Have you ever wanted to play golf in high school, but you didn’t have enough money to get clubs?
Well, this piece talks about what schools should do for all their students to feel like they are able to play a sport without the financial burden. This piece will talk about the benefits that schools can provide, which could help them be able to fund golf.
Golf is an expensive sport. This means that students who don’t come from high- or middle-class households have a hard time purchasing clubs, golf balls and tees.
Children 6-18 who come from low-income households quit sports six times as much as students who come from higher-income homes, according to Project Play.
The cost of golf clubs is expensive. The cost of the most basic clubs, which are for beginners, is about $200. The cost for high-quality is $600-$1,800, according to Price of Golf Clubs.
I played golf in high school, and my coach told me that if I wanted to be on the team, I would have to get my own set of golf clubs, because the school didn’t provide them. The only thing that the coach provided to us was wood tees that would break every time you used them.
At our first golf meeting, he told us that we would need to find our own rides to the golf course, and that the school doesn’t provide us with transportation, because they need the buses for the students going home. This resulted in asking parents or older teammates to bring us to the golf course.
Also, we had to find a ride home.
If we connect with organizations that help with getting golf clubs and supplies into the high school for students who don’t have enough money, this will help them be able to play. This makes sure that all students are able to play sports and get the same opportunities for scholarships.
Friends of Golf is an organization that helps give students resources to be successful in playing golf. They also help with scholarships.
This organization wants to make sure that students who don’t have enough money to continue playing golf in college have that opportunity.
Schools should provide clubs for their students, because they provide resources for other sports, but it seems like golf is something schools forget about. For other sports, the school gives them fields and the equipment that they need to be a functioning team.
Golf is a sport you can play for the rest of your life. With having the school board finding organizations or helping hands from the community to help with these resources, we need to bring golf into being a sport for anyone. The school board could allow more funding for all sports equipment and not just the popular sports.
The school board or the school’s sports administrator could reach out to community members, seeing if anyone has old clubs that they wouldn’t want and tell the community what they are doing. This would be a lending program that they could incorporate into the school.
Another thing that the school board would need to do is make partners with local golf courses to see if they can get a deal on golfing at that course for practice or even to see if they can golf on there for free. My high school partnered with the local golf course and got us a deal with golfing there when the season was going on, and when we would practice, it was free for us.
Something the school board could do is ask the school to do a lending process where the students have to check out what they borrow from the equipment, so that they can keep the equipment year after year.
Kailea Van Der Linden is an elementary and special education student at UW-Stevens Point. She is originally from Bonduel and is a former golfer for Bonduel High School.
