The plan offers primary aged children the first steps in learning the fundamentals of the game, while giving teachers the confidence to present a new sport which has valuable life skills benefits for youngsters of all abilities.

The new Primary School Golf Programme will link more schools and local PGA Professionals together, providing five coaching sessions in school which progress children through to a sixth session at a SafeGolf accredited local golf club.

Over the next five years, 1,000 primary schools will be encouraged to join the project with the Golf Foundation. In England, this programme will play a crucial part in a new junior golf strategy with the charity’s partners England Golf.

The move comes at a time when the charity the Youth Sport Trust warns of the effects Covid-19 has had on young people, with research showing children are less active than before the pandemic. In its ‘PE, Sport and Physical Activity Survey’ (September 2021), the Trust notes that 3.2 million children and young people do not meet the Chief Medical Officer guidelines of an average 60 active minutes a day; that children’s resilience has fallen dramatically during Covid restrictions; while children who are regularly active have higher levels of wellbeing than those who are not.

For the school programme, a new easy-to-play format for kids called Golfway, developed by Masters Golf, will be used by PGA coaches, teachers and school sport organisers. While offering easy access for all abilities, the games and drills within Golfway create similar putts, chips and full shots to ‘real’ golf – while teachers can learn quickly how to pass on fundamentals like grip, aim, stance and posture with confidence.

Through its wider work of teaching and measuring life skills, the Golf Foundation has included practical ways of helping pupils to learn valuable skills such as concentration and self-reflection that will benefit them away from the golf lesson.