WINNER OF THE DAVID LITHGOW CUP

1. Paul Tudor 40 Points
2. Dave Bright 39 Points
3. Roger Rabone 37 Points

Team Prize
Kelvin Warren-John Round-Paul Russell-Alan Lane 106 Points

A great morning in kind weather had by 90 plus great Barr seniors, followed by a good, cooked breakfast afterwards.
Club Captain Ranjit Khakh and Seniors Captain Pradip Chandarana presented the David Lithgow Cup to Paul Tudor, also the seasons trophies to all the other winners’
A farewell gift from Great Barr Golf Club to Bill Perry was made by Seniors Captain Pradip Chandarana.
Bill had organised the popular Seniors Open for over ten years and is stepping down.

Here at Great Barr Golf Club we believe we are a friendly, welcoming and forward-thinking club and this award helps us to spread that message and to tell people that children are safe and secure here and that we understand about beginner golfers.  You can find more information on our dedicated SafeGolf page of our website which can be found on the following link https://www.greatbarrgolfclub.co.uk/safeguarding-and-welfare/

SafeGolf is firstly, a website which can be found at www.safegolf.org.  This website allows anyone with a concern about the welfare of a player, or the behaviour or practice of a coach, volunteer, organiser, parent or a player, can contact the lead safeguarding officer at their national governing body.

Secondly, it is the safeguarding standard England Golf will promote to all their affiliated clubs to ensure all clubs provide a safe and positive experience to children and young people whilst playing golf. The PGA are also using the standards to apply to all their PGA professional Coaches.

Bill leaves nothing to chance, his infectious enthusiasm means he starts contacting previous players before Xmas, with almost a full field by the end of February, then filling any vacant tee times from late requester’s, right up to the last moment.

Bill has many friends and acquaintances from his golfing years, in particular from his year as Captain of GBGC, who continue to support him by attending this event. There are also a lot of new faces entering as gents become of age to enter the Seniors Open competition, that being 55.

The competition is split into under and over 70 categories with the overall winner being presented with the Bunny Staples Trophy.2020 was different to previous years as can be expected, there was no carvery meal after 18 holes, no raffle or presentation for the Bunny Staples Trophy and the other attractive prizes, no socialising after the game to share the missed putt or the cracking drive with other groups of players, but that didn’t put people off.

The weather was very kind to us, so despite the restrictions a great day was had by all with the winner of the Bunny Staples Trophy going to Paul Cooper with 44 points.  Here’s hoping the 2021 Seniors Open is able to revert back to the previous years format, whatever the future holds, with a Bill at the helm it will still be a roaring success for GBGC.

BodiTrak header

You know what’s it like, 1 round you can’t do anything wrong, irons are pure’d and drives are launched majestically down the centre of every fairway. 10 foot putt? No problem! It’s the purple patch that all golfers long to experience, sometimes it lasts a few months, sometimes a few weeks but more often only a few rounds.

Let’s get one thing out there…GOLF IS A HARD GAME! It’s a game where we are asked as players to perform an unnatural move that the human body is simply not built for. A lot of the golf swing happens behind the player and I’m sure we can all relate to the idea that what we think our swing looks like is far from reality!

PGA crest logo

As PGA professionals our training allows us to assess a golf swing from several angles. One of our key beliefs is that a golfer should build a swing that their body physically allows them to carry out. It’s not necessary to have the flexibility and rotation of Dustin Johnson to be a great golfer, the strength and swing speed of Tiger Woods, there are several players who do not complete a traditional “full shoulder turn” but still get phenomenal results – just take a look at John Rahm’s swing and you will see you can generate power and a silky smooth and technically sound swing without that full rotation.

It’s no secret that most club golfers do not get coached on their golf game, often magazines or YouTube is the goto source of information for that golf swing fix. There is a lot of great information out there but more often than not it is very generic information, it’s easy to convince yourself that you have found the fix for your swing and then you take it straight out on the course which inevitably delivers the opposite result that you were hoping for.

Coaching can benefit your game, and those benefits can come quickly, without fail always quicker than the YouTube approach. Our own research shows these are the most common answers to the question of “What has stopped you getting coaching before now”:

“I know I will get worse before getting better if I take coaching”

Unless we are rebuilding a swing from scratch this is a very unlikely outcome! You will come out of a lesson with a drill or two after seeing your swing at the start of the lesson and your swing after the lesson – this gives you the confidence you need to take those drills into your practice to get your game back on track.

“I’m not good enough to have lessons at my current ability”

We coach our club champion (who plays of a handicap of 1) as well as complete beginners, for example our getting into golf scheme has been a huge success. Coaching can help you improve your golf at a faster rate.

“My swing is awful and I’m a little embarrassed, and you want me to swing in front of a professional?”

a. There is nothing to be embarrassed about, will focus on the positives and work with you in the way that makes you feel comfortable. Taking that first step is the hardest thing to do, by the end of your coaching session you will have seen how good your game is – this alone will build your confidence and help you enjoy golf even more.

