Friday 19 / April / 2024
Muscat: This summer thirteen Omani juniors travelled from the Sultanate to the Home of Golf, St Andrews in Scotland, for a two-week long summer training camp.
The 2019 training camp, led and managed by Rick Valentine Golf Schools, welcomed aspiring junior golfers from Germany, Dubai, Hong Kong, America and Scotland. During the camp the players received intensive coaching at one of the best practice facilities in Scotland and played 9 rounds of golf on a variety of exquisite courses based around the historic links courses of St Andrews.
The players stayed together in McIntosh Hall, situated within beautiful grounds of St Andrews University which gave them the opportunity to socialise in the evenings with a variety of activities such as beach football, putting competitions and walks to explore the history around St Andrews.
Over the weekend they visited Edinburgh to climb Arthur’s Seat, visit the museum of Scotland and walk down the famous Royal Mile.
Oman Golf Committee Board Member Masoud Al Barwani travelled with the juniors and supervised the trip. Of the whole experience Al Barwani said “I was very impressed with the methods of teaching, technology used and tools provided by RVSG in our last 2 summer camps at St. Andrews.
"The efforts that were put in by our junior players and the level of individual improvement is very encouraging. The summer camp at the home of Golf in Scotland is now considered one of the highlights of the OGC development program”.
The timing of the summer camp provided the ideal opportunity to prepare the junior teams for their first competitive event of the season which will be played in Egypt in September where Oman will be represented at Under 13, Under 15, Under 18 and Ladies levels. The players selected to represent the Sultanate will be based on their performance during the training camp and their results in two additional qualifying rounds to be played at the end of August.
The participants all agreed that attending the camp gave them the opportunity to experience playing unique golf courses in different weather conditions as well as gain confidence in a team environment and they have expressed their interest to return again next year.
Masoud Al Barwani added “For next year, we are already planning for even bigger camp with the possibility of some of our more experienced junior players to be included in a high performance group where they will also get opportunity to participate in local tournaments to test their skills with best players in the St Andrews region”.
