Scotland lagging behind Germany in

some aspects of golf, says Alan Hogg

FROM THE EDINBURGH EVENING NEWS WEBSITE
By MARTIN DEMPSTER
Twenty years after leaving Edinburgh, where he was born and bred, Alan Hogg is loving life as a golf club manager in Germany, a country he believes is leaving Scotland lagging behind in some aspects of the game.
After being introduced to golf by his father, Thomas, at the age of six, Hogg played at Torphin Hill and Baberton – he was a member there when he won the Lothians Boys' Championship – before starting his PGA training at Deer Park, where he worked under David Matthew.
He moved to Haggs Castle in Glasgow and then Alloa before a chance encounter led to a life-changing experience for a man whose best friend is Colin Brooks, the former Scottish Amateur champion from Glencorse and now one of the country's leading coaches
"I was up playing at St Andrews and got chatting to Walter Woods (the course superintendent there at the time] and he told me that Prince Maximilian of Bavaria was looking for a golf teacher," recalled Hogg.
"Two weeks later, at the age of 23, I was off to a club located to the south of Munich to become the club professional and, during my time there, I was proud to see the facilities get better and better."
After playing on the Challenge Tour for three years – he also teed up in a few European Tour events – Hogg decided to take a degree in business, a career move that helped secure his current position as director of the Golf and Vital Park in Bad Waldsee, which is in the south-west of Germany almost on the Swiss border.
"I've been here for five years now and we have a complex that includes 27 holes as well as a 40-bedroom hotel," he said. "I'm the director of the whole facility."
Hogg has been followed into golf by his two sons, Jake, 14, and Joshua, 12, the former coming over to Scotland to compete in the recent Scottish Boys' Stroke Play Championship at Ladybank with his dad accompanying him.
Hogg said of his offspring: "He's off plus one and, with the German Championship coming up soon, it was good for him to gain a bit of experience playing in different conditions than he's used to. He played in all four rounds, which was good, and I also got the chance to meet up with both Colin Brooks and Eric Grandison, another of my best friends."
During the time he's been in Germany, Hogg has seen the number of people playing golf treble from 180,000 to over 500,000, although that figure still only represents less than one per cent of the population.
"It's an elite sport in Germany for the very rich," he commented.
For a long number of years, Bernhard Langer carried the flag for German golf virtually on his own but the mantle has now been taken up by Martin Kaymer, the new Barclays Scottish Open champion and a strong candidate for next year's European Ryder Cup team.
As things stand, it's unlikely Colin Montgomerie will have a fellow Scot in his side at Celtic Manor and, even from afar, Hogg admits the state of the professional game in the "Home of Golf" doesn't exactly look too healthy.
"I don't think there's any doubt that the coaching has changed in Scotland over the past 20 years but I don't think the fitness and diet side of things has changed enough," he noted.
"Even back in 1989 there were clear signs of how the Swedes, for example, were changing the face of the game from that perspective. I remember being at the Tour School in 1989 with the likes of Willie Milne, Gary Collinson, Jim White and Colin Brooks and we just stood there when a group of Swedes including Jesper Parnevik, Per-Ulrik Johansson and Joakim Haeggman appeared with bottles of water under their arms and bananas hanging out their golf bags.
"These days, I think Scotland are lagging behind a country like Germany when it comes to practice facilities. Every course in Germany has a practice ground with a ball machine on the range and golfers can hit balls for hours on end.
"In Germany, they also provide excellent junior training. Indeed, it's club policy to provide coaching from the age of six and, at some places, they provide that five days per week free of charge."

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