Panel Discussions & Workshops

Editor of Women and Golf

Emma Ballard has been the Editor of Women & Golf for the last three years. Women & Golf is the UK’s leading women’s golf platform, which has been covering everything and anything to do with women and girls’ golf for over 30 years. Before Women & Golf, Emma worked at a full service golf PR and marketing agency for 13 years. She is also a graduate of The R&A Women in Golf Leadership Development Programme and has since gone on to coach and mentor other participants on the main and foundation programmes.

Research Engineer, PING

Alyssa is a research engineer at PING, where she combines her passions for math, physics, and golf to help enhance golf club performance. With a master’s degree in Applied Mathematics from the University of Arizona, she develops physical and numerical models to predict shot outcomes and analyzes PING testing and motion capture data. She is also an avid golfer, competing in college and more recently in the 2023 US Mid-Amateur Championship.

Lecturer at the Professional Golfers Association, University of Birmingham

Luke is a strength and conditioning coach for elite amateur and professional golfers. He is currently a PhD student at Middlesex University, focusing on the associations between physical characteristics and golf performance in elite female golfers, and has published numerous papers in the field. Luke is also a graduate of the University of Stirling, where he was awarded an International Sports Scholarship Program (ISSP) in Golf, in 2014.

Tony is the Head of Disability and Inclusion for the International Golf Federation. He was the National Coach of the Federation of Portuguese Golf and has coached winners on the European and Ladies European Tour. During that time, Tony was credited for modernising and contributing to the game of golf in Portugal and received recognition from the former President of the Republic, Dr Jorge Sampaio, in the form of a presidential Order of Merit award. Tony has a PhD in Philosophy from Durham University (UK) and a Masters in the same subject from Birmingham University (UK). Voluntarily, Tony leads the European Disabled Golf Association (EDGA) in the role of President. EDGA is concerned with building an inclusive game where golfers with a disability are included and valued at every level of golf’s sampling, participation, and competitive levels. For eleven years, Tony was the Director of Education and membership for the Professional Golfers Associations ’of Europe. During that time, he completed the ASOIF Coach Educator course and regularly contributed to continuing professional development programmes worldwide. Tony was granted Master Professional status of the PGA of GB&I in 2006 and, in 2021, was awarded Honorary Membership of the association.

In 2000, Scott sustained a left-below-the-knee amputation whilst competing in the Isle of Man TT Races.  Following lengthy rehabilitation, Scott discovered disability sport, initially representing England at ParaBadminton, before entering the English Disabled Open (East Sussex National).  He has since won the EDA and Czech Open and regularly competed in EDGA events.

More recently, he discovered SpeedGolf, becoming the world’s first amputee competitor, establishing a record time of 62 minutes for 18-holes, with the use of a running blade prosthesis.

Scott works in the prosthetic industry, at Dorset Orthopaedic, and annually hosts an Inclusive Golf Day, pitting non-adaptive golfers with many of his disability golfer peers at his Club, Chiltern Forest, in Buckinghamshire.

Mark Taylor is a PGA Fellow Professional and a golf coach educator highly respected for combining energy and passion for the game with expertise gained over 25 years in the field. Qualifying as a PGA Professional in 1996, Mark spent 12 years coaching in Switzerland to develop his own style and methodology before returning to the UK to work for England Golf. His appreciation of the value of encouraging new players from all demographics led to Mark assisting The R&A and the International Golf Federation (IGF) as a Golf Development Consultant. For the last seven years, Mark has developed coach education for EDGA – the acknowledged experts in all things ‘G4D’ (golf for the disabled). In that time Mark has become known as a worldleader in creating innovative coaching provision for golfers with a disability and coach education programming to support coaches working with players with limitation, impairment and disability. As EDGA’s Head of Instruction & Education and in support of The R&A, Mark has delivered education programmes all over the world, from Iceland to South Africa and the Ukraine to New Zealand, training hundreds of golf professionals and occupational therapists in how to coach golfers with a disability, while helping to make their golf venues more inclusive and welcoming for G4D players. Through this role, Mark has helped EDGA develop the ‘player pathway’ and in January 2024  took the lead in EDGA’s first G4D Performance Coaching ‘Player Development Camp’ in Portugal, where 12 highly talented, emerging G4D players were given the learning and experience needed to raise their game to the highest level.

