Relatively new to the Australian Golf Foundation (AGF) Junior Girls Scholarship Program, Bathurst Golf Club has created a friendly and supportive team environment to help their junior girls thrive.
Throughout this year, six girls of varying ages have enjoyed fortnightly clinics at Bathurst, with
Bathurst's Junior Committee member Jane Mitchell, as well as PGA Professional Matt Barrett who is a huge supporter of women and girls’ golf.
While the golf has improved dramatically, Mitchell and Barrett are most pleased with the strong friendships that have formed.
"We have really tried to build that team bonding in each session," said Mitchell.
"One of the goals for the scholarship program at Bathurst has been to create a team culture.
"Presenting the girls with their bright yellow AGF scholarship shirts at a program launch for family and friends provided a wonderful start to meeting this goal."
Another step was inviting the girls to bring suggestions for a team name to the second coaching session.
The most popular names were put to a vote and “Girls on the Green” was the choice, becoming the girls' identity at the club.
"One of the things we did want to create right at the start was making sure they felt part of the group, but we wanted them to take ownership of that," said Mitchell.
The extremely cold winter months in Bathurst brought an opportunity to further bolster the Girls on the Green team spirit.
"We decided to present our scholarship holders with a team beanie," said Mitchell.
"Presenting these at the halfway mark of the program helped also to recognise the effort that the girls have put into their golf to date."
Mitchell admits that before Bathurst's involvement in the program, junior girls were underrepresented at the club, but things are changing quickly.
"We had one girl who played regularly, and we probably had three other girls on our books who played intermittently, but we've now doubled our numbers with this program," she said.
"Because we've now got a cohort, I think it's encouraging each of the girls to keep playing because they've got a friendship group.
"The one girl that we did have who played regularly always had to play with older people like me, and you would just wish she had some people in her own age group to play with. Now she does.
"That will help keep her motivated, but she has also now taken on a mentoring role and she's a role model for our younger girls who are far less experienced than her."
When the weather warms up in Bathurst, Mitchell says they plan to have a “bring a friend day”, which she hopes will work towards their longer term goals for Bathurst’s junior program.
“We’re already starting to talk about how we can recruit more girls for next year,” she said.
“We definitely want to build up our cohort, with the goal in particular of trying to set up a little inter-club competition with towns that are close by.”
To find out more about Bathurst Golf Club, click HERE.
Article by Patrick Taylor