Captain of the British Fed Cup Team and former Scottish National Tennis Coach, Judy Murray, has joined the speaker lineup for the 2014 PGAs of Europe Teaching & Coaching Conference (TCC) in conjunction with Ryder Cup Europe.
Judy is perhaps Britain’s best-known sporting motherto Grand Slam champions, Jamie and Andy Murray, and has an extensive knowledge of coaching having played a pivotal role in the development of her sons’ games, whilst also teaching all levels of players throughout regional and national level.
Murray will join Scottish Sporting Legends Bernard Gallacher, Ken Schofield, and Gavin Hastings on Day 2 of the TCC where each will be grilled on their front-line experiences of coaching across a variety of sports, drawing on her personal experience in tennis.
Her own playing career included 64 titles in her junior and senior careers combined but then made a decision to go to Edinburgh University where she studied French and Business, before turning to coaching, nurturing her two sons as both their first coaches.
When Murray became National coach in 1995, she identified 20 children aged 7-11 to form the first Scottish Tennis Development School. Five of those players went on to represent GB in Davis and Fed Cups; four of them played for GB in London Olympics; two won Grand Slam titles; one won Olympic gold and silver. Another won Commonwealth gold in mixed doubles (Colin Fleming), and another made top 50 WTA rankings (Elena Blatacha).
Murray was born and still resides in Bridge of Allan a short drive from the University of Stirling where she received an Honorary Doctorate in 2013 for her outstanding contribution to tennis, sport and charitable causes.
In 2011 Murray set up a programme called Set4Sport aimed at parents of kids age 3-8, showing them simple fun games to play actively at home using household objects, helping to get more kids into sport and teaching them to enjoy being active and develop coordination skills at a young age.
Since then Murray has also launched a British Tennis programme called ‘Miss-Hits’, which is specifically targeted at attracting more girls aged 5-8 years old into tennis. The programme gives girls a positive first experience with sport and tennis focusing on the fun elements of the sport and helping them discover skills they never knew they had, whilst also acting as a feeder into the LTA’s Mini Tennis programme.
Murray will also be taking time out from her preparation for the BBC’s 2014 Strictly Come Dancing competition where she has swapped the tennis court for the ballroom in a new challenge somewhat different to her tennis background.
The 2014 TCC takes place on Sunday 21 and Monday 22 of September and is open to PGA Professionals from recognised PGAs who will each attend education seminars that look at the game at grass roots level on day one up to elite level on day two.
Find out more about final registration, schedule and speaker lineup here: http://eur.pe/europeanTCC
PGAs of Europe http://pgae.com/