The Golf Foundation has officially launched Golf Roots 2009 at Loughborough University. Golf Roots is the exciting inner-city golf project targeted at ‘hard to reach‘ youngsters, children from all backgrounds and abilities.
This year the national project featuring 16 cities in England and Wales will focus on training young volunteers to help coordinate and run the activities in their home areas, culminating in the first ever national Tri-Golf festival at Loughborough University in September, which will also be managed by the young volunteers.
At the launch event at the university, the young volunteers were given training on how to run a Tri-Golf festival and then in the afternoon were given the task of organising a festival and delivering the games to an enthusiastic group of 80 primary school pupils.
This year, 16 cities have signed up for Golf Roots, signalling a flurry of golf activity for youngsters throughout the coming summer. The 16 areas are: South London, Portsmouth, Carlisle, Preston, Newcastle upon Tyne, Sheffield, East London, Westminster, Derby, Leicester, Birmingham, Dudley, Bournemouth and Poole, Truro, Cardiff and Wrexham.
Golf Roots is supported by Sport England, the National Sports Foundation (NSF), The European Tour, popular BBC presenter DJ Spoony, England Golf, the Ryder Cup Trust, and friend of the Foundation Colin Mackinnon.
As an exciting culmination to Golf Roots 2009, each of the 16 cities will be invited to send a team of 10 primary age pupils and two young volunteers to a National Golf Roots Festival in the Birmingham area in September. The young volunteers will help run and manage the event whilst a city will be crowned national Golf Roots champions for the first time. In Birmingham, every primary school will have the chance to enter, with local and area finals selecting the team to represent Birmingham at the national final.
Golf Foundation chief executive Mike Round said, “The national festival should provide a wonderful finish to the Golf Roots year and presents a chance for each project to show all of us what an impact golf has made in their area.”
Golf Foundation www.golf-foundation.org