Officials of the World Golf Foundation and its Golf 20/20 initiative say they are making significant progress toward their funding goals for the Get Golf Ready player development program announced in November.
As of late January this year, golf industry supporters had pledged slightly over $2.6 million toward a goal of $4.1 million to fully fund the three-year Phase I of the Get Golf Ready program implementation.
“We are off to a good start and have been very pleased with the generous and enthusiastic support we have received from the golf industry stakeholders in a short period of time,” said World Golf Foundation CEO Steve Mona. “We hope to be able to announce in the coming months that the first three years of the program have been fully funded as we proceed with this critical initiative to develop more players for our great game.”
The Get Golf Ready program is designed to attract adults who have never played golf previously and to recapture those who may have left the game.
Participating golf facilities will provide a series of five 60- to 90-minute group lessons at a typical cost of $99 per player, including on-course experience and will also offer transitional opportunities for scheduled outings, leagues or follow-up special events for participants. (For more information, visit the www.golf2020.com web site).
The first phase of the program has a target of 700 new or existing facility programs in 2009, 1,000 more programs in 2010 and 1,300 programs in 2011. Existing programs would be rebranded to conform to Get Golf Ready guidelines. Participating facilities, in addition to the $99 per student fee, would receive a $1,000 financial incentive from the Get Golf Ready fund and Golf 20/20.
Mona said that every effort will be made to ensure accountability for the program’s implementation at participating facilities, including “secret shoppers” to find out whether facilities are following the program guidelines, or even lesson participants to gauge the experience.
The Get Golf Ready funding initiative has eight different categories of financial support, ranging from “Champion” at $100,000 a year for three years to “Par” contributions of $1,000 per year for the three-year Phase I. Mona said the five main industry groups being targeted for support are industry associations, playing equipment companies, turf care and equipment companies, course management companies and golf media companies.