Youth took over the greens last week at Toqua Golf Course to take part in Tellico Village’s annual junior golf camp.
The weeklong camp has been a staple in the Toqua community for more than 15 years.
“I’m not exactly sure how long it’s been going on and I’ve been here for a quite a while,” Adam Jacob, Toqua golf professional, said. “I’ve been here for over 15 years now and we’ve been doing it ever since I’ve been here during that time. It’s always been a successful event for us.”
Golf professionals from the three Village courses helped teach fundamentals and basics of the game throughout the week.
“We pretty much just go over the simple fundamentals because the majority of our kids are from 7 to 12 years old,” Jacob said. “With those ages, the attention spans are low and so you just have to keep those basic fundamentals and help them keep the ball up in the air, all while they’re having fun out there.”
While building skills is a big part of the camp, so is building an interest in the game.
“For us, it’s about being able to get these kids to fall in love with game of golf, while teaching them some life skills at the same time,” Casey Flenniken, Tanasi golf professional, said. “We were able to teach them things like grip, setup, alignment and that kind of stuff.”
Children were able to practice on every area of the course, including the driving and putting ranges.
“We worked on all aspects of the game,” Flenniken said. “We worked on driving, fairway woods, irons, wedges, putting, chipping, etiquette and the rules of golf.”
This year’s camp featured a mix of ages and experience. The professionals enjoyed helping returning campers, while also teaching new ones.
“We had a really good mixture this year,” Jacob said. “We had kids that had never golfed before and we had kids that have been coming the last five or six years and have been playing quite a bit back home. It’s fun both ways because you get some of the repeat kids and you get to see how much their game is growing. One girl in my session has probably grown a foot and a half since I last saw her and she can really smash the golf ball as a 12-year-old.
“With the beginners, they’re usually so shy or scared at first,” he added. “We just try to make it comfortable for them and we just try to keep it super simple and a lot of fun.”
In addition to learning the game, campers were able to enjoy other activities, including golf baseball and golf hockey. They also enjoyed the opportunity to soak the professionals in a dunking booth Thursday.
The week concluded Friday morning with a team round of golf, followed by an awards ceremony.
“The kids really loved the dunking booth and, of course, I was in it,” Flenniken said. “Thursday was our fun day and we played a lot of games, like golf baseball. We just wanted to switch things up and we wanted the kids to remember how fun this camp was. The kids really loved that and it was a great way for us to interact with them without holding a golf club.”
Both professionals have seen more juniors become interested in golf because of the camp.
“We’ve had a bunch of kids that have been in this camp for years and are now aging out,” Jacob said. “Now, we’ve got this new crop of young ones coming in and starting. It’s a lot of fun to see them enjoying it and golf is something they can do for the rest of their lives.”
Flenniken believes interest in golf among youth will continue to grow all over the country.
“Golf is starting to trend back up amongst the juniors,” he said. “I think that the PGA Junior League is helping a lot with that and golf professionals all over the country are doing things like we are. We pretty much had 70 kids all week and when it’s 95 degrees outside every day, that’s just a testament to their commitment to learning and getting better at golf.”
