The U.S. Golf Association has officially launched the U.S. National Development Program, designed to create a unified pathway that nurtures top Americans through the junior and amateur ranks to the pinnacle of the sport.
While athletes from the rest of the world have benefited from such programs for decades, this will be a first for American golf.
“Golf is the only major sport in the U.S. without a national development program,” said USGA CEO Mike Whan. “Today, that ends.”
Beginning this year, the program will fund 50 juniors. That number will grow each year so that by 2027, the program will fund 1,000 juniors across the country and impact thousands more.
The Junior National Team will launch in 2024 with the Amateur National Team forming the following year and the Young Professional Team by 2026.
Golfweek recently caught up with Heather Daly-Donofrio, a former LPGA player and tour executive who leads the program as the USGA’s managing director of Player Relations and Development, to find out more about how it will all unfold:
How do you see the structure in terms of how many coaches you will hire and when you’ll start hiring?
So 2023 is a foundation-building year for us on many levels as it relates to the program. One of those areas is building a team. We currently have two open positions now. One is for a grant administrator to help us build out our grant program, which is really going to be a focal point of the program.
The other opening we currently have is the director of player development. I really see that person as the architect of the program as it relates to player development, resources, curriculum, philosophy, our culture as a national team. … How are we going to approach talent identification? How are we going to work with our grassroots programs and allied golf associations to identify particularly the kids with the talent, with the drive, with the grit and work ethic, who don’t have the resources to continue through that competitive pipeline.
We also will have an opening for a head national coach at some point this year. Our feeling right now is we want to get some of the specifics of the program built out first. But we do envision a national coach as well as a national boys junior and a girls junior coach. But if we fast forward 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 years out, we are certainly going to need more than three coaches to meet our goals as it relates to the number of athletes we want to impact both at the pre-national team level and the national team level.
When will you start naming kids to the program?
They will be named as part of the team this year. We do plan to take some juniors to some international competitions this year. We are working on developing the selection criteria for the teams and for those athletes that we will support at the national team level. We’re working through that and hope to have that finalized by the end of the year and published.
Our plan right now is to start with a junior national team of both the boys and girls next year in 2024. What those numbers look like as it relates to the number of athletes, not sure yet. I think we have it spec’d out at about half capacity. We’re looking at, over time, 30 boys and 30 girls.
How much do you think this will cost annually? What’s the budget?
We’re working through that. Again, we will grow as fast as we can from a resource perspective. We have a lot of interest from individual donors as well as corporate partners. Obviously, the USGA, we’re firmly behind this from a cost perspective as well. What it will cost, we have spec’d out what it might look like for the next four or five years.
I know Mike Whan has talked about a grant number of $30 million to $40 million. We’re committed to this, regardless of what that number is at the end of the day.
I’m curious what you’ve learned in this process, what’s been eye-opening for you in the junior ranks. You’ve been kind of removed from that for awhile.
I think what’s been eye-opening to me is the complexity of the junior golf landscape and how difficult it is for parents and kids to navigate it. When I grew up, there wasn’t a lot of junior golf programming, certainly not as much as there is today.
There are so many people doing so much great work in the junior golf space, but it’s very complicated. One of the recourses that we’re looking at developing in providing our juniors and their families is a platform to help them navigate the competitive landscape. …
If in 25 years from now, I’m going to look back and the goal would be that any boy or girl entering the game of golf would know what the U.S. National Development Program is and would understand what the steps are that if they so aspire to the highest levels of the game, that pathway is very clear to them.
The other thing that has been eye-opening to me is the number of events that our juniors are competing in. There’s a place for competition at a young age, but there’s also a place for training, a place for rest and a place for playing other sports and cross-training. So many of our juniors are competing to the extent where they’re not having time for the training, the rest or doing other things to be a kid.
On a personal level, when Mike Whan first talked to you about this position, was this something you were already really passionate or was there something he said that made you feel like this is something you had to do?
The U.S. not having a national program had been something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. Having been a player on the LPGA and starting when it was predominately American players, and watching that shift, which was wonderful, it’s such a diverse tour, but always wondered why that in golf, we were not providing the same level of support and resources to our American athletes that every other country does.
I don’t think I really understood that though until I took the job. To really kind of get in touch that we are pretty much the only major sport in the United States that does not have a national program, at least not a national team. We are virtually the only country that has top players in the rankings that does not have a national program.
We are doing a disservice to our American athletes. I think my eyes have really been opened to that in the last six to nine months, going through this process. That our American athletes deserve the same level of support and resources that other athletes are getting in other countries.
When Mike started talking to me about the role, I was like, wow, this is an amazing opportunity to shape the future of American golf.
What you would say to someone who looks at the size of the U.S. and the number of resources and programs that are already in place and says … why does the governing body need to get involved?
There’s more opportunity in the United States than arguably any other country in the game, but that’s also part of the challenge, part of the problem, that there’s so much. And it’s difficult to navigate. I will say that every player, every parent, every coach, every national team, virtually every person I have talked to in the game has identified this as a need.
I can’t think of somebody I’ve spoken to who is not excited about this, including other countries. We already have offers for inter-country matches, joint training sessions, to visit their facilities. To bring our kids overseas, to have their kids come here. I can make an argument that the rest of the global game is waiting for the United States to do this.
We go to the World Amateur Team Championship, we’re the only country without a coach. We don’t have three coaches, a doctor and a physio. … Everybody we’ve talked to, despite all of the opportunities we have here in the United States, players are yearning for that coordinated pathway and the same level of support. Particularly in the women’s game, you can look at the rankings and see the numbers. The rest of the world has caught up. It’s time for us to reestablish our foothold.
