Anne Laing joins Vale of
Leven girls golf drive

August 2010

Former Curtis Cup player and three times Scottish Ladies Champion Anne Laing has gone back to her roots by lending her support to a new girls only coaching programme at the Vale of Leven Golf Club.

Last summer the Vale of Leven became involved with the national junior golf programme, clubgolf, after its EGTF pro Barry Campbell realised that they needed a stronger junior section.

“I had wanted to get clubgolf coaching in here for a few years,” said Barry. “Then last year's captain told me to go for it, although he did think I would have problems getting volunteers to help me coach.

“But it’s amazing what happens if you just ask folk if they are interested. Seven volunteers signed up to coach. They come here every week, they are committed to it and they love it.”

Despite having limited practice facilities, Barry and his team of volunteer coaches have managed admirably. Fifty four local children signed up for clubgolf Stage 1 coaching this spring. Coaching runs throughout the week and, in an effort to encourage more young females, a girls-only coaching session recently started on Sunday afternoons.

With junior coaching going so well it was a huge bonus when Honorary Member, Anne Laing, decided to offer her services as a volunteer coach. Through her work as a lecturer at Elmwood College she had already gained the Level 1 volunteers coaching qualification and was ready to step straight in and start teaching the girls.

“Having somebody of Anne’s calibre coming along and encouraging the girls makes a huge difference to our programme,” said Barry. “The girls love the fact that she comes from this club and that she beat Michelle Wie at the Curtis Cup in the foursomes a few years ago.”

Anne is just as delighted to be back at the club where she started playing golf as the new generation are to be coached by her.

“I still play out of here as well as Windyhill, but The Vale is always where my heart is,” she said.

“This is my home club and it gave me so much when I was a kid that I wanted to give something back.

“It's nice to have a group of girls together; not necessarily for the technicalities but for the social reasons as well. They don't feel as if they have to compete with the boys, and they can compete at their own level and develop at their own pace.

“I can see here that they are picking it up an awful lot quicker. They are able to tell me the coaching points that they need to work on. If they are able to tell me then they are able to go out on the practice ground and actually go and hit.

“Hopefully these girls will develop and achieve the honours that I was lucky enough to gain.”

The club now has seven qualified volunteer coaches and five additional helpers, enabling junior coaching to run smoothly throughout the week.

West Dunbartonshire Active Schools and clubgolf have funded a starter pack of junior equipment so that the club can take the game into schools in the Vale of Leven and Balloch areas and encourage more children to come to the club.

“Having volunteer coaches has been brilliant because I would have struggled to coach 60 kids a week in amongst my other work,” said Barry.

“We have a good cross-section of volunteers from across the club; our junior captain is a volunteer coach, so are some of our lady members, our gents and also veteran members.

“It's good because in just one year there is a structured programme in place to teach juniors at various levels of ability. It’s something that was badly needed.”