School Talk: UAE

CH3 Academy: Growing the Next Golf Generation

• Chris Shrubsole • Episode 68

Share episode

Send us a text

Want to raise a confident young golfer who actually loves the game? We sat down with Scott Graham of CH3 Academy to unpack how Dubai is transforming junior golf by putting athletic development first, blending speed, coordination and agility before swing mechanics. Scott traces golf’s boom since Covid, the rise of accessible venues like Topgolf, and why the sport’s etiquette and safety culture quietly builds character, leadership and lifelong friendships.

We dig into the science of “windows of trainability,” explaining when children adapt fastest to speed, power, balance and spatial awareness—and how smart programmes rotate focus to match growth. Scott shares simple, high‑impact home drills for kids: broad jumps, karaoke steps for rotation, cone sprints and bear crawls that build explosive movement for every sport. For teens chasing elite levels, we discuss realistic benchmarks like 120 mph clubhead speed and the long‑term strength and mobility work that keeps them healthy and fast.

Adults aren’t left out. Scott makes the case for a golf‑specific physical screen to map mobility limits and past injuries, so coaching works with the body rather than against it. We talk about the pitfalls of one‑size‑fits‑all YouTube tips, how to coach around limitations without losing speed, and why personal bests and pressure drills on the range translate into calmer decisions on the course. We also cover Dubai’s growing golf scene, memberships vs green fees, family‑friendly facilities and the new courses set to shape the next decade.

If you care about youth sport, performance or simply enjoying your weekend round more, this conversation gives you practical steps and a clear path forward. Subscribe, share with a golf‑mad friend, and leave a quick review telling us your favourite junior drill or the worst swing tip you ever got.

SPEAKER_00:

We don't just teach the student to be a golfer, we teach them to be an athlete first and the golfer second. You've got to enjoy every part of it. You can't just enjoy the good times, you've got to enjoy the bad times. At certain ages for boys and girls, you can hit these windows of trainability, speed, power, agility, spatial awareness, balance, all these sorts of um fundamental movements.

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome back to SchoolTalk UAE. I'm your host, Chris Schroepsoul, and this episode is part of our special Dubai 3030 series, where we celebrate movement, motivation, and well-being across our schools and communities here in Dubai. Throughout this series, I'll be speaking to incredible guests from coaches and educators to fitness professionals who are making physical activity a daily habit for both students and adults alike. So whether you're tuning in during your morning commute, getting your steps in, or just looking for a bit of inspiration and motivation, this is the place for you. So let's get started. Hello and welcome back to another episode of School Talk. This week I'm joined by Scott Graham, a teaching professional at the CH3 Academy. So, first of all, thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_00:

Good morning, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01:

And today we're going to be talking about golf as a whole, um, linking it to the Dubai 3030 series. So start us off. Who are you? How did you get into golf? And yeah, we'll go from there.

SPEAKER_00:

Um so my name's Scott Graham. Uh I've been out in Dubai 13 years, started golf when I was six, seven years of age in the UK. Um my dad got me into golf, played on and off for quite a few years, amongst other sports, and then sort of took to golf a little bit more seriously when I was like 11, 12, 13. Uh, realised I wasn't going to make it as a footballer. Uh so uh was that the initial dream? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, most most English kids, right? Uh so cracked on with golf, uh sort of had some form of talent for it and just carried on from there. Went to university, uh, graduated with a degree in applied golf management studies, which also blended with my professional qualification. And then from there, a few years in the UK working, uh, a couple of good good venues, the Belfry and Lippert Golf Club in the South Region. And then yeah, travelled with my my now wife in 2012, and we came out in Dubai 2013, and here we are.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, the rest is history. And since you moved to Dubai, um, what golf clubs have you worked in Dubai?

SPEAKER_00:

So I started at Charger Golf and Shooting Club. Um, I was there for about three and a half years and then moved into the Montgomery. I was there about seven and a half to eight years, and then more recently, the last sort of 16-18 months at the Elves Club, so the Claude Harmon Academy.

