Actively working to grow the game and engage more juniors to pick up the sport, SGA’s pioneer team of Junior Squad members were announced during the press conference held at Sentosa Golf Club yesterday.
Formed just last month, a Junior Camp was organized, where the selection for the Squad took place. A total of 11 girls and 13 boys were induced into the first Junior Squad, ages ranging from 9 to 14. Similar to the Development and National Squad players, SGA hopes this platform will enable them to recognize talent at a younger age as well as provide them with more competitive opportunities.
A healthy lineup of local junior tournaments, 9-Hole Challenges, weekly trainings, strength and conditioning programmes as well as team building activities were created to better facilitate their development in the game.
SGA will be working hard at preparing the juniors for the three major local tournaments towards the end of the year – with weekly 9-hole trainings along with gym work to ensure a steady progress in their golfing journey. Their training will encompass structured individual or team match-play formats with on-course mentoring from our local Professional’s and elite golfers such as Asian Tour Professional, Koh Dengshan. Clinics will also be conducted with their respective mentors over the course of their mentorship.
“Our development plan serves as an additional arm to provide the juniors a more competitive platform and more chances to represent Singapore in selected events.” commented High Performance Manager, Mr Jerome Ng.
The Junior Development Squad is also looking to send our juniors to major overseas tournaments such as the APGC Junior Championship in August, Victorian Boys & Girls Championship in September as well as The Junior Open 2018 held in Scotland.
“We have a good team here in SGA, (and) we are lucky to have parents coming forward to support the junior development. This is a start – if we keep creating opportunities for juniors to show themselves, bring them out for competitions, one day we will have a world champion.” said President of SGA, Mr Ross Tan with regards to the junior development growth.
The juniors were also presented with their team golf bags, partially sponsored by Callaway.
Moving forward, SGA has plans to reach out to more families and children with a free-for-all trial at public driving ranges to encourage more to engage in golf and to scout for new talents. – Amelia Yong, SGA Marketing & PR Executive