SPORTS COACHING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 November 1939, Page 9

SPORTS COACHING

TENNIS & GOLF IN RURAL AREAS.

PHYSICAL WELFARE SCHEME.

A start is being made in the Wellington area with a scheme to meet the problem of tennis coaching in country areas. An itinerary is being arranged for a well-known Wellington coach to visit country areas, playing exhibition matches and coaching local players. One of the problems of small tennis clubs, particularly in country areas, is that they have little opportunity of seeing good tennis, and much less of receiving good coaching. Particular emphasis will be placed on junior players. The New Zealand Lawn Tennis Association offers financial assistance to local associations for the coaching of juniors. It is hoped at an early date to extend this scheme to other areas where area instructors of the Physical Welfare and Recreation Branch are working. The area instructors have proved to be a medium for the initial sounding of the district and organising of itineraries, an expensive business, the cost of which no club or association is likely to be able without this assistance to cover.

Very much the same consideration applies to a scheme for coaching at country golf clubs. The expenses or organisation, together with the fact that no specific body exists for the purpose of establishing such a scheme, provides an opening' for co-operation between the local Physical Welfare Officers and the clubs, whereby these officers may visit the clubs and arrange itineraries. Most of the main centres have firstclass professionals, who, when this preliminary work is done, would be willing to co-operate by visiting country chibs, playing exhibition matches and giving coaching, especially to junior members.