Looking to the future

[Basher]

How does your club fare when it comes to Juniors?

Is yours a forward looking club which nurtures the promising young talent, organising competitions, instruction sessions for the younger members?

Or is yours a club which takes the Juniors subscription and does nothing in the way of thinking ahead, preferring to think of juniors as a necessary evil?

Junior golfers are the future of ALL golf clubs. If the juniors are not encouraged to participate in the functions and events at the club, they aren't going to hang about for too long.

You can guess which way my club leans on the subject!

Please feel free to discuss.

 

[theeaglehunter]

How does your club fare when it comes to Juniors?

Is yours a forward looking club which nurtures the promising young talent, organising competitions, instruction sessions for the younger members

Yes! It is a a superb club to be at in terms of its junior development. Subsidised coaching, competitions, junior matches against other clubs, trips to major golf tournaments and positive treatment/ encouragement from all other club members including seniors etc. Our junior section really is well run/ organised.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

I have to say, Royal Ascot seems to have a flourishing junior section, especially given the number of kids at the club in the summer holidays. I know they have a number of inter-club fixtures during the season and an array of competitions. It seems t be a fairly mixed bag of ages from about 9 up to 16 and of varying talent including several lower handicappers.

In general there are a well behaved group although there are a couple of older juniors who have caused myself some grief this year (hitting irons off the practice tee - taking huge divots out of it, and looking for balls over perimeter fences and in our protected nature areas). When challenged they react all defensive until you point out that they have been caught banged to rights and then they just get rude. Fortunately a chat with the pro and junior co-ordinator and the threat of getting them banned for a short period resolved the situation.

In general they are pretty good though and I wouldn't want the actions of the older guys to discourage the younger ones. I think this is a very interesting topic and owuld make a great topic for a GM article.

 

[vig]

Ours have the usual junior section with comps but not too sure how many junior members.

I see about half a dozen on a regular basis and not bad players either but the times i go out are not the times i expect the juniors to be out.
Plenty use the range but not sure if they are members.

 

[Imurg]

We have quite a flourishing junior section and the pro regularly runs "Summer Camps" where he gets between 15 and 20 kids for 6 hours a day for a week!

Some of the better Juniors get to play in Mens competitions and a couple of years ago one actually won a club "Major".

However, the "sulky teenager" bit sometimes shines through. We have a junior who playes off 6 and in a recent medal had got through his shots by the 9th so just walked off without a word to his partners - poor form obviously and very much the exception. But the general lack of respect you seem to find from some younger peole does worry me for the future - not just golf.

 

[Herbie]

I never understand any club that doesnt encourage a junior membership, where better to mould the young players into players as well as solid membership base.

 

[Doh]

Ive been our junior organiser for the past 7 years some of the success we have had includes the County Championship singles and doubles, club champion/order of merit winners for club and county and we have several county players for both boys and seniors.

We have junior comps every sunday and once they get to eighteen h/cap they can play in the full comps. we have just redueced the joining fee for 10 to 13 yr olds as i was concerned we dont get enough of that age group.one other concern is we dont get enough girls coming through so we are trying to address that problem.There are also some of our juniors who are never going to reach such high standards but as long as we can get them to enjoy the game its something they can do for the rest of their lives.

It takes up a lot of my own personal time but Junior golf would not exsist if it was not for volunteers so if your club is not doing well on the junior front it's probbly because of the lack of good volunteers.

 

[USER1999]

Our junior section is flourishing, with free group lessons, free entry to any of the local junior opens, equality on tee times (off peak, but better than some clubs), etc.

The section is very well run, and the kids generally well behaved. Quite a few of them have made it onto the scratch team too, so the future is bright.

 

[Smithster666]

I am 17 and my club are really good for juniors there is a comp every month at least and every one gets on and all try get a game together and if it wasnt down the team behind the junoirs at my local club i dont think id play as much as i do now maybe sounds like rubbish but hey lol

hope every club is like this maybe have some young stars in the future lift the ryder cup for Europe

 

[viscount17]

Ours should be outstanding as we have an English National u16/18 coach as our senior pro. Both the two 'assistant' (fully qualified) pros are superb with the younger kids and run the 'schools' program.

That said, and it may be due to the times I use the course, I don't see many girls (except when the county brings them over for instruction). Some of the boys are really very good, just wish some of the Dads would let them develop naturally instead of trying to force them. (I think juniors playing off whites is a big mistake.)

They ran quite a big Summer scheme this year which I think was quite successful in introducing kids (and a lot of their mums) to the game. Just what the retention will be like . . .