The Kids Golf Bank – an organization designed to help grow the game of golf – announced the launch of the Kid Friendly Golf Association™ providing a platform where golf courses, retailers, manufacturers and youth golf associations can learn, collaborate and more effectively embrace kids.

“One of the best ways to continue the tradition and success of golf is to create more golfers,” said Dr. Mick Carroll, co-founder of the Kids Golf Bank. During the process of rolling out the Kids Golf Bank earlier this year, Dr. Carroll said he began to realize that all golf courses want to be considered “kid friendly” but the majority were not sure exactly how to go about effectively embracing kids. This lead to a dialogue with golf industry experts, regarding the need to create a kid friendly trade association.

Carroll said that he and is partner Lorne Ray went to work creating a platform and content for the Kid Friendly Golf Association program. Carroll, who has been dean of two business schools and a university president, was able to draw on his vast educational background to design the Kid Friendly Golf Association platform.

The first step they took was to assemble a group of advisors made up of top people from the golf world, child and social psychologists and seasoned business professionals.  According to Carroll every person we approached agreed to join.

The board of directors of the Kid Friendly Golf Association include: Gayle Champagne: Immediate past president and 21 year board member of the American Junior Golf Association • Rafael Barajas: Golf Course Superintendents Association of America national board member and President Elect (2018) and former president of the California Golf Superintendents Association • Don Rea: the owner operator of Augusta Ranch Golf Club and National Golf Course Owners Association – Arizona Executive Committee Chair • Hugh Smith: former Executive Director of The First Tee of Phoenix and currently Western States Regional Manager for the First Tee National • Dr. Andrew Manion PhD, Executive Vice President of Aurora University, Chicago, IL • Dr. Victoria Flemming PhD, Private Practice Chicago, IL.

The program works as follows: golf courses, golf manufactures, retailers and youth golf organizations are invited to visit www.kidfriendlygolf.com where they can learn about the benefits and features of the association. Members receive backend and private portal access to the site where they can read the advanced content, interact peer to peer with other members and share their ideas and opinions on blogs and forums. In addition to their online membership privileges, members receive a welcome packet with their Kid Friendly Golf Association member signage for their front door, a member certificate and a button for their own website designating them as an active member of the Kid Friendly Golf Association. A valuable component of the program is a Kid Friendly Golf Assessment, which Dr. Carroll and his fellow PhD colleagues designed so golf courses can get a measurement of where they rank compared to other courses around the country. “It’s a really good idea to know where you are so you can see where you are going when it comes to dealing with kids,” said Dr. Carroll.

“When I first heard of the Kid Friendly Golf Association, I immediately threw my hat in the ring”’ said Augusta Ranch Golf Club owner and former PGA Southwest Section president Don Rea. “This is something that all golf courses can benefit from. It might just be the best $199 my course will ever spend”, said Rea!

The Kid Friendly Golf Association is a trade association based out of Mesa, Arizona. KFGA is an online community where the entire golf industry can learn, share and work together to grow the game of golf by becoming more effective at getting kid’s attention and keeping it relative to the game of golf. Membership recognition demonstrates to kids and parents that these businesses truly are dedicated to an increased awareness when it comes to kids. To learn more about the KFGA, visit www.kidfriendlygolf.com.