Our age so why aren't we aiming at our age group yeah why aren't we aiming. For the 30 to 40 year olds why are we going. For the parents because the parents are the ones that bring the kids to the goal. And everything else don't they yeah i think you're right i think like you said when you think of growing the game you do think of kids. And younger people that's great if you were giving any advice i've got two last questions i've got some facebook run through as well okay how at the moment i feel like golf's in a really good space personally i don't have stats on that to ask this oh you're going to ask me how to grow the game. So not not so much that but like with so i've got two young girls and a boy okay they're showing real interest at the moment. And they're really loving it and but that's because i play and i'm into it i didn't realize yeah i played now. And again i sometimes shoot a million around the golf course but either way and i'm really intrigued because i only got it from my own experience as a boy growing up as a junior there wasn't many ladies at my golf club there's a few actually pretty decent ones but um i'm really intrigued to see what their pathway is going to look like. And how they're going to continue to play golf. And i feel like there's barriers that do crop up. For men and women and boys and girls when they're growing up i feel like that kind of age where you actually switched on golf at 13 is where the some of the girls drop off golf at 13.. And i feel like i'm really intrigued to see how my girls get through that kind of spell but i'm just wondering it's not about growing the game but is there any kind of advice. For people listening because i put a post on this weekend i took a little boy to the driving range because my girls were dancing that sounds very stereotypical. But that's not what happened um and loads of people put their videos on of their kids and you know dads and daughters and dads and lads and mums because it was actually my mum that got me into golf when i first started. And i was just thinking god there's. So many like at this eight nine 10 11 year olds what happens at like that 13 14 and is there anything that could be advice from you that could keep golfers in the game. For at that time period okay this could be a long answer. So at the that age of nine and ten hanging around with mum and dad's call 12 or 13 it's not cool yeah. So there's a huge drop off right there you at 12 or 13 you start getting into organized sport so you will go to football you'll be in squads you'll be in teams there'll be leagues there'll be all that there's none of that in golf it's still really really individual. And it only gets organized when it gets to an elite level and i'm talking county level there needs to be you know like when you go to a swimming lesson you get your five meter badge you're 10 meter badge 100 there needs to be a badge system in golf somebody needs to come up with this idea of forming academies birdie academies eagle academies you go through just like your girls will do at dancing they'll come back with a certificate certificates medals move up levels stickers groups that needs to happen in golf that's a big challenge to somebody to do. But you've got to look at what other sports are working. And that that works so keeping them together in a group and that friends that's why i stayed in golf friends i mentioned what was a hundred juniors at my course we all hung out together yeah. But luckily for me and whenever you didn't need mum and dad at that point did you no we needed each other a junior organizer sometimes one of my mates at school he was a popular lad at school he played golf that was huge it just meant it was just. So much more easier for me to be accepted into playing golf that's got to happen somebody rna england golf i think they do a good job with elite golfers. But do we need someone else the pga do a great job with professional golfers do we need somebody at grassroots level to set up these these levels these academies where you can actually progress um i think in the women's game i had this discussion the other day we all have the same story i was listening to a mel reed podcast. And her story is exactly the same as me i was the only girl there he used to play football now we're the only ones that come through that system. And the only reason we've come through that system is because we're good we'd have stopped if we weren't good you don't get i played golf as a youngster. And i came back 10 years later like you're doing the men's game i'm seeing that in the last five or five years with my boy mates from school they're all from golf they've not played gold for 10 years because they've had kids stuff's got in the way they've played football now they're coming back to it you don't get that in the women's game because if you were good you stayed on of course if you weren't good you just stopped it's an easy excuse to get out into almost if if kind of if you're not performing. And let's say you're 13 and suddenly you're going out with your friends. So it's an easy excuse to just go i'm not really enjoying golf i think the difference is though with golf. And and you're right like that is that age certainly you said. For girls now as a member as a junior there's a lot of girls that played and they get to 13 40 and they might might not be cool or they might want to play but that's kind of answering a problem to some degree but also what's so hard with the golfers if you imagine inner city kids in london how do they even get to start in playing golf like you know you might play football at school you might play basketball you might have an old ball. And kick it around the street it's fair enough you're playing football join a local team only needs a pair of boots from sports deck for 20 quid you can play you might have to pay subs a quid a game. Or whatever but how do you get more people even playing golf it's one thing keeping them in when they are playing. But i know again it's growing the game how do you get more kids to play don't you think a lot of kids do play golf without knowing i mean i drive past that dino golf. And it's rammed it's absolutely rammed on the m6 day driving ranges i've never been busier with non-golfers you walk into a driving race now loads of people are under the age of 30. there's lots of families there that's golf unfortunately no organisation recognises that as golf there's no transition between being on a driving range. And getting on a golf course our public courses are rubbish you know we need six hole six hole par threes i think rudding park has one which is really good really good my nephew lives near there. And we've been as a family my niece nephew brother you know partners sister everybody we've gone into sixth ball mum's dad's that's great we need six holders and we need we need bits our public courses to be better you know what we need almost like a six whole course that can be. And it's not not possible i don't believe that can almost be built inside a football pitch because there's. So many football pictures not about in parks and locally like like say daddy's put a pair of boots on and kick a football about a football pitch but you can't go anywhere and just come play six holes of golf and again it'd be restrictions because you gotta upkeep it much much higher so i went southport recently at the weekend and it used to be a little nine-hole pitch and put on the on the coast that's actually been turned into a foot golf course now because maintenance again and things like that but the actual space it's in isn't that big like it's interesting is it living living's got a path through yeah it's not mini golf it's not crazy golf it's like pitch. And pull yeah. And that's kind of something that maybe is like a transition. But it's just how do you build these infrastructures it's a numbers game because your children might dance forever. But you just said you told them to dance in there they might that will then.
