type of training usually creates lots of leverage for the juniors to really push their games forward.

After lunch our afternoon training session looks like this:
* 60 minutes to better distance wedges (30-100m).
* 60 minutes for better bunker play.
* 60 minutes on the range for learning why the ball flies / curves the way it does.
* 60 minutes with FLIGHTSCOPE to understand each student's exact distances.

Day Four
Today, we will be playing a 18-hole tournament. Each junior will be representing his/her club and the aim is to try and put everything together that we have learned from this camp.

This is how we might do it here in Sweden. Leave a comment if you like. Thanks!

Steven