First came the pain, then the fear, and then resignation. Lydia Derbyshire was heartbroken. She believed her career in golf might be over before it had really started.
She was competing in a PGA Pro-Am at Knaresborough, in North Yorkshire, when the discomfort in her back – an ache that had dogged her for years – became unbearable.
“I couldn’t feel anything down my left leg,” said the 25-year-old. “I couldn’t bend down. I couldn’t move. I was in absolute agony.”
The round of medical appointments seemed endless. Chiropractors and GPs told her it was muscular. She’d been seeing physios for years. But still it wasn’t getting any better.
Derbyshire couldn’t swing a club without anguish. And for someone who loved demonstrating shots to her students – then an Assistant Professional at Knaresborough GC going through the PGA Training Programme – it was debilitating.
“The effect that had on me mentally was shocking,” she explained. “I couldn’t play. I couldn’t do what I loved.”
Derbyshire finally saw a surgeon, but what was revealed was even more tumultuous. She was diagnosed with moderate to severe scoliosis. The curvature was significant at both the top and bottom of her spine. Arthritis and a slipped disc just added to the list.
“The surgeon showed me the X-ray and said, ‘I don’t know if you can play anymore’. That broke me completely.”
Derbyshire’s entire life had revolved around golf. She’d picked up the game as a three-year-old, when her grandfather – a keen player himself – handed her a set of plastic clubs. She’d gone on to play junior golf for her county. When it came down to a choice between university and golf, there was only one winner.
“It got to the point where I sat down with my parents and said ‘I don’t want to go to university. I want to do golf’.” She quit her A-Levels and went to work at Alwoodley, in Leeds. Spells at Rudding Park, Ilkley, and now Knaresborough have followed.
Derbyshire enrolled on the Foundation Degree in Professional Golf Studies while at Ilkley, which is a three-year distance learning programme while students also work in the golf industry.
She joined in the wake of the first Covid lockdown, but injuries disrupted her progress. Yet despite that, she found herself becoming certain that coaching was where she belonged.
“I love talking to people. I love meeting new people,” she said. Whether it was studying coaching, sports science, equipment, or business management, Derbyshire was fascinated with the syllabus.
It also challenged her expectations of what working in golf would involve, particularly when it came to the technical side of the game.
“The amount of theory there is to learn about teaching is incredible,” she said. “Club fitting was much more in depth than I imagined it to be. It’s very technical and complicated. It’s a challenge.”
Pictured: Lydia Derbyshire celebrates her graduation from the Foundation Degree in Professional Golf Studies
So when she received her scoliosis diagnosis, the emotional impact was immediate. She feared not just that her playing days might be over, but that her entire future in golf may be under threat.
“I couldn’t go to work and I felt like I didn’t know what I was going to do – because I wouldn’t be able to do my job anymore,” Derbyshire explained.
“That was heartbreaking. I’d put in all of this time and effort into doing my course – the exams, the essays, the learning – and I thought it was all going to be taken away from me in a split second over something I couldn’t control.”
“I had this lifeline given to me: ‘you can still do your job’, even though I’m not able to play at the moment.” - Lydia Derbyshire
But instead, the experience has reshaped not just her coaching but her understanding of what a career in golf can look like. And it also reinforced the critical support The PGA can provide when they are needed most.
“When I told The PGA, they were so supportive,” Derbyshire explained. “It was a lot of hand holding for me. They were just great.
“I’d send them notes from the surgeon, doctors, and X-rays, and they were really supportive and said I could still do my course and be able to coach. I’d just not be able to play.”
That support mattered enormously as Derbyshire realised the Foundation Degree was giving her the skills to stay in the golf industry as a coach, even if her own playing career might be in jeopardy.
“I had this lifeline given to me: ‘you can still do your job’, even though I’m not able to play at the moment.”
She changed tack. Before her diagnosis, she would demonstrate heavily during lessons. She would take clubs out with her during a playing lesson and hit shots – showing positions and movements through her own swing. Now she coaches differently.
“Looking back on it now, I don’t know how helpful that was for a lot of my clients,” she said. “The average golfer can’t [see differences in swings], so I found not being able to demonstrate didn’t massively affect the outcomes of my lessons.
“What I do now is put my clients into the positions I want them to get in. It’s a lot of manoeuvring and adjusting. I take a lot of videos now.
“The biggest difference is I’ve learned to adapt the way I teach and I’m approaching it with greater empathy. It’s made me much more aware, if people have mobility issues or a physical disability, of how to manage that.
“It has already made me a better coach. It’s made me a lot more self-aware when I teach. I teach a lot of elderly members at the club and have this awareness of people having mobility issues.”
Derbyshire graduated as a PGA Professional at the end of April and is unequivocal about the value of the Foundation Degree.
Pictured: Lydia Derbyshire at PGA Graduation
“The degree was fantastic and if someone wanted to get into coaching, or working in the golf industry, the degree is the best thing to do.”
She added: “The amount they teach you is incredible. It's fantastic.
“You learn how to run your own business, which is what I do now – run my own coaching business. They taught me how to do that.”
Whether she will play again is still uncertain. Derbyshire may eventually need spinal fusion surgery and she continues to require physiotherapy and injections to manage her condition.
“I do believe I could get back playing, but I don't know if I'll ever get around 18 holes again.”
Even though expectations may have changed, her enthusiasm for the game remains undiminished.
“If I’d gone down a different avenue, I wouldn’t have golf in my life anymore,” she said.
“Before I was coaching, I was playing and that’s been taken away from me. But this Foundation Degree has given me that lifeline to be able to teach, to still do what I love, and to help people.”
She also feels she is in the industry at a positive time for women entering the profession.
She said: “Golf clubs are progressing so quickly. For a golf club to have a female professional is fantastic.
“There should be more of us – I noticed in graduation there just wasn’t many – and it would be great if in 10 years’ time, when there’s another graduation, that instead of being a handful there was 20 to 30 girls graduating.”
But for now, her focus remains on coaching and continuing to build her career at Knaresborough.
“The ideal situation would be running my own coaching business, having an academy of my own at a driving range would be awesome, and being able to teach my methods.”
Having once feared golf might slip out of her life altogether, Derbyshire has found a way to stay in the game – and look ahead to a bright future in coaching.
