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Golf Roots is the star of 'Best of British' London festival

Monday, 15 September 2008
Paula Benn
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Hundreds of children enjoyed a first hit with a golf club at a Golf Foundation Golf Roots event in Regent Street, London, on Sunday (September 7).

Golf Roots is an inner city golf project which helps youngsters from all backgrounds to get started in golf and offers follow-on opportunities to play regularly in the future. Sixteen cities in England and Wales have run a Golf Roots programme this year and a key element of each scheme has been to bring golf to a large-scale public venue event in order to reach young people who may not have tried golf before.

Golf was the only sport featured among music, food and leisure attractions in the ‘Regent Street Festival – A Great British Experience’. Designed to celebrate all that puts the ‘Great’ into Great Britain, Golf Roots was certainly a well-supported attraction, staged by the Golf Foundation’s events delivery partner, Factory Eleven.

The youngsters sampled ‘Tri-Golf’, which is an important element of Golf Roots. This is a fun, mini version of golf using plastic clubs, soft balls, and colourful targets, and is reaching an estimated 700,000 children a year in schools. Local Golf Roots organisers, with the help of the Golf Foundation, are creating formal links between schools and golf facilities in urban areas so that youngsters can continue to enjoy golf and its positive benefits as they develop.

Funding for this Golf Roots event came from part of a £112,500 award made by Sport England, through the National Sports Foundation, which has backed regional Golf Roots initiatives and Golf Foundation work with local sports partnerships in 2008, helping to introduce thousands of youngsters to golf.

Sarah Tennyson, Marketing Manager for the Golf Foundation, said: “We would like to thank the National Sports Foundation and Sport England for their support which enabled this event to take place. A key part of Golf Roots is to place golf in non-traditional venues in order to attract new players, and the Regent Street festival succeeded in this aim.”

Apart from the NSF, Golf Roots is supported by radio and TV presenter DJ Spoony, The European Tour, The R&A, the British Golf Industry Association’s Grow Golf Fund and the England Golf Partnership.