30 kids in a class whatever i know might not be that because of kobe. But that just has 30 kids probably two that carry on dancing but because skill is more because golf's. So few people actually play golf compared to football you know i played football as a kid i don't play now rubbish but yeah we see it as being a worse issue in golf because there's less to start with do you get what i mean yeah like a goal does golf have a problem with participation though that's what i'm asking do we just think it does no i don't think it i don't think it's a problem there's less people if you think about a prime high school every child is essentially forced to play football in pa. So therefore. they're playing some will love it some wouldn't love it it's whatever. So it might be indifferent but out of when i was at high school there was probably 15 people that played golf over 1500 people school okay there was like three that played card from high school yeah you must gone to a posh school well i had right james robinson was at my school paul howard who's played in the open there was quite a number of him. And that was a lot. So i'm saying there's 15. yeah that's because you were from the coast of some of the best golf courses ever funnily enough in grimsby the way that well. So that you're answering the question there there's four people in your school that played how many play football how many play now is it is this a game that people come to later in life possibly yeah i think it is are we missing it's expensive isn't it actually a lot of people that i teach i teach a lot of our age group um because they're not meant that they come to the car garage. For a golf lesson they're not a member of a golf course they pay and play oh they might start joining a club into their 30s maybe we're aiming at the wrong wrong age group i think maybe we should be going well actually over 60s is quite good. For like the participation maybe we go for the 50s and the 40s like the cycling's doing cycling and smashing it why is it too hard to like i said i'd love the the age group the academies. And everything and it definitely helps to have played golf as a youngster if you're coming back to it but maybe we can just go down an age category. And make it easier for for that suppose things with cycling as well you do pick it up as a kid. And you drop it off and they always say you don't forget to ride a bike and that's quite true so when you do pick up in your 30s you can just pick it up maybe we start it as a kid. And if you want to carry on carry on it almost shouldn't be part of the syllabus at schools like say much more part of the syllabus wait at least you learn how to hold it and hit it and whatever the thing is the worst sat here all three of us. And we've all got the same story our parent got us into golf yeah it's all exactly that's like. So many people that's right our parents were our age. So why aren't we aiming at our age group yeah why aren't we aiming. For the 30 to 40 year olds why are we going. For the parents because the parents are the ones that bring the kids to the goals they pay. And everything else don't they yeah i think you're right i think like you said when you think of growing the game you do think of kids. And younger people that's great but i'm 30 now so many of my mates get into golf oh it's becoming really cool i think at the moment yeah loads of people on social media i mean like like kim kardashian doing it on her instagram this weekend. And gets slagged off for the game it gets lagged off it does okay people don't like things like that. For giving them clubs all my mates have been tagging me in it with all the callaway bags and everything why not it costs callaway a grand it's like well i think about the whole family no it was the whole family well it's seven grand it cost it's nothing is it really. For what they say for 22 these people that just take stuff and they're not gonna hopefully the kardashians will actually play golf not oh they did it once. And that's it that's what callaway will hope that they don't do that they go on. And you know they're a big family aren't there and lots of women and golf's ideal for women because i can say it's not you guys you're not getting hot. And sweaty you can go out. For a chat you can drink a cup of coffee that's what i say to everybody you're walking at the moment with a cup of coffee around a park full of people why not just go on a golf course yeah it makes total sense it's that first step though in it yeah that's another thing that's another story. For the world to write so we had a lot of questions.