SPEAKER_01:

And in terms of popularity of golf, I suppose, do you think it's grown in recent years?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think I mean obviously COVID was a big change for everyone in any industry, um, but golf massively boomed from COVID, I think. Because it was an outdoor sport, it was obviously sort of separated from individuals. I mean, it started off one person in a buggy and then blended back into two, and you're always social distancing really on the golf course anyway. Um, and then from there, golf just sort of kicked off uh and it just continued to boom, and things like top golf coming through and other things that are making golf a little bit more accessible, um, a little bit more fun and engaging, I think those things have really helped. So uh yeah, I can see golf has for the last few years continued to boom, and I think it will for a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01:

And you think the social media side of golf is in your opinion, does it help or is it hinder kind of the YouTube golf stars?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh it depends on what you're looking at. I mean, if you're looking at YouTube for trying to learn how to play golf, um, it does have its benefits and its negatives. Obviously, you look into the next quick fix for your golf swing. Um, you might stumble on a gem, but quite often you find a video that's actually doing the opposite of what you need, even though you might have good intentions for it, um, which then obviously you then relate back to maybe your golf coach and they tell you very quickly you're doing the wrong thing. Yeah, so uh, but on a social media side, in terms of promoting the game, I think that does help. Uh obviously, the whole live golf and PGA tour and things haven't been helpful for that side of it, but um, yeah, I think social media does have its positives and negatives as it does for anything.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think Yeah, there's so many different channels in terms of you've got the people there just to entertain, people there trying to coach you, you've got a mix between the two, so yeah, I think the the social media and the YouTube side is an interesting one. Um, in terms of kids getting into golf, I'd say stereotypically, probably pre-COVID, it was quite a elitist game, would you say?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think uh golf's always had a negative rap, let's say, for being upper class, for being I mean, almost like old man sport. It's almost um people have got this image of like 60, 70-year-old men with long socks and those types of checkered trousers and all these sorts of things. Whereas golf in definitely over the last sort of 10 to 20 years has become a lot more accessible, um, a lot more relaxed. I mean, the good thing with golf, it does still hold some of the traditions like professional players not playing in shorts. That's sort of something that's sort of been maintained. Um, so it's nice that there are some traditions like that that maintained, but definitely a lot of things have become a bit more relaxed and a bit more uh it's not sort of seen now as an upper class sport, it's not seen as a a sport that doesn't require physical activity, let's say, it's definitely uh pushing in the right direction and becoming a lot more sort of popular as a result of that, I think.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and that popularity, if you're gonna get a kid introduced to golf, in your opinion, what's the what's the best way to do that?

SPEAKER_00:

