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