Junior Golf Guys

Thomas Devine and Phil Akers are two of the best junior golf coaches in England.

After graduating with a first-class honours degree in Applied Golf Management, Thomas coached in the Middle East and across Europe before moving to Oulton Hall (Leeds, England) where the junior golf programme has over 170 children attending weekly classes. Thomas was awarded PGA Advanced status as recognition (by the PGA) for his work in junior golf.

Until recently, Phil Akers was the Director of junior golf at The Belfry. Single-handedly he established their junior programme whilst at the same time developing the junior membership. Phil is also a Warwickshire County Coach and one of the few Level 3 TPI junior coaches in the United Kingdom. Phil’s work in junior golf was recognised by England Golf when he finished runner up in the England Golf Coach of the year awards in 2018 and 2019.

Before moving to The Belfry in 2016, Phil and Thomas worked together at Oulton Hall and recently launched the ‘Junior Golf Guys’…Golfing Herald met up with them (albeit via Zoom) to find out much more about this unique golfing initiative.

Hope you enjoy

First Tee

(Golfing Herald): I teed off by asking Thomas and Phil why they had decided to start to work with one another again after a (sort of) five-year sabbatical.

(Phil): Me and Tom worked so well together at Oulton Hall where Tom is now. We have always remained really close friends and we have never had a cross word. He is a super driven golf coach and his passion for junior coaching is immense. I love junior coaching as well and I suppose we have grown together as coaches. It just seems like the right thing to do as junior golf seems to be in a bit of a rut when it comes to golf clubs, getting kids to play more regularly and when it comes to golf coaches wanting to get more juniors into the game. And equally, when children are in the game, parents often don’t have much of an education in how to handle such things as the car journey home after their child has had a lesson, or about junior competitions or stuff like that. So working together again just seemed like a ‘no brainer’.

Logo

(Golfing Herald): So who made the first move to start this venture?

(Phil): I think we first talked about it a year or so ago.

(Golfing Herald): Pre (Covid-19) lockdown?

(Phil): Yeah…in fact it was probably about two years ago actually. Tom just announced one day that he had purchased a domain name and we were doing it!!

(Golfing Herald): Thomas, do you want to share the true story of how the Junior Golf Guys actually started?

(Thomas): We had talked about it as Phil says about 2 years ago but nothing really materialised. What actually happened was that Phil had done a couple of videos with a Psychology expert which I saw and really enjoyed. So I got in touch with Phil and suggested we do a few videos ourselves…then I had said to Phil shall we make them under a new brand which he was up for!! So a few days later I secured the domain name and that is where it all started.

(Golfing Herald): Did you come up with the (brand) name Junior Golf Guys straight away or did you discuss other possible names?

(Thomas): We bounced a few ideas around…Junior Golf Geeks, Junior Golf Guys, Junior Golf Dudes and so on…but then I just created the logo (for Junior Golf Guys) and the name just stuck!!

Juggling Roles

(Golfing Herald): Does this mean you have relinquished your current roles to work (full time) on Junior Golf Guys?

(Phil): No, they continue. I am in a period of transition at the moment in that I am moving to a different Academy, but Tom will continue with his junior coaching at Oulton Hall. It’s kind of nice to vary your income a little bit. Hopefully, the coaching and education aspects of Junior Golf Guys will become really big. At the moment we very much see it running alongside our main roles.

(Since meeting up, Phil announced that he will be joining the Bromsgrove Golf Academy on 29th March 2021)

(Golfing Herald): So what is going to be your approach in the immediate term to assimilate the demands of the Junior Golf Guys into your workload?

(Thomas): Because of lockdown we have had a lot of time on our hands to get Junior Golf Guys ‘up and running’…the idea is that once we have a certain amount of content then hopefully about 50% or so will just run itself….such as people watching educational videos and undertaking online learning. Of course, we will have to dedicate time but at the moment it is a case of seeing how it goes.

Growing the Game

(Golfing Herald): If I may I would like to drill down into a bit more detail starting with the strapline on the (Junior Golf Guys) website which is…

‘DEVELOPING INNOVATIVE STRATEGIES – GROWING THE GAME’

(Thomas): Basically, the whole idea is to help parents, golf clubs and coaches to keep children in the game for longer. Firstly we want to get more children starting the game and secondly getting more children to stay in the game. That is what it is really about. Potentially throwing a few new ideas around that golf clubs and coaches may not be aware of and introducing some structured education for parents. Nowadays there are a lot of children playing from a young age so there are a lot of side effects (on the parents). When we were kids we used to just get dropped off at the golf club but today you can’t just leave a 6-year-old. There are way more parents involved than there was when I and Phil started.

