For those concerned about the long-term health of golf, one of the most sobering statistics to come out in recent years was from the National Golf Foundation concerning the number of junior golfers in the U.S.
The NGF noted that from 2005 to 2011, the number of kids playing the game dropped a whopping 37 percent, from 3.8 million to 2.4 million. That’s after the junior numbers had increased by leaps and bounds for every five-year period since the NGF started keeping track in 1985.
Though the amount of junior golfers did rebound somewhat in 2012 — to 2.7 million — it’s a worrisome sign for the game that participation has been dwindling among the next generation of golfers.
The good news is that the powers that be in golf — both locally and nationally — haven’t just been twiddling their thumbs about the issue. In Colorado, that’s been particularly apparent in the last several years.
Among the programs and initiatives that have been rolled out or greatly expanded during that time are:
— The Colorado PGA Golf in Schools program, a collaborative effort of the Allied Golf Associations, including the CGA and CWGA. Over the last four years, more than 30,000 kids in the state have been exposed to golf through this program during their physical education classes.
— The Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy at CommonGround Golf Course, which is owned and operated by the CGA and CWGA. Now in its third year, the Academy has yielded about 1,000 caddie loops per summer, many for kids from families with major financial challenges. The Academy uses caddying and golf to teach youngsters valuable leadership skills, and promotes the use of caddies by paying all of their base fees. The program also helps kids become candidates for full tuition and housing Evans Caddie Scholarships at the University of Colorado.
— The establishment a year ago of the Colorado Golf Foundation, which provides funding and assistance to Colorado-based organizations and programs that use golf to build important life skills and character, instilling hard work and self-reliance in youngsters.
— The efforts of The First Tee chapters throughout the state in influencing youngsters through the game of golf and life-skill lessons.
And that just touches the surface of junior golf-related efforts, with many individual clubs offering kids free or reduced-fee golf, and with initiatives like the Hale Irwin Elite Player program at CommonGround, the Junior Golf Experience at the Denver Golf Expo and the CGA/CWGA’s Used Club Sale which benefits junior developmental programs. The list goes on and on.
Now, the idea is to try to cover all the bases for juniors. Between Golf in Schools and the CJGA’s variety of tournaments and championships, the Colorado PGA is hoping to fill in some gaps to help reverse that downward junior trend golf saw from 2005 through 2011.
At last weekend’s Denver Golf Expo and this week’s G-4 Summit at Inverness, the Colorado PGA started introducing programs that it plans to implement in 2014. That includes multi-day junior golf summer camps in a partnership with the YMCA, Girl Power Golf camps, “Team Golf” scramble competitions throughout the summer for beginner and developmental players, a Junior Tour Qualifier Series leading up to the Colorado PGA Junior Championship in July, and a Colorado PGA Junior Golf Membership program.
“Soup to nuts in junior golf,” Colorado PGA executive director Eddie Ainsworth summed up at the G-4 Summit. “It’s awesome what (the Section, the CGA, the CWGA and others) are doing together for junior golf.”
Information on the Colorado PGA’s new efforts are featured on a new web site, ColoradoPGAJuniorGolf.com.
“For years, we’ve been doing the Golf in Schools program, so where do these kids go (from there)?” Ainsworth said. “Where is the next step? … It’ll be interesting to see what 2014 looks like with all the stuff that’s going on.
“I think 2014 could just be a huge year in the life of Colorado golf.”
First G-4 Summit Hits the Right Note
The inaugural G-4 Summit, billed as “a coming together of the golf industry in Colorado”, proved to be a popular event as more than 125 golf leaders in the state gathered at Inverness earlier this week.
The event featured high-level meetings, roundtables where best-practices were exchanged, and sessions featuring several issues crucial to the game. It’s a joint effort of the CGA, CWGA, Colorado PGA, Rocky Mountain Golf Course Superintendents Association and the Mile High Chapter of the Club Managers Association.
“I’m thrilled with (the Summit); it’s exactly what we hoped for,” said CGA executive director Ed Mate. “The attendance was great, the speakers were fantastic. For the first try, I think we set the bar pretty high.
“The thing I feel best about is this really was an Allied Associations event. Everybody played a role. We had a great session with all the executive committee members of all the associations — which we’ve never done before. We had a joint meeting with the CGA and CWGA. The point is, it’s a time of collaboration and coming together, which is our moniker.”
The plan is to make the Summit an annual event, probably set for February.
Adding Value to CGA/CWGA Memberships
The CGA and CWGA have been making a concerted effort recently to increase what they offer through their memberships, and they used the G-4 Summit and the Denver Golf Expo last weekend as opportunities to feature those efforts.
“We need to become relevant to today’s transient golfer population who don’t want to join anybody,” Mate said. “What we’d like to do is add value to membership.”
Specifically, the CGA and CWGA recently partnered with Denver Golf and South Suburban to offer time-restricted green fee discounts to the roughly 60,000 CGA/CWGA members at the City of Denver and South Suburban District golf courses, as well discounts through other partners. For more information, CLICK HERE.
Those benefits supplement what CGA and CWGA membership has long offered, most notably an official USGA handicap, support for the many “for the good of the game” efforts the associations espouse, discounts at the CGA/CWGA-owned CommonGround Golf Course, electronic newsletters, etc.
Colorado PGA Launching New Tee-Time Alliance
Being the executive director of the Colorado PGA, Eddie Ainsworth (left) has never hidden his feelings about the practice of courses discounting green fees, especially by getting tee times filled through one of the many national tee-time services on the market, including GolfNow.com.
As he said Tuesday at the G-4 Summit, “If we keep discounting, we’re going to discount ourselves right out of business.”
Rather than seeing money for such tee-time booking services go out of state, the Colorado PGA is planning to launch a tee-time service of its own: ColoradoPGATeeTimes.com. The site is tentatively expected to go “live” in early April.
The idea is to keep the money in Colorado that has been going to out-of-state companies. Figuring that $1.95 million per year currently flows out of state through national online tee-time brokers, Ainsworth believes those dollars would be much better spent on something Colorado-based. And he thinks the initiative could save Colorado facilities $1.2 million annually over the current set-up.
With each participating course paying a set amount — and establishing its own green-fee prices — part of the set fee will go to technology; another portion to running, advertising and marketing the statewide reservation system; and some to “growth of the game” initiatives in Colorado, including junior golf and “Get Golf Ready” programs.
“The vision is unbelievable how we could change things by keeping that money here locally,” Ainsworth said.
Obviously, it’s still in question how much market share ColoradoPGATeeTimes.com can take from heavily-advertised golf-discount services such as GolfNow.com. But if the Colorado program is a success, there’s been talk that it might become a pilot program for the PGA of America on a national basis.
