Jump in Crichton junior numbers through clubgolf coaching

August 2010

Crichton Golf Club in Dumfries has grown its junior section from 15 to 57 in just one season after offering clubgolf coaching for the first time.

The club has been through what its Captain and Junior Coordinator, Lee Sterritt, terms a ‘turbulent year’. Now owned by the council, it was left to run down by previous tenants, to the point where six of its nine greens had almost become unplayable.

Faced with likely closure the members have in just a few months turned around a dismal situation into one with vast potential.

“Ann Lang from clubgolf has been a huge help and set the ball rolling, telling us about sportscotland funding and clubgolf coaching,” said Lee.

“So we applied for a facilities grant from sportscotland, and put two members, Brian Oakes and Andrew Kerr, through volunteer coach training. The members have bought the lease which has been extended until 2039.”

Club members also dug deep into pockets to produce £25,000 for course repairs, which sportscotland matched. Two of the greens have been brought back up to scratch - the other four will be rebuilt this autumn.

At the same time equal efforts have gone into creating a new junior section. In the spring, through its local Active Schools Co-ordinator, the club invited 100 local school children to promote its new junior coaching programme. Children were given the opportunity to play on the course, many for the first time, then sent home with leaflets explaining how they could get involved with coaching

Thirty children, many new to golf, attended the first 10 weeks of coaching. So popular was the course that the club has laid on a second instalment of coaching for the latter half of the summer.

“We are absolutely overwhelmed by how well it is gone,” said Lee, who praises his two volunteer coaches, Andrew and Brian.

“Following the coaching we had so many enquiries about doing another course that we decided to follow on with another course and we’ve got another 18 children on that one.”

Crichton, which has recently been accredited as a Community Amateur Sports Club, enjoys a former reputation as a ‘feeder club’ to other local clubs. Four boys in the South of Scotland team started their golf at the club.

The club has always linked with the pros at Dumfries & Galloway Golf Club and Tower Wood Golf Centre, but until now has never had the means to coach children at the entry level.

“Having qualified volunteer coaches and being able to offer structured clubgolf coaching has made a huge difference,” said Lee. “Now, we can do a lot of coaching here on site and by the end of 2011 we hope to have four qualified volunteer coaches so we will be able to coach more children.

“For the past two Fridays we have taken 24 kids to Tower Wood for Stage 2 coaching with the pro, Joe Ferguson. We fund it so it’s free for them and we plan to keep it going through the winter so that we can keep them interested.”

In charging just £25 for the coaching course and junior membership it is no surprise that the numbers have almost quadrupled. As a result the numbers of juniors in medals has risen from zero to 25 in a season. Another spin off is that parents of these children are developing an interest in golf, and some have even taken out memberships.

“It was a gamble at the time but it is working,” said Lee. “But we've done remarkably well in a very short space of time. We are looking at these kids as going on to be members of the future and it has already begun to pay off.”