Visit the EGPI Website. View this article in a printable PDF format. If you do not have a PDF viewer you can download one here.

The European Golf Performance Institute (EGPI) is an organisation founded by former English Golf Union/Sport England Performance Director Nigel Furniss, PGA Master Professional and European Tour Coach Keith Williams and English Lead Physiotherapist and European Tour Golf Conditioning Coach Paul Darby.

Our team have worked with many leading players in their training and development into champion golfers who have won Major championships in both the Men’s and Ladies games, won European Tour events, competed in Ryder Cups and Walker Cups, won Amateur championships and are current young emerging players on the European, Challenge, Europro, Alps, and EPD Tours.

At the EGPI we are highly committed and focused in supporting players in pursuit of their goals and aspirations. Our aim is to help players unlock their potential and improve their performance. Keith Williams explains: “we are now all aware of the technical excellence displayed by today’s top players….armed with the correct knowledge the team at the EGPI delivers the soundest of technical principles”.

Our programmes are designed to be player centred and deliver a multi disciplined approach which includes training and support in the areas of Technique, Physiology, Psychology, Planning and Managing individually tailored training programmes, Training v’s Competition, Peaking Performance and Performance Measurement.

The issue of golfers Training for Performance is an intriguing one which Nigel Furniss found most fascinating during his 18 months research and development whilst writing the EGU’s World Class Performance Programme in consultation with experts from Sport England and UKsport. “The most fascinating issue for me was that athletes in Olympic Sports ‘TRAINED’ whilst golfers appeared to practice and ‘over compete’”.

Modern day Olympic athletes such as Linford Christie, Kelly Holmes or Steve Backley will have trained with Technical, Tactical, Physiological, Psychological coaches for over 200 days a year for possibly 6-8 years in pursuit of excellence. This is not what we observed happening with our top amateur players, especially at Junior and Youth level, if anything they were and still are over competing. Whilst it is acknowledged that Training includes “Practice” and “Competition” in a controlled managed structure, Training also involves high levels of coach direction and proactive participation.

Recent research has suggested that young players should spend more time training than playing, possibly a 70/30 ratio, sadly this does not appear to be the case with players probably competing 80% – 90% of the time with little attention to a structured and planned training programme.

Quite simply athletes train to attain peak performance, q process known in most sports as periodisation. If you analysed the schedules of Tiger Woods or any of the worlds top players we would suggest that it would be classed as “periodisation”; a week or two of training away from competition, two or three weeks competitive practice and then peak performance in a major. We will never know, but one would guess that Woods’ training and preparation is possibly focused at winning somewhere between 4 – 8 events a year, the majors plus other selective events. You don’t see Tiger playing competitive golf week in week out, he has a planned and structured training and preparation programme.

Our philosophy at the European Golf Performance Institute is to provide players and coaches with the knowledge, understanding and tools to build a golf specific training programme tailored to their individuals needs.

We are extremely keen for those we work with to have a good overview and strong understanding of the multidisciplinary approach to training for performance in golf. This is an area we will investigate in more detail in the coming months, in particular the relationship of physical training to achieve technical efficiency, a most important area in the modern game where power is required to compliment the equipment designed to launch the aerodynamic golf ball with huge velocity.

The EGPI have developed a unique and innovative “15 point swing efficiency” programme which we use to test the physiology of players who attend our European Golf Performance Institute Player Assessment Programme.

Paul Darby explains “We find most players we work with need some form of physiological development programme before they are able to achieve consistent technical efficiency. Very often these are simple programmes of either stretching, flexibility or strength work which can be undertaken on daily basis at home”

The European Golf Performance Institute not only works with players but also coaches wishing to develop their own knowledge and delivery. We work with the Professional Golfers’ Association on their Continuous Professional Development programme covering areas including Physical profiling in golf, Athletic Balance, Training for Performance and Golf Fitness & conditioning. Our team also works with the R&A on their World Wide Golf Development Programme and various overseas Golf Federations on their player development programmes.

If you want to unlock your potential and improve your performance, further information can be obtained from the EGPI website; www.egpi.eu.