“I don’t have a physics degree – what chance have I got of understanding all the data you will give me?”

Do you like data? “No”? In which case we won’t show you data! “Yes”? Then we have plenty of it for you. Our principle aim is to give you meaningful information, data can become confusing and YouTuber’s often push lots of numbers on the screen – those numbers are really for your PGA professional to help understand what is going on with the swing so they can give you simple guidance to help you improve.

Our approach at Ted Maher golf performance here at Great Barr Golf Club is to work with the golfer to set realistic expectations. We see a clear difference with club golfers vs the casual golfers who come in to the club. Casual golfers often respond to the question of “What are you hoping to achieve today?” with an answer along the lines of “I want to swing like Tiger” or “I want to be able to play the flop shot like Phil Mickleson”. Club golfers are more realistic and always come to us with some good insight to their own swing and what they think is wrong.

We have several ways to carry out coaching:

• Simulator – this maybe used where we do need to take a look at some numbers using our GCQuad sensor housed in our recently refurbished swing room.
• BodiTrak pressure sensor mat – we have recently successfully undertook the “BodiTrak Golf Ground Mechanics” certification, this new addition to our golf performance centre allows us to get the most out of your swing – with really minor changes to your swing you can finally gain those extra few vital yards but more importantly see with your own eyes the difference between poor weight transfer and goof weight transfer. We are sure you won’t be disappointed – click here to take a look.
• Practice area – we are lucky to have a practice area where you can hit off grass. This is really useful where a golfer may struggle to take their game from the driving range to the course.
• Chipping and putting greens – these areas allow us to coach you on the often overlooked but so vitally important areas of your golf game.
• The course – another overlooked area of a golfers tool-set is course strategy, here we take you around some of the holes at Great Barr Golf Club to work on your strategy, “Do you really need to take driver on this hole?”

Our approach to coaching can be tailored to your needs. Our focus is not to sell you a bunch of lessons, our focus is to build a coaching plan to fix a swing fault or to improve your game in the way that you want. We are really proud of the fact that the vast majority of new students come to us by recommendations of current students, and we feel that speaks volumes for the results we deliver.

We offer coaching all year round and can make use of the simulator up until 10pm (9pm last session) so there is never a reason to not practice or book our coaching sessions as we will always have time to fit into your busy schedule.

Our overall mission is to help you enjoy the game of golf, the more you enjoy it the better you get, the better you get the more you will get out this wonderful game we call golf!

Let us help you play the best golf of your life.

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I said, “I will be ready for The Match,” and I will be! Thank you to Dave Phillips and Greg Rose from @mytpi for their knowledge and expertise. Tom House who has helped so many athletes prolong their careers. @SeanMCochran for keeping me healthy, strong, and injury free for the last 16 years. Andrew Getson for working with me to get my game back and for helping me win this year – the first time in 5 years. And, to my brother @timmick29 – for making my job fun and enjoyable. Thank you all, I appreciate it so much! @TigerWoods, you’re going to need your best next Friday. Just saying.

A post shared by Phil Mickelson (@philmickelson) on Nov 14, 2018 at 4:29pm PST

Ladies golf 2020

COVID-19 UPDATE: 30th June 2020

Given the COVID-19 pandemic, the club have put extensive operational COVID-19 procedures in place to protect yourself and our golf coaches to ensure a safe environment for us all.  Please contact us should you want more information on this.

During 2019 we saw a very successful initiative in getting ladies into golf.  We have had lots of enquires into the club asking if we are going to run more sessions and we are please to say YES WE ARE!!!

Places are limited and due to the success of last years sessions we would advise to book your spot sooner rather than later to avoid disappointment.

Our 4 week programme takes place on the following dates:

We then move into our 4 week programme on the following dates:

• Monday 3rd August
• Monday 10th August
• Monday 17th August
• Monday 24th August

Again all sessions will run from 6pm through till 7pm.  The cost for this 4 week course is £20.

The sessions are designed for women who are new to golf and looking for an easy way to give it a go.  There is really nothing stopping you as we will provide all the equipment you need so just come along in a pair of trainers and comfortable clothing and relax as you learn the essential skills of the game.

We welcome any female golfers of all ages looking to get into the game so please get in touch.

To book your place on this course please contact Tom Palmer on tompalmerpga@hotmail.com or our club secretary on secretary@greatbarrgolfclub.co.uk or call on 0121 357 1232 and we will be happy to book you in.

We look forward to welcoming you at Great Barr Golf Club.

Swing Room Panoramic

As you may have noticed we have been a little busy in the pro shop building a new facility to help you and your fellow golfers get the most out of your game, no matter what the weather and no matter what time of day (within reason of course!)!

We have just put the finishing touches to the new swing room in the pro shop here at Great Barr Golf Club. The old swing room was a little cramped and needed a bit of TLC so we set to work on improving it. Our aims were simple:

1. Create a warm and comfortable environment for you to make use of for lessons or for leisure.
2. Invest in you as members and the quality of the golf coaching we are able to offer.
3. Offer an alternative to a driving range, you have full access to the driving range function or you can play one of many famous courses such as Pebble Beach or St Andrews and many more.
4. Allow you to book a timeslot so you can be in control of when to practice rather than waiting for a bay to become free at your local driving range.

