Over the years, the picture of Indian golf has changed dramatically. We are seeing a spurt of young and aspirational golf enthusiasts. Tarun Sardesai Golf Academy (TSG) located at Zion Hills Golf County is known for its distinctive teaching philosophy and approach to coaching youngsters and adults alike.
TSG’s way of training is a thorough, data-driven approach. We use technology, software and teaching methodologies unique to TSG to track both practice and performance data of every student. We also align our training with their mental side to enhance performance.
We start by creating a detailed technical and mental blueprint for every player, not just to analyze their shots but also to understand their thoughts on the course.
- Technical Blueprint: In this blueprint, we aim to observe every player’s tendencies, the kind of game they are playing, the strategy for their technical development and markers for improvement. This blueprint helps the coaches align with every player’s progress. It makes sure the checks and balances are in place keeping the long term goals in mind. This blueprint is exhaustive and down to detail. It is built over a period of time.
- Mental blueprint: The mental blueprint prepared for every player focuses on how energy management, time management, focus, and stress management impact the athlete’s performance on the field. This aspect is monitored and measured by a Sports Psychologist who works very closely with the coaching team to help them understand what will and won’t work for a student. Not everyone can be trained the same way.
Apart from setting up a detailed profile of the student on the academy’s dashboard, various performance tracking software are also used.. Let’s talk about them briefly.
- Up Game: Every student gets a profile on this platform, specifically designed to monitor his game strategy in tournaments. It gives important data over a period of time to the coaches and student alike to know what’s going on where and whether or not the game plan is on track.
- On Form Platform: TSG has a culture where whenever a child travels to an event, it’s not the coach who accompanies them to the tournament. Instead, our coaches monitor their games and help them with the necessary tournament guidelines through this portal. The students interact with their coaches over this platform, where our team is available to assist them with any small or big query they face. It is an interactive video based platform that allows a coach to give feedback visually.
- Sports Box: Next up in the line is Sports Box. This unique system, which we employ, converts the 2D image of our students’ swings into a 3D model allowing the coaches to work with accurate data and once again remove guesswork from what needs to be done.
Some of the other technology we use at our indoor putting studio is the SAM Putt LAB that Tarun himself likes to refer to as the MRI for putting. Once the report is generated in the controlled environment of the studio, a game plan is discussed for further work on the putting green. Some of the other technology we use outdoors is the Flight Scope, Trackman and Capto, amongst others.
The use of technology does not stop with golf. Even in the sports science center we use velocity based training technology for greater accuracy of training programs.
Technology used without the knowledge to do so can be detrimental to a player which is why every coach and trainer at TSG are educated in the use of all of the above. It is equally important to know what to use when and more importantly what not to use. Using technology comes with a huge sense of responsibility which is why learning sessions amongst the team members are conducted weekly to build better diagnostics all around.
All in all, our instructors know how to collect information on a player’s swing, putting stroke, and shot accuracy to create a comprehensive diagnostic framework for every athlete.
Goal-setting, discipline, mental health and a structured approach to training are essential elements of the TSG experience. Its always about the process and we are proud of the processes we build for every student to be able to play his best.
