Exciting Times

EXCITING TIMES ARE AHEAD FOR JUNIOR GOLF IN CYPRUS

Terry Scott, CGF Junior Coordinator

New training programs, new finance initiatives and lots of new courses planned; there has never been a better time for the young to take up golf in Cyprus. I for one am excited about the future of golf in Cyprus and as Junior Golf is my brief on the CGF I am particularly excited about what lies ahead for the children who take up golf at this time.

My involvement in junior sport goes back almost 30 years and in all that time I have never had a clean sheet to work from. I have always, in the past, taken up the reins from others who had built the foundations, infrastructure and good practice before I arrived, this time, this daunting but exciting task lies with the CGF, currently through myself.

The R&A have made this task somewhat easier with their generous development grant. From September we are taking the Junior Passport scheme island wide with a pioneering CGF initiative of part funding for junior coaching. This should be the start of a far greater participation of the game by children of all ages. Through the scheme clubs will be able to apply for grants that will cover up to 50% of the cost of coaching the young.

Our plans include encouraging clubs to hold regular junior competitions and when these are firmly established the CGF will further assist the development of the game with both area and national competitions for the young. We foresee a scouting program to find exciting local prospects that would benefit from a national coaching scheme where we would bring the best children together to learn together.

All this is should not be too far into the future, but it is the future none the less. So what does today hold? Encouraging the young to try the game is a top priority and once they have discovered golf making the game, at their level, interesting and competitive enough to keep them in the sport. We will need to compete with other sports, who like us are searching for tomorrows talent, and make golf their sport of choice. All obvious stuff, you might say, but most other sports have the advantage that they are already well established in Cyprus.

However, I believe there are large catchments of children out there, particularly girls who are not attracted or enthused by the more established sports. My job is to help find them and convince them that golf is their future.

I will consider we have started to achieve the desired objectives when our juniors mature and start winning our major open championships.