I think the the most important thing, and then we do this in our junior program at the golf clubs I've worked at, especially at the uh CH3 Academy, is we we don't just teach the the student to be a golfer, we teach them to be an athlete first and the golfer second. Because without that basic fundamental movement pattern, simple things like throwing, catching, running, jumping, rotating, these sort of things that you take for granted, um they they are the baseline of an athlete. So if you don't have those, it's very hard to play any sport, let alone golf that requires all these things plus more. Um everyone always looks at golf and thinks, oh yeah, I can do that, and then they realize as soon as they try it, it's actually a little harder than it looks. But if you've got a baseline athleticism from playing football, tennis, cricket, whatever it might have been when you're a kid, even if it was 20 years ago, that baseline is still there. So you can actually quite quickly your hand-eye coordination, your spatial awareness, all these things start to kick in, you can actually become quite a good golfer quickly. So that's a big thing we do with the kids is we don't just say, here's a golf club that's hits and balls. We are right, let's let's play a game here which involves some rotations and throwing. Let's do a game here that involves a little bit of explosive power and speed and agility, and then let's blend those elements and now let's try to hit some shots doing the same sort of thing.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, so yeah, it's it's trying to make sure that it's not just one-dimensional stand on the range, hit golf balls for an hour, it's very much engaging, fun, games, challenges, and just a lot of variation to build that overall athlete, basically.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and I'm glad you said there that some people think it looks easier than it is. So whenever my wife watches golf on the TV, she's like, That's so easy. Surely the whole just just do it. I'm like, come and play golf. But she's very, very resentful too at the moment. Um, if you were going to get uh kid starting golf, what age would you recommend?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh I don't I don't think there's there's a limit, let's say. Um I have a son who's now four. Uh he started hitting balls with a plastic club in the in the lounge at one and a half two when he was able to stand. Yeah. Um I've even got videos of him swinging, missing, and then falling over because he had just standing up basically. Um our our junior program at the CH3, we start our active start from three years and up. Um really. So yeah, through the first sort of bracket would be three to five, and then going up from there. And again, at this age, it is a lot of building those fundamental movement patterns. They're there that we're hitting golf balls with big plastic clubs. Uh, we're we're probably hitting more tennis balls than golf balls. Um, so it's the let's say the the theme is golf, but it's very much around fun and enjoyment of just basically becoming an athlete.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think yeah, the athlete part, the fundamentals of just movement are essential for that, just growing up, that progression, as well as any sport that you start playing, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and think transferable skills, right? Like you you you play any hand-eye coordination sport, tennis, hockey, golf, cricket, they're all gonna work and blend to each other. There's obviously some subtle changes, but obviously in this country you get a lot of cricketers. Um, and once they understand that the ball's not bouncing and they don't have to hit it off the back foot, they actually can be really good golfers because they've already got that baseline of how to create power and use the ground and move.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and you mentioned before about traditions and etiquette. I think in golf you've got so many skills that are obviously applicable to the actual sport, but then you've got like life lessons and values as well. What's some of the biggest values that golf brings, aside from the sporting part?

SPEAKER_00:

I think um definitely in terms of character building, you you create a lot of traits in golf from simple things like sportsmanship and integrity and friendship and things like this to self-discipline when you start to get a little bit more elite and resilience and hard work. And and in our high school elite program, we have we've got a couple of captains that are acting as leaders. These are guys are in the guys and girls are in their last year, they've got students that are maybe three, four years below them, and they're let's say almost like heads of years, let's say, at school. Um, they're the ones that the the students can turn to if they don't want to turn to a coach or if they want to get a bit more of a an individual perspective of someone who's been there, done that, um, and can sort of advise on it. Uh so yeah, I think there's definitely I mean you could pick out words and you could go forever on this, but golf is definitely a sport that has rules and etiquette as part of the game, has traditions as part of the game, and I think the character building from that becomes apparent, especially in a sport where health and safety are so big. Yeah, obviously, you you walk into a golf golf ball being hit or you get hit by a golf club, you know about it. So you very quickly, as a kid, even understand safety and where to stand and what not to do, and and there's a lot of discipline that comes from that quite quickly, um, which I think is great for that sort of whole character building.

SPEAKER_01:

And that's I'd say as well, when you play golf, if the two of you play and you turn up to a T-box and there's two complete strangers there, everyone really has those same characteristics kind of built into them, so they have that sportsmanship, the etiquette, all of that to two complete strangers, and you can make some really good friends from strangers for a couple of hours and never see them again.

SPEAKER_00:

Sure. I mean, golf being an individual sport is arguably a very sociable sport, yeah. Um, and like you said, you meet new people all the time, and they might become lifelong friends in the end because you've got the same values, you play the same game. Like you said, with the rules and etiquette, everyone understands once you're on the course, a bit like driving a car, where to stand, when not to move, when not to make noise, um, what to do, when it's your turn, raking bunkers, like simple things like this that you take for granted. But these are like almost just like basic things that you do in life as well, right? You just it's not so much following rules per se, but it's just being being in a being a good sportsman to the point where if if you're in that situation, someone's raked it for you beforehand, you're not playing out of someone's footprint. Yeah. So if you you wouldn't like to be in that situation, obviously don't put someone else in that situation.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and I think it's perfect sport for there's not a many other times that I'd spend four or five hours with one person. Yeah. You might go for a coffee, you might go to the gym together, but you've got five hours dedicated time with that person, and then golf not as a byproduct, but it's kind of a useful way just to catch up with people. For sure. So that social side for me is one of the main reasons that I play.

