One of the leading golf coaches in the world believes that Bermuda can be a shining example for how a national development programme should be run.Henry Brunton, the Canada national coach, spent the past weekend helping Bermuda Golf Association take their first steps along the road to the creation of a high performance programme and a fully functioning national squad.And he believes the Island has all the elements necessary to make its golfers healthier, stronger and more competitive in the world game.“My involvement is to support them (the BGA) in their planning and to see if there is an apetite from the athletes, from the coaches, from all the people involved in golf to put this together,” said Brunton. “From what I’ve seen so far that is definitely there.”Recognised as one of the leading coaches in the game, Brunton was instrumental in the creation of Canada’s Player Development Programme in 1999. Teams led by Brunton won the 2001 Four Nations Cup Championship and the 2003 Americas Cup, took silver at the 2006 World Amateur Championship and the Canadian Junior team were third at the World Junior Championship last year.Making comparisons with how Canada have turned their game around over the past decade immediately brings questions over player numbers. However, Brunton said the advantages Bermuda had in terms of facilities and concentration of players more than made up for having a smaller pool of golfers.“In 1998 we (Canada) were in exactly the same place, we had nothing. I went to the Royal Canadian Golf Association, I said ‘Golf is changing, we have some good players, but they are more by accident than by proper planning. If we don’t invest in a proper plan and execute it, expect Canada to be a third-world golfing nation.“In business you look for economies of speed and scale. You’ve got so many more advantages than we had in Canada. Yes, there is a wide base of the pyramid, but our players are spread all over the country, it’s hard to get together, very expensive to do so.“Here you have phenomenal . . . you can be like a shining star for the world, to show people ‘this is how you do it’. You’re going to get healthier people, better players, the best performances you can. It could be phenomenal.”For the BGA, inviting Brunton to the Island is part of that push towards creating a programme in which younger golfers can reach their full potential.Not just limited to junior golf, the programme will also involve a high performance element from which teams selected and prepared for tournaments such as the World Amateur Team Championships next October.Players will be chosen with the support of facts and figures, aiming to halt the accusations of bias and favourtism that have dogged teams in the past.The facts and figures that the BGA use will come from the Trackman software, which measures a player’s efficency in their swing, instrumental to all coaching in the modern game, and another part of the governing body’s push will be to raise the $30,000 needed to buy one.“Long term, the goal is to create a pathway for players to be able to excel at golf,” Craig Brown, BGA vice-president and chairman of player development, said.“That can either be just for recreating and to enjoy the game, to excel and help them get into further education through golf, or if they are really good maybe making a living out of golf, on tour, or as a club professional.”There is also reason to believe that the Island’s junior golfers already have the potential to compete with, and beat their peers. Some of them were put through their paces on the Trackman during a weekend-long training session with Brunton at Rosewood Tucker’s Point and some of the numbers were, according to Brunton ‘world class’.“The kids were great, they’re very engaged, very switched on, so that’s all positive,” he said. “They’re also putting up some world class numbers, and I think that says a lot for the talent in Bermuda.”