Page 42 - Summer eng 2017

JUNIOR PROGRAM CHALLENGES
After the success of the ladies programs, I wanted to add a junior component. We had tried offering a junior league for a few years, trying different times and days of the week but struggled to get 10- 12 kids. When we moved our date to Sunday afternoons it improved, with 15-20 kids participating, but I still thought we could do better.
I had been eyeing the Golf in Schools (GIS) kit from Golf Canada but I did not like the idea of dropping off the kit, walking away, and hoping someone would run the program. Instead, I contacted our provincial golf association to see if someone could teach me to run the GIS program.
Mike Kelly was in charge of the Mr. Knickers & Friends golf for kids program and came to our schools in 2012 to show us how to run GIS. After watching him run the program we realized we had another problem. Neither my wife or I were well suited to run the program.
Our golf pro, although great at teaching at the course, was not the right person to entertain 30 kids in a school gym, and we did not have anyone on staff to run our program. For the first year, I called in a favour and paid a previous junior member, who was now an
assistant golf pro at a course an hour away, to run my program.
The first year was great! We visited three schools and introduced 400 kids to golf over the winter. I thought the course would be full of kids the next year, but it was not. We did experience a slight upswing in our junior league with 20-25 kids but it was not significant. Despite not realizing the results we had hoped, I was not prepared to give up.
After the first year we received a call from a fourth school in our area asking if we could add their school to the program. The assistant golf pro helped us again. This time we also experienced a slight upswing in juniors but again, not to the level we had hoped. Little did I know that our long term solution was about to present itself.
GETTING HONEST WITH OTHER OWNERS
In 2014, one of the local golf course owners organized a meeting to discuss the state of the industry and the issues we were facing. Twelve owners showed up and we had the most frank discussion I have had with other owners.
In fact, I would say the openness of the conversation demonstrated the frustration and desperation of our industry. After the round table discussion we stood having a beer
“The good news is we are experiencing actual ROI with
the Project. I now sponsor five schools and will introduce over 600 kids in grades 1-5 to Golf in Schools.“
and discussing common issues and most importantly, building relationships.
You may be reading this and thinking this happens all the time, right? While it is true that there are golf course owners meetings, industry meetings, etc., they are not usually a completely open dialogue.
Until recently I had never REALLY communicated with my local golf courses, whom I viewed as my competition. Of course, I would see them at local NGCOA Canada meetings. I would smile, shake their hands, briefly chat, and then wish they would close up shop so that I would have less competition for my golfers.
However, in this particular meeting a lot of walls came down. We realized that if we could get more golf courses focused on growing the game we could have a much greater and faster impact.
After the meeting, I found out the assistant who had been helping me would no longer be available. I needed a solution so I organized a meeting with five other golf course owners and explained what I had been doing with Golf in Schools. I suggested that if we all participated it could benefit all of us.
All five courses agreed to sponsor two schools each over the course of the winter. We would
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