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah, and and I mean you do get the odds round where it feels like you're out there forever, but m normally four hours sort of flies by, yeah, and very quickly you've played 18 holes and the day the sort of half the day is gone, and you're like, well, what happened there?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and it's never just four hours, is it? It's the the hour before, the hour after, yeah, for sure. Um in terms of fitness, this is a Dubai 3030 episode. What role would you say fitness plays in the a kind of golfer's overall performance, and especially that with kids?

SPEAKER_00:

I think um again, as golf is evolving more recently, uh speed and distance has become massive. Like if you look at the the top level now in golf, the top 20 players in the world, they're hitting the ball, club head speeds above 120, ball speeds above 180. I mean, there's not many sports where you're hitting something over 180 miles an hour faster than you're driving a car, and you're swinging the golf club that speed as well. Um, so there's so much now emphasis on on speed and power that those that aren't up to that level are sort of being left behind. Um, so again, the the golf centre of excellence program we run with um Jem's first point is obviously bringing in a lot of elite players. Um, and we were looking the other day, and to be a Div 1 player, you've got to be averaging around 120 miles an hour club head speed to be at the top level. Um and what age is that, sorry? These these are like 18 to 21 year olds. So uh yeah, if you don't have the athleticism and the baseline to start to build that speed, let alone sustain it for longevity, you you're gonna very quickly injure yourself and get out of the sport, or let alone be able to create that speed to start with. Um so I think again, we go all the way back to the three-year-olds. You're building this athlete, and there's a lot of research into what they call windows of trainability. So kids grow differently, biological ages. Obviously, you get a six-year-old that's almost double the size of another six-year-old, and that's just because they're in different parts of their growth cycle, and and um obviously growth spurts and things. So there's there's studies, and we sort of try to replicate this in our junior programs, is at certain ages for boys and girls, you can hit these windows of trainability, speed, power, agility, spatial awareness, balance, all these sorts of um fundamental movements, and if you hit them at the right times, you accelerate the speed in which they grow. Um, so if you came to me and said, I want to swing the club 10 miles an hour faster, we'd probably struggle. We might get a few more miles an hour out of it. If you went to the gym, you might get a few more, but there'll be a lot of work behind it. Whereas when you're a boy who's four to seven years old, we want you to swing it as fast as you can, as hard as you can, regardless of where the ball goes. Because in that window, speed can accelerate very quickly. Yeah, then the next speed window won't be until they're like 13 to 15. I think it is off the top of my head. So, and this is the same for all different areas of the movement pattern. So, this is what we specialise in our junior programs is when we have kids at these ages, we are putting more emphasis on whatever it is they need to be doing. So I think golf and just um fitness and everything in general is huge for kids.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, those windows there. So if a kid isn't growing the same as someone else their age, would you focus on something different? Say if there was a they weren't as tall, so that the shorter one would focus more on spatial awareness, or is it within that age they do that one thing?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so uh obviously uh in the in the age brackets you have a bit of variation, so even in the real young ones, three to five, and then the next group will be more like five to eight and eight to twelve and so on and so on. You will have kids in different areas of their growth pattern. Um so what we do is we do vary the sessions from week to week. So we're not just focusing purely on speed that we that that whole time. It might be right, speed is gonna work this week, next week we're gonna do some more spatial awareness, following week we're gonna do some some power or explosive work, and the next week we might be doing balance and things like this. So all these things will help everyone generally, but we're also hitting the windows for each of the kids at their own developments.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and you think one aspect of it is more important than others, or all of them supplement the goal.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I'd say they all they all supplement. I mean, speed is a massive one, yeah, because without speed, you you're gonna struggle to create power and you struggle to hit the ball far. Yeah. Um, I think that's a big one we always put a lot of emphasis on. Um again, strength is something that happens a bit later. You wouldn't really focus on that till a kid's maybe in their sort of 14, 15 and up. Um but definitely this the speed, the agility, the spatial awareness, the let's say the kinesthetics in the sense of being able to move and and and being able to control what the movements of the body are doing. Yeah, um, and again, these will change like someone going for a gross butt will have very little coordination and and control over their limbs because their legs now twice as long as it was. Yeah, so um that's that's a good example there of not hitting that window at that time, that would they would be doing something else. Yeah, but again, anything they're doing and anything that involves building that athlete as a baseline, I think that makes that's good, that's the key.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And I think if you are a parent listening to this and you want kind of a golf-related exercise or drills or anything to do at home, is there things you can do at home or it's just things you should be doing more on the course?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, again, I mean it depends on the person in question. Obviously, if we're talking talking specifically about juniors, um, I'd say again, anything that involves explosiveness. So broad jumps and squat jumps and like anything that involves and hopping and skipping and anything that involves creating power from the ground. Okay, then you can even throw in rotation, you could do the things called karaoke, where your legs go sort of cross in and out and your body rotates at the same time. So that's that involves coordination as well as um sort of that explosiveness. So I think anything for young kids that just involves like short bursts, five to ten five seconds to eight seconds, maybe just something quick, box jumps, get a little box for them to jump on, and they just got to jump on and off it five times, um, or some little sprints between the cones, or or some bear crawls, or something like this. Um, and then if you go into adults, obviously that just depends on what you're gonna do.

