COACH Martin Butcher knew the exact moment when all the time and effort spent helping Richard Bland improve his swing had finally paid off.

"The acid test came when he played the last nine holes of the Challenge Tour Grand Final," said Butcher.

"If your golf swing's got a fault that's when it will come out - down the finishing stretch when you're leading and the pressure is on.

"Richard's swing held up so well that he actually increased his lead over the last five or six holes. It was a sweet moment."

Bland achieved one of the golfing feats of the year when he leapt from 44th to tenth in the order of merit with his first ever Challenge Tour victory in Bordeaux last month.

Now, for the first time in his career, the 28-year-old Southampton golfer has his full European Tour playing rights and Butcher says: "If Richard keeps to that same swing pattern, he will do really well.

"His swing now has good rhythm, his iron play and his chipping are superb. We made a slight alteration to his stance on the putting green and that has worked too."

Bland's game had hit perilous straits when he went back to his old coaching mentor in the early stages of the 2000 Challenge Tour season.

"I think he'd just had rounds of 79 and 80 in Spain," said Butcher. "We'd done some work together before just after he'd turned professional and it must have held up well because I didn't hear anything from Richard for a good while.

"When he came back from Spain, he wasn't happy. He had a tendency to block his drives out right. When we eventually got him hooking, we knew the recovery process had started!"

Butcher sets store on stance, grip, pivot and swing, in that order. Whether he's coaching a beginner or a Richard Bland, the principles remain the same.

"Some coaches dive straight in with the swing. But I go back to basics," says Butcher.

"Noone taught me well enough until it was too late. "I got my European Tour card four times but was never good enough to make cuts and make myself some money.

"If I'd been taught properly I would have been much better. So I set out to give something as a coach which I had never had as a player - good advice on technique."

Butcher's coaching methods helped Hampshire PGA players like Jon Barnes, Danny Harris and Ian Roper to win county majors.

And he's currently moulding David Butwell and Mark Thistleton into two of the best young players in the county amateur game.

He and Bland will work together again before the Stoneham clubman jets off to South Africa for his first tournament in January.

"It's just a check to make sure the swing hasn't deviated," said Butcher. "We just need to make sure it's where it was when he won in Bordeaux. And once that is sorted he can go off on Tour with a lot of confidence."

Butcher is a freelance coach based at Paultons Golf Centre and coaching lessons can be arranged by ringing him on 07787 887578 or 01489 581997.