Paul is the VP Engineering at PING, coordinating a department responsible for innovation, design, testing and commercialization of new golf clubs. He graduated St Andrews University with a PhD in Applied Mathematics. Since 2005 he has worked at PING, researching the physics of ball flight, impact dynamics, advanced measurement tools and innovations in club fitting. PING has enthusiastically embraced building an adaptive fitting and equipment program to help all golfers have the chance to play their best, which Paul pioneered and continues to lead. He oversees a team of close to 100 engineers and scientists with a passion for making the highest performing clubs in the world.

Professor at St. Francis Xavier University

Dr. MacKenzie holds a PhD in Sports Biomechanics and his research interests lie in the optimization of golf performance.  His research encompasses optimal movement patterns as well as the most advantageous training techniques. He has conducted, presented, and published research on putting, shaft dynamics, 3D mechanics of the swing, shoe fitting, and the role of ground reaction forces in the golf swing. He is co-founder of TheStack speed training system and has consulted for several entities in the golf industry including Ping, Footjoy, Rapsodo, Boditrak, Kvest, and FlightScope as well as for several top instructors such as Mark Blackburn, Chris Como, and Joe Mayo.

Workshop Title: A Discussion on Face-to-Path Variability

A key component to executing a desired golf shot is delivering the clubhead with the intended face-to-path relationship.  Deviating from the intended face-to-path is a primary cause of error in a golf shot.  If a golfer’s clubhead kinematics were measured on multiple attempts at hitting the same golf shot, then the face-to-path variability for that shot could be measured. An implicit objective for golfers is to reduce this variability.  This workshop will discuss how factors such as swing mechanics, methods of practice, psychological training, and mental state can influence face-to-path variability. 

Sport and Performance Psychology Lead, Loughborough University

Dr Karl Steptoe is a Chartered Sport and Exercise Psychologist with the British Psychological Society, a Practitioner Psychologist with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) and a former PGA Golf Professional with over 20 years of coaching experience. As an applied psychology practitioner, Karl provides services in line with the core cognitive-behavioural and humanistic principles that guide his consultancy. 

Karl works across a number of performance domains including sport, education and business and has held roles as Lead Psychologist within Premier League first team football, football academies, County Cricket first teams and academies, Great Britain Paralympic programmes and with golfers, caddies, and coaches on the Men’s’ and Ladies European and United States golf tours. 

Karl has contributed chapters on his applied work to several publications (five with Routledge) including: Becoming a Sport, Exercise and Performance Psychology Professional: International Perspectives; Global Practices and Training in Applied, Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology: A Case Study Approach; Sport Psychology for Young Athletes; Football Psychology: From Theory to Practice; and The Psychology of Soccer.

Workshop Title: Practice is pointless… without context

In this workshop Karl will outline some core principles to be considered when tailoring session design to meet the demands of competitive performance and that go beyond traditional ‘pressure training’ frameworks. Influenced by his team's current research, consideration is given to the unique psychological experiences of players in important moments with the goal of not supressing or removing unwanted thoughts and feelings but instead increasing a player's ability to perform WITH these inevitable internal experiences.

Senior Lecturer in Biomechanics and Strength and Conditioning, Anglia Ruskin University.

Jack is a Scientific Advisor to both the DP World Tour and the European Disabled Golfers’ Association and is a Strength and Conditioning Coach for England Golf. Jack has published numerous articles within the field of golf science, with a key focus of his work based on physical profiling. Jack’s research and methods of physical profiling are now being used by the DP World Tour and England Golf to assess some of the best golfers in the world. Over recent years, Jack has developed and co-founded the Golf Performance Network, which aims to ensure that every golfer has an opportunity to receive evidence-led and experience-proven performance support.

Workshop title: Physical Profiling for Golf

Jack’s workshop will showcase the use of force plates within golf and how these are used to assess golfers on the DP World Tour and players within the England Golf pathway. This workshop will cover 1) the mechanistic links between these assessments and clubhead speed, 2) how to perform these tests, 3) typical scores for DP World Tour Golfers’ and England Players, and 4) field-based equivalents if you don’t have access to force plates.