Golf: New national coaches look to the future

Nov 2 2007 by Phil Blanche, Western Mail

TWO contrasting new national coaches have been given the task of making Welsh golf the envy of the world in the way it discovers and develops top talent.

Jeremy Bennett will head up the women’s game in Wales after working with the likes of Nick Faldo and Bernhard Langer, while Neil Matthews has come through Welsh golf to take charge of the men.

But the pair share the same ambition – to speed up Welsh golf’s conveyor belt of talent.

Already that line has rolled out a series of new records this year with three players in the Walker Cup team and Becky Brewerton becoming the first Welsh player in the Solheim Cup.

Former Rookie of the Year Bennett spent 11 years on the European Tour and recently has been involved with the Faldo Series and Team Faldo, working with such players as Rory McIlroy and emerging Ladies European Tour star Kiran Matharu.

Explaining how the link with Faldo had begun, he said, “When you played with Nick, he did not know you were there, but I had played with him quite a few times when I was out on tour.

“We put a structure together in my county, Surrey, and I gave Nick a call to ask if he would come down and see what we were doing to suggest any improvements.

“He looked at the structure and said it was better than the things they were doing on the Faldo Series for junior golfers, so he asked me to look after Team Faldo. Then he asked me to look at his game.

“That was in 2002 and he had his best performance in a Major since winning the Masters in 1996 and his best performance on the European Tour for years, even though he was only working about a quarter of the time he had in his heyday.

“It meant going to the Masters and US Open and having the chance to talk to the likes of Ben Crenshaw and Brad Faxon about putting, the best around at the time.

“I worked with Bernhard Langer and was able to learn a lot about preparation from him. Again, he is probably the best in the world at that.”

On the men’s side, Matthews has come through a different route, but has an equally impressive CV having been the Golf Foundation Professional of the Year for 2006, a national award, and winning the Welsh Professional of the Year title this year.

“It is really exciting, I can’t wait to start working to really start moving things forward,” said Matthews, from Pontypool golf club.

“We need to become a golf nation that other countries take a lead from in the way that we do things.

“It is an opportunity to put things in place that can affect how our country can perform at international level.

“Do we create players by luck or design? In the past it was probably luck, but now it is changing and we can start to create better players by design.”

Given the rate at which the conveyor belt was going before, the new appointments to replace World Cup winner David Llewellyn and ladies coach Christine Langford shows great ambition by the new Golf Union for Wales. The new coaches will work under Nigel Edwards, director of player development and coaching, as well as being the only Welshman to play in four Walker Cups.

He said, “I hope these will bring more success to Wales and that is the reason for the changes.

“These two guys gave exceptional interviews and presentations and their CVs and background led the panel to make the decision.

“In the build-up to the Ryder Cup, golf is going to get bigger and building the coaching structure and a pathway for player performance that is the best in the world would be a great legacy of the Ryder Cup.”

That is a view backed by Andy Ingram, the chairman of the GUW teams and performance committee.

“Wales have always been able to compete in smaller teams,” he said. “What I would really like to see is the depth so we can start competing in the home internationals, ladies and men, boys and girls.

“David Llewellyn and Christine Langford have been massive with Wales and really brought things forward.

“It has been a hard decision not to continue down that road, but we looked at it with a clean piece of paper and hopefully we made the right decisions.

“I hope they will both continue to be involved in some way and they will carry on coaching some of the players anyway.”