How social media is seeding the next generation of Australian golfers

“It’s a really good sport to get into. Especially when you’re a teenage girl. You make so many friends, you get to play with so many different people and personalities. It’s just skills that you can have forever, and it’s a lot of fun.”

Newcombe said she spends “a few hours” a week playing the sport — though on closer inspection she undersells her commitment. The highschooler trains twice a week, and spends “most of the weekend” playing in tournaments or club golf at her local Camden Golf Course.

“I love how it is challenging in so many different ways. It challenges you physically, mentally, definitely emotionally too. Every single time you go out on the golf course it’s different. There’s so many different ways you can play each shot and think about each shot. It’s really cool.

“It can definitely get very frustrating out there, especially if you’re not having a good day, but it’s just about trying to keep calm, keep your emotions in check, and just move on.”

Another player from south-west Sydney, 14-year-old Braxton Andrews, who hopes to go professional, came to the sport aged 10 after attending a junior clinic at Camden Golf Club.

“It was really encouraging. There was a good environment there. I enjoyed that and learned the skills from there to go out and play on the course … the clinic was all younger kids around my age, the more I started playing the more I realised that [golf] is not an older people’s sport at all, it’s more younger people.”

Andrews said he watches “a lot” of golf content on YouTube and Instagram outside his training routine, which sees him practising for two to three hours a day and competing on the weekends.

“I just love playing. Once you hit that good shot you just want that feeling again. It’s just addictive.”

The demographics of youth golfing have begun to skew younger, said Hughes, with the average age of new players between nine and 15, prompting the JNJG Foundation to establish an under-12s tour.

“I set aside about 25 spots because I thought we might get about 25 or 30 kids playing in that very first tournament. We ended up with 75 kids, and 10 on the waitlist that we just couldn’t fit,” said Hughes.

“There’s not another sport in the world where a 10-year-old kid can go and spend five hours playing sport with a 20-year-old, a 40-year-old and an 80-year-old, and with the handicap system in place, be competitive against all those different age groups. Golf really is the game for life.”

In Melbourne, 15-year-old Hugo Wortley has been playing since he was two, and attends a local sports high school in Maribyrnong. He trains about five times a week in pursuit of his goal of playing professionally in the United States, and says his understanding of the game is all about psychology.

“It’s all between your ears really, how you can control it. It’s nearly 100 per cent mental, just controlling your emotions, your decisions, and calculating wind, and your actual shot itself,” said Wortley.

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“I love being out there in nature, there’s certain points in time when you are practising after school or practising on the weekend with the sun coming down. It’s just moments like that you capture and remember … it gives me something to chase, to chase perfection. The perfect swing, the perfect shot, the perfect round. I love navigating that and improving my game.”

Wortley said one of the big draws of the game was a sense of community that extended far beyond the stereotypical old male golfer.

“You’ll see people of different ages, different backgrounds, different ethnicities. The community of golf is such a great variation of people.”