SPEAKER_01:

What's that?

SPEAKER_00:

The one tip you give for an adult in terms of if I was gonna give it one tip, I'd say the most important thing if anyone adult is looking to improve their golf game is get a physical screen. So a physical screen is just a simple 12 to 15 movement check to see what you can and can't do physically. Because if you get this is golf specific. This is golf specific. Yeah, because if if you know what a person can and can't do physically, you can either help them to improve on the areas of weakness, yeah, or you can teach around the limitations. So obviously, you get a lot of people that have had hip replacements and knee replacements and broken shoulders and all these things that have happened throughout their life that they don't feel limitsome, but until you actually test it, you can actually see it it hinders what they do. So, me as a coach, one of my first questions is always Have you got any injuries, any aches or pains, anything I should know about that's going to limit you from doing things I ask you to do? Because there's no point in me saying to someone, I want you to get your left arm extended in the backswing if you don't have any flexibility in your lats, like as in in your back and being able to elevate your shoulder. So you see, this is again going back to the first question about YouTube is someone sees a YouTube video, keep your left arm straight. They do the hardest to keep the left arm straight. They physically can't keep their left arm straight because of an old left shoulder injury. And now what they end up doing is they end up doing something else in their swing to compensate for doing that. So, yes, they might have their left arm straight, but now they've got another three or four mistakes, which then just reduces the efficiency. Snowballs from there. Yeah, yeah. So um definitely, and then based on someone's physical screen, you could then guide them on. You need to work more on your internal hip rotation or your external shoulder rotation or whatever it might be. These are sometimes some simple things you can do in the gym, sometimes they're a little bit more physio-based, or sometimes you just got to say, you one, you one, you probably don't have time to do all the work in the gym to get this changed. Two, it's probably gonna be quite hard because you have had this injury or you do have this hip replacement. So let's teach you golf swing around it. It doesn't mean you can't do other things. We just need to know that we're not trying to go down a rabbit hole and um basically put a lot of time and work into this and then realize down the line, oh, you can actually do that. So that was just a waste.

SPEAKER_01:

I think yeah, there's so many I guess golf swings you see that they're also different. I guess that is due to physical limitations of how old people are and all those things.

