Health & Wellness
Photos: Anna Sutterer.
The Next Generation of Golfers Today’s youth are changing the face of golf, and challenging industry leaders to rid golf of its exclusivity.
Junior at Lakewood High School and member of the Gen Z Council Kayla Wong places her ball for a putt at the Applewood Golf Course in Golden.
By Anna Sutterer
L
ining up, swinging, and problem solving through the course is what makes golf so enticing and relatable to Chloe Avant, a junior at North High School in Denver, and Kayla Wong, a junior at Lakewood High School. But there are a few hurdles to jump before stepping onto the green for these young women, and other players like them. Wong stopped taking lessons just before her freshman year. “Part of it was not really feeling part of the community,” she says. “Our home golf course is [West Woods Golf Club], and every time I went there were only older, white men, which frustrated me.” The Colorado Golf Association’s (CGA) membership, which accounts for approximately one-quarter of Colorado golfers, says Erin Gangloff, managing director of programs and membership, is seven percent youth (under 18). Sixty percent live in households with an income of
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Colorado Parent | May 2021
more than $100,000; 26 percent are women, and an estimated 10 percent are people of color. Wong and Avant’s journeys into golf included programs that create space for novices; Avant started with the First Tee program in Kindergarten, Wong joined Girl Power Golf with her sister at age eight. Now, the girls participate in the Gen Z Council on Diversity, Inclusion and Equity, a group of young golfers across the country gathered to discuss what could be done to make golf more inclusive. During a recent virtual meeting, students talked about their experiences and proposed solutions including diversity, equity, and inclusion training throughout the industry, and golf club recycling programs to offer free or discounted equipment for new golfers. THE CHANGING FACE OF GOLF Ashleigh McLaughlin, a Black woman executive in the golf industry and Youth on Course vice
president of marketing and communications, sees the sport evolving. “It’s been incredible to hear from kids and families how much deeper their appreciation for golf is right now,” says McLaughlin. She got her start in the sport through the Orlando Minority Youth Golf Association in Florida. “Being introduced to golf within a grassroots, community-based organization focused on bringing more minority youth helped me in my journey because it gave me a core group of kids who were like-minded, were my peers, who looked like me, who I could relate to on things I couldn’t necessarily relate to other kids on.” The National Golf Federation’s assessment of 2019 play found that 34 percent of today’s junior golfers are girls compared to 15 percent in 2000. More than one-quarter of juniors were persons of color compared to six percent in 2000. Organizations like Youth on Course, which has