Joe Culley reports on an initiative to open golf to children from all backgrounds and visits two successful schemes.

Remember that old seven-iron you and your best mate used to share? Remember those summer evenings when you'd head out to the dunes and have a competition over the two holes you'd built there? Remember when you started caddying, and when you finally made it into the artisans at the club? Remember the first society you joined?

One of the great myths of golf is that it has always been a game for the elite.

True, most of the early clubs were founded by and for "gentlemen", but virtually all of the game's greats, the professionals, came from humble backgrounds: Old Tom Morris, Vardon, Sarazen, Trevino, Snead, Ballesteros . . . or Joe Carr and Christy O'Connor.

It wasn't difficult for a young boy (girls were a different story) with an interest in the game to get his hands on a second-hand club and a few old balls and work away on the strand or in a field, and then finagle some time on the course, often by serving his time as a caddie.

But the old days are gone, and our children are not as free to roam as we were.

And now, at a time when the game has never been more popular, the irony is that golf is in danger of becoming truly elitist, the irredeemable preserve of the affluent.

The cost of joining a club - if you can get in - can be prohibitive. The artisans are gone, and few clubs permit the use of caddies, largely for insurance concerns.

So how are the youth to break into the game?

To be fair to the organisations which oversee the game here, the GUI and the ILGU, they are acutely aware of the problem and are taking steps to address it. They began two years ago by establishing a working group to examine junior golf within the clubs. That group compiled a Charter for Junior Golf (available at their websites).

Among the recommendations in the charter is that the unions "pursue a policy of actively encouraging clubs and schools to embrace the aspirations . . . for (a) a more open entry regime, (b) younger entrants, and (c) affordable cost, i.e., entry fee/ annual subscription."

The unions also recognise the need to cast their net beyond the traditional network of clubs: "If social or economic factors or a lack of opportunity impedes a child's potential, it implies the need for specially designed measures that seek to alleviate or eliminate the sources and consequences of these disadvantages."

Of course it could all have ended there, with a charter and fine aspirations but no actions. But last December the unions took the next step - and put their hands in their pockets - to establish Junior Golf Ireland (JGI), and appointed two full-time regional development officers

"The reason we got the show on the road," says Alan McIlraith of the GUI's Munster Branch, "why we got the funding together along with the ILGU and the PGA, is that we recognise the problems. Junior golf in general needs more organisation."

Olly Hodges is the development officer for Leinster and Munster. He has spent the last few months talking to clubs and schools in the region in an attempt to establish a series of "golf academies". The idea is that JGI would first visit a school, either primary or secondary, to introduce the game of golf formally to the students, and then as a follow-up organise a series of lessons with a PGA pro at a local club for students who show an interest.

"Most other sports would have a club system, your soccers and Gaelic sports and rugby and so on all have junior set-ups and junior clubs where kids can go, and golf doesn't have that," Hodges says. "They have junior memberships, but kids who are junior members have already played the game and are at a reasonable proficiency. We're looking to take it one step back, and get beginners into the game, and hopefully progress them through from there.

"What we're currently doing is developing a coaching programme of our own, a coaching model we can use with resource packs, which we plan to have finished for the start of the next school term. By that stage we hope to have the academy network set up.

"Ideally you'd have somewhere where there's a practice range where kids can go, usually on an afternoon after school when the course is not busy - and usually it won't be on the course itself - and they can go through a series of lessons in a group environment. Ten kids at a time with a PGA pro, either the pro that's on site - and bearing in mind a lot of clubs don't have a pro, it might mean that there would be almost a sort of sub-contracting type basis where a pro would come in from another club, and run that for them."

The plan is to offer the students a series of 10 lessons, with JGI paying half the tuition and the students paying half.

While there is no set fee, the students will probably be paying €30 to 40 up front for 10 lessons.

Which is reasonable enough, although certainly some families might find it difficult.

"What it needs is some enthusiasm and level of commitment from the clubs," says Hodges. "As I've travelled around my region, some of the clubs have been very enthusiastic and very keen to come on board, other clubs have said - and rightly so - look, we don't have the facilities, we don't have a practice ground, we don't have the volunteers, or a pro. Some are aiming more at the tourist end of the market, and we're not suggesting we go to every club in the country.

"But we hope over time that word of mouth will be a good seller for us and more and more clubs will want to be a part of this."

Of course there's nothing to stop clubs from introducing their own initiatives to encourage local children who might not be connected to golf, or who can't afford it, to take up the game, as the charter recommends.

But, as John Ferriter of the GUI, who chairs Junior Golf Ireland, says: "You can set up the structures and all the rest of it at the clubs, but how active and how committed they are really comes down to the individuals. It also comes down to the provision of a budget by the council for the work."

Elsewhere on the page are two examples of just what can be done with a little imagination and dedication.

Children eager to learn at Sillogue
Rathbane embraces scheme with vigour

Contact: www.juniorgolfireland.com