News From China

By Toby Tse, USGTF-China Representative

We Conducted the first USGTF International Golf Psychology Association certification and training course on March 19 and 20. Training started at 8:30 a.m. and finished at 6:30 p.m., 10 hours each day. It covered the five sections, including all the drills and tests. Each section took approximately 3 1/2 hours to complete, with 2 1/2 hours teaching, a half-hour working on drills, and a half-hour on test papers.

Ten candidates registered and nine attended, with one missing due to work. Eight candidates passed and got certified, with one who failed and is attending the next course, including the no-show candidate.

The two-day course was quite heavy and tight in timing. The students were loaded with tons of materials and information. We taught with a PowerPoint presentation of some 200 slides covering bullet points, and a hard copy handout of the full content was given to each student, with some 60 pages printed on both sides. The course was conducted in the Chinese language.

It took us more than two years to prepare the course. The most time-consuming jobs were the Chinese translation and preparation of the PowerPoint slides, where we had to pick the key points which were bell-ringing and had to search the pictures and photos for all the names mentioned. Due to cultural differences and the late start of golf in China, most Chinese students had no idea of those who were featured, including U.S. presidents, ancient philosophers, sport psychologists, famous sport coaches, and the older generation of golfers, even though they were in the Hall of Fame and had substantial influence and achievements. We had to show them the photos, histories and achievements of these people so that they would accept them as credible sources.

Conclusion – the course is well organized and prepared with valuable information and insight to prepare the attendees to be better players and coaches, and to re-engineer the way they think, play and teach.

Due to cultural differences, we will be making some changes to the program, including mentioning some Chinese golfers. In any case, we won’t make drastic changes and will keep the original context and framework in its totality.