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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Inland Empire golf league draws kids

Knowing I’m rarely on Facebook, my wife was kind enough to post pictures of my golf ball collection a few weeks ago in advance of a garage sale.

Four large buckets of Titleists, TaylorMades, Callaways, Bridgestones, Srixons and Nikes. A few bright pink, some yellow and green, most a tad off-white. There had to be more than a thousand.

They went to a good home. Some neighborhood kids arrived on bicycles and I immediately buckled on the price. They made two trips, stuffed their backpacks and biked away. My hope was they would be out practicing that afternoon. My fear was they would become young entrepreneurs and turn a profit by reselling those “gently used” balls.

Drawing kids to golf can be a tough sell these days, but a local program is enjoying great success in its first season.

The Inland Empire Junior Golf League, part of the PGA’s 4-year-old national program, is for boys and girls 13 and under. Eight courses – Qualchan, Manito, Esmeralda, Indian Canyon, Spokane Country Club, The Fairways, Avondale and Coeur d’Alene Public – offer teams that play a league schedule.

Area pros serve as team “captains.”

“It’s been an absolute blast,” said Michelle Grafos, an instructor at Indian Canyon. “It’s absolutely wonderful for the kids, it gives them another forum to play and it promotes teamwork.”

There are four matches, each a two-person scramble broken into three three-hole segments worth one point or one flag, as it’s known to the competitors.

The league championship was held Thursday at Manito, followed by food, awards and a slide show. An all-star team was selected and it will compete against a team from Western Montana with an opportunity to continue on if it keeps winning.

“The captains do their thing and the kids start helping each other,” said Qualchan assistant pro Derek Siesser, who noted the course has seen a substantial increase in junior rounds. “It’s great in that way that they start building each other up.”

The great game of golf could use more golfers. Participation is down, equipment sales are down and the number of new courses annually lags behind the number of existing courses shuttering their fairways.

For kids and adults, golf is time-consuming and expensive. Youngsters need a ride to the course from a parent or relative or a friend’s parent. It’s not the type of sport you pick up after spending an hour on the range. It doesn’t offer the immediate gratification of a video game.

Several programs are trying to reverse those downward trends, including the Inland Empire junior league, the First Tee and Washington’s and Idaho’s junior golf associations. In addition, virtually every area course offers its own junior program.

The Fairways’ junior program has 50 members, “so we had a pool to draw from,” general manager Kris Kallem said. “We ended up with 11 or 12 kids, and between vacations and Hoopfest we usually averaged eight or nine for a match. I’d characterize most of them as novice to intermediate players, most have had some experience.”

The Inland Empire league seems to be a nice bridge between the First Tee and WJGA and IGA tournaments.

“Before, all they had was First Tee and WJGA and there really wasn’t much in between,” Siesser said. “This gives them access to a little competition but not where they’re so stressed out.”

Indian Canyon’s team includes a 5-year-old boy “who is a good little player,” Grafos said. The Fairways’ team has roughly equal numbers of boys and girls. Kallem hasn’t pushed his two sons toward golf but his 12-year-old is in the program. “He’s a competitive kid,” Kallem said. “Now, it’s ‘Dad, I want to get better, I’ve seen kids that hit it better.’ ”

Siesser has noticed some of the youngsters’ parents are taking an interest in golf and accompanying their kid to the range.

“That younger age group picks it up so quickly,” Grafos said. “The last practice we did targeted chipping drills and we couldn’t have done that at the start.”

Kallem anticipates the program will expand quickly, with some courses perhaps fielding two or three teams next summer. That bodes well for a sport with “growing the game” as one of its catch phrases.

“It doesn’t matter if they’re 7 or 70 years old,” Siesser said. “If I as a pro can establish a relationship and they feel comfortable they’re going to want to come to the course more.

“It’s been great with these kids, not only to teach them the game but to build relationships.”