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The opportunity to go and listen and learn from top quality coaches should be high on the list of every teaching professional's agenda.  So when Stewart Craig said he wanted to share his knowledge with the members again, I expected a good response, and I wasn't disappointed.

The three CPD days in Falkirk from 28 - 30 September 2009 were absolutely fantastic and the knowledge you can gain by attending these seminars really does help you to become a better coach.

Day 1 - Body Balance

Many of you will have read Stewart's article in the September edition of Golf World on Body Balance and how important it is in the golf swing, and the first day was dedicated to this particular subject.  It's always fascinating to see people's faces when they stand on the force platform and check their static balance.  Very few people are even close to where they think their weight is at address and this leads to many extra moving parts that are added, to try to complete the golf swing.  The benefits for the people who attend this course in particular, are that they can start ot see what the root cause of most students' problems actually are and stop the guess work that tends to happen without this knowledge.

Stewart and Paul Hurrion's work in this particular field is ground breaking and will change the way the game is taught, by forward thinking teaching professionals.  Everybody was in agreement that the CPD day they attended will improve their teaching knowledge by at least 50%, which is certainly something to get very excited about.

 Dave Matthews on the force platform

The group analysing the results

Day 2 - Golf Club Technology

With the advent of new equipment, the job of fitting people properly for the right golf clubs has become much easier and with far greater results.  Stewart has invested a considerable sum in the flightscope tracking system, which uses radar technology to track the flight of the ball and give us much better accuracy when diagnosing clubs that people are using.

This is always an interesting day as everyone wants to see if their irons and woods are giving them the best possible chance of playing well, and as always happens, some went away with a better understanding of why their game is struggling.  This new technology is certainly fantastic to see in operation and gives such good feedback that at least you would be able to blame your clubs for the bad shots you hit!!

Since purchasing flightscope, Stewart has sold over 60 sets of irons and 100 woods, which is pretty impressive to say the least.

Gordon Mackay on the flightscope

Day 3 - Putting, the complete system

Stewart's day on putting is slightly different to the Biomechanics day that I do, as it revolves around teaching people a complete system of how to putt.

Another excellent day was had by all attending, as Stewart covered how to teach the public a system covering all the necessary elements.  He also touched on the importance of vision training and how this affects the lines of the putts we actually see.  Again, fascinating stuff and not widely known in the teaching world.  A lot of theory work was done inside, with some very interesting results and then out to the putting green to see how it all worked, under the scrutiny of the other coaches.  Stewart has also had a putting article published in Golf World recently and this all ties in with theories that we now teach and believe in at the EGTF.

Chris Calder training his eyes

Martin Park improving his balance and core stability

Stewart explaining the difference between true break and visible break

Thanks again to everyone who turned up to these excellent learning days.  I'm sure you have lots more first class knowledge which you can impart on your students.

And last but by no means least, thanks to Stewart Craig for the extremely professional way in which he undertakes these days and the ability to share his considerable knowledge to help EGTF teachers become better.

Bill Abbott - Master Teaching Professional and Course Instructor