 Become a great junior player takes time and effort. To become a stellar junior golfer is no different. There are unique challenges faced by the junior golfer on a quest for greatness. They include school work, parental pressure, peer pressure, internal drive and desire, money and time, talent, and finding the right combination of professionals who understand the life cycle and phases of athletic development to name a few.I have worked with many top ranked junior and collegiate players. I have also worked with juniors early in their learning and was a part of the team that helped them develop into great junior golfers. Many juniors come to me because their parents are looking to get them a competitive edge for college scholarship. Some juniors come to me because they just want to get better at the game so they can play in college. Some just want to be great junior golfers and don’t care about college, and still others come to me with their sights firmly on the Tour.
Whatever the reason and what ever their age, there are some commonalities in training junior golfers. Training needs to be age appropriate. We don’t train an 8 year old in the way we train a 12 year old. We don’t train a 12 year old like we do a junior who is 16. That would not work. Seems obvious to you…well it is not so obvious to many. Long Term Athletic Development (LTAD) is the field that has developed over the decades to train children up into stellar athletes who perform in sport at a high level. There are many experts in the world who have studied child development and athletics, and have codified this science. The culmination of this is the LTAD training program offered to trainers world wide by the folks at the Titleist Performance Institute (TPI). There is a Junior Advisory Board at TPI made up of many of the smartest people in the world on this subject. From their works it is clear that in the world of junior athletic development, age appropriate training is key. They have identified “Windows of Opportunity” for training children. An example of two important Windows are the two speed windows. At 5 years old a child is ready to begin training speed. This is the time to work on short burst speed training. Wind sprints and short burst activities that promote speed are vital. When a child is trained on speed in the 5 year old window, they will be faster than if not. That is the time in a child’s life to train short speed. Later on, when the child is 12 or 13 there is another speed window. During that window longer speed work is useful.
Please let me know if you have any questions. All the best.
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The bottom line is that if a child is trained on speed in the speed windows, they will be the fastest they can be…for life. There are other windows as well. They include strength, stamina, flexibility, stability, 3D integration, and skills acquisition. They work the same way. Train the skill during the right window, and the child will maximize that ability, and have it for life. Pretty cool stuff. This series will look at age appropriate training and the specific windows of opportunity and when to train them so the child gets the best possible benefit. For more about windows and age appropriate activities for junior golfers check out our 
