HSBC Golf Roots Plus

HSBC Golf Roots Plus is a new grant-aid scheme that will provide funding for projects where the development of life skills is the primary purpose using golf as the catalyst. The scheme provides up to £2,500 of project funding to local delivery partners such as a youth services, local authorities, police services or partnership of schools.

The local delivery partner should be the applicant and projects seeking support must be able to demonstrate how golf will be used as an inspirational activity to enhance the lives of children and young people, or will provide an alternative and positive activity as a diversion away from antisocial behaviour. The application form can be downloaded from the link on the right.

The operational requirements will be kept to a minimum in HSBC Golf Roots Plus projects in order that the local delivery partner can have more flexibility in deciding how the grant and support from the Golf Foundation will be used.

Applicants should discuss their project ideas with their Regional Development Officer before applying. Click here to find your contact.

Ponteland Youth Centre

‘HSBC Golf Roots Plus’ funding is available for organisations that feel young people in their care would benefit from developing life skills through sport.

HSBC Golf Roots is the Golf Foundation’s nationally supported strategy that is reaching hundreds of thousands of youngsters in schools, communities and golf clubs. This strategy involves everything from Tri-Golf activity in schools through to use of the new officially recognised Junior Golf Passport at club level. HSBC Golf Roots provides early technical skills for golf but also offers youngsters valuable ‘Skills for Life’, attributes like concentration, co-operation, perseverance and honesty.

The ‘Plus’ addition to HSBC Golf Roots supports delivery partners such as youth services, local authorities, police services, apprenticeship bodies or school partnerships. The Foundation helps them to offer young people fresh learning experiences through golf, providing grants of up to £2,500.

More than 20 unique regional HSBC Golf Roots Plus projects are now under way in England and Wales, reaching a diverse cross-section of youngsters, from those coming from challenging family backgrounds or deprived communities, to young offenders, and including young people with Special Educational Needs (SEN) and disabilities.

According to Golf Foundation National Development Manager Brendon Pyle: “Funding we have received from HSBC has enabled us to put a scheme in place that highlights how golf can be used to teach youngsters important life skills. We have deliberately planned the scheme so that we can help a wide range of youngsters. Each project in each area may have very different needs. Children and young people can face great pressures and playing a sport can help them find enjoyment, friendships and also new skills to help them to develop.”

In separate projects, the Police in both the West Midlands and South Yorkshire have been working with young people to break down social barriers and improve community relations.

In Croydon, the Surrey County Golf Partnership has worked with Croydon Council’s youth offending team to create a regular Golf Group that is encouraging young people to enjoy and create imaginative golf games in their urban setting. Similarly, an organisation in Lincolnshire called ‘Off The Bench’ is showing youngsters that there is an exciting sporting alternative in the evenings; a project that changes the atmosphere in an urban area and offers a fun, competitive and creative focus for young people.

In Dewsbury West in North Kirklees in West Yorkshire the evening is the time when young people identified as “at risk of offending” need their added focus. Here, a clever HSBC Golf Roots Plus project provides ‘midnight golf’ to dovetail with an existing midnight soccer project.

In the Shrewsbury area a respected fostering organisation worked with the Golf Foundation to create a confidence-boosting outdoor sports weekend for foster children. Youngsters, some shy and withdrawn, found real inspiration and a voice through team golf activity.

Bournemouth is where classes of children from an area of the town suffering deprivation are using ‘Skills for Life’ learning to enjoy their new sport of golf, while being encouraged to engage their creative side to design golf holes and new game formats. Golf has even been a basis for Maths study in the classroom.

Just along to the Devon Riviera and in Torbay there is a ‘Kick n Swing’ programme for Special Schools that allows able-bodied and disabled youngsters to enjoy golf and football coaching in the same sessions (football and golf will also partner in a unique up-and-coming project involving Bolton Wanderers FC). Back up in the Midlands and Shirley Golf Club in Solihull has an excellent programme for disabled youngsters, recognised with an HSBC Golf Roots Plus grant to help maintain the momentum created by its organisers.

Many of the young people reached in the programmes share the fact that they live in communities that are financially deprived. An innovative scheme in Walsall, Sandwell, Coventry and Stoke looks to reach 250 disadvantaged young people through golf. An ambitious target of training 50 volunteer coaches in Street Golf is part of the plan.

Not far away in Aston, Birmingham, HSBC Golf Roots Plus has helped to pay for the services of a specialist golf coach, youth worker and mentor, and also to encourage young leaders to broaden their sporting horizons.

The list of schemes involved in HSBC Golf Roots Plus is growing steadily.

Brendon Pyle said: “We want to help as many young people as possible through these projects and it is great that golf’s Skills for Life benefits can be a catalyst to help these boys and girls. We want each organiser to create a project of great quality to help young people with specific needs. This exciting scheme is just part of a much wider HSBC Golf Roots programme which is proving very successful in schools, communities and golf clubs.”

HSBC Golf Roots is reaching hundreds of thousands of boys and girls a year through golf. To achieve its objectives of supporting the national golfing bodies of England, Scotland and Wales, the charity has a fundraising target of £3 million per year. HSBC Golf Roots is already supported by The R&A, The European Tour, the Professional Golfers’ Association, the Ryder Cup Committee and Trust, the British Golf Industry Association’s ‘Grow Golf’ Fund, Sport England and headline sponsor HSBC, who collectively contribute just under £2 million.