Golf clubs in Scotland are being asked to make a "cultural shift" to bring the sport to the next generation.
An estimated 32,000 school children are scheduled to be introduced to the Scottish Executive-backed clubgolf programme this year and, of that number, around 5000 are expected to progress to golf clubs for further coaching.
In readiness for this influx - and this is in addition to 9000 already being coached within club structures - more than a thousand amateurs have undergone PGA training to welcome them to the game.
"The very fact that we are looking at amateurs coaching youngsters and bringing forward our next generation of golfers means that we are asking clubs to make a cultural shift here," said Torquil McInroy, the project manager.
"This is something that happens in other sports, but golf clubs naturally present barriers to those who don't have a way to get in. Most children are introduced by parents or grandparents who are already in the system, and one of the objects of clubgolf is to create opportunities for all to gain access, particularly those from non-traditional backgrounds.
"One of the things breaking down these barriers is that the first point of contact of a child at a club is one of the members."
McInroy was expecting the 200th Scottish club to come on board this year. "Clubs have been responsive," he assured, "but some are taking a little while. It may come down to one person, perhaps a secretary or junior convener, and whether that person has enough time to recruit coaches. They will come on board at their own pace.
"Six seems to be a good number of coaches to have at an average-size club, but there is a need for long-term planning. Coaches will last perhaps three years and I would love to see clubs working out how many they need to sustain a coaching programme over a number of years."
Clubgolf is an amalgam of the Scottish Golf Union, Scottish Ladies Golfing Association, PGA, Golf Foundation and sportscotland, and was created as part of Scotland's successful bid to stage the Ryder Cup in 2014.
The role of amateurs is to prepare juniors to the point where they have an official handicap - maximum 28 for boys and 36 for girls - after which coaching will be taken over by professionals.
One of the initial clubgolf objectives was to introduce every nine-year-old in Scotland to golf by 2009, a target that McInroy believes is still achievable even if the full programme is not fully rolled out. "The important thing is to have enough clubs to build a pathway from the schools," he said.
A special effort is being made to encourage girls to take up golf following a successful pilot project in Aberdeenshire, and Catriona Matthew, the leading Scottish tournament professional, has promised to help out this year.
McInroy, 43, a former IT project manager, is a former captain and current club champion at North Berwick, where Matthew learned her golf. "She is keen to do something to support the initiative," he said.
Currently there are around 27,000 junior boys within the club system, but fewer than 3000 girls, and it is largely because of this paltry number that they are not being retained.
At a time when the average age of golf club members is a crumbly 50, and older for women, it is recognised that girls will not want to remain at clubs if there are not people of their own age to play with.
In Aberdeenshire, the combined girls' membership of three clubs taking part was 10 in 2005. Now each club has between 25 and 35, and because of that success, girls-only coaching is to be introduced this year at identified clubs in each of the eight clubgolf regions where part of the package will be a free year's membership.
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