The 2016 Ladies European Tour Order of Merit winner Beth Allen and multiple tournament champion Felicity Johnson took time out from their preparations for the Ricoh Women’s British Open at Kingsbarns Golf Links on Wednesday to share their knowledge and skills with girls from St Regulus Ladies Golf Club, through a clinic organised by the LET’s Development department.
St Regulus Ladies Golf Club does not own a golf course, but club competitions take place on the 18 hole courses on the St Andrews Links including the Old Course.
The local Juniors posed some excellent questions to the experienced professionals, including ‘What motivates you?’, ‘What do you keep in your bag?’ and ‘What do you eat for breakfast?’
Felicity revealed that she is always motivated by winning, that she keeps six to seven gloves in her bag in case of unfavourable weather and that she tries to eat a healthy breakfast, for example, a bowl of cereal with fruit and yoghurt.
After demonstrating several types of chip shots that can be played on links courses, Beth Allen discussed how she keeps a journal and always makes time to reflect on what went well and not so well after her round. Her journal, along with her extensive statistics programme, tells her what she needs to work on in her game to improve so that she can work on those areas with her coach.
Both players also shared their pre-tournament warm-up and practise regimes. Beth said that she spends 20 minutes stretching, followed by 20 minutes of putting and 20 minutes on the driving range, while Felicity spends an hour practising before a round.
Another area of interest was how to recover and move on from a bad shot. Beth advised the juniors to forget about it and move on, while Johnson recounted Tiger’s method of mentally visualising a white line 10 yards in front of him and then psychologically moving on to the next shot as he walked over it.
The juniors were thrilled to learn such valuable lessons from the professionals, which will no doubt help them to improve their skills and to be inspired to follow their own golfing pathway in the future.
