New drive in South Lanarkshire clubs

Two South Lanarkshire golf clubs are at the forefront of a new programme to bring children into golf.

Carluke and its neighbouring club, Hollandbush, had both noticed and were concerned about the steady decline in their junior memberships over the past decade.

The will was there within the clubs to encourage juniors but the timely arrival of the national junior golf programme, clubgolf, gave both the means to make a lasting impact.

clubgolf is a partnership between the Scottish Golf Union, Scottish Ladies Golfing Association, Professional Golfers Association, The Golf Foundation and sportscotland that aims to create the opportunity for every child to experience golf by age nine, and to increase junior participation in golf in Scotland.

This spring eight primary schools in Carluke introduced 220 P5 children to clubgolf’s introductory game, firstclubgolf, whilst 181 children in the six primaries close to Hollandbush schools had their own introduction to the game. Supported by South Lanarkshire Leisure, firstclubgolf uses multi-coloured modified clubs, rubberised balls and Velcro targets to give nine year olds an enjoyable and safe first experience of the game within the boundaries of the school.

The enthusiasm these children showed for a game most of them had never previously played could have ended at the schools’ gates were it not for the far sighted efforts of both clubs. Four Hollandbush and five Carluke members stepped forward to become trained as PGA Level 1 coaches. All are now delivering clubgolf Stage 1, a 40 hour course covering the fundamentals of putting, chipping, full swing, rules and etiquette.

“The coaching is going very well and we have 17 children, a good mix of boys and girls coming to the Club on Monday afternoon and Wednesday evening for clubgolf coaching,” said David Stewart, Carluke Honorary Secretary and PGA Level 1 Coach.

“They’re coming to us with basic skills that they’ve learnt at school and they’re coming with a very fresh attitude to golf.”

At Hollandbush, 41 children have enrolled on the clubgolf programme, in two classes on Thursday night and two on Sunday morning.

“We’re into our sixth week of 20 and the kids are loving it,” said Martha Donnelly, Ladies Captain and PGA Level 1 Coach. “They are all keen and we’re keen to keep them going. The coaches say the kids are doing great and a few are naturals at the game.

“We started with putting and onto starting full swing now. The kids are raring to go.”

Most of clubgolf children at both clubs are from non golfing families and are unlikely to have stumbled across the game had the clubs not started clubgolf programmes. So why did the clubs decide to take action?

“We’ve seen the average age of our membership creeping up all the time with a decline in the number of juniors progressing to senior memberships," said Mr Stewart.

“We have a healthy junior membership of around 100 and we’ve always had a fairly healthy junior waiting list, which we no longer have. We’ve taken the last of them in this year.

“We’ve been discussing since ‘96 how we could address this. We tried mail shotting the area and put a couple of things in the local press but clubgolf came along at the right time and it’s had the success we were not getting.

“A large percentage of the kids in this area don’t have family golf connections so the success has been from a combination of the commitment of taking golf into the schools and having a coaching course for volunteers.”

Nearby Hollandbush were fully aware of their own worrying junior statistics.

“Our junior membership was very small,” said Mrs Donnelly. “We had around 15 to 20 but this year it was down to 12 playing in medals every week...it was really sad.”

Thanks to the efforts of the coaches and backing of the Clubs’ committees, the tide is definitely on the turn. The enthusiasm for golf the two clubs are finding locally is being mirrored across Scotland with some 220 clubs on board and 1200 volunteer coaches trained and delivering clubgolf.

“The members are beginning to appreciate what we are doing and I don’t think we’ll have a problem finding further coaches,” said Mr Stewart. “The clubgolf coaching has brought young kids to the Club. I can’t see it doing anything else than progress as long as we can hold their interest. Already we have had five applications for junior memberships from the small group we’ve got, which is great.

“The Club is looking forward to a long and happy relationship with clubgolf.”