In a bid to develop the sport of golf, a 5 day train the trainer course commenced at Chapman Golf Club on Monday.
The course which is equivalent to the level 1 golf coaching course done in South Africa is in its 3rd edition.
Zimbabwe Golf Association(ZGA) secretary-general Clever Lazarus said the course is run in conjunction with Royal and Ancient (R&A) from America.
“R&A disburses grants for development of golf but for the sport to be developed, we make sure we capacitate the trainers or coaches”, he said.
“This is the best we can do to those coaching golf. We want to help them gain more experience or more exposure so that they have confidence in coaching golf”.
“They are a lot of people who are making a living out of coaching not playing golf thus making coaching even a profession so they need to be uplifted”, he added.
20 trainers turned up for the course which is open to low handicapped golfers and 3 candidates were chosen from each province.After the course those who would have passed as they will examined receive certificates to train trainers or coach.
Trainers being trained emulated the programme.Mr Kunze who is from Hillside Golf Club and founder of Ivy employment consultancy golf academy said,”The course is sharpening my training skills.So far on day 2, they have been some improvements.We are learning knew things and getting more insight into golf.It is very beneficial”.
Liberty Gumisa, a Midlands Sate University coach said the idea was worthy as golf was being spread nationwide.”The idea is when we are trained here we go back to our provinces and become trainers of other trainers. We train teaches at schools and universities and coaches at clubs to train the children and golf players respectively”, he said.
Gumisa has represented Zimbabwe, played in many local tournament and last year played in West Africa, Nigeria.
Apart from practical lessons the trainers also have theoretical lessons.Thebtrainers are being trained by Students Sovols from Borrowdale Brook Golf Club,Catherine Riley from Chapman Golf Club and Mike Baylics from Borrowdale Brook Glub and Chapman Golf Club.
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