SPEAKER_00:

And even in the professional game, John Rahm had a club foot when he was a kid, yeah, doesn't have much rope uh ability to mobilize his ankle, hence part of the reason his golf swing is shorter. And if he tries to get it longer, which he could, he would just lose all that efficiency of in synchronization of his golf swing.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So I'm sure at some point when he was growing up, someone's tried to lengthen his swing, realised it didn't work, um, and then just went back to what he does so well, which is half to three quarters, and still bombs it.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, yeah, the power he gets from it is unbelievable. Yeah. Um the future of golf, would you say? So this is recorded the day after the Ryder Cup. So I'd say golf. Yeah, exactly. So I'd say golf is very big on people's, I guess, agendas at the moment. But golf in Dubai, what would you say the future is of that?

SPEAKER_00:

I think it's just gonna keep growing. Um, I mean, it's been a few years since there was a new golf course, but there's definitely one coming the back end of this year, if not Q1 of next, which is the EMAR South. Yeah. Um, there's also Discovery Land, but that's gonna be a very exclusive course, which is I think you've got to basically live on the course to be a member and okay and know the right people to get in. But it wouldn't surprise me in the next five to ten years if there isn't another three or four golf courses. Yeah. Um, with the expansion, obviously, in in RAC. Um, I think that's gonna just draw people in as well. And yeah, I I can't see golf. I mean, it might plateau, but I don't see it falling off a cliff and and could all the golf courses, memberships of waiting lists. Um, our junior academy, we're if we include all the schools that come, we're over 200 kids. Um, so I think, and that's probably the same at most of the courses. I think uh it's just gonna keep growing.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I saw the other day that the golf course at the new Tamiro Golf Estates, it was gonna be part three, but it changed it to a full 18.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think there was always scope to have four courses there, like Earth, fire, and then two and then two more, like wind and water. Um but I think that got changed, and then yeah, maybe it's come back again. Yeah, uh, so it could definitely be another one there. And obviously the the the Tiger Woods one was was cancelled in the end, but there's no reason why someone couldn't take that over and re-retry that one again.

SPEAKER_01:

So and the cost of golf, do you think that's a limiting factor? For those who don't like some golf courses here can charge a fair amount for a round?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think one of the things I know the courses are trying to do is they're trying to protect the members more. So what they're trying to do is they're trying to increase the the rack rate to make it so so much higher that it almost puts off people playing. Especially this time of year is you've got tourists starting to come over for Race to Dubai, you've got the Abu Dhabi, you've got um Desert Classic. So I think these attract a lot of tourists, and I think then the clubs obviously benefit from the price that these people are paying for the courses, but I think at the same time they're trying to protect the members by saying if we put this price so high for a green fee, hopefully it's going to stop a lot of people playing, and now the members can get their tea times and play and things. So I definitely think now, although it's not cheap, I think a membership is definitely the way forward if you're someone that's looking to be playing once a week practice here and there, and and I think a lot of families do it now, a lot of family memberships. All the golf courses have great facilities. Uh at the L's, they've got the country club, they've got the pool, um, they've got the restaurants, uh, obviously the academy, the driving range, and the golf course. So you go there on the weekend and the place is full with families, so it's yeah, it's a really good environment. Um but yeah, with Dubai, I mean Dubai in general is just getting more and more expensive, right? So hopefully, uh hopefully that will get to a point where not just in sport but in rent and real estate and all that, everything starts to plateau a little bit and it doesn't get to the point where it's so expensive people just can't afford to stay.

SPEAKER_01:

And one piece of advice you would give to an aspiring young golfer.

SPEAKER_00:

