Golf added to youth skills’ training service

Acommunity-based social services organisation working with disabled and “at risk’’ youth and young adults in the Bay of Plenty has added golf to the array of sporting activities being offered to participants.

Tauranga-based charitable trust Youth Encounter offers a range of counselling, mentoring, leadership and personal development programmes for children, teenagers, and young adults aged between 8 and 24-years-old.

Youth Encounter participants include people with physical and mental disabilities, at risk youth, through to referrals from government agencies (Youth Justice, Oranga Tamariki), police, schools and whanau.

The service provides a range of physical activity-based options for young people to take part in –ranging from dirt bike riding and mountain biking, through to surfing and wakeboarding, fishing, skateboarding, basketball, beach walks, and now Youth Encounter is adding golfing options to its menu of sporting participation opportunities.

Youth Encounter general manager Tracey Christian said that since initially launching the golf option last year, the organisation’s 12 employees had all played the sport while simultaneously teaching golf’s fundamentals to participants.

After learning the basics of golf, Youth Encounter participants then progress to the fairways and greens of Te Puke Golf Club. With golf now firmly entrenched in Youth Encounter’s activity repertoire, the organisation is currently building a driving range at its 5.8-hectare rural property just south of Te Puke.

“The mix of physical activity with the sociable aspects of golf means the sport very much fits in with the personal development ethos Youth Encounter has structured its model around,” said Christian.

“Golf has also been highly cost effective for us in terms of purchasing the basic equipment such as clubs, balls, and bags required to get our youngsters into the sport, with a significant amount of equipment having been donated through the Te Puke Golf Club.

“We’ve found that once our rangatahi understand how easy it is to learn the basics of golf, many are keen to then set personal targets – like hitting the ball further than they did last time, hitting it straighter than they did last time, and even scoring their first par.

“Golf is so flexible in the individual personal development targets that can be tailor-made to each and every player, that the sport really resonates with our youngsters who come into our participation programmes with varying degrees of physical abilities.”

Luke Landon, a young man who has Down Syndrome, is one of those whose personality has blossomed under Youth Encounter’s mentoring programme, using golf as the activity. A year ago, Luke was nervously hitting a few balls onto the side of the chipping green at Te Puke Golf Club. Now under the enthusiastic and caring tutelage of Youth Encounter mentor and instructor Ethan Milsom, 25-year-old Luke is confident enough to complete nine holes of golf at the course – parking up the cart and now walking the fairways.

Milsom, a 15-handicapper at Te Puke Golf Club, and three other Youth Encounter mentors are regularly seen around the course with their prodigies –whose confidence and love for the sport can clearly be seen building round by round.

Milsom said: “To see the smiles and shine in their eyes is so rewarding. Golf has given them a direction and purpose to work toward, and we look forward to continuing to growing player numbers as awareness of the programme spreads throughout the wider Bay of Plenty region.”

Golf New Zealand’s Bay of Plenty regional support manager Mark Webb said it was heartening to see another player dynamic coming into the sport at a time when cultural diversity was becoming ever more evident on the greens and fairways across the Bay of Plenty’s golf courses, and indeed throughout New Zealand.

Webb said: “Youth Encounter’s guiding principles very much align with Golf New Zealand’s ethos – that golf is all about having fun, while simultaneously underpinning both mental and physical exercise in a relaxing and safe environment.

“Everyone involved with Youth Encounter are grateful to the team at Te Puke Golf Club for its continued support of the initiative and helping grow player participation numbers.”