USGA's National Development Program takes first steps in International Junior Golf

The United States Golf Association (USGA) launched its National Development Program last February. The goal was to identify and support young junior talents who were unable to develop adequately in the sport. Six months later, the first results are already visible.

The USGA entered three players from the National Development Program in the World Junior Girls Championship to be held in October in Ontario, Canada. It will be the first major commitment for the new system.

The players named are Molly Brown Davidson, 17, of Springville, Alabama, Mia Hammond, 15, of New Albany, Ohio, and Chloe Kovelesky, 16, of Boca Raton, Florida. All three are being assisted in their development by the USGA, having been identified as great talents in their category.

Heather Daly-Donofrio, USGA Managing Director, Player Relations and Development, told Golf Digest that the new talent identification system has been a success so far. Daly-Donofrio said:

"It's been wonderful because we've had a lot of coaches and parents get their kids in front of us and that's been really helpful, because we can look at rankings to get an idea, but we're not using that as the only factor. A lot of parents and juniors have asked, how can we get on your radar? And one way is just sending us an email through the [organization's web] site."

The World Junior Girls Championship is an event held annually since 2014 (except in 2020 and 2021, due to the Covid-19 pandemic). The United States has not won the tournament since the inaugural edition, when the team of Mika Liu and now LPGA Tour stars Angel Yin and Meghan Khan won the gold medal. Liu also won the singles.

A few details about the USGA National Development Program

The USGA observed that many talents were being lost at junior level because they could not develop properly due to a lack of adequate opportunities and identified this as a weakness for the sport at the national level. Financial difficulties and (albeit to a lesser extent) lack of mentoring were the key factors for this.

So the idea was born to support all these talents by first identifying them and providing them with training, participation in events, university scholarships and other forms of sports development programs to which they would not have access without this help. That idea became the National Development Program.

As Daly-Donofrio explained to Golf Digest, the first 30 junior players are already being worked with, although the program is still under construction.

The USGA Managing Director, Player Relations and Development, stated that the ultimate goal is to reach about 1,000 juniors assisted by the program, as well as to create three national teams (junior, amateur and young professionals). In this way, they hope to democratize the sport by giving access to it to children and young people who do not have the necessary means to develop their talent.

The initial budget for the National Development Program was $3,000,000. According to Daly-Donofrio, it has not yet been spent, but they hope that as the initiative progresses, donors and sponsors will emerge to support it.