“The off course stuff has got so good it’s kind of, it’s like an alternate sport,” said Your Golf by NCG podcast host Tom Irwin.
Golf has long been challenged with getting more young people into the game, and retaining their interest. That challenge may now be easing and much of the progress is happening away from the fairways.
Across the UK, many golf clubs have modernised their driving ranges to feature Toptracer or TrackMan technology.
Many people believe this simulator technology is becoming a crucial component of getting more juniors into the sport, offering them an alternate experience and one that is potentially more engaging.
Speaking on the Your Golf by NCG podcast, both Irwin and Jack Backhouse believe that technology-driven practice areas are reshaping how young people view the game.
“It’s definitely getting better,” said Backhouse. “The ability to go and learn on a range with technology and there will be some sort of fun game on the Toptracer or the TrackMan that is engaging for kids.
“I used to play four holes (when first starting out as a junior) and walk off thinking it was crap. I’d walk back to the driving range and hit more balls thinking that this wasn’t fun.”
“It’s also really far (the length of the golf course),” Irwin noted. “If you think about how hard it is to get a kid to go on a walk and all of a sudden you want them to walk seven or eight kilometres on a golf course.
“If you go to driving ranges now, they’re full of kids. There are so many children playing. I think it is becoming more appealing.
“There’s tons of golf on social media now. Influencers have played a massive part in selling the game to younger people.
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“The driving range experience is night and day. So, TopTracer and TrackMan ranges have got these kinds of ‘Go Fish Games’ or whatever else, it makes a massive difference. Like the gamification of the experience for children is huge.
“The off course stuff has got so good it’s kind of, it’s like an alternate sport.”
There is also an acknowledgement that the rise in the popularity of off-course golf presents its own challenges, particularly in converting those junior golfers into golf club members.
“It does cause a problem that, though, I think later down the line from what I’ve experienced, is kids get stuck on the range,” Backhouse argued.
“It was very difficult to get kids from the range to then become members, because the range is so easy, it’s very much an immediate, gratification sort of thing. You don’t have to walk anywhere. If you had a bad one, you just take another one in and hit try again.
“People who’ve experienced this nice, fun experience on the range, that’s what golf is to them. And then you say, ‘oh, let’s go on the grass’. They go, ‘no, I don’t want to do that’.
“I’m not convinced there’s more juniors members of golf clubs, but I do think there’s a lot more juniors involved in the sport, in the off course sort of fashion.”
Listen to the Your Golf Podcast by NCG
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NOW HAVE YOUR SAY
Are you a fan of the Toptracer or TrackMan driving ranges? Have you seen an upturn in junior golfers playing the game since its introduction? Have you used these types of practice facilities to get your kids into golf? Let us now by leaving a comment or a post on X!
