Chips Off a New Block

On a crisp October morning, 20 Grade 3 students at Wild Rose Elementary School in St. Albert, Alta., stood in a hushed hallway, gripping brightly hued plastic golf clubs in their tiny hands. One by one, the group sent colourful foam balls skidding across the linoleum floor.

As they putted their way around the school, they zipped past classrooms full of their schoolmates bent over math and French textbooks, and across an imagined green in front of the principal’s office. The students had to follow one rule, says phys-ed teacher Jennifer Messenger: Do not disturb the other students. However, the kids were enjoying the indoor game too much to risk spoiling the fun. “You could hear a pin drop,” she says.

That was two years ago, when Wild Rose Elementary was one of 13 schools to test a pilot version of the National Golf in Schools Program, which was officially launched in spring 2009 and is now running in more than 500 elementary schools across Canada. The program was developed by Physical and Health Education Canada (PHE Canada) in partnership with Golf Canada (the new name of the Royal Canadian Golf Association) and the Canadian Professional Golfers’ Association. “We really believe that it contributes to the development of physical literacy among children and is definitely a resource worth using,” says Sharon May, director of programs at PHE Canada. The innovative program offers kids the chance to improve their physical fitness and familiarize themselves with a game they might never otherwise play. If a child’s parents don’t golf, chances are they won’t, either.

“Unless you introduce them to golf, they won’t take up the sport. So the best place to start is schools,” says Scott Simmons, executive director and CEO of Golf Canada. “It’s just a no-brainer that if you’re trying to promote grassroots participation and create awareness and passion for the game, you would start at that level.”

Schools that participate in the program pay $175 for a package that includes lesson plans, training games and child-friendly golf equipment: plastic clubs, foam golf balls and flags to mark the course. The total cost of the program is $475 per school, but Golf Canada subsidizes the balance as part of its plan to quadruple the number of participating schools by 2012. In a perfect world, Simmons says, the program would make its way into all of Canada’s 10,000 or more elementary schools, which is Golf Canada’s ultimate goal.

If golf wasn’t offered at Wild Rose, Messenger believes many of her students would never swing a club. With a variety of income levels, there are some kids who could not afford to step foot on the links. “It’s so nice to have a program where they are all on equal par,” she says.

The 28-year-old teacher sees golf as a perfect fit with the province’s phys-ed curriculum goal—to help children stay active not only in school but throughout their lives. “Golf is a sport you can play well into your 80s,” Messenger says.