How a Regional Golf Club Went From 35 to 250 Junior Members in Just Two Years

Capitalising on what he describes as a “major resurgence” for the sport worldwide, Stephen Buckley set out to attract more youngsters and women to the game when he became Club captain in late 2023.

His efforts have yielded results in a big way. 

The revival began with Stephen making the game more accessible to local students by bringing golf simulators to Yarrawonga College P-12 and Sacred Heart College thanks to Golf NSW Murray Region.

Realising the golf bug was spreading quickly among the youngsters and their teachers, Stephen established a competition between the neighbouring colleges – and the School Shield was born.

“All of our beginner golfers play nine holes, the more experienced golfers play 18 holes,” Stephen explains.

“They play against each other, and at the end of the day we come up with a winner for the School Shield. So, with all that, we’ve managed to take our membership up to 250, which is 215 extra than we had two years ago.

“One (junior) will become a little bit successful and start to play in the men's competition or the ladies’ competition. And their friends sort of get dragged along with them. They practise together and it just sort of snowballs.”

And it’s not just older kids who have become enthralled with the tricky art of hitting a small white ball.

Yarrawonga Mulwala Golf Club Resort also runs a school holiday program called the Birdie Squad, catering for ages seven through to 14, with the aim of keeping kids swinging long after they first pick up a club.

“That’s created a lot of interest, especially for the girls,” Stephen says.

“We've got a lot of girls who come through the junior program for the Birdie Squad. That tends to feed later into the work we do with the older juniors from the schools.”

Stephen is a teacher by trade who started his golf journey as a pre-teen, playing off a “fairly low handicap”. He hopes youngsters can walk a similar path and enjoy the sport for decades to come.

“We’ll definitely work on the newest golfers and try to get them into a competitive spirit so they can see, well, this is a game that I can play for life,” he says.

“It's not like football or cricket or netball or softball where there's a lifetime span. This is a game that they can play forever and our job is to teach them that.

“We're finding there are women here now who used to play netball or other sports, but the knees are starting to get a little bit shaggy, so they're moving over to golf and that's where their next challenge will come.”

The Club’s current goal, Stephen says, is to “get a regular junior competition happening”.

“We'll be concentrating hard to try and get the juniors on a Friday night to come down and play a nine-hole Stableford competition,” he adds.

“It's just having the programs available. That's the key, I think… you give them the chance, you show them and then after that, they have the choice to pursue it or not to pursue it. 

“We'll be going out to the schools again this year, so we’ll just keep working now to keep the interest.”