On August 22, Southfield School in Woods Avenue welcomed Roger Chapman, two-time senior major winner and 44-year veteran of the European Tour and Legends Tour, to open the new course.
The course was built as part of Brocket Hall golf club’s “The Game Of Life For All” (GOLFA) initiative.
Southfield School in Hatfield is the first primary school in the UK to open an adventure golf course. (Image: Google Maps/Street View) The initiative aims to introduce golf to individuals who typically would not have access to the sport, in particular children and those with special educational needs (SEN).
According to Lee Williams, general manager at Brocket Hall, the GOLFA initiative began by inviting children to Brocket Hall to use its facilities.
He said: “Brockett Hall is a very premium facility, and up until when I joined as general manager, you typically couldn’t access the estate without being a member, which is very expensive.
“We wanted to come up with a scheme that allowed children access to Brocket Hall, initially through using golf as a mechanism to encourage that.”
But due to certain additional needs and disabilities, some children were unable to leave the school to visit Brocket Hall.
Brocket Hall is home to an internationally renowned golf course. (Image: Google Maps/Street View) This led Lee, along with Brocket Hall communities officer Stu Williams, to the idea of building golf facilities in the schools themselves.
Lee continued: “That’s the biggest challenge in golf. When you go to a primary school or secondary school, you’ll have a football pitch, you’ll have a tennis court, you might have netball courts and you have a sports hall, but no primary school in the country has anything related to golf.
“So what we wanted to do to encourage more children to take up golf was to build the adventure golf course, which is what we’ve done in Southfield, and it’s the first adventure golf course ever to be built in a UK primary school.”
According to Lee Williams, golf is the one sport that every person can play, regardless of their physical or mental disability.
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Additionally, participation in golf helps people develop their social skills.
And it is not just golf that Lee and the team at Brocket Hall are trying to bring to more children.
The team has also been inviting children to Brocket Hall to make themselves a free healthy meal, and there are ongoing apprenticeship initiatives to give young people a pathway into a career in golf.
Annie Brewster, GOLFA chair and last year’s High Sheriff for East England, said she is delighted by the progress the initiative has made already.
She said: “My High Sheriff theme last year was ‘Sport for Good’ so imagine my delight discovering the ambition of one of the country’s top golf courses is to attract thousands of children of all abilities to share what has, historically, been a hard-to-enter elite sport.
The GOLFA initiative aims to address the issue of golf being a hard-to-enter elite sport. (Image: Google Maps/Street View)
“I am very proud to now chair Brocket Hall’s GOLFA. initiative to introduce children to golf both at this fabulous club and/or in their own environments, irrespective of ability.”
She continued: “This adventure golf course in their own [Southfield’s] school grounds is an amazing initiative.
“This is only the start of the club’s ambitious plans from which our local community will benefit greatly.”