Enriched

(Golfing Herald): Picking up on your points about not only wanting to encourage more children into the game but also ensuring they stay in the game, I also noted (on your website) that your mission statement is about ‘helping to provide enriched experiences’…so in this context, what do you mean by ‘enriched’?

(Thomas): Better experiences from what they (parents, coaches and golf clubs) are maybe having at the moment…just trying to help the industry as a whole and trying to provide the best experience possible for the kids.

Services

(Golfing Herald): How did you settle on the services that Junior Golf Guys are aiming to provide…for parents, for coaches and for golf clubs?

(Phil): I think from our experiences in the past, they are normally our stumbling blocks. For example, at The Belfry I got loads of kids into the game but they could never play out on the golf course because the golf club wasn’t ‘bought into it’. Or we could get a load of juniors into the game but their parents wouldn’t bring them, or the parents might be too pushy at times. Equally, through my and Tom’s upbringing, the junior coaching we received and knowing what some other Professionals deliver is potentially not the most efficient way of providing junior coaching. So it seemed to us as these were the three pillars/services to go at, with lots of opportunities for education. I view the service to Golf Clubs as quite diverse as we will get Golf Clubs who are very private and don’t want to grow their junior section whilst we will have other Golf Clubs who want to grow and engage with the juniors more. I think that most Golf Clubs only have an average of about 8 juniors!! I see coaches as the people who need to drive from the bottom up and then we need to work at transitioning them into the Golf Club…and with Mum and Dad having to take them!!

Parents

(Golfing Herald): I would like to explore each of the services that the Junior Golf Guys is going to provide, starting with ‘Mum and Dad’…so could you share some details about the offering you will provide to parents?

(Thomas): This is where Junior Golf Guys all started when Phil and I were chatting about videos, in particular making educational videos for parents. So very much a video series for parents which is predicated around 5 questions…

• Why kids play sport?
• How can I help?
• Why isn’t my child improving?
• How do I make it fun?
• Should my child play only golf?

So the first product for parents will be this video series to answer these questions, with one video per question. Then in time, we may develop further videos and/or online learning. So we are going to put the initial videos onto the website where parents will be able to click on the link to purchase…we have not decided yet on the price or whether we are going to have some free trailers but the model is certainly going to be mainly paid content.

(Golfing Herald): When are you hoping to have the videos ready for parents to purchase?

(Thomas): We have got 3 videos ready so I would hope by the time golf re-opens in England (29th March 2021) we will have all 5 done. Yeah, so in the next few weeks, we will have this first parent product ready. We also have some free ‘top tips’ for parents on the website with some free downloads.

(Golfing Herald): So how can parents, some of whom may be reading this article, contact you to register their interest?

(Phil): They can contact us through our various Social Media channels, through the website which includes our emails and contact numbers. Any of those ways…and we are more than happy to help.

Coaches

(Golfing Herald): Moving onto coaches, are you targeting a specific type of professional golf coach?

(Phil): At the moment there is hardly any career development programmes for junior coaching within the PGA. For example, if you wish to sell more golf shoes there are lots of resources however when it comes to junior development programmes there is not a lot whatsoever. Today there are two main programmes out there…US Kids and TPI but they are very expensive. Often junior programmes are handed to the Assistant Professional or someone newly qualified but they have no guidance of what is required. So we are trying to provide a resource and a bit of a sounding board for all Professionals. Some of the professionals who have signed up for our first programme have got about 100 kids attending their junior classes and so they are really clued up junior coaches. Equally, we have got some who are attending who are newly qualified. Between us, Tom and I have delivered golf lessons to over 15,000 children so we believe we can provide and deliver relevant content covering all aspects of a junior coaching programme. We will probably do more levels as we go along but to start off with we see our basic introduction targeting newly qualified Assistant coaches.

(Golfing Herald): Is there a limit to the number of coaches who can attend each online course?

(Phil): Yeah…a maximum of 10 coaches on each course, and each course is over 5 weeks. We sold out the first one, which was nice!! The first course has gone really well. All the coaches upload their videos each week and then they are in a bit of a training space where they can communicate with us and each other and then at the end of each week we will all have a Zoom meeting and go through the specific module completed during the week.

(Golfing Herald): Are you initially targeting coaches who are based in England…or based in the United Kingdom…or based anywhere in the world?

