The Hollinger Golf Club has exciting plans for the future.
Among those plans is First Tee, a program created with the goal of making golf accessible, affordable and inclusive. The program is funded by the RBC Community Junior Golf Program in partnership with Golf Canada.
First Tee has been offered at many golf clubs across Canada since 2021 but this year, the Hollinger Golf Club is one of the first in Northern Ontario to offer the program to the community.
“First Tee is about bringing people that might not have opportunities to get involved in the game a free experience,” says Owen Rigg, the director of the Northern Golf Association and the Northern Ontario Regional Manager for Golf Ontario. “It’s a great initiative for us to give back to the community and get people that wouldn’t play in it.”
So far, instructors from the Hollinger Golf Club have visited two schools in the community, W. Earle Miller and Pinecrest Public School, as part of First Tee. There is also an upcoming summer program at the club that will last six weeks. But there are high hopes that they will continue to grow, even during the off-season.
“We’re probably going to go from two to at least four or five or six schools, on top of that,” says Chris Gardner, head golf professional at the Hollinger Golf Club.
Gardner came to Timmins just last year, after helping to implement First Tee at Whitewater Golf Club in Thunder Bay.
“This month was more so just an introduction to get into just two schools to get our feet wet and go from there, basically,” he says.
Although they’re starting small, the experience so far has been nothing but positive for the kids, according to Gardner.
“It’s quite awesome going into the schools. A lot of high spirits and cheering. We’re introducing it to them at an indoor level and getting them geared up for the summer,” says Gardner.
The club’s involvement with Golf Ontario has given them opportunities to run new programming, like First Tee. It has also allowed them to raise money for those programs by hosting events, including the Golf Canada NextGen Championship in 2021. The club has also submitted bids to host OFSAA in 2024 and the World Junior Girls Championship in 2026, major events that would do a lot of good for the club and for the community.
“We have to keep building the game at a low level so that when you get to the high-performance stuff, there’s a place for the kids to go,” Rigg says.
Taylor Dupuis, the general manager of Golf Operations at the club, says they’ve seen a big increase in junior golfers over the past few years thanks in no small part to these initiatives.
“The golf in schools and the RBC program is another way for us to get more involved with the community and get the Hollinger name out there. But it’s also giving a lot of the kids within our community and schools a chance to either try the game or get introduced to the game,” says Dupuis.
“It’s something that we’ve really focused on and have taken pride in the last couple of years because the truth of the matter is, junior golfers are the future of your club. So, if we can get juniors introduced to the game and get an interest, it’ll just benefit the club long-term,” he says. “The programming, the camps, the RBC stuff, it’s something that we’re definitely proud of and things that we want to focus on because we know that’s the future of our club.”
The Hollinger Golf Club’s growth over the past few years has brought them a lot of attention: the good kind. Rigg says other courses in the region are looking up to the Hollinger as an example.
“We’re trying to find opportunities to extend the programming at large, so more First Tee locations. Because we had such a successful NextGen Championship here in town, there’s money in the system to start some of these programs elsewhere,” Rigg says.
“That’s something that obviously First Tee Ontario wants, Golf Canada wants, and what we want. Because the more people we touch with golf, the more successful the game is long-term.”
First Tee is not the only initiative at Hollinger Golf Club with the goal of bringing the sport to new players.
There are plans for ladies’ and seniors’ clinics, as well as a potential workshop targeting young professionals in the community. The club has also been reaching out to organizations like the Timmins Native Friendship Centre and the multicultural centre and has plans for a diversity and inclusion day in the future.
In short, the club is casting a wide net with the groups they hope to attract to the course.
“Here at Hollinger, we kind of do it all, and we’re happy to do so,” Gardner says.
One thing is for certain: the kids are the future, and they are the ones who stand to benefit the most from everything the Hollinger Golf Club is bringing to the game, and to the community.
“There’s just so much energy here and we have such a young group that really cares about the game. I think we’re going to see really positive things this year,” Rigg says.
