New youth drive at Houston
Golf Range

October 2009

A group of children from the Broxburn area are being given new opportunities to take up golf after Houston Driving Range joined forces with the national junior golf programme, clubgolf.

Emerging out of Scotland’s successful bid to host the Ryder Cup, clubgolf is a partnership between the Scottish Golf Union, the Scottish Ladies' Golfing Association, the Professional Golfers' Association, the Golf Foundation and sportscotland.

This year 38,000 P5 children - 1430 of them from West Lothian - were given an introduction to the game at school through clubgolf. 

Oatridge College, Pumpherston and Uphall Golf Clubs have all been offering children continuation from their in school introduction for the past two years.   Houston coming on board adds another essential link in the chain.

“Six of the area’s seven primary schools took part in clubgolf’s introductory game over the last two years so we are generating huge interest amongst the nine year olds,” said Libby Edmonstone, Active Schools Co-ordinator for the Broxburn area.

“Three clubs offered clubgolf Stage 1 coaching for the last two years but until now there was a gap in this area.  So we are delighted that Houston have now come on board and are offering coaching so the children can keep learning and developing their skills.”

clubgolf has worked with West Lothian’s Active Schools Co-ordinators, to establish strong links with local schools to ensure sufficient exit routes into golf clubs and facilities to cope with the demand for coaching from local pupils.

clubgolf's Stage 1 programme is normally delivered by qualified volunteer coaches, but Houston is an exception.  Its PGA qualified Pro, Andy Marshall (pictured) has stepped forward to give an eight week block of coaching. clubgolf has provided junior golf clubs to support the new programme.

 “A lot of these children had never touched a golf club before they had an introduction at school and there was no coaching when I was this age” said Andy, whose tuition is subsidized by sportcentral.

“So this is a good opportunity for them and at £2 each for an hour’s coaching it’s not expensive for parents.”

Having a PGA Pro deliver this early stage of the game has the obvious benefit that the children can progress further than with a volunteer coach.  At the moment Andy is teaching the children the fundamentals of the game, and he is already seeing an improvement.  

“It’s all about making sure they start right with good habits, by teaching them the basics,” he said.  “This is only the fourth week but they have all made big improvements and two of them could probably play on the course right now.

“Some of them have come back to practise and two of them have booked individual lessons with me so they are obviously keen.”

With the golf season at its normal wind-down point, Houston’s under-cover facility means there is no need to stop for shorter evenings or bad weather, and potentially clubgolf will be available to local children year round. 

“An advantage of coming here is that the children have the opportunity to hit a lot of balls and we can potentially keep going right through the winter,” said Andy.

“There seem to be plenty of children wanting to be coached and once we've finished this course I'm sure there will be a knock on effect and we will think about running more.”