The Golf Canada Women in Coaching Program is a partnership between Golf Canada and the PGA of Canada that is designed to balance gender involvement in high level coaching.
“Golf Canada has a vested interest in developing the coaching pool to fill the future pipeline of national team coaches. We want to ensure that in the future we have a coaching staff that better represents our players and the golfing community,” said Emily Phoenix, the manager of high performance sport at Golf Canada and one of the leaders of the Women in Coaching Program.
“There are PGA of Canada members out there who are female, that have invested in their own coaching skills and we want to provide some additional tools, along with our partners at the PGA of Canada, to further develop these existing coaches,” she added.
In early 2019, Sport Canada approached all National Sport Organizations for programs or projects, it wanted to do but maybe hadn’t had the funding to launch.
The idea for the Women in Coaching Program fell under the Safe Sport and Gender Equity Fund while its inspiration came from Level Par, a comparable initiative in Ireland.
Golf Canada applied for a wider collection of funding, so not only will it be doing a coach mentorship program, but there are some other initiatives that Golf Canada has outlined either in the safe sport area or with gender equity that will span two years, 2020 and 2021, according to Phoenix.
The development of this particular program also relates to Golf Canada’s commitment to the R&A’s Women in Golf charter.
The R&A’s Women in Golf charter (of which Golf Canada is a signatory) intends “to inspire an industry-wide commitment to developing a more inclusive culture within golf around the world and enable more women and girls to flourish and maximize their potential at all levels of the sport.”
Tristan Mullally, the women’s national team head coach, will co-lead the program along with Phoenix.
“Good coaches will tell you they have to invest a lot of money in themselves,” said Mullally, a PGA of Canada Class ‘A’ member.
He says although full-time coaching opportunities are limited, for both genders, this is a chance for Golf Canada to help level the playing field.
“There are many great female coaches across Canada but they tend to be a little more isolated and this was a way to bring expertise together,” he said. “This will bring together likeminded female coaches to build relationships and learn best practices from our national team program.”
As part of the mission of the program, Golf Canada will work closely with female PGA of Canada professionals interested in pursuing a career in coaching.
There will be four main elements to the program including lectures, hands-on training, project work, and a self-assessment. Each successful candidate will receive a $2,500 bursary from Golf Canada.
“The time is long overdue,” says Matt Allen, the chief innovation officer of the PGA of Canada.
“We have a lot of female professionals who are doing great work and leading at the club level but we really saw an opportunity to grow the pool of high performance coaching in the country,” said Allen.
For more information, click here.
To apply, click here.
Applications close on Monday, Sept. 7 at 5 p.m. ET
