We Plan To Turn Students Inside-Out

In my last blog, I introduced the mental performance program we are bringing to the Core Golf Junior Academy down in Orlando this winter.

It’s called Inside Out coaching. We plan to create a similar program for both our Academies in the Greater Toronto Area at Pipers Heath and Willow Valley

The gentleman leading the program is Bob Skura, our new director of mental performance.

Bob’s expertise is evident in the work he has produced over the past few years. It includes How Great Golfers Think, a companion workbook, a mental game exercise CD and a series of articles in his syndicated column, ForeThought.

Collectively Bob’s evidence-based material shows that we all have the resources within ourselves to excel. The key is to remove the interference that gets in the way.

His book, How Great Golfers Think is a fable about four friends of various abilities who play golf together every weekend and have different desires about who they wish to become as golfers.

The group is guided by a person recommended to them by the name of Doc, who takes them on a journey of what I would call golf self-awareness. It’s a great read and a lot of fun since the characters are just like people you are likely to play with at your own club.

The challenge we see with our juniors down south is not their ability to hit the golf ball. We do a very good job at helping them with their swings. They work hard and are among the better ball-strikers we see at junior events.

The real challenge is to allow them to continue growing as they have to this point in their lives, with a single-minded enthusiasm, even though their expanding life experiences attempt to pull them in a variety of interesting, but distracting, directions.

That’s why the way they get coached is so important.

How many ways are there to coach?

There have always been and always will be two distinct coaching methods. One is Outside-In coaching and the other is Inside-Out coaching and you need to know the difference.

Outside-In coaching depends on four factors. First, the coach must possess a specific expertise and the skill to communicate that expertise.

Also, the student must be willing to learn, and be capable of implementing the concepts the coach is teaching.

These four factors don’t always align as perfectly as the stars above. The result is that players with tremendous potential often end up in the trash heap because they get out of sync with their coaches.
Inside-Out coaching, on the other hand, simply depends on the inner potential of the student.

The coach uses special techniques to tap into and release a person’s inner potential so that the student can become all that he or she is meant to be, which is why the Core Golf Academy is moving to the Inside-Out model.

It’s not for everyone. If a student prefers quick fixes to fundamentals, then we are not going to be much help.

These changes we’re making at Core Golf guarantee that the coming year will to be an exciting one for staff and students alike. We believe they will make us leaders in the golf instruction industry and assist our students in reaching their goals.