GCQuad

For those golfers who have never heard of GCQuad, this piece of kit is what’s known as a launch monitor. In the modern game, there are all sorts of factors that influence where our golf ball ends up after whatever kind of swing you have put on it!

The GCQuad can measure this in astonishing detail and helps the team to analyse what may be going wrong (or right) and give you the evidence to prove it. This piece of kit combined with the cameras that are strategically placed in the swing room give you a holistic view of your golf swing.

Whilst we make good use out of the swing room for golf lessons, we really want to promote the fact that you can make use of the facility for your own practice. With this in mind, the design of the space has been made to feel comfortable and welcoming, there is air conditioning for those who like it cold and heating for those who want to practice in their T-Shirt in the warmth. With the Great British weather being so unpredictable the swing room can allow you to swing your clubs whatever the weather.

Casual golf facilities such as Top Golf has shown there is an increasing trend in social golf, that’s why we invested in a beer fridge! That’s right a beer fridge! The Swing room allows you to play with friends in a competitive mode on the GCQuad simulator, or just enjoy a social practice session on the range which fits in well with our advice of when you are practising, makes sure you practice smart.

“So what’s the benefit of a launch monitor?” – The technology helps us to give you results faster, it also gives you as a golfer a benchmark to work from so they can monitor your own progress during subsequent sessions.

“But they can’t be that accurate surely?” – The simulator allows you to hit your own golf clubs and your own golf balls (or you can use the real golf balls provided in the swing room, these are not range balls) to see distances and dispersion patters that are accurate to half a yard. Typically, a driving range system would only track the first 10m of the ball flight and make some calculations – they are not able to measure the spin accurately and this is fundamental information to the quality of the strike. Also, range balls are inconsistent and often the technology does a simple +10% to +20% addition to the distance it calculates. This is why GCQuad combined with your own ball and equipment is more accurate.

“Is GCQuad used in the professional game?” – Yes, there are many professionals such as Rickie Fowler who make use of this technology.  Quite recently, YouTuber Peter Finch used this to be the best in the world at the FSX Skills Challenge.

“I like to see the flight of my ball at the range” – That is completely understandable, however at the range you very rarely see the interaction of the ball and the ground as it lands. Often, it’s not landing on grass so visually it will be misleading as to how far the ball has gone. The distance and flight of the ball is also considerably different to what you would get on a course, we like to see given the spin implied on the ball how it would stop (often the difference between a birdie and a bounce through double bogey) – the GCQuad measures the spin accurately and therefore gives you a much better view of the quality of your strike and ultimately improves your distance control.

“OK, it sounds good but it also sounds expensive” – We have carefully considered the pricing of swing room. Naturally, if you book a lesson in with the team, we will make use of the facility without charge to yourself (though there is the option of using the driving range just off the 2nd hole of course if you prefer and weather permits). When it comes to leisurely use of the facility, we feel we have priced it competitively in the market:

30 minutes of individual practice – unlimited golf balls – £10

60 minutes of individual practice – unlimited golf balls – £15

Group of 4 – £20 per hour!

Call us on 0121 357 5270 to book your session now or…

email us to find out more

swing-room-1

Ladies session on the course

The success of our ladies beginner and improvers session has been great news for our pro team and Great Barr Golf Club.  Our mission was to open the game of golf up to ladies who may not have had the opportunity to give the game a go and we are really pleased to report that the feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive.

Due to the success of the first set of 4 group lessons which saw our budding golfers learn the basics of the game and to give them a taste of what its like of playing on a manicured and sun soaked golf course, it was a no brainer for the club to decide to run a second set of sessions to help more ladies on their golfing journey.

Ladies session picking up golf balls

The new set of sessions begins on Monday the 22nd July 2019 and lasts 4 weeks in total.  If you have missed any of the sessions please don’t worry – we would be more than happy to welcome you to any of the remaining sessions for this series of lessons.

No doubt inspired by the 2019 Open Championship at Royal Portrush we have had a number of enquires into the golf club and we are pleased that we will have some new ladies joining these sessions.

We were really encouraged by the turnout in the first series of these sessions and it was great to see ladies of all ages take up the offer.

Great Barr Golf Club Patio Overlooking the 18th Green

With the summer holidays just about to kick off – why not bring your daughter or mother down to Great Barr Golf Club and perhaps find a hobby that you can both quickly pick up and enjoy.  Of course you may want to sit back and relax after your session and we invite you to sit on our newly renovated patio and look out over the golf course whilst sipping a glass of Prosecco….or 2!

We welcome any female golfers looking to get into the game so please get in touch.

To register your interest for any future sessions please contact Tom Palmer on tompalmerpga@hotmail.com or our club secretary on secretary@greatbarrgolfclub.co.uk and we will be in touch when the next dates are released.