Academy News
01/05/2012
The cream of the four Junior John Letters Academies came together in Walsall in the Easter holidays to play in the inaugural inter-academy challenges matches arranged by junior development manager James Beattie. The host club was Calderfields golf and Country Club in the West Midlands. Four teams of 8 players were assembled for the inaugural match, (pictured on the steps of the club house). In what was a tightly contested match Cambridge came out on top, and took the trophy back to Hemingford Abbots, which will be defended by the winning team in August at Brampton Park. Walsall finished second, team Stadium third with Solihull bringing up the rear.
After the matches players and parents got together to eat a meal and each player received a medal. Thanks go to Graeme Jackson and his team of volunteers for making the day so enjoyable and everyone is looking forward to the next event, in particular a very pleased Academy Director Darren Scholes, who enjoyed the sweet victory of his charges!
The event also formed part of Midlands Golf Week and the county golf partnership development officer Sean Hamill was on hand to admire some of the swings.
01/05/2012
6 to 7 age group
1. Seb Cave 335 H
2. Grace Evans 180 C
3. Ella Darrington 175 C
8 to 9 age group
1. George Evans 345 C
2. Amarthya Chandrappa 275 C
3. Louis Altham 250 C
10 to 11 age group
1. George Heath 565 H
2. Owen Meeds 375 CC
3. George Nicholson 360 H
12 to 13
1. Stephen Fearnley 470 H
2. Tom Forster 440 C
2. Daniel Bradbury 440 H
Walsall
Charlie Barlow 630
David Skidmore 600
Aarian Matharu 415
This has been a great year for our Academy Director, Tom Denby, and was capped of on 17Th November at Wentworth.
Tom was nominated for ‘Junior Coach of the Year’ in the first ever Pro Shop Europe magazine Industry awards. He was put forward by Alan Robinson, father of Alex and Kimberly Robinson, who Tom has been teaching for a few years now.
Alex Robinson, was the first success story for the now, nationally recognised, Golf Factor Junior talent search competition, the brain child of John Andrew. Alex went on to win the first ever Golf Factor and has benefitted from the support of Tom and his team for a number of years now, via private lessons and the hugely successful John Letters Academy Elite Squad.
With this support and success this prompted Alan to nominate Tom for the award. Tom was in a short list of three other successful coaches, and went into the awards ceremony not really knowing what to expect. To his great surprise, he won and was presented his award by the Ryder Cup legend, Paul Way.
After receiving the award Tom had this to say To win this award is a great moment for me and my team. It is great recognition for the hard work that we have and still are putting into making the game of golf more recognised and accessible to all walks of life. I could not have won this award without the support of my strong team around me, in particular, James Beattie. James has played a huge part is setting up a lot of these projects and helping me to deliver them and he has become an extremely strong member of my team.
The success of the Golf Factor competition is just a small part of what Tom and his team does and has achieved for junior golf, in not only the Huddersfield and Halifax region, but in the regions of all our other Academies, in Cambridge, Walsall and Solihull. Delivery a fantastic Tri Golf programme into over 50 schools in the Huddersfield region, this provided a great bench mark and case study for Tom to help his other sites to roll out this programme to all the other academies. One of the most rewarding projects that the Academy has undertaken is working with disadvantaged children, children from very deprived back grounds, with many of them being youth offenders. Golf has really helped them to channel the aggression and hatred they have into something very rewarding for them and very productive.
The reward of winning the Pro Shop Europe Junior Coach of the Year is a huge Team effort. Long may the success of junior golf continue to grow.
Rangemark accreditation for Cambridge Golf & Conference Centre.
RangeMark has been created by the English Golf Union EGU, to recognise those ranges that are at the forefront of developing the game. The role of driving ranges is fundamental to golf development in England and clearly they are the starting point for the majority of newcomers to this great game, providing professional coaches and a variety of coaching and practice opportunities. We are delighted to include this Academy to our portfolio of top quality practice facilities. I am delighted to present Darren on behalf of his team this award. said John Harvey, Cambridgeshire Golf Partnership.
John Letters Golf Academy Cambridge goes online!
The John Letters Golf Academy Cambridge at the Cambridge Golf & Conference Centre has joined the best Golf Academies in the world and introduced the new state of the art online V1 branded academy group.
All our golfers coaching sessions at the Academy now have a digital life said Darren Scholes, Head PGA Professional/Academy Director.
The Academy PGA Professionals can now instantly deliver the V1 video coaching experience to their students’ computers, Smartphones (iPhones, Blackberry and others) and Facebook™ pages where they can be easily seen and stored to monitor their development. A simple text message links them directly to their V1 Mobile Lesson where they can view and hear their complete video lesson right on their phone. Sharing their V1 Mobile Lessons with friends and family is as easy as forwarding a text message.
To experience this amazing technology and improve your golf game guaranteed come along to the Centre and see for yourself.
10/05/2011
Huddersfield Academy gets the Mark