PINEHURST, NORTH CAROLINA | While almost everyone is familiar with golf’s adopted “grow the game” credo, U.S. Kids Golf has put its own spin on the idea.
It is growing golfers.
Since Dan Van Horn decided in 1996 there must be a better way to introduce and teach young golfers – and provide them with proper equipment – U.S. Kids has grown into one of the game’s most impactful organizations, both as a hands-on competition and coaching organization and as a creator of youth-oriented golf equipment.
Recently, nearly 2,100 young golfers and members of their families from 48 states and 58 countries gathered in the Pinehurst area for U.S. Kids’ biggest tournaments, culminating with the world championship for youngsters aged 5 to 12.
It has become an annual event at Pinehurst, drawing approximately 7,000 visitors to the area with an estimated annual economic impact of $15 million.
The parade of nations with the hundreds of golfers and their families carrying flags and walking through the village of Pinehurst has become a local tradition and it was featured in the Netflix hit documentary “The Short Game,” which debuted in 2013 and has remained popular on the streaming service, offering a glimpse into U.S. Kids and the youngsters it serves (more than 1 million have participated in the program).
Jackson Koivun played U.S. Kids events. So did Justin Thomas, Cameron Young, Aaron Rai and Alexa Pano, among other now-familiar golf names.
It all stemmed from Van Horn, who wanted a golf club for one of his young sons more than 30 years ago.
“I started with the idea of fixing the equipment, which was primarily cut-down adult clubs,” said Van Horn, the president and founder of U.S. Kids Golf.
“I was really astounded. I tried to get my own kid in the game, and I went in, got a pro and he gave me a cut down 8-iron. He called it a ladies’ club but it was adult weight and stiff.
“I was really influenced by Little League baseball and the lighter-weight bats that were coming into Little League. I saw the kids could swing them faster. Then I started looking at the lengths (of clubs) that the industry was recommending for kids based on their height or what they would do based on their age, and just everything was wrong from my view.”
The right way, Van Horn believed, was to fit clubs for youngsters based on their size and skill level, not their age. Not every 9-year-old is created equal.
So Van Horn began making clubs, creating a for-profit business that now sells more than one million clubs annually (including some women’s clubs). That doesn’t include the number of U.S. Kids clubs passed down from one sibling to the next.
“If you look at our three pillars, the tournaments and the coach development are on the nonprofit side, and the products are all on the for-profit side, and they’re about 50-50.” – Dan Van Horn
Having begun addressing the equipment part of the equation, Van Horn then turned his attention to teaching youngsters how to play the game. While many have learned from following their fathers and mothers to the course, Van Horn sensed a hit-and-miss quality to how and what youngsters were being taught.
That led him to expand his organizational model.
“If you look at our three pillars, the tournaments and the coach development are on the nonprofit side, and the products are all on the for-profit side, and they’re about 50-50,” Van Horn said.
“The equipment business is a little bit bigger than the tournament business is. Everything is related to entry fee. We do have people that give us donations who like the work we’re doing, but the coach development part was really important. We didn’t really understand why the programming is not better.”
In many instances, Van Horn saw that junior programs were usually handed to young assistant pros at golf clubs, many of whom didn’t have children and also generally lacked a specific teaching model. They became, in many cases, glorified babysitters, working off sign-up sheets and emails, promising the kids ice cream at the end of the day.
U.S. Kids Golf created a player pathway program, a 10-level system for teaching young golfers from the beginner level to competitive players capable of shooting par or better. The organization was endorsed by the PGA of America and Van Horn said more than 8,000 teachers have been certified through the U.S. Kids Golf program.
“They become certified U.S. Kids [instructors] and it really works through the whole ecosystem of giving them the great coaching and development, and getting the [youngsters] in an environment where they can play and can compete, but obviously having the right clubs in their hands,” Van Horn said.
“We’re a little bit like Montessori school in that you learn by doing. So what we decided to do was for young kids not to be technical, but to really become games- and fun-oriented.”
Appreciating the need for the family to buy into a child’s golf interest, U.S. Kids centered its focus around making it a family affair. There are seven parent-child camps, and families from around the country come to Pinehurst, where the U.S. Kids Golf Academy is based at Longleaf Golf & Family Club, which the organization purchased in 2011.
“[The parents] are going through class with their child. We’re giving them instruction on how to interact with each other, teaching the parent how to help coach the kid, and that’s been really interesting,” said Chris Vonderkall, senior vice president of the U.S. Kids Golf Foundation.
“They might play from 3,400 yards but they started having par putts and burning [edges] and reaching the green in two, and being able to develop a handicap from those distances. All of a sudden, you see another wave of people.” – Dick Van Horn
Purchasing Longleaf, which has approximately 400 homes within its neighborhood, anchored the organization and allowed it to create a fuller vision of itself. Van Horn developed a tee system based on how far young players can hit the ball.
The same system has been implemented by senior residents in the Longleaf community, some of whom had drifted away from the game because they no longer hit the ball far enough to play from the tees provided. The Longleaf tee system changed that.
“They might play from 3,400 yards but they started having par putts and burning [edges] and reaching the green in two, and being able to develop a handicap from those distances. All of a sudden, you see another wave of people,” Van Horn said.
“I always just kind of say it’s the bell curve – you started out at these short distances and then as you get into your 30s or 40s, whatever, you’re playing as far as you’re going to play. But then as you get older, you can still enjoy the game with the Longleaf tee system. It seems like there’s been more of a barrier being broken down.”
It’s U.S. Kids Golf’s version of the circle of life.