The R&A has rolled out its Community Golf Instructor Award to Africa for the first time, delivering the established training programme across Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda.
With golf in Africa in the spotlight ahead of the Africa Amateur Championship and Africa Amateur Women’s Invitational at Royal Johannesburg this week, the initiative is designed to grow and strengthen the grassroots golf workforce within each of the three national federations by recruiting, training and developing a new cohort of Community Golf Instructors.
The instructors will play a vital role in increasing access to golf for juniors, women and underserved communities, helping to create more inclusive and welcoming entry points into the sport.
Community Golf Instructors that took part in the training will be deployed nationwide through schools and community golf programmes, delivering fun, engaging and beginner-friendly experiences that introduce new audiences to the game. Schools will be a key focus of the programme, supporting long-term participation growth at a grassroots level.
The project also includes a dedicated “train the trainers” element aimed at ensuring the programme’s sustainability. In Nairobi, seven individuals took part in a specialised mentoring session, where they were trained to deliver the Community Golf Instructor Award themselves in the future. This approach allows the programme to be rolled out more widely, both within the three participating countries and across other federations on the African continent.
The training programme ensures there is a dedicated new workforce to support community golf development, with Community Golf Instructors able to be paid for their work across defined programmes and initiatives, including school delivery.
Kevin Barker, Director – Golf Development for GB&I and Africa at The R&A, said, “This programme represents an important step in supporting the long-term growth of golf across Africa. By investing in people at a community level, we are helping to create sustainable pathways into the sport and ensuring that more young people, women and communities have the opportunity to experience golf in a fun, accessible and inclusive way.”
The Community Golf Instructor Award reflects The R&A’s ongoing commitment to developing the game globally by empowering local workforces and supporting national federations to grow participation from the grassroots up.
The Community Golf Instructor programme has already been successfully rolled out in countries including Great Britain and Ireland, Romania, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Vietnam, Egypt and Uganda, and most recently in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.
Its introduction to Africa comes at a timely moment, with a focus on competitive golf on the continent ahead of the Africa Amateur Championship and Africa Amateur Women’s Invitational, which will take place at Royal Johannesburg this week (4-7 February).
The men’s championship will feature 72 competitors from across the continent, including Uganda, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Kenya, with the winner earning an exemption into The 154th Open. Meanwhile, the Africa Amateur Women’s Invitational will showcase 21 leading players including Nigeria, Ghana and Tanzania, underlining the growing strength of talent in Africa.