IJGA Newsletter: The Oaks February 2020 | Page 4

MODERN GOLF: A MORPH OF ART AND SCIENCE By Jonathan Yarwood As a modern and progressive coach with a growth mindset, I am always looking to get better. If I get better, my students get better. Dare to teach, never cease to learn as they say! With that in mind, it is vital to be open to new methods of training and it is something I talked about recently at the popular Monday night “Open Forum” at the PGA Show. I was honored to be asked onto the panel to speak about junior golf development. I set out to convey how the modern junior trains. How, as coaches, we blend ways of old with modern cutting edge technology and practices to morph the art and science together to create an athlete who can maximize distance and accuracy whilst being able to problem solve in an ever changing environment. I talked about our new Levels Of Competence (LOC) program which sees a student train with purpose each day to work up through the levels of skill, mastery and transfer which people seemed to like. Additionally, I talked about how we use a fact and evidence-based approach to improvement rather than the traditional one of opinion. We do this with data from Trackman, Video and Force Plates to create a 360 degree view. Any interventions we make can then be tangible and measurable. The feedback was that people loved the structure of what we do, particularly as it is tied into the gym, very much a holistic approach. I enjoyed the evening capping it off with a one hour show on Jason Suttons popular PODcast which was equally well received. THE NEW DRIVERS FOR 2020 by Kristofer Sirak’ Once again, like clockwork, the PGA Show is back here in Orlando for 2020. There are many new products on display and also many worth mentioning. In this article I will be focusing on two of the more talked about products, one being the Callaway Mavrik Driver and also the TaylorMade SIM Driver. Both products have received a lot of hype prior to the show, so let’s see what all the fuss is about… First the Callaway Mavrik Driver - While looking at the specs on Callaway’s website you will find this quote: “MAVRIK thinking fueled our new, A.I. designed Flash Face SS20, to promote fast ball speeds 4 across a more expansive area in each model and loft”. So, Callaway is claiming that with the help of Artificial Intelligence they were able to make a majority of the club face “Hot”. Meaning your toe and specifically your heel shots still produce fast ball speeds. When comparing to last year’s Epic Flash, I have seen a small increase in ball speeds with the Mavrick, but only slightly. The one thing that stood out to me with the Mavrik was