Club reaches out to deprived youngsters
24th January, 2012 by Alistair Dunsmuir
A golf club in a deprived area is teaching local children how to play the game in an effort to engage them with the local community.
Chris Schofield, PGA professional at West Bradford Golf Club, has given up his time for free in order to boost grass roots junior golf. As a result, a junior academy was recently created at the club for local boys and girls, and it already has 20 members, mainly thanks to word-of-mouth marketing.
The club has now forged links with junior golf charity the Golf Foundation, which plans to help the club to take golf into local schools in order to increase opportunities for youngsters to start to play golf and learn at the junior academy.
The club has also donated £1,000 to the foundation, as it was the captain’s official charity for 2011.
The Golf Foundation’s John Wood said: “West Bradford’s junior academy is enjoying early success because of all the hard work of Chris Schofield and the members, and also due to their positive attitude towards local young people. I look forward to supporting the club to help make an even greater impact on the community in the months to come.
“The Golf Foundation is also hugely grateful for this very generous donation to our national cause, a proven strategy for youngsters which impacts on schools and clubs up and down the country. A big part of the Golf Foundation’s brief is to offer ‘Skills for Life’ to young people and this thinking is much in evidence among the coaching staff at West Bradford Golf Club.”
The Golf Foundation is aiming to reach one million children per year through its national programme, ‘HSBC Golf Roots’. To achieve this, it has a fundraising target of £3 million per year. HSBC Golf Roots is already supported by The R&A, the European Tour, the Professional Golfers’ Association, the Ryder Cup Committee and Trust, the British Golf Industry Association’s ‘Grow Golf’ Fund, Sport England and headline sponsor HSBC, which collectively contribute just under £2 million.
