Innovative ideas from the sport of golf are being used to help staff build life and management skills, particularly around welcoming people with disabilities — aligning with EDGA’s slogan: Changing Lives Through the Power of Golf.

In this example, coaching and education expertise used by EDGA, an international authority in ‘G4D’ (golf for the disabled), is providing the dual benefit of training staff and partners of RSM to enjoy community volunteering roles, while offering transferable life skills that can make a genuine difference in many contexts.

Since 2019, leading audit, tax and consultancy firm RSM, and the RSM Foundation, have supported the EDGA team across tournament growth, community engagement and high-level research to help increasing numbers of people with a disability to experience golf and reach their potential as players.

A recent training session in London also reminded participants of the supreme value of putting supposed ‘soft skills’ to the very top of the toolbox; skills that can have major benefit in finding success in the modern workplace and in growing businesses.

The need for respect, empathy, patience, and the ability to listen gained added resonance through these EDGA training sessions – golf not necessarily a sport historically ‘simpatico’ with all of these attributes.

In a smart office block, eight floors up from the hectic Farringdon Street, just as the city’s denizens swarmed below being distinctly ‘antipatico’, Mark Taylor, EDGA’s Head of Instruction and Education, was taking an audience of staff and partners from RSM UK through how to approach volunteer training in the community.

They were introduced to the first-touch ‘D3’ golf format (endorsed by The R&A) which includes using safe clubs and soft balls with colourful targets, that can be played in non-traditional spaces (such as medical facilities, leisure centres and schools) – in projects approved by EDGA and including appropriate safeguarding.

Mark Taylor, ably assisted by EDGA Introducer Johnny Reay, set out to demystify many misconceptions about golf. The training simulates a range of impairments — physical, neurological, and sensory – so that the volunteer can help a wide range of people with disabilities in a selected community project. The sessions place strong emphasis on listening and communication.

This included the myriad of careful, common sense pieces of human understanding needed to help someone who might be totally blind to enjoy a first experience of golf, a session which clearly was a ‘light-bulb moment’ for many present.

“Obviously, we cannot for a moment understand what someone who has no sight is going through,” said Mark. “But we can use this exercise, created by our extensive experience of coaching players with a visual impairment, for the best way to proceed for the coach or volunteer, to help someone and encourage them in their first shots. While EDGA works on these programmes with disability groups, RSM volunteers can be a fantastic support to us, and we hope they will learn a lot from the experience.”

After encouraging the volunteers to try to help a blindfolded player, Mark took them through the necessary actions.

From calmly and clearly introducing himself to the player, asking a series of questions including the simple ‘which hand do you favour?’, to how they would like to be physically guided around the space; every question was there for the coach to learn what the student needed, while being asked in such a way as to enable the student to have independence of thought and a feeling of control in the space. Their feedback also shaped the session, they were invested, not merely spoken to. All this was done in a recurring theme of safety, using maximum patience, formulating crucial trust.

In this session the room fell silent. Mark would next hand the player the ball, asking them how this felt. Then one of two clubs were handed to the blindfolded player, a chipper followed by a putter, familiarising the player with the length, balance, the surfaces and weight of the club. The player was encouraged to place the ball themselves on the ground and position the club face behind the ball. The coach moves away, five, six steps away; by their voice, or a clap, a tramping of feet for vibration (again the player chooses which), the student understands the direction the shot will take. Mark then walked with the student, pace by pace, to assess the distance to the target. And onwards this all went, the player first rolling the ball to Mark for feel for the shot, feedback offered by both parties, but always the student first. Every tiny step was taken by player and coach before the blindfolded player took that first putt in – in this case – electric silence from the watching group of volunteers.

Leyla Edwards, an Executive Assistant for RSM UK, took on the role of the blindfolded player in the session. Leyla said later: “The training was so valuable, the way Mark explained every step and asked if I was happy with the method and then asked for my feedback after rolling the ball or taking the first putt. From being encouraged to position the ball and the club for myself, to work in a safe space I felt in control of, being asked what I thought all the time – this was a great reminder about being patient and empathetic, to never assume, when you are training someone. I train team members a lot and this was a powerful reminder in how you need to give people confidence and build trust to learn in the best way.”

RSM volunteers were trained by EDGA in four training days in 2023 and there will be six sessions in 2025 (including recently in Liverpool, Glasgow, and Manchester and 14 team members underwent training in London). The work has had good impact. In Scotland for example, volunteers Scott Miller and Conor Rea who are Audit Supervisors at RSM UK, have worked with charities the Glasgow Disabled Scouts, Enable Scotland, the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme and other disability groups to enjoy first golf experiences, which included bringing community groups to The Open at Troon last year as guests of The R&A and EDGA.

Nick Sladden, Partner and EDGA Advocate at RSM UK, said: “Our volunteers who have helped EDGA are already a shining example of what can be achieved. Volunteering for EDGA to do something special in golf in the community is taking people out of their ordinary day-to-day comfort zone. We’re all busy people at RSM and having the opportunity to taste a different life experience has been really important and I know it’s very rewarding for those colleagues who are involved.

“I think for our people, being able to put themselves in the position of trying to learn a new sport and then being able to facilitate a session is incredibly important. I’m delighted to see our people acquiring new skills, it can be completely fresh to them and therefore the learning curve is pretty steep, but that is also great for us because that generates the best rewards for our people and they are then able to upskill what they can offer to others.”

The support of RSM has also meant that more of RSM’s staff have learned from the personal experience of G4D golfers at EDGA events.

Nick added: “It’s been absolutely awe inspiring to see some of the EDGA participants and the opportunity that they have with a disability to enjoy a sport like golf. I’m a golfer myself. I have played all my life. So encouraging more and more people to participate is something I’m personally connected to.”

EDGA Instructor and G4D player Johnny Reay has represented England in the EGA European Team Championship and even ran his own G4D tournament, the EDGA Johnny Reay Classic, for three years, which was sponsored by RSM.

Earlier in the session Johnny spoke of his challenges as a young boy, having been born with Apert syndrome, a congenital disorder of the skull, face, hands and feet. His early life featured multiple surgeries at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, which Johnny had actually passed by again on the way to this training session.

Johnny spoke to the audience of becoming an accomplished golfer, always encouraged by his parents, never giving up as he hit the hurdles and now more lately supporting EDGA in a project to take the game into schools, coaching teachers to deliver the game to youngsters with disability in schools in the Midlands. Supporting EDGA coach Leah Roelich and Mark Taylor, through ‘Project 250’ Johnny has introduced 99 children so far (out of a target of 250), who are all offered follow-on opportunities at local venues in an initiative supported by the Kate and Justin Rose Foundation.

The appreciative applause for Johnny’s presentation from the volunteers at RSM summed up the impact of the training, and the feeling that perhaps we can all change lives through the power of golf.