The Golf Foundation seeks to champion children’s involvement in golf and has the expertise to help golf clubs to grow their junior sections.
Junior golfers are the future of your club, so making it a welcoming place for children and parents will benefit your facility. Reaching out to families can also improve the perception of your club (and the sport) in the local community while strengthening your golf club’s income.
The Golf Foundation can help your golf club in the following practical ways.
- Advice – Our team of Regional Development Officers (RDOs) have a wealth of knowledge and experience on how to build a successful junior section ready to share with your golf club. Our RDOs can help you to build connections with other clubs in your area to build a strong local golf community. Click here to find your local RDO.
- We can provide resources (and in some cases funding) to get your junior section up and running. Encouraging junior involvement at your club can have a positive influence on club income. For example, participation with Golf Foundation programmes such as GolfSixes League, is generating additional revenue for the clubs involved. (See infographic for more details.)
- Marketing support – We can help you to market your golf club and give you tips on how to make your club a fun and social place for juniors. We also have some excellent ideas on how to keep children interested in golf throughout the year.
- Policies & Procedures – We can help you to navigate fundamental policy areas such as safeguarding. This demonstrates to parents that your club is a junior friendly facility where children’s care and safety is paramount.
- You can be part of programmes that are supporting clubs to increase the participation and membership levels of their juniors and increasing the number of club volunteers. For example, in 2019, 59% of parents volunteered at GolfSixes League fixtures (scorer, caddy, team manager, admin). This involvement has provided an increased sense of connection between club and parents.
- Training – We offer online training (such as webinars) for PGA Professionals, golf club volunteers and young golfers, to help them to develop / learn new skills. (For example, see our Unleash Your Drive programme.)
- We can help you to create links with local schools / community groups so that you can attract a new audience of juniors to your golf club. We know that once pupils have a fun and positive golf experience, they will be more likely to continue in the sport in the future, so reaching out to your community can really benefit your club.
- Equipment – We can help you to access Golfway equipment (at a discounted rate) that is specially designed for beginner golfers and can be used in outreach work with local schools and community groups.
- We can provide guidance on how to make your club more inclusive and reflective of its local community. This can make it more appealing to different groups who are currently under-represented in the sport. (See our sections on inclusive golf, girls’ golf and our community programmes with London Youth and ‘Bring it on Brum.’ )
- We can help you develop young people at your golf club. Our leadership and ambassador programmes can allow juniors to gain confidence and prepare them for future careers in or out of golf. (See our Girls Leadership programme.)
If you’d like to find out more about how our charity can help your golf club, register your interest here.
(Image courtesy of Emile Holba)
