Ladies European Tour Members Liz Young and Kylie Walker visited Woburn Golf Club on Wednesday to support their series of ‘HERE COME THE GIRLS’ coaching sessions as part of a programme that has been running for two years and has seen 50 women take up the game of golf.
The coaching sessions take place on a Wednesday morning each week at Woburn, which will host the Ricoh Women’s British Open, on the Marquess’ Course, on July 28-31.
The sessions are led by Senior PGA Professional Dan Grieve, with PGA Professional Jordan Bazzone, and have been a great success story.
Grieve commented: “We have created a fun, interactive learning environment where a lot of the time they coach each other. This form of coaching has been proven to be one of the most powerful learning methods. Crucially this has also created a peer support group where they have playing partners, which again is one of the challenges for new golfers. Seven women who started without playing golf before have gone on to be become full members of Woburn Golf Club.”
Britons Liz and Kylie who are ranked 18th and 19th on the LET Order of Merit respectively, have already secured their place in the field for the Ricoh Women’s British Open, which will be the fourth women’s Major Championship of 2016.
As well as enjoying a practise round on the Marquess’ course, they appreciated the opportunity to share their skills and knowledge and encourage more women to pursue golf as part of a healthy lifestyle.
Liz, who won the Prince of Wales Amateur Challenge Trophy at Woburn in 2002, commented: “I hope to inspire more people to play golf and show what a great game it is for people of all ages. I really like teaching beginners, especially children, because they learn so quickly and it’s really nice to see people making swift improvements and the joy on their faces when they succeed.”
Kylie echoed those sentiments when she said: “Its good fun and great to meet a bunch of ladies that are really keen to get into golf. A lot of them haven’t been playing for very long but they are really keen to learn.”
Group member Sara Dickens explained why she enjoys the sessions so much. “It’s just amazing that we’ve got this facility at Woburn and they are just so progressive and generous. Dan (Grieve) and Jordan (Bazzone) are both amazing professionals and very patient. I think I can speak for the majority when I say that, without ‘Here Come the Girls’ and without Woburn, none of us would have been here, none of us would have started to play golf and we would have missed a huge thing in our lives.”
When the 40th Ricoh Women’s British Open is played at Woburn Golf Club later this month, the world’s best golfers will compete for a prize fund of UK £2,072,253 (US $3 million). The Championship is being played at Woburn for the 10th time, having first been played there in 1984 when Ayako Okamoto became the first and only Japanese winner of the event.