(Thomas): Eventually, it would be cool to grow the interest in the course outside of the United Kingdom. We have contacts in Europe and the United States so there is certainly plenty of potential for ‘avenues in’. I think you have to dream big so definitely, it would be great to attract interest globally.

(Golfing Herald): The same question as I asked earlier for parents…how can coaches contact you to register their interest and sign up for one of your 5-week courses?

(Phil): Same again…via Social Media or our website. Also on the website, we have got some free ‘top coaching’ tips.

Golf Clubs

(Golfing Herald): The final service that Junior Golf Guys currently offers is targeted towards the actual Golf Clubs…I read with interest one of your recent exchanges on Twitter where the discussion was along the lines of ‘it does not matter whether there is no junior membership fee or a notional junior membership fee if the golf club does not have a clear roadmap in place for juniors’.

(Thomas): That’s right…it was part of a thread which I posted where there was a reply from Jonathan Pearson, who is now the GM at Horsforth Golf Club, who said you need a clear pathway in place. It was a very good point he made and so our idea is to help Golf Clubs try and create a family-friendly environment…helping put a costed plan in place and all of a sudden it is not just a free or notional junior membership but comes as part of an overall package. Within that, Golf Clubs probably need to look at making it welcoming for the families as well. I think it is just about changing some of the traditional perceptions and for Golf Clubs to try and open their (welcoming) arms a bit wider. To make Golf Clubs places where people want to go rather than stay away from.

(Golfing Herald): So are you looking to effectively establish a template, adapted for the nuances of a particular Golf Club, and then rolled out accordingly?

(Thomas): I think for Golf Clubs we vision it as more of a consultancy service. We would be looking to speak directly with the Golf Clubs and that initial engagement might take a day or a week, whatever is required. There are many different aspects to consider for a junior programme…for example whether the Golf Club is private or is run by the local council. So we think that the Golf Club consultancy will be quite flexible in terms of approach as opposed to one size fits all.

(Phil): It’s tricky as there are so many moving parts with junior golf!! When you are a newly qualified coach you are handed this massive responsibility and if you give one bad lesson that junior is possibly out of the game for the rest of their life. It only takes one person at the Golf Club to say something derogatory to the child’s mum or to the child and then that kid is possibly out of the game. It is very much about everyone working together and providing a holistic experience.

Revenues

(Golfing Herald): Looking ahead to March 29th when Golf Clubs in England will re-open, is there a real danger that there will be 100% focus by Golf Clubs to recover some or all of their respective lost revenues as a consequence of this latest (Covid-19) lockdown, and thus junior programmes will ‘lose out’?

(Phil): I think junior golf has always suffered because juniors pay less than adults, can’t tee off until 15:00 at weekends, and stuff like that. With limited tee times and members wanting their monies worth then I assume junior golf will be put on the back burner. It’s a tough one because (of Covid-19) we have not been driving any new members to the game for the last year…and it could well continue for another year or so if Golf Clubs put adult members first and don’t consider the needs of the juniors.

(Golfing Herald): Will you be reaching out to Golf Clubs or will you be looking for them to contact you to register their interest in this (specialist) service?

(Phil): A bit of both because this service is the last we are going to launch, primarily because Golf Clubs are closed at the moment. But it is much more of a consultancy where we will go to the Golf Clubs and speak to their board, members, committees, etc. and understand what their visions are for their junior programme.

The Nineteenth

(Golfing Herald): Finally…it might be a bit early to be asking this question, but what has been the feedback so far on the concept of and services provided by ‘Junior Golf Guys’?

(Thomas): Yeah…it has been good so far. We managed to fill the first course for the coaches which was a bonus. We have had about 50 downloads from the website of our coaches brochure, quite a few phone calls and some engagement via Twitter. But I think we are just waiting to see how this first course is received by the participants. We have also had about 35 brochures for parents downloaded but we will have a better idea once the first series of videos for parents are available.

(Phil): We do recognise that it will take time to gather momentum. Hopefully, we are providing more opportunities than is currently out there for parents, coaches and for Golf Clubs.

(Thomas): And over time we want to build our library content for parents and coaches. I think it’s all about building content as there is so much to talk about with junior golf.

(Golfing Herald): A great way to finish our chat. Thanks so much for sharing a passionate insight into your new venture, which I am sure will help take junior golf to much higher levels.

To find out more about Thomas, Phil and the Junior Golf Guys and about the services and products available for parents, coaches and Golf Clubs, then please click on Junior Golf Guys