Two long-serving PGA professionals share their insights on how to build a junior base.
At the height of its success under legendary PGA professional Ian Triggs in the 1980s, the junior program at Keperra Country Golf Club in Brisbane catered to 286 kids.
There are many golf clubs throughout Australia that would love that many total members, yet Keperra had almost 300 juniors engaged across the course of the week learning the fundamentals of the game in a fun and supportive environment.
On the southern side of the Murray River, Anthony “Bear” Sanders was one of those juniors being introduced to the sport at Numurkah Golf Club near Shepparton. Now, more than 30 years later, Sanders is not only bringing through the next generation of juniors at the club, but has welcomed back those who have returned to golf having taken part in junior clinics with Sanders in their younger days.
Both identify ‘fun’ as a foundational element of any successful junior program, Triggs grateful that he had a 27-hole facility that afforded kids the space to learn en masse.
“We had another couple of trainees that I had there during that time and we created a loop where the juniors would rotate around three bays learning different skills and fundamentals,” Triggs says.
“After they got their few little pointers they’d go onto the course and play nine holes. It worked perfectly because the Keperra setup was so good. They weren’t using the third nine as much as they do today, so we could use that as a great little loop to train kids. Out of it, we just had so many good young players come through that system.”
In a community of less than 5,000 such as Numurkah, golf is often just one sport that local kids try their hand at. Rather than getting caught up in short-term thinking, Sanders says the investment in youth is bound to deliver long-term benefits.
“You hear it all too often that clubs are reluctant to do junior programs because their perception is that they’ll get no one out of it,” Sanders says. “That’s a poor attitude in my eyes. If we have 20 kids turn up, it’d be fantastic if we get one to play. Then you look ahead five years down the track and there’s 20 extra kids playing golf all because they started that program.”
And once the kids are on course, Sanders believes engaging the parents in golf club activities can help connect the entire family with the sport.
“The junior programs here, we made sure the parents were involved at some level,” he adds. “We’d have a barbecue at the end of it and just get that involvement, say who we are and sell us as a club. And we’re a family club. We want kids being around here. We want kids to be part of this golf club going forward.
“To see that happen and then see the kids progress from Numurkah to represent clubs in Melbourne at pennant and higher levels, you always get a bit of a buzz out of that as well.”
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