Rise in junior numbers at Port Bannatyne

October 2009

Five years on from sending two of its members on a coach training course with the national junior golf programme, clubgolf, Port Bannatyne Golf Club on the Isle of Bute is seeing spectacular results in its junior membership.

The season’s junior coaching course finished at the club this week and the figures are impressive. The number of junior members stands at 48, climbing steadily towards the adult membership figure of 70.

Port Bannatyne has two junior age groups. A starter group of six to nine year olds pay just £10 annually for their membership which includes coaching throughout the season. An older group of over nines, in addition to receiving coaching, can play the course as often as they like for an annual fee of £40.

Teaching them are two volunteer coaches who became qualified in 2004 through clubgolf’s Level 1 course, and have stuck with it ever since.

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

As a result of the last five years’ coaching the club’s junior standards are improving. “In the older section there are a couple of kids who have just taken off and they’re playing really well,” said the Club’s Junior Convenor, Ian Shaw.

“Something we never had before on the island is a lot of good, young female golfers because we never had the situation where many played. But what we’ve got on offer now is encouraging girls and we have two playing who will definitely be really good.”

The club does much to attract its juniors and has other initiatives planned to retain them.

“We have a lot of boys who are 17 and coming up to 18 and we want to keep them,” said Ian. “So this year we have introduced an Intermediate membership, which is half the price of the adult membership.

“The numbers of children we have is quite amazing for the size of the club. We are a family orientated club and juniors are encouraged by the majority of the members.

“I don’t think we would be as advanced down the road if we hadn’t sent our two members away for coach training.

“They came back keen to start a programme which is what set it in motion. Before hand it was a junior section being run on Tuesday nights where members would help them get around the course.”