Those nasty New Guinean headhunters used to eat the brains of their dead enemies because they thought it would make them a whole lot smarter.

The Canadian golf business applied the same logic this past year.

The former Royal Canadian Golf Association cannibalized Hockey Canada’s governance model, and emerged as Golf Canada.

The change was overdue.

Perhaps it began when Bob Nicholson, the czar of Hockey Canada, made a presentation to the RCGA’s annual general meeting a short time ago.

Wave the flag, said Nicholson.

Get Canadians to understand your brand.

What the hell did the RCGA do or stand for?

Your board of governors’ model is top-heavy.

Nicholson spoke about Hockey Canada’s successes. How the World Junior Hockey Championships was a certified moneymaker.

The cash-strapped RCGA began to salivate about the prospects of revolutionary change.

Its board soon gave the go-ahead to a new governance model, and a new brand. It even trimmed its own board numbers from 39 to less than 20.

But Golf Canada hasn’t gone far enough.

If you’re going to pig out on the Hockey Canada model, don’t forget the dessert.

Henry Brunton, coach of our national men’s amateur team, and perhaps our country’s most honoured name in player development, agrees wholeheartedly.

I caught up to Brunton before he was heading off to Argentina for the World Amateur Championships, October 28-31 at Olivos Golf Club and Buenos Aires Golf Club.

He believes the best model for junior golf development is already in place – at hockey’s minor league level.

It’s called the house league and rep system.

Almost every community in this country has a rink and a well-stocked minor league group of players, coaches and volunteers.

Teams run the gamut, from paperweight to juvenile – both boys and girls.

This system feeds the junior hockey leagues and eventually produces the best National Hockey League players on the planet.

Minor league programs like the one in Coal Harbour, Nova Scotia, paved the road to 2010 Olympic men’s hockey gold.

Almost every community in this country is home to a golf course.

Why not replicate the hockey model?

Golf Canada can have its junior development programs, and its Golf in Schools programs, and its mish-mash of private club initiatives, but until the golf industry duplicates the minor league model, we’ll forever miss the opportunity to become an integrated feeder system.

This feeder system not only produces stars, but also players for life – further enhancing the game.

If golf, not hockey, had a proper minor league system, Taylor Hall, the number one overall pick in the 2010 NHL draft, might be the next Rory McIlroy on the world golf scene.

Instead, he’s being touted as the next great one – off to Edmonton to try and save a moribund franchise.

If hockey, baseball, soccer, and heck, even bowling, can produce minor league systems, why not golf?

It can, says Brunton, who tried implementing one before he joined the RCGA in 1999.

Brunton directed golf operations at Lionhead Golf Club in Brampton, Ontario, and its sister course, Streetsville Glen in Mississauga.

In 1997, he started a junior golf development program that featured a half-hour of instruction, and 3 or 4-hole shotgun events.

It struck Brunton that the model could morph into something bigger – something much more organized and competitive.

He broke the players up into age groups.

The instruction/golf league would have a time limit – 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. every Tuesday and Thursday night.

The strict hours made it easy for players and parents to organize themselves.

The league became quite competitive. More kids joined. Scores were kept. It very much looked like something most of them were used to in minor hockey.

“The kids and the parents loved it,” says Brunton.

The only thing that stopped it from expanding further was Brunton. He left Lionhead to join the RCGA’s development program.

Brunton says the growth of minor league golf can’t be expected to fall on the shoulders of golf pros.

They have a multifaceted job to do today, and besides, the economic slowdown has scaled back their numbers.

But leadership can come at the club or community level. Surely there are coaches and volunteers that would love a chance to give back?

“Someone has to spearhead this,” says Brunton, who thinks it’s critical to grow the participation level to make sure golf doesn’t spin out into irrelevancy over the coming decades.

If minor league golf is organized right, and priced right, it’s bound to be a success, says Brunton.

It can even cure what ails many of the courses in this country: unfilled tee sheets.

Why not have minor golf leagues two nights a week?

In mid-summer, many courses are open until sunset, but empty of players.

Says Brunton: “I don’t think people have actually thought of the possibilities.”

Some have. One is Richard Hardy, head professional at McKenzie Meadows Golf Club in Calgary.

Cowtown’s largest public facility has been running a junior golf league for a few years now. It involves four age groups, and even competes against other clubs in the area.

The Hardy boys battle all summer long for the ‘McKenzie Cup,’ based on the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup.  It’s sponsored by TaylorMade adidas, and continues to grow in numbers.

Brunton thinks golf in Canada is at a crossroads. He says to grow the game and produce “lifetime golfers,” you have to start at the minor league level.

Although Golf Canada and the Canadian PGA can be supportive of it, it has to be a grassroots movement.

Brunton says golf leagues have to have a time limit, just like a minor hockey league game.

How about team outfits?

It might even provide more business for the golf manufacturers?

“Parents are used to paying for registration, and taking their kids to the rink, the ball park, the soccer pitch, or the bowling alley,” says Brunton. “Why not the golf course?”

Brunton knows it will work because he’s done it.

Hardy is a disciple.

So why isn’t the rest of Canada piling on – especially the municipal courses?

It seems like that would be a perfect place to start?

Golf needs some brainy new ideas to insure that the game continues to grow.

Why not chow down on the successful models already in place at hockey’s minor league levels?

Hey, maybe those nasty New Guinean headhunters were on to something?

Comments: