Eighteen girls from North Berwick had an extra Christmas treat when they were invited to a golf clinic with Catriona Matthew during the festive period.

“She was really encouraging and it was so good of her to give up her time,” said Zoe Brownlee, one of the older members of the group which ranged between eight and 15 years old.  Some of the girls, including Zoe, are club members with handicaps, others started playing golf this year through the junior national golf strategy, clubgolf.

 

“We split into two groups, one half played the kids course whilst she played with the other half.  We hit a few balls and she told us how to improve things like our swings.  That was the first time I’ve met her.  She helped us all, she was really nice and it was nice of her to give up her time.”

 

North Berwick Golf Club joined forces with clubgolf three years ago to begin introducing its community’s children to the game.  clubgolf, the partnership between the Scottish Golf Union, the Scottish Ladies' Golfing Association, the Professional Golfers' Association, the Golf Foundation and sportscotland which emerged from Scotland’s successful bid to host the Ryder Cup, recognises the need to redress the balance of the shortage of girls playing the game.

Its research in 2005 showed there were fewer than 50,000 female golf club members (as opposed to 198,500 male club golfers).  In the under 18 level, there were 25,000 boys but just 2,700 girls.

So successful were three girls-only pilots in Grampian that the programme, which is backed by leading Scotland lady golfers, Catriona Matthew and Kathryn Imrie, is now being rolled out across Scotland.

 

Catriona, back home for the Christmas break, was delighted when invited to teach the next generation of female golfers and gave all the girls an afternoon to remember.

 

“She gave us a lesson and taught all of us things that would help us, then afterwards we had a question and answer session in the club,” said 11 year old Clara Young.  “It was really good fun and we all learnt a lot.”