Um I thought I thought about this one. This one you could go anywhere, but I'd say the big one is just to keep enjoying it. Yeah, you just gotta you gotta enjoy every part of it. You can't you can't just enjoy the good times, you enjoy the bad times. You've got to and obviously you're gonna have moments where you hate golf and feel like you want to break your clubs and have a bad game and do poorly in a competition, but you've got to turn around and sort of learn from those mistakes and take that opportunity to grow. And and as they say, you always learn more from the losses than you do the the wins. Um, and just yeah, enjoy the process, enjoy the challenges, make it challenge, make it productive, give yourself performance tasks where you set PBs like you would in running. Like, okay, my PB today is I got eight out of ten drives in the fairway, right? Tomorrow I'm gonna try and beat that. And then what you try and do is you simulate pressure in games on the course that you'd simulate in competition. And if you start to relish and enjoy those pressures on the range, and in practice, there's a good chance that's gonna translate on the course, and you're gonna find yourself in these situations like the players in the Ryder Cup, right? Where they're literally living and breathing off the pressure and how much when that puck goes in, how much obviously excitement the crowd has, and how much enjoyment they're getting from it, and um, yeah, I'd say you just gotta just keep enjoying it because if you don't enjoy it at the end of the day, you're not gonna want to do it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think 100% agree with the enjoyment thing. We played the other day. Me and someone I know, but two strangers, and one of the guys was like angry at himself, and then his playing part and was just like, You're here to have fun, we're not professionals, we've paid to do this, just have fun, just go out, enjoy it, and you could see him just relax afterwards without putting pressure on yourself. But going back to their about your same professionals and the pressure they have, I can't imagine how stressful that must be. Ryder cup yesterday, there's that 250,000 people over the Ryder Cup this weekend. Imagine on the T driving there, yeah, just can't comprehend it.

SPEAKER_00:

Especially all the hecklers on the European players for sure. Um, but again, I think it's for them it's that's maybe a slightly heightened pressure that they're not quite used to, especially the rookies that haven't played the Ryder Cup before. But it's familiarizing yourself with those situations, and again, this is what we do with our elite juniors is if you make practice that hard and that challenging and that pressure that much, it becomes like comfortable and normal. Yeah, so when you're in the situation, you've got a putt to win, or you or you you're trying to save power on a hole because you've made a mistake, that you're not stood there shaking and nervous. You're actually like, this is actually why I feel happy. I feel like being in these conditions with that pressure I'm already used to, and you just get on with it like it's every other day and every other part of the goal, the game.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, perfect. Um, and you as a golfer, what's your what are you working on currently?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh I'm actually working on coming back. I had a bit of a back injury. Um, so I played a lot when I first moved to Dubai, and then a few various things with having a young family and and busy with work. It's been tough to try and keep playing and practicing. Uh, and then I had a bit of a herniation in my back. So now it's just trying to I've done all the rehab. I feel like I'm now strong enough and back to a position where I can swing freely without pain. Um, and yeah, just looking to sort of play, practice a lot more, and hopefully, whether it be this sort of coming season or the next, that I'm ready to start competing and playing again.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, you're competing before.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, a lot a lot more when I first came to the bar. We have a good um UE PGA sort of tour out here just for like all the pros at the other courses and um not just not just teaching pros, but you've got the management, you've got the operation guys, you could easily have eight to ten professionals at every golf course. Yeah. Um, and then you also get some of the good players out here that sort of just live in the area and play. Uh so there's a few good players from our academy uh who do quite well each week. So yeah, hopefully, if I get the time to practice a little bit more and put the time in behind the scenes, then it'll warrant me going out and playing a little bit more and seeing if I can challenge myself again.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, practice what you preach as it sounds. Yeah, um, Scott, if someone wanted to get involved in the CH3 Academy, what's the best way to do that?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh I'd visit our website, um ch3performancegolf.com, or on Instagram, same again, ch3 performance golf, uh, or through the Elves Club in Sports City. Uh we we've just recently had our open days, but we'll be definitely doing something similar again uh probably early next year. Uh we've got junior programmes starting from three all the way up to 18. Uh, we've got the high school program for the slightly more elite players, uh, so you can contact again the club or Gem's first point school for that one. Uh because we do that in balance with them. And then we do ladies, men's individual lessons. Um, so yeah, just helping everyone from every walk of life to learn golf or improve their golf and hopefully uh achieve their golfing goals, let's say.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, perfect. I'll put all that information on the show notes as well. But Scott, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Um as always, this has been School Talk. If you find this in uh if you find this episode interesting or you think someone might learn from it, share it with them and we'll continue to grow. My name's Chris Schabsolt